Ah yes, my personal Top 100. As well as being an avid follower of the Phillies minor leaguers, I’ve always closely followed the systems of other teams. I find player development really interesting, as well as the draft process, and when you start following these guys in high school and college, it’s always natural to continue to follow them when they enter pro ball, even if it’s not for your favorite team. A few caveats, before I get to my list. I shouldn’t really have to outline this, but there will invariably be someone who flies off, if they happen to find my blog and they read about me ranking prospects in a certain order. I’m not a scout, I don’t profess to be a scout, and while I know a few people, my network pales in comparison to those at BP, BA, ESPN, and every other prospect authority in the business. My knowledge comes from reading what others have to say, discerning useful info from those reports, watching these prospects when I can, and looking at basic peripheral numbers. Every prospect list out there is going to contain guys that fall flat on their face, as well as guys placed higher than the “consensus opinion”, and some of those guys will go on to be stars. I generally don’t worry about where the group think position is on a player. There are some guys who are generally loved that I’m not as high on (Homer Bailey), and some guys that aren’t loved that aren’t love as much (Omar Poveda) that I really like. These lists are just guesses as to who will and who won’t make it at the next level, and above everything else, I think it’s a lot of fun. So now that I got the disclaimers out of the way…
PECOTA and Phillies prospects
I’m sure most of you have heard the word “PECOTA” at some point when reading about baseball analysis and statistics. Basically, PECOTA was developed/created by Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus. It’s basically a really complex algorithm that analyzes players in a number of advanced metrics, and the power of the system is basically that it takes just about anyone that has ever played the game and puts their data along side the players it is comparing them to, and then tries to figure out which direction the current player’s career will go, based on what has happened to similar players in the past. The system is incredibly complex, and if you haven’t ever read up on it, I’d suggest reading the wikipedia entry here before you dig into this post. While PECOTA is useful for projecting major league statistics for the upcoming season, it’s also useful to get a snapshot of which prospects the system seems to like, and which prospects the system isn’t as high on.
Two profiles added
I cranked out the Jason Donald profile page, as well as the Lou Marson profile page. Both are light on pictures, again if you have any pictures you’ve taken, or you are able to track down any photos I may not have posted, please just post links to them in the comments section under each player’s profile. I’m always looking for more video clips as well, and I haven’t found one for Marson just yet, but I’m still working on it. After taking the feedback into consideration today, I made a few more decisions, and I have a tentative agenda for next week.
Monday: PECOTA and our prospects
Tuesday: My Top 100 prospects
Wednesday: NL East farm system comparison
Thursday: Draft picks that might have been
Friday: undecided
Agenda
I’d like to ramp up my efforts to complete more profile pages in the next few days, and hopefully have a page for every legit prospect by the time the minor league season starts. The 2008 predictions thing was a good idea, I thought, but as mentioned in the comments from yesterday, it just doesn’t seem like people care enough to participate, so maybe I’ll just figure out all of my projections for the rest of our prospects and post them all at once sometime before the season starts. I also got in touch with Kevin Goldstein at BP, his Phillies Top 10 hits the web on Monday, and he agreed to do another Q/A, so that will be interesting.
It seems interest in the blog is starting to wane. What would you like to see here that currently isn’t featured that would make this place more interesting to you? Or are you just feeling the “it’s almost spring training but not quite” blues right now?
Info on two foreign signings
I was able to track down some info on the two guys we signed. Thanks to e-mailer Dave V, who speaks Czech, I was able to find out that infielder Jakub Sládek is a pretty solid athlete, and won “sportsman of the year” as a junior, and also spent time playing for a German team called Regensburg. His Czech team has a rudimentary website, with a link for English translation here….make sure you click the little British flag at the top for English. I was able to find limited stats. In 16 plate appearances, his line was .727/.813/1.091. So it appears he’s the Czech Barry Bonds. But seriously, it appears he is a good athlete, and he’s spent time training with quality teams. He’s only 17 (or 18), so he probably will stay in Europe for another year and finish his schooling before coming to the GCL. Here is an article on Van Steensel, posted here by andyb. He seems to have pitched well in Australia, and the article mentions a mid 80’s fastball, with the Phillies thinking his velocity will spike up as he fills out. He’ll remain in Australia for 2008 and then come to the GCL in 2009.
Thanks again to those who e-mailed and posted info here.
Phillies sign two minor leaguers
I’ve gotten a rash of e-mails in the last two days asking about the two new prospects the Phillies signed, infielder Jakub Sladek from the Czech Republic and pitcher Todd Van Steensel out of Australia. I wish I had more information on these guys, but finding info on foreign prospects, especially foreign prospects from Australia and Eastern Europe is not the easiest task. I’ll try and find out what I can, but it’s doubtful we’ll know much of anything about these guys until they come stateside. The Phillies have been harvesting the prospect waters in Australia for a while, and it looks like Brad Harman and Drew Naylor might have been nice finds, so we’ll see what happens here. Thanks to those who posted the link here and who e-mailed, you guys are very quick on the draw.
