Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Farm Report: June of '08 (Part II, Clearwater & Lakewood)
So we're back on The Farm Report. Currently there are four Phillies minor league teams playing baseball although two others are about to get started. The Gulf Coast League (GCL) Phillies kick off their 2008 season on June 18 with a game against the GCL Blue Jays, while the Williamsport Crosscutters play Mahoning Valley on June 17th. We'll get to see a good number of the 52 players the Phillies took in the 2008 Draft that day. The GCL team is really going to be interesting to watch.
The Phillies begin a three-game series tonight in Florida. Brett Myers vs. some guy I've never heard of. Let's turn to the minors.
As I mentioned yesterday, the minor league system consists of a number of steps that players have to pass through in order to make their way to the major leagues. The Double-A Reading Phillies and Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs are the final two stops players have to pass through in order to make the big leagues in Philadelphia. The two teams we are going to talk about today, the Advanced Single-A Clearwater Threshers and Single-A Lakewood Blue Claws, are the teams that currently hold players taken in the '06 and '07 Drafts. These players are a few years away from being MLB-ready. Guys like Adrian Cardenas won't have a shot at making the move to Philadelphia until '10. Let's start with ...
Clearwater Threshers. Current record: 26-33. Standings: 6th of 6 teams in in the Florida State League's Western Division, thirteen and one-half games back of the Ft. Meyers Miracles. Players of note: Adrian Cardenas (2B/SS), Quintin Berry (OF), Joe Savery (P) and Kyle Drabek (P).
The crown jewels of the Phillies 2006 and 2007 Drafts - first-rounders Kyle Drabek and Joe Savery, as well as Supplemental first-rounder Adrian Cardenas - are currently sunning themselves in Clearwater, Florida, waiting to move up to Reading and join the Reading Phillies. Kyle Drabek is still recovering from an arm injury and will hopefully rejoin the team shortly. Before his injury last season he was 5-1 with a 4.33 ERA in Lakewood. After a so-so start with the GCL Phillies in '06, Drabek really seemed to have put things together in Lakewood (7.66 K/9). I'd like to see what he'll do in Clearwater. The jury is still out on him.
Adrian Cardenas, who was picked after Drabek in the sandwich round in '06, is off to a terrific start. It is stunning that a player so talented fell to the Phillies in the sandwich round that season. At the moment Cardenas has an OPS of .909, which would rank him second in the entire FSL behind Daniel Valencia of the Ft. Myers Miracles (.938). Cardenas is also fifth in the FSL in OBP at .397. While Cardenas' has just four home runs and twelve RBIs, remember that the FSL is a very pitching-oriented league. Two things that impress me about him: in addition to the power at the plate, Cardenas is quick (4 for 4 in steals this season, 20 of 27 last season; five triples in '06 and '07 combined) and he shows good bat control (17 walks to 21 K's this season). Add in Cardenas defensive abilities ... Cardenas' skills are limitless. He's easily the best position player the Phillies have in the minors and probably their second-best prospect after Carlos Carrasco.
Phillies fans are finally getting their first extended look at Joe Savery. The Phillies first pick in '07, he played sparringly in Williamsport last season, posting a 2-3 record with an impressive 2.73 ERA. The Phillies high command liked what they saw enough to jump Savery over Single-A Lakewood to Clearwater. So far he's off to a solid start, not that you could tell with his 2-7 record and 4.61 ERA, but his numbers are far more impressive. His strikeout rate is 7.54 per nine innings and he owns a 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Unlike Carrasco and Outman, two players the Phillies have elected to move along slowly, Savery appears to be MLB ready sooner rather than later. I could see the Phillies jumping Savery to Reading before the end of this season and giving him a chance at making the Phillies roster in '10.
Finally, Quintin Berry is really catching my eye in Clearwater. Currently he is second in the FSL in stolen bases at 19 (in 24 tries). If he could improve his ability to get on base (he currently has a .335 OBP), he'd be deadly. Let's move to the Jersey Shore and scope out the ...
Lakewood Blue Claws. Current record: 33-26. Standings: 3rd of 8 teams in in the South Atlantic League's Northern Division, two games behind of the Lake County Captains. Players of note: Dominic Brown (OF), D'Arby Myers (OF), Freddy Galvis (SS), Karl Bolt (1B), Travis Mattair (3B), and Drew Naylor (P).
