I’ve commented on Joe at length in the past, and as spring training has progressed, the buzz surrounding him has started to grow. The question everyone is asking is, will he make the team out of spring training? I wanted to look at the three determining factors, in my mind, which will ultimately lead to that decision.

His spring performance.  9 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 6 BB, 6 K. As I mentioned whenever talking about Bisenius, his control is the last missing piece, and it doesn’t appear to be there just yet. 6 walks in 9 innings is WAY too many, especially considering it is spring training, and he’s not always facing quality major league hitters. No one really questions his stuff, the mid 90’s heat is there, the hard slider is there, but unless he can command it, he’s going to frustrate his manager, his teammates, and all of us. Pitching to contact isn’t what you want out of your high leverage relievers, but you also don’t want a guy walking 2 in every appearance. If will be interesting to see how his numbers look at this time next week, and ultimately, that will probably go a long way in determining his immediate status.

The performance of everyone else. The Phillies bullpen was obviously wide open this spring, but few have really taken advantage.  Of the non-certainties, only Zach Segovia has pitched well (2.70 ERA in 10 IP), while the next best performance is Clay Condrey’s 4.82 ERA in 9.1 IP. Hopefuls Jim Ed Warden (5.69 ERA), Brian Sanches (6.75 ERA), Alfredo Simon (12.47 ERA, already offered back to Texas), and Anderson Garcia (9.00 ERA) have disappointed. Couple that with Alfonseca’s disappointing spring (7.20 ERA), and Bisenius looks like he HAS to be included. The Phillies surefire guys have to be Gordon, Smith, Geary, and Madson. That’s 4 slots, and there will be at least 2, probably 3 more spots to fill. Alfonseca is probably going to get a spot on the team until Gillick is forced to release him due to suckitude of the highest order. That means 1, maybe 2 spots to fill. Bisenius and Segovia seem like slam dunks, barring any kind of trade.

The 40 man roster.  At present, the Phillies have 4 spots open on the 40 man, so this doesn’t seem like a factor. Also included in that number are Warden, who may be removed and sent back to Cleveland. Segovia is already on the 40 man roster, so he has one less obstacle to overcome, but there is plenty of room there, so it shouldn’t be a means to keep Bisenius in the minors.

So, I suppose it all comes down to the last week of spring training. If I had to handicap it right now, I’d say there’s a 60% chance of him breaking camp with the team. The other 40% involves them keeping Warden, at least for now, Castro making the bullpen despite his poor spring, or a trade bringing in a reliever from another organization. However, with Alfonseca’s performance so far, I doubt it’s very long before Bisenius makes his way to Philly.

Also, is it just me, or does he look like Jeremy Bonderman’s twin brother?

The latest hot topic appears to be Zach Segovia moving into a position to make the bullpen out of spring training. The Inquirer makes a brief mention here, citing his most recent impressive outing against the Yankees, and the Daily News talking about his control and composure. This idea seems to really be picking up steam recently, and maybe more because of everyone else’s general state of suckitude rather than Segovia’s complete dominance. As I highlighted in my profile of Zach, pitching out of the pen, at least for now, might be his area of greatest value to the big league club. The overpowering velocity isn’t there, the strikeout numbers aren’t there, but he doesn’t walk a lot of guys, and that’s an important component for any quality reliever.

Quick update on our top Draft and Follow prospect, Rashad Taylor. Through 71 AB, his batting line:

.423/.535/.809,  25R, 4 2B, 4 3B, 5 HR, 21 RBI, 19 BB, 12 K

Hey Pat, please make this guy a quality offer.

Also, a plea to my fellow Phillies fans….don’t panic about Cole Hamels and his spring struggles, he’s going to be fine.

In Baseball America’s latest prospect blog entries, some updates on Phillies prospects are given. First, Scott Mathieson has begun long tossing from 150 feet and appears to be right on schedule. He should be back to pitching from a mound sometime in July, and might make a cameo in September. However, it’s highly unlikely he’ll be effective right away, as pitchers coming back from TJ almost always go through control/command troubles while regaining arm strength. The realist says that sometime mid 2008 he should be fully ready to contribute at the big league level, the question remains in what role he’ll play. Some argue he should get a shot to be the next closer, others argue his highest value is still in the rotation. Until we know what his arm/stuff is going to look like post surgery, that type of speculation really is just that, speculation.

