The Phils went 2-5 since we last spoke and are now 25-26, in 4th place and 5 games behind leading Akron in the Southern division. Reading still has numerous players among the league leaders in categories both good and bad. Landon Jacobsen is 4th in the league with 5 wins and 2nd in the league with 64.2 innings pitched. Kyle Kendrick is the league leader with 66 innings pitched. Matt Maloney is 10th in the league with 44 strikeouts, however has yielded 7 homers which ranks 3rd in the league, behind Tim McClaskey who is the league leader in homers allowed with 8. In the hitting categories, Javon Moran, despite his injury still ranks among the leaders in runs (2nd, 36), hits (3rd, 53), and stolen bases (2nd, 16). Greg Jacobs has been climbing the ranks and now ranks 8th in hits (50) and 3rd in RBI’s (32). The Phils have two league leaders in hitting categories. Jesus Merchan in average (.371) and Jason Hill with 18 doubles. Mike Costanzo ranks 2nd in homers with 10, and continues to lead the league in strikeouts with 67.
JA Happ Update
Got an e-mail back, Happ left last night’s game for precautionary reasons due to his arm tightening up. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t even bother going further. However, I don’t like the sound of it. Ah heck, it’s a blog, I’m supposed to speculate. His control has been really bad this year, much more so than any stop in his career to date. I hate to even bring it up, but it might be ligament damage. I’m sure they’ll try rest and rehab, but you know what the ultimate outcome is. Again, this is all speculation. It might be nothing. But his lack of control was worrying to me, and this is as logical an explanation as any. Stay tuned.
I just want to clarify again. The e-mail I got simply said he left the game as a precaution due to his arm tightening up. The speculation part was all me.
Draft and Follow deadline is tonight
PGCrosschecker and Baseball America didn’t think much of our DFE’s this year, which isn’t surprising, except that Rashad Taylor did have a pretty good season all around at Skyline CC. Nick Morreale’s father checked in today in an old thread and said the Phillies aren’t going to sign him, and that he’ll play at Mesa again next year. If he isn’t drafted by a team in June, I believe he’ll be a free agent, but I might be wrong. If you have any info on any of our other guys, please pass it along. I did some searching earlier and haven’t found anything at all. Taylor and Patrick Murray were the two guys I thought we might make a run at, but it appears nothing is going to happen.
Arms to Watch Update #2
I figured it was time for another update on the guys I spotlighted before the season started. To read the original piece, click here, and to read the first update, click here. Also, I wanted to give a heads up that I will be starting the mid season evaluation of every prospect I ranked in the system over the offseason. I’ll probably just go in reverse, starting with the last guys I graded and working forward. I’ll probably start working on that after the draft is over and we have time to analyze what happened, so stay tuned. Onto the update..
Looking at the 2nd round of the draft
If you’ve been following along for the last few weeks, I’ve begun to dissect the 2007 draft and started to ponder who the Phillies may end up with. While my belief is that you take the best available player all the time, our system is so devoid of position prospects, you almost hope that the best available guy is a position player, simply because of our lacking, but at the same time, pitching is still at a premium all around baseball, and this draft class is stocked with pitchers, especially prep pitchers. In previous entries I pondered the first round and the compensation round, hoping we’d be able to land guys like Devin Mesoraco and Nevin Griffith, and now we’ll look at who might be there in the 2nd round.
Monday Morning 6 pack
Let’s take a look back at the week that was and find out who was bringing it, and who was stinking up the joint.
Hot:
Quintin Berry: .448/.515/.552 — 7 R – 6 SB
Welinson Baez: .379/.419/.448 — 2 2B – 4 R
Carlos Monasterios: 13.2 IP, 2 ER (1.36 ERA) — 5 H — 7 BB — 8 K
Not:
Lakewood Trio (Cardenas, Milner, Henry): .179/.267/.284 — 12/67 — 3 XBH
Will Savage: 2.2 IP, 5 ER (20.46 ERA), 5 H, 4 BB, 0 K
Edgar Garcia: 6.1 IP, 6 ER (8.85 ERA), 12 H, 1 BB, 7 K, 2 HR
Notes:
* Brett Harker pitched four perfect innings, picking up 4 saves for Clearwater.
* Gus Milner, despite his struggles hitting the ball, still drew 5 walks last week
* Kyle Drabek had a nice week, just missing the list. 12 IP, 3 ER, 8 H, 5 BB, 8 K
* James Happ continues to struggle with his control….not a good sign.
* Matt Smith had a decent week, pitching 3 scoreless innings, but he did allow 3 walks. That’s not good.
* Josh Outman’s command remains a problem (4 BB in 5 IP), but the K numbers are returning.
Schedule for this week
Here are some things I’m working on, with a schedule*
Monday: Monday Morning 6 Pack
Tuesday: Thinking about our 2nd round pick in the draft
Wednesday: Arms to Watch Update
Thursday: TBA
Friday: More draft stuff
* tentative, of course.
Some miscellaneous thoughts
– Carl/CJ/WhateverHeWantsToBeCalled Henry is now playing some outfield as well as 3B….hmm. It seems that most really athletic guys who struggle as infielders eventually move to the OF, where they can just let their athleticism take over and not micro-manage their defense. We’ll see if it helps Henry.
– Mike Costanzo can’t play defense….really, he can’t. With his error on Monday, he now has 17 errors on the season. For someone who was praised for his defense, this is disappointing.
– Javon Moran has 16 SB….and he’s been caught 9 times. Not good. Quintin Berry has stolen 21 bases, and been caught 7 times. That’s also not good, but he’s more raw than Moran and the speed is nice, as is his .360 OB% this season.
It’s official, Zagurski up, Coste Down, Myers on DL
Not really surprising, you can’t run the risk of hurting Myers further by having him out there less than 100%. Good luck to Zagurski, pray he throws strikes, and if he does, he should be up to stay. As for Coste, this isn’t surprising either, as he hasn’t really gotten AB’s since being recalled. The sad thing is, this means Barajas will remain a Phillie for a while longer.
Update: Mike was hitting 92-93 tonight. His velo is definitely up from 2005 and it looks like it’s up even from last year. If he throws like that consistently, he won’t be going back to the minors.
Ottawa Lynx Week Seven
One of the genuine nice guys in baseball called it quits this week and a familiar former Lynx was brought in to replace him. Thirty year old Ron Calloway called it a day May 18th after eleven seasons in professional baseball and his third season with Ottawa, (2001-2002, 2007). Ron had one stint in the majors, with the Montreal Expos in 2003, and finished with a career .278 average. Good luck to you Ron Calloway in whatever you decide to do next. You will be missed.
The following day, Ottawa recalled thirty six year old outfield veteran Pedro Swann from Reading to replace him on the roster. Swann, earlier in the season, hit .333, (3-9), with three RBI. This is the seventeenth season in pro baseball for Swann.
Mock Draft Sign-ups
An idea I tossed around in the latest draft post, I plan on taking a stab at all 30 picks in the first round, probably next week. If you really follow this stuff and want to take a crack as well, I’d love to have your response and we can see who comes the closest. I’ll make the deadline for submission next Thursday, May 31st, and you can send your entries to phuturephillies at hotmail dot com, replacing the “at” and “dot com” with their appropriate symbols. At the bottom of this post, I’ll type out the exact draft order, so all you have to do is copy/paste and then fill in your picks. I’ll post all of the results once I receive them, if you don’t want your name posted with your picks, just give me an alternate display name to use.