Here is something that I just realized. The Blue Claws are the only Phillies affiliate right now with the winning record and not in last place. That's pretty sad.
Now, this is just a personal opinion, but I think the Phillies 2007 Draft was pretty good and yielded a lot of talent. While the '06 Draft yielded a clear superstar in Cardenas (the jury is still out on Drabek), I think the '07 Draft will yield a greater dividend of talent in terms of depth as opposed to quality. I can't see Naylor, Savery or Mattair making the kind of contribution that Cardenas will, but each will contribute to the Phillies roster as role players or fourth and fifth starters. In the end that depth will be as important as Cardenas will be. (Can you tell I think this guy is pretty good?)
Let's start with Dominic Brown. Brown is a player who really impresses me. Last season in Williamsport he stole 14 bases in 21 tries and posted an impressive .356 OBP while hitting 5 triples. This season he's surprised me by hitting five home runs (curiously, no triples, but 12 doubles) with an OBP of .362 and 11 steals in 12 tries. Brown is fast and shows good instinicts. I like the fact that in his last ten games he's walked 7 times and struckout just once. Discipline at the plate and speed. Brown could make a very effective leadoff hitter one day.
Airforce grad Karl Bolt and Travis Mattair man each end of the Phillies corner infield. Bolt, a first baseman, got off to an impressive start in the GCL with 8 home runs, 4 triples and 10 doubles and 31 RBI in just 57 games, an impressive feat given how pitcher-friendly the league is. He's off to a less-powerful start in Lakewood, with three home runs and seven doubles. So far Bolt is striking out way too much: 31 times in 37 games. Add in that he draws just 7 walks and you've got a recipe for disaster. Mattair, who played with Bolt in the GCL last season, is also struggling in Lakewood. His On-Base Percentage is an abysmal .322 and he has just one home run and 21 RBI in 52 games. Like Bolt, Mattair has wiffed a lot: 51 times in 52 games.
D'Arby Myers, who played in Williamsport in '07 and in the GCL in '06, is really struggling right now. His batting average is a beyond awful .189 and he's struckout 45 times in 50 games. Myers has speed to burn: 7 of 8 steals this season, 11 of 17 last season, but he's going to get few chances to showcase it unless he improves the OBP of .243 he has this season and the .286 he had last.
So who is the best position player in Lakewood? Say hello to Mr. Freddy Galvis. Ignore Galvis' .288 OBP in Lakewood and his .255 OBP in Williamsport. Galvis is a defensive superstar and has a lot of speed to burn: 9 steals in 10 tries in '08, 9 steals in 13 tries in '07. Galvis's defensive abilities are so impressive that when the team talked about what to do when Jimmy Rollins went down, Galvis' name was floated around by some members of the organization. A player this talented and this raw is still figuring things out at the plate. He'll improve and become a steady MLBer.
Finally we come to Drew Naylor. The Brisbane, Australia, native was the Phillies best hurler in Williamsport: 8-6, 3.28 ERA, 9.35 K/9, 2.70 BB/9, 3.46 K/BB ratio, 1.14 WHIP. Those are exceptional numbers and it will be interesting to see if Naylor can sustain those numbers in the long haul. So far this season he's burning up the South Atlantic League: 5-2, 2.61 ERA, 9.91 K/9, 2.18 BB/9, 4.55 K/BB ratio, 0.97 WHIP. Wow. If Naylor can keep that up, he's going to become a dominant MLB pitcher.
So in the end, I think that the current group of players at Lakewood will produce several talents who could play important supporting roles on the Phillies. Brown and Naylor are near-locks to make it to the majors, while Galvis ought to, and between Mattair, Bolt and Myers, one of the three ought to make it to the majors. That should be four major leaguers right there. While these guys might not contribute as dramatically as I expect Cardenas to do (I expect Cardenas to be a consistent, 25-30 home run, 100 RBI, 40-50 double type of player), they will perform important roles with the Phillies in the future.
So that's the Farm Report as I see it this first week of June, 2008. Enjoy your day. Tomorrow, I think I'll talk a little about Shane Victorino.
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The Phillies begin a three-game series tonight in Florida. Brett Myers vs. some guy I've never heard of. Let's turn to the minors.