Mentioned in the same article, Scott Mitchinson is also recovering from shoulder surgery (which I apparently missed) and should also be back and throwing in July. Also, there was a blurb on Drabek and his most recent outing in a Low A spring training game. Apparently the Phillies tried to alter Drabek’s delivery, and because of it, he suffered with a bit of velocity drop and wasn’t sharp. He revised his mechanics, somewhere between what he originally was using and what the Phillies suggested, and his fastball velocity shot back up into the 94 range with improved control, his curve was great, and his changeup was better than it was last season in his brief debut. Drabek was also praised for his attitude and ability to work with his coaches, which has to be seen as a great sign. It looks like he’s a lock to start the year at Lakewood, barring a late injury here.

If you’re a subscriber at Baseball Prospectus, you know all about similarity index and comparable players. If you don’t know, here is a real brief summary. Basically, the backbone of this is the PECOTA system, and is broken down into four main attributes; on field production, shear amount of numbers, physical traits like handedness, and then finally defensive position. The database contains over 20,000 seasons from major leaguers since World War II, as well as 10 years worth of minor league seasons from 1997-2006. Similarity index is basically a snapshot of all of the player’s comparable, with an index of 50 being a very common player, historically speaking, and a rating lower than 20 meaning the player is very unusual in a historical context.

Just for fun, on this miserable looking Friday, I looked at the comparable lists for the Phillies 10 best prospects, according to my prospect grades I did a little while back. Here are just a few brief thoughts on each guy.

1. Carlos Carrasco: SI = 57. At this point, his ten most comparable pitchers isn’t a pretty sight, but near the bottom of the top 10, then the 11-15 range, you see names like Jeremy Bonderman of 2003 (#7) and Yovani Gallardo of 2006 (#12). Because he had such a night and day change from 2005 to 2006, it’s tough to project him. The upside is definitely there.

2. Adrian Cardenas: SI = 24. Lots of interesting guys in his Top 20, including David Wright (#3), Ian Stewart (#13) and Milton Bradley (#14). Again, we’re dealing with a small sample size, hence his low Similarity Index.

3. D’Arby Myers: SI = 7. Clearly, because he was only 17 in the GCL, he’s a somewhat unique case. However, numbers 8-10 on his list include Carl Crawford, Jose Reyes and Carlos Gonzalez, one of the best prospects in baseball.

4. Scott Mathieson: SI = 66. Mathieson’s top 20 is all over the map, but does include a few really good signs, including Jake Peavy circa 2004 (#3) and Catfish Hunter circa 1969 (#7). However, it also includes guys like Victor Santos and Seth Etherton. We won’t really know anything about his future until sometime in 2008.

5. Josh Outman: SI = 59. Outman’s top 20 is absolutely ugly in every way. He really turned things up in 2006, and he was outstanding over the last 6 weeks of the season, but he still has control issues. We can only hope his list looks better at this time next year.

6. Edgar Garcia. No comparables in the PECOTA system yet.

7. James Happ: SI = 62. Happ’s top 20 is ugly as well, but interestingly, Doug Davis circa 2000 is his #3 comparable. Prior to Happ adding velocity on his fastball, he shared a lot of similarities to Davis. You could do worse than Doug Davis, who is a capable innings eater, but with a strong 2007, I’d imagine Happ’s comparable pitchers list will change a bit.

8. Joe Bisenius. No comparables in the PECOTA system yet.

9. Dan Brauer. No comparables in the PECOTA system yet.

10. Ben Pfinsgraff. No comparables in the PECOTA system yet.

Since a few guys aren’t in the system yet, I figured I’d look at a few lower ranked prospects and see how they stacked up.

Matt Maloney: SI = 60. Doug Davis circa 1999 comes in as his #2 comparable, and Brian Fuentes circa 1999 his #7 comparable.

Michael Bourn: SI = 49. The 2004 version of Tim Raines is his #4 comparable, and the only guy that looks anywhere near decent is Randy Winn circa 1998, who is his #15 comparable. Maybe this helps affirm my worries about him being a regular player in the big leagues.

Today’s player profile is a guy I’m having a hard time figuring out, 2002 2nd round pick Zach Segovia. Since being drafted in 2002, Zach has seen his share of ups and downs, including Tommy John surgery in 2004 and what appears to finally be a return to full health in 2006. With much uncertainty surrounding the Phillies bullpen entering the season, his name has been mentioned a few times as a possible candidate. Entering his age 24 season, he’s seen his performance fluctuate wildly, and his ERA hasn’t always matched his peripherals, couple that with his sometimes less than awesome stuff, his possible conditioning issues, and he really is impossible to project.