Phillies on Top 100 lists
I just wanted to address this, since it’s been mentioned a number of times in comments on various posts. When I post an excerpt of an article from BA, from Kevin Goldstein, from Keith Law, or from any other source, you need to remember 2 things before you even read the article. This is one person’s opinion, or in the case of BA, one site’s opinion. That’s it. It’s an opinion. You take time to learn about who is giving the opinion, and then you figure out how much importance it has to you. Keith Law has scouting experience, he goes and sees almost every player he writes about, and in most cases, he’s been seeing them play in person since they were in high school. He doesn’t have a “bias”, and he doesn’t “hate the Phillies”. These sites are not out to get the Phillies, they have no incentive to downgrade or upgrade Carlos Carrasco’s outlook. They are providing opinions. I like to think I follow the minors closely, but I don’t get to see Josh Outman pitch 30 times a season, and even if I did, I don’t have the extensive scouting background of some of these other guys, and I don’t have baselines for comparison to compare a guy like Josh Outman to a guy like Jake McGee. What I try to do here is post as much information as I can find, try to get as many opinions as I can, and then try and maybe find guys who might be ready to break out, based on their peripheral numbers. I have my gut feelings on certain guys, some of whom will be complete busts, and some of whom will break out. Every player who invests time into following the minors feels the same.
Keith Law’s Top 100
As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Keith’s work, and for those latecomers to the party, Keith did a Q/A on Phillies prospects for the site here a few months ago. Check it out here. He doesn’t pull any punches, he speaks clearly, and more importantly, he backs up his comments with explanations, and was even kind enough to answer questions in the comments section here. Keith has released his rankings of top prospects by position, top 5 prospects by team, and then tomorrow, his Top 100 in the minors, all of which can be found here on his ESPN blog. With 97.3% of ESPN’s site being “Insider content”, you won’t get much, but his coverage, especially come draft time, kind of makes it worthwhile. Unsurprisingly, no Phillies prospects ranked in the top 5 at their respective positions. He’s not high on Cardenas at this point because he doesn’t really have a defensive home as of yet, and I’m sure Carrasco, Outman and Savery would be in the 10-20 range for RHP and LHP. His Top 5 for our team is Carrasco, Savery, Drabek, Outman and d’Arnaud.
Update: Keith ranks Carlos Carrasco #53
The Phillies’ system is not strong, and Carrasco is the one legitimate above-average prospect in it at the moment. Carrasco’s best attribute is his easy velocity, mostly 90-94 and touching 95 at times, with fringe-average command. His secondary stuff is a work in progress, with his short downer curveball ahead of his changeup, on which he slows his arm too much. Because his arm works well, it’s possible to project him as someone who’ll have three average pitches down the road, and he might pick up a few more miles an hour as he fills out or if he lengthens his stride a bit, all of which would make him a solid No. 3 starter in the majors.
From his ESPN Chat
Danny(Philly): Hey Keith I know your not a big fan of Cardenas because of a lack of position. Was he still close to making the list?
SportsNation Keith Law: (2:36 PM ET ) He wasn’t close, but he’s a guy I’m keeping an open mind on for 2008. If I see more with the bat and/or an improvement defensively, he’ll be on this list next year. Maybe he should have been, but I’m sticking with what I saw.
James (Roxboro, NC): Joe Savery and Kyle Drabek, simply not good enough for the top 100 or do injury history/concerns drop them?
SportsNation Keith Law: (1:35 PM ET ) Drabek is still out with TJ, and I think I only had two guys on my list in that situation, both in the 90s.
Kevin Goldstein’s Top 100
Another friend of the blog, Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus put out his Top 100 prospects list today. Carlos Carrasco checked in at #68, while Joe Savery slipped in at #96. You can check out the full list here, and you can ask Goldstein a question in his BP chat today at 1PM eastern.
JM (MD): Everyone seems down on Carlos Carrasco. The fact that he was only 20 last year and reached AA has to count for something, doesn’t it? Will his flaws be ironed out with more innings, or do you see his upside as being limited?
Kevin Goldstein: It does count for something, but so does his stuff and production. He just doesn’t miss a ton of bats, nor have to stuff to project as a big time star. Very good prospect, don’t get me wrong — But I think he’s a No. 3, borderline No. 2 in a perfect world.
Justin (Brno (Czech Republic)): How good will Adrian Cardenas be in the big leagues? Do you think his power will develop into a middle of the order type of bat?
Kevin Goldstein: I think he’ll be an above-average offensive second baseman, but I don’t see his power ceiling going past the 15-20 home runs a year range. Little guy, line-drive bat.
Matt Spencer profile added
Truckin’ along with the profile pages, I’ve added one for Matt Spencer. Just a reminder for those who aren’t familiar, if you use the left side of the page, you’ll find links to prospects in alphabetical order by last name. I’m slowly working on building a dedicated profile page for each player, including statistics, videos, scouting reports and more. If you see the small “profile” link under a player’s name, just click it and you’ll be taken right to his profile page. I’m slowly working on getting a page for every legit prospect. If you’d like to view all of the profiles completed, you can click the “Profile Pages” tag under the features category on the left, or by clicking this link.
Completed profiles so far
Dominic Brown
Adrian Cardenas
Drew Carpenter
Carlos Carrasco
Kyle Drabek
Josh Outman
Julian Sampson
Matt Spencer
Joe Savery
Remember, if you have anything to submit for these guys, whether it be a picture, video, a scouting report, an article, or anything else, please post it in the comments section for their individual page and I’ll make the necessary changes. Thanks.