As I mentioned yesterday, the minor league system consists of a number of steps that players have to pass through in order to make their way to the major leagues. The Double-A Reading Phillies and Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs are the final two stops players have to pass through in order to make the big leagues in Philadelphia. The two teams we are going to talk about today, the Advanced Single-A Clearwater Threshers and Single-A Lakewood Blue Claws, are the teams that currently hold players taken in the '06 and '07 Drafts. These players are a few years away from being MLB-ready. Guys like Adrian Cardenas won't have a shot at making the move to Philadelphia until '10. Let's start with ...
Clearwater Threshers. Current record: 26-33. Standings: 6th of 6 teams in in the Florida State League's Western Division, thirteen and one-half games back of the Ft. Meyers Miracles. Players of note: Adrian Cardenas (2B/SS), Quintin Berry (OF), Joe Savery (P) and Kyle Drabek (P).
The crown jewels of the Phillies 2006 and 2007 Drafts - first-rounders Kyle Drabek and Joe Savery, as well as Supplemental first-rounder Adrian Cardenas - are currently sunning themselves in Clearwater, Florida, waiting to move up to Reading and join the Reading Phillies. Kyle Drabek is still recovering from an arm injury and will hopefully rejoin the team shortly. Before his injury last season he was 5-1 with a 4.33 ERA in Lakewood. After a so-so start with the GCL Phillies in '06, Drabek really seemed to have put things together in Lakewood (7.66 K/9). I'd like to see what he'll do in Clearwater. The jury is still out on him.
Adrian Cardenas, who was picked after Drabek in the sandwich round in '06, is off to a terrific start. It is stunning that a player so talented fell to the Phillies in the sandwich round that season. At the moment Cardenas has an OPS of .909, which would rank him second in the entire FSL behind Daniel Valencia of the Ft. Myers Miracles (.938). Cardenas is also fifth in the FSL in OBP at .397. While Cardenas' has just four home runs and twelve RBIs, remember that the FSL is a very pitching-oriented league. Two things that impress me about him: in addition to the power at the plate, Cardenas is quick (4 for 4 in steals this season, 20 of 27 last season; five triples in '06 and '07 combined) and he shows good bat control (17 walks to 21 K's this season). Add in Cardenas defensive abilities ... Cardenas' skills are limitless. He's easily the best position player the Phillies have in the minors and probably their second-best prospect after Carlos Carrasco.
Phillies fans are finally getting their first extended look at Joe Savery. The Phillies first pick in '07, he played sparringly in Williamsport last season, posting a 2-3 record with an impressive 2.73 ERA. The Phillies high command liked what they saw enough to jump Savery over Single-A Lakewood to Clearwater. So far he's off to a solid start, not that you could tell with his 2-7 record and 4.61 ERA, but his numbers are far more impressive. His strikeout rate is 7.54 per nine innings and he owns a 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Unlike Carrasco and Outman, two players the Phillies have elected to move along slowly, Savery appears to be MLB ready sooner rather than later. I could see the Phillies jumping Savery to Reading before the end of this season and giving him a chance at making the Phillies roster in '10.
Finally, Quintin Berry is really catching my eye in Clearwater. Currently he is second in the FSL in stolen bases at 19 (in 24 tries). If he could improve his ability to get on base (he currently has a .335 OBP), he'd be deadly. Let's move to the Jersey Shore and scope out the ...
Lakewood Blue Claws. Current record: 33-26. Standings: 3rd of 8 teams in in the South Atlantic League's Northern Division, two games behind of the Lake County Captains. Players of note: Dominic Brown (OF), D'Arby Myers (OF), Freddy Galvis (SS), Karl Bolt (1B), Travis Mattair (3B), and Drew Naylor (P).
Here is something that I just realized. The Blue Claws are the only Phillies affiliate right now with the winning record and not in last place. That's pretty sad.
Now, this is just a personal opinion, but I think the Phillies 2007 Draft was pretty good and yielded a lot of talent. While the '06 Draft yielded a clear superstar in Cardenas (the jury is still out on Drabek), I think the '07 Draft will yield a greater dividend of talent in terms of depth as opposed to quality. I can't see Naylor, Savery or Mattair making the kind of contribution that Cardenas will, but each will contribute to the Phillies roster as role players or fourth and fifth starters. In the end that depth will be as important as Cardenas will be. (Can you tell I think this guy is pretty good?)