First, lets take a look at his numbers, season by season, and see if we can figure them out.

2002, GCL: 34.1 IP, 2.10 ERA, 21 H, 3 BB, 30 K

An impressive debut at age 19 for Zach. He kept his hits way down, allowed only 3 walks, and struck out 30. Expectations were obviously high after the strong start.

2003, GCL: 9 IP, 4.00 ERA, 8 H, 0 BB, 6 K
2003, Lakewood: 49.2 IP, 3.99 ERA, 63 H,  14 BB, 27 K

Clearly something was up here. His hit rate went through the roof, and while his control was still solid, his K rate plummeted. The Phillies knew something was wrong, and sure enough, he had done ligament damage in his right arm and needed Tommy John surgery, causing him to miss the entire 2004 season.

2005, Clearwater: 144.2 IP, 5.54 ERA, 168 H, 48 BB, 83 K

At first glance, the ERA is awful, and he allowed a ton of hits with few strikeouts. However, there is a silver lining, that being his great control. With pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgery, command and control are normally the last things they regain, but Segovia still displayed great control in his first season back, and maybe more importantly, he pitched 144 innings, showing that his arm was healthy.

2006, Clearwater:  49.1 IP, 2.19 ERA, 39 H, 12 BB, 41 K
2006, Reading: 107 IP, 3.11 ERA, 90 H, 24 BB, 75 K

In his second season back, his trademark control again remained intact, but this time, his hit rate jumped right back in line with where it should be, though his K rate was still lagging behind. I like to look at walk rate and strikeout rate separately, as I think K/BB can sometimes be misleading,  but he does average 3 K per BB, which is decent. The other great asset which he has retained is the ability to keep the ball on the ground and not allow home runs. In 394 IP as a pro, he’s allowed only 30 HR, a very respectable number. In 2006, he allowed 10 in 156.1 IP, again not a bad total. Last season he also induced 220 groundballs to only 170 flyballs, a solid ratio for a guy who doesn’t strike out many guys.

So, if we look at his numbers overall, they are pretty decent. His 2005 ERA is bloated, but that’s to be expected for a guy in his first year after Tommy John. Now we have to look at his stuff. Depending on who you talk to, it appears the majority opinion is that he hasn’t regained his pre Tommy John velocity, and two years removed from the surgery, he probably never will. From most scouting reports of him last season, he was consistently in the high 80’s with his fastball, hitting 91 or 92 on occasion. He has at least average secondary offerings, and his stuff plays up a bit because of his excellent control, but it does leave us with a tough time projecting his future.

Command and control guys, or finesse pitchers if you will, have much less room for error than guys with overpowering stuff. Often times, flamethrowers are overrated by scouts, and even despite terrible numbers, are more well thought of as prospects because of the notion that they “might put it all together one day” and become special. However, a larger percentage of these guys never make it, and end up flaming out because of lack of control. On the other side, finesse pitchers who are able to outmaneuver minor league hitters often struggle when they get to the big leagues, mainly because they fall victim to nibbler syndrome, where they try and be too fine and hit corners, end up walking a ton of guys or always end up behind in the count, which results in fat pitches hit to all quadrants of the park. The obvious best solution is a guy with good stuff who also has good control. But those guys don’t grow on trees.

So, where does that leave Zach? Well, I’m not really sure, and in doing my grades and projections, he was a tough guy to figure out. I gave him a solid B grade in my prospect grades, and I feel like he could be a starter at the big league level, but I wrestle with that thought now. His command is obviously good enough to be a starter, his groundball tendencies are there, but is the lack of overpowering stuff going to kill him at the next level? Is he going to be better off as a 7th inning reliever, where he doesn’t have to face a lineup 3 times? As a #5 starter, I think he’d be a fine addition on most teams. On a mediocre team, he might even be the 4th best option. On the worst of teams, he might even be a credible #3 eventually. But on this current Phillies team, he might be better suited to pitching in relief. I think he’s going to spend time at Ottawa this season before he makes it to Philly, unless he’s absolutely lights out the rest of spring training and most of the other candidates in the bullpen implode. I’m not a fan of low strikeout guys pitching in high leverage situations, but with Segovia, I really have no idea what to expect out of him at the next level, so I’ll go with the “never say never” line until we have a better read on him.