There’s not a whole lot going on right now, the rule 5 draft has come and gone, we’re in the transition period till we get to spring training, and I’m going to spend the majority of my time here working on player profile pages. So, send me questions, the email address is phuturephillies at hotmail dot com, and put “Mailbag” in the subject. Then just ask a question you’re curious about, or one that you think others might be curious about, and we’ll use some of these as a jumping off point for discussion. Make sure to also give a display name you’d like used for me posting your question.

Side note, our Reading correspondent from last season, Gregg, is going to be doing the Allentown report this year. That means the Reading report is up for grabs. If you have interest, use the same email address above and let me know you’re interested. We’ll also have a Lakewood spot open, so inquire if you have interest in writing either weekly report. Thanks.

I’m working on a little piece targeting guys I feel could have a breakout campaign in 2008, much like Dominic Brown and Drew Naylor in 2007. So I’ll toss this one to you guys first and get your picks, then I’ll give you mine later this week.

A new idea I had for the site. If you look to the left, you’ll see a “Profile” link under Carlos Carrasco’s name. If you click that link, it will take you to a post with links and information on the player. I added a few articles I was able to find, a picture, and then I made a little career register, highlighting key peripherals. The plan is to eventually add things like video clips, more pictures, and rankings for each player, both from me and from other major prospect evaluation sites. If you have anything to contribute to a player’s profile, just leave it in the comments on each player’s page. For now, Carrasco is the only one I’ve worked on, but I plan to work on them slowly and surely over the next few months. Feedback on this idea is much appreciated.

Lauber, who writes for the Wimington News Journal, wrote a wrapup article yesterday about the Phillies (in)activity at the Winter Meetings. The article itself is your standard fare, nothing exciting. However, he posted a followup in the comments section, and this is the part I’m interested in

You raise a very interesting point about the Phillies’ reluctance to go over slot value to sign draft picks. Was talking about this with a few people today before leaving Nashville, and it probably merits its own blog post/story in the paper someday soon. For those who don’t know, MLB sets a “slot value” for each pick in the draft and frowns upon teams that sign their picks for above slot. The Tigers are a routine offender. Yet, there’s no punishment besides a slap on the wrist. The Phillies typically adhere to the slot value, and sometimes, it costs them a chance to sign a pick (Brandon Workman last year is a prime example). One of the reasons the Tigers were willing to include Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin in the Cabrera/Willis deal with Florida is that they’re confident they can quickly reload their farm system because of their aggressive approach to signing picks. For whatever reason, the Phillies’ decision-makers don’t have that ability. So, they’ve decided to hoard what few prospects they have rather than package them in a mega-deal. It’s a philosophical divide that often gets overlooked. But it’s rather important, too.

Article link here. More below the fold

Continue reading Scott Lauber makes a good point →

If you notice, I’ve made some changes. I cleaned up the left side navigation, removing guys no longer in the org, guys who are no longer real prospects, and moving guys who have “graduated” out of prospect status into their own category, found near the bottom. I got rid of the pinkish color and replaced it with a gray color, and I formatted all players names into the last, first format, which someone had mentioned before would be better….I gotta say I agree. I also added a little feature on the right side, displaying the 10 most recent comments. This could be useful if someone makes a comment in a topic that was posted weeks ago, or months ago, and you want to re-visit that.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be working on enhancing the content here, including detailed profile pages for all of our legitimate prospects. This will include links to full/detailed statistics, bios, and other goodies. More on that when I get to it. Also, as we get closer to the new minor league season, I’m going to again look for a few people who want to get actively involved in writing for the blog. Our new Allentown affiliate kicks off, so I’ll be looking for a dedicated writer to cover the team and all of our super exciting Triple A prospects. Also, we didn’t have anyone working on Lakewood last year, and I’ll again be searching for help in that department. So, start thinking about that, if you have interest, you know the e-mail address…and in case you don’t, there’s a link to it directly to your right.

It’s Rule 5 day, hopefully we’ll have something to discuss later on today.

As we all know, the winter meetings are in full force, and everyone is talking trade. Today I pose an open-ended question. Based on the lack of strength of our top 4-5 prospects in comparison with other teams, do we have any “untouchable” prospects? Would you be pissed if Carrasco and Cardenas were traded as part of a package for Erik Bedard or Dan Haren? Is the composition of the major league team, in a zone where they are likely going to contend for the next 3-4 years, dictating that we trade prospects now to add that final piece and push us over the top? I have my opinions on this, but I want to see what the general view is.

WordPress has a cool little tool built into the site that catches all SPAM posts and filters them into a holding bin of sorts. These would normally be in the form of comments, many of which are 50-75 lines long, containing links to x-rated sites, links to buy erectile dysfunction pills, and other various noise. Normally it’s safe to just empty this out, but every once in a while, a legitimate comment will get stuck in there, because the filter isn’t perfect. Well, I haven’t checked the bin in close to a week, and there are over 400 spam comments in there. I’m just pressing the button and emptying it out. If you posted something recently and it didn’t show up, or it happens in the future, drop me an e-mail and I’ll fix it. In less than 1 year, this site has gotten over 16,000 spam comments. Impressive, eh?

The last stop, and really, this one is impossible to predict now, as most of the team will be made up of players taken in the June draft, plus a few guys coming back from injury. The one guy I feel confident about predicting is Jiwan James, who really struggled in his short stint last season. I suppose we could also see a few guys from the DSL and VSL teams here. Anyone have any other candidates?