Let's start with Dominic Brown. Brown is a player who really impresses me. Last season in Williamsport he stole 14 bases in 21 tries and posted an impressive .356 OBP while hitting 5 triples. This season he's surprised me by hitting five home runs (curiously, no triples, but 12 doubles) with an OBP of .362 and 11 steals in 12 tries. Brown is fast and shows good instinicts. I like the fact that in his last ten games he's walked 7 times and struckout just once. Discipline at the plate and speed. Brown could make a very effective leadoff hitter one day.
Airforce grad Karl Bolt and Travis Mattair man each end of the Phillies corner infield. Bolt, a first baseman, got off to an impressive start in the GCL with 8 home runs, 4 triples and 10 doubles and 31 RBI in just 57 games, an impressive feat given how pitcher-friendly the league is. He's off to a less-powerful start in Lakewood, with three home runs and seven doubles. So far Bolt is striking out way too much: 31 times in 37 games. Add in that he draws just 7 walks and you've got a recipe for disaster. Mattair, who played with Bolt in the GCL last season, is also struggling in Lakewood. His On-Base Percentage is an abysmal .322 and he has just one home run and 21 RBI in 52 games. Like Bolt, Mattair has wiffed a lot: 51 times in 52 games.
D'Arby Myers, who played in Williamsport in '07 and in the GCL in '06, is really struggling right now. His batting average is a beyond awful .189 and he's struckout 45 times in 50 games. Myers has speed to burn: 7 of 8 steals this season, 11 of 17 last season, but he's going to get few chances to showcase it unless he improves the OBP of .243 he has this season and the .286 he had last.
So who is the best position player in Lakewood? Say hello to Mr. Freddy Galvis. Ignore Galvis' .288 OBP in Lakewood and his .255 OBP in Williamsport. Galvis is a defensive superstar and has a lot of speed to burn: 9 steals in 10 tries in '08, 9 steals in 13 tries in '07. Galvis's defensive abilities are so impressive that when the team talked about what to do when Jimmy Rollins went down, Galvis' name was floated around by some members of the organization. A player this talented and this raw is still figuring things out at the plate. He'll improve and become a steady MLBer.
Finally we come to Drew Naylor. The Brisbane, Australia, native was the Phillies best hurler in Williamsport: 8-6, 3.28 ERA, 9.35 K/9, 2.70 BB/9, 3.46 K/BB ratio, 1.14 WHIP. Those are exceptional numbers and it will be interesting to see if Naylor can sustain those numbers in the long haul. So far this season he's burning up the South Atlantic League: 5-2, 2.61 ERA, 9.91 K/9, 2.18 BB/9, 4.55 K/BB ratio, 0.97 WHIP. Wow. If Naylor can keep that up, he's going to become a dominant MLB pitcher.
So in the end, I think that the current group of players at Lakewood will produce several talents who could play important supporting roles on the Phillies. Brown and Naylor are near-locks to make it to the majors, while Galvis ought to, and between Mattair, Bolt and Myers, one of the three ought to make it to the majors. That should be four major leaguers right there. While these guys might not contribute as dramatically as I expect Cardenas to do (I expect Cardenas to be a consistent, 25-30 home run, 100 RBI, 40-50 double type of player), they will perform important roles with the Phillies in the future.
So that's the Farm Report as I see it this first week of June, 2008. Enjoy your day. Tomorrow, I think I'll talk a little about Shane Victorino.
Labels: Cardenas, Drabek, Minors, MLB Draft, Savery
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Countdown to the Draft
The Draft is just over two hours away. I'm 90% convinced that the Phillies will take High School shortstop Anthony Hewitt at #24. He's an exceptional talent and benefit from grooming within the Phillies system. Adrian Cardenas, another talented high schooler in need of grooming, is doing quite well at Clearwater with the Advanced Single-A Threshers. Imagine a future Phillies infield filled with Hewitt, Cardenas, Utley and Ryan Howard ...
Baseball Prospectus projects that the Phillies will pass on Hewitt and take Zach Collier, an outfielder from Chino Hills High School in California. Others say the Phillies will go with Andrew Cashner, a six foot six relief ace from Texas Christian who almost certainly would have a shorter path to the major leagues than Hewitt or Collier. I'm banking on the Phillies being more interested in developing a player in the long-term. That's why I am going with Hewitt, whom is the person Baseball America says is going at #24.
I really liked this article from SI's Tom Verducci about why the MLB Draft is so important now that we live in the post-steroids era.
Meanwhile ... Don't be fooled by Brett Myers performance last evening. Yes, he surrendered just one hit and one run in seven and one-third of an inning. Yes, he struck eight Reds out. He also surrendered six walks. Volquez, in contrast, tossed a third of an inning less than Myers and got the same number of strikeouts. He allowed just two hits and walked just two Phillies. Even when Myers held onto the no-hitter it struck me that Volquez was still out-pitching him.
Losing John Smoltz has to be a bitter blow to the Atlanta Braves, weakening their rotation and costing them a key veteran in their search to return to the playoffs for the first time since '05. I think Smoltz will return in '09, but it will be his final season. This loss will really hurt though. I'm not sure that the Braves will survive and catch up to the Mets and Phillies.
Speaking of the Braves, anyone notice the extreme home/road split that the Braves have? The Braves are 24-8 at home and 7-21 on the road. Compare the winning percentages:
N.L. East: (Home Pct / Road Pct / Diff.)
Atlanta: .750 / .250 / +.500
New York: .607 / .433 / +.174
Phillies: .606 / .536 / +.070
Marlins: .600 / .500 / +.100
Nats: .448 / .366 / +.082
The only team that comes as close to matching the Braves variance is the Reds, whose .655 home winning percentage is .333 higher than their .322 road winning percentage (although last night's game helped matters). If the Braves were homebodies, they'd be unbeatable.
I'll comment on the Draft later.
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Baseball Prospectus projects that the Phillies will pass on Hewitt and take Zach Collier, an outfielder from Chino Hills High School in California. Others say the Phillies will go with Andrew Cashner, a six foot six relief ace from Texas Christian who almost certainly would have a shorter path to the major leagues than Hewitt or Collier. I'm banking on the Phillies being more interested in developing a player in the long-term. That's why I am going with Hewitt, whom is the person Baseball America says is going at #24.
I really liked this article from SI's Tom Verducci about why the MLB Draft is so important now that we live in the post-steroids era.
Meanwhile ... Don't be fooled by Brett Myers performance last evening. Yes, he surrendered just one hit and one run in seven and one-third of an inning. Yes, he struck eight Reds out. He also surrendered six walks. Volquez, in contrast, tossed a third of an inning less than Myers and got the same number of strikeouts. He allowed just two hits and walked just two Phillies. Even when Myers held onto the no-hitter it struck me that Volquez was still out-pitching him.
Losing John Smoltz has to be a bitter blow to the Atlanta Braves, weakening their rotation and costing them a key veteran in their search to return to the playoffs for the first time since '05. I think Smoltz will return in '09, but it will be his final season. This loss will really hurt though. I'm not sure that the Braves will survive and catch up to the Mets and Phillies.
Speaking of the Braves, anyone notice the extreme home/road split that the Braves have? The Braves are 24-8 at home and 7-21 on the road. Compare the winning percentages:
N.L. East: (Home Pct / Road Pct / Diff.)
Atlanta: .750 / .250 / +.500
New York: .607 / .433 / +.174
Phillies: .606 / .536 / +.070
Marlins: .600 / .500 / +.100
Nats: .448 / .366 / +.082
The only team that comes as close to matching the Braves variance is the Reds, whose .655 home winning percentage is .333 higher than their .322 road winning percentage (although last night's game helped matters). If the Braves were homebodies, they'd be unbeatable.
I'll comment on the Draft later.
Labels: Braves, Cardenas, Marlins, Mets, MLB Draft, Nationals
Monday, April 14, 2008
Farm Report Preview: the Minors in 2008
The Farm Report, a semi-regular focus on the Phillies minor league system, was born out of Cole Hamels meteroic rise through the Phillies system in 2006. Much-discussed by others, Hamels burst upon the scene in an explosion that largely took me by surprise and made me realize that I knew practically nothing about the Phillies minor-leaguers. In recent years we've seen many prospects move through the system and become productive members of the Phillies roster: Chase Utley, Chris Coste, Hamels, Carlos Ruiz, Ryan Howard, etc. The Phillies have an under-appreciate farm system that has been producing most of the team's stars. I resolved to never let another minor-league hot-shot catch me by surprise again.
With the 2008 Season under way I thought that I'd take a break from talking about the activity at Citizens Bank to focus on the Phillies four active minor league teams*.
* The Phillies actually have six established minor league teams: the four mentioned above as well as the Short-Season Single-A Williamsport Crosscutters and the Rookie League Gulf Coast League Phillies. The Crosscutters and GCL Phillies don't get their seasons started until the MLB Draft this summer because their rosters are filled out by the Draft.
We start first in beautiful Allentown, Pennsylvania ...
I. The Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Triple-A). The IronPigs begin their inaugural season as the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, the third move of the Phillies Triple-A site in the last three years. Previously the Phillies Triple-A team in the International League (IL) had been the Scranton Red Barons (now the Yankees Triple-A team), and then the Ottawa Lynx last season. The Lynx are now defunct - the final Canadian team in the fourteen-team IL - and the team moved to the Lehigh Valley area and was redubbed the "IronPigs" in honor of the Allentown-area's rich steel industry heritage.
I hope that the fans in Allentown aren't expecting a great baseball team because the 2008 IronPigs will likely struggle. The '07 Lynx finished the regular season with a 55-88 record, worst in the IL, and many of the same players return from a team that posted the highest ERA in the IL and featured the worst OPS in the IL.
Notable prospects:
Jason Jamarillo - Catcher
J.A. Happ - Pitcher
Jason Jamarillo is a player that really wasn't on my radar until he was listed on Baseball America's list of Top Ten Phillies prospects at #10. Jamarillo, a second-round pick by the Phillies in the 2004 Draft, was a 2005 South Atlantic League (SAL) All-Star with the Lakewood Blue Claws. He also also a 2007 mid-season All Star with the Lynx last season, hitting .271 (.350 OBP), with six home runs, 56 RBI and 52 Runs Scored. Jamarillo seems like a solid and dependable catcher, the sort of player who might be backing Carlos Ruiz up in 2009, or later this season if Ruiz or Chris Coste go down. What impresses me about Jamarillo is his bat control: 1.58 K/BB ratio at the plate ... J.A. Happ, who was picked in the third round of the 2004 Draft after Jamarillo, will be in his second season in Triple-A this year, having gone 4-6 w
ith a 5.02 ERA with the Lynx in 2007. Happ's sole major league appearance was a catastrophic drubbing at the hands of the New York Mets last June at what might have been the low point in the season for the Phillies. The experience seemed to kill Happ for 2007, as he had swiftly risen through the ranks of the Phillies minor league system in 2005 and 2006, posting a 2.81 ERA with a 4.05 K/BB ratio with the Clearwater Threshers and a 2.64 ERA with a 2.79 K/BB ratio with the Reading Phillies. Can Happ regain his form with the IronPigs? He's the most likely minor league candidate to make the Phillies rotation and contribute in any meaningful way this season ... After that the IronPigs roster looks a little thin of talent. Never fear, people of Allentown, because future members of the IronPigs include ...
II. Reading Phillies (Double-A). If you live in the Reading metro area my advice to you right now is to go down to the Reading Phillies stadium and buy yourself some tickets. A lot of tickets. A slew of future major leaguers will be playing in beautiful Berks County, Pennsylvania, and you shouldn't miss out on seeing the stars of tomorrow ... Today.
Notable prospects:
Carlos Carrasco - Pitcher
Joshua Outman - Pitcher
Andrew Carpenter - Pitcher
Greg Golson - Outfield
Jeremy Slayden - Outfield
Jason Donald - Infield
Lou Marson - Catcher
Carlos Carrasco is the consensus pick by the experts as the Phillies top propect and Outman is right behind. Don't be surprised to see both occupying the #3 and #4 slots in the Phillies rotation as early as Opening Day 2009. Donald is a terrific prospect to occupy shortstop or second base in the event that Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley go down and Slayden is a major talent flying under the radar of most people. Let's start with Carlos Carrasco ... Carrasco is the consensus pick as the gem of the Phillies farm system these days. Baseball Prospectus (click here for Baseball Prospectus' article on the Phillies top prospects), Baseball America (click here for Baseball America's write-up on the Phillies) and Top Prospect Alert (click here for Top Prospect Alert's article on the Phillies prospects) all rank Carrasco #1 in the Phillies system, and Keith Law of ESPN made Carrasco the only Phillie prospect on his list of the Top 100 Prospects in the minor leagues right now. Carrasco was spectacular in 2006 along with Outman and Matthew Maloney, as the trio smashed the opposition on their way to a 2006 SAL title. Carrasco went 12-6 with a 2.26 ERA and 159 strikeouts in 159 innings in 2006. Carrasco advanced into Advanced Single-A with the Threshers early last season and dominated again, going 6-2 with a 2.84 ERA and 53 strikeouts in 69 innings. Carrasco struggled in Double-A with the Reading Phillies, going 6-4, but seeing his ERA spike two runs to 4.86. His formitable K/BB ratio dropped:
K/BB ratio:
Single-A ('06): 2.45
Advanced-A ('07): 2.41
Double-A ('07): 1.06
as long as possible, so don't expect to see him in Philadelphia with Brett Myers and Cole Carrasco needs to work on his control more and expect him to go back to those terrifyingly good numbers he posted in Si
ngle-A and Advanced-A ball soon. The Phillies want to protect CarrascoHamels until 2009 at the earliest. It seems likely that he'll spend most of 2008 in Reading before getting the call to go to Allentown until later in the season ... Vastly underrated is Josh Outman, a talented pitcher who was Carrasco and Maloney's teammate in Lakewood in 2006, where he went 14=6 with a 2.95 ERA. Outman joined Carrasco in Clearwater and was every bit as impressive, going 10-4 with a 2.45 ERA. Impressively, Outman struck-out 117 batters in 117 innings of work. Like Carrasco, Outman joined the Reading Phillies and struggled a little, going 2-3 with a 4.50 ERA. In many respects though, Outman out-pitched Carrasco in Reading: his K/BB ratio was 1.47. Despite his obvious talent and proven track record, Outman has largely flown under the radar of most observers, ranking fourth in Baseball America's, Baseball Prospectus' and Top Prospect Alert's looks at the Phillies farm system ... Andrew Carpenter is the third pitcher in the Reading Phillies rotation and he ought not to be ignored. Carpenter, who ranks ninth on Baseball America's list of Phillies prospects, went 17-6 with a 3.20 ERA in 2007 with the Threshers. Durable, tough, Carpenter got stronger as the '07 season wore on, going 10-2 with a 2.05 ERA after the Florida State League mid-season All Star Game. Not quite the strikeout pitcher Outman or Carrasco are, Carpenter is a solid pitcher who doesn't allow many walks (2.93 BB/9) ... Gregory Golson first selection in the draft out of John enters his fifth season in the minor leagues, hoping to finally make the majors after battling his way from rookie ball in 2004, when he was the Phillies draft choice out of Connally High School in Texas. Golson is an extremely talented individual who might make a great major-leaguer one day, but for a massive problem with his game. Let's start with Golson's pluses. The guy is fast. In 2007 he stole 25 of 33 bases (76%) with the Clearwater Threshers and hit three triples. After joining the Reading Phillies later in the season Golson hit two more triples and stole all five bases he attempted. Golson went to Arizona to play in the Arizona Winter League and was eight-for-eight in steals with the Peoria Saguaros and hit three more triples. All of this was on the heels of a season in 2006 where he stole 30 of 40 bases and hit six triples with Lakewood and Clearwater. Golson has speed. And Golson has some power at the plate: he hit fifteen home runs in 136 games last season. Golson has power. What Gregory Golson does not struck-out 173 times in 571 minor league At-Bats and drew just 23 walks. As a consequence player-of-comparison, had a minor league have is the ability to get on base. In 2007 Golson's .273 batting average looked much less impressive when compared to his .305 OBP. In 2006 Golson K'd 160 times in 546 At Bats and walked just 30 times. His OBP was a mind-bogglingly awful .277 ... Golson's usefulness to the Phillies, beyond being an occasional pinch-hitter and defensive substitution, is rather limited. Before Golson can hope of being Michael Bourn II (who had a minor league OBP of .377) , he needs to learn how to draw walks and avoid striking out. When he does that, he'll shine ... How Jeremy Slayden has flown under the radar of the pundits - he appears on no Top Ten list for Baseball America, for Baseball Prospectus or for Top Prospect Alert - and Billy Beane and the Oakland A's, I'll never understand. The 2005 Draft choice out of Georgia Tech had a break-out season in 2007, smashing 14 home runs and 73 RBI in 118 games in the pitching-friendly Florida State League with the Threshers. Slayden's OPS+ was a robust 117. Slayden has exceptional slugging skills (.171 ISO in 2007), draws walks (60 in '07, coupled with a .376 OBP), and even occasionally steals bases and moves speedily (seven-of-eight in steals and four triples in 2007). Despite hitting so well at the plate, Slayden doesn't strikeout as much as a player like Greg Golson. Slayden might not be the best defensive outfielder in the Phillies system, but he's the classic Moneyball walks-and-home runs player. Perhaps Slayden has never appeared on the radar of Billy Beane, but he ought to. I hope Slayden, who is probably my favorite Phillies minor leaguer, makes the Phillies eventually ... Jason Donald is an interesting case. Completely ignored by Baseball America, he's #8 on Baseball Prospectus' list and #10 on Top Prospect Alert's. The 2006 draft pick out of the University of Arizona is extremely talented middle infielder and ought to have a bright future in the Phillies organization backing up Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley in 2009. Donald began his minor league career in the New York - Penn League (NYPL) with the Batavia Muckdogs (the Phillies former Short-Season Single-A franchise) and did some impressive work: .347 OBP, 12 steals in 13 tries, two triples ... He joined the Lakewood Blue Claws and found himself in the awkward position of playing the same position - shortstop - as the Phillies highly touted prospect Adrian Cardenas (see, Clearwater). The Phillies liked Donald enough they shifted Cardenas over the second base in Lakewood and let Donald play short. Donald responded with a .409 OBP and three triples (though, bizarrely, he was caught stealing five of seven times). Donald played well enough that the Phillies moved him to Clearwater to play with the Threshers. Again, Donald played well: .386 OBP and five triples. In Clearwater, where he spent most of the season, Donald actually developed something of a power stroke, posting a .191 Isolated Power (ISO) at the plate, impressive in the FSL, where the league average for ISO was .122 ... It is a little difficult to evaluate Donald's defensive skills (see, Freddy Galvis, below) but he seems to be a solid player. If Eric Bruntlett struggles as the backup middle infielder, it would not surprise me at all to see Donald in Philadelphia by the end of the season. At a minimum, he'll be a member of the IronPigs ... Finally, we come to Lou Marson, the talented catcher who is on the Reading Phillies roster. Marson caught Maloney, Outman and Carrasco in '06 when the Blue Claws obliterated the opposition on their way to the SAL title and he continued to catch them in 2007 with the Threshers. Along the way he's posted some solid stats, including a .373 OBP with Clearwater last season and an impressive .336 batting average with runners in scoring position (BA/RISP). I'd expect to see Marson on the Phillies roster in 2010 ... As you can see, there is a lot of talent currently in the Phillies system at Reading. Reading residents are lucky that so many terrific players who will be occupying important roles with the Phillies in 2009 and 2010 currently on the Reading Phillies roster right now.
III. Clearwater Threshers (Advanced Single-A). After Reading the second treasure trove of Phillies prospects sit in Clearwater. The Phillies have three terrific prospects who could have every bit as significant of an impact on the Phillies as Carrasco, Outman and Donald, although the prospects laboring under the hot Florida sun this year won't factor into the Phillies plans until 2010, at least.
Notable Prospects:
Joe Savery - Pitcher
Kyle Drabek - Pitcher
Adrian Cardenas - Infielder
We'll start with Joe Savery, the Phillies first selection in the 2007 Draft out of Rice University. The left-handed Savery went 2-3 with a 2.73 ERA with the Williamsport Crosscutters last season. Savery didn't surrender a single home run and struck-out 22 in 26 innings of work (7.5 K/9). Savery also allowed 13 walks, or 4.4 BB/9, which suggests that he's either still trying to get his control down or that he's going to be the type of pitcher who tosses a lot of pitchers because he tends to work the corners ... Kyle Drabek, the Phillies first selection in the 2006 Draft out of high school in Texas, will be hurling alongside Savery. Drabek threw well for the Lakewood Blue Claws before going down with an injury: amassing a 5-1 record with a 4.33 ERA. Drabek allowed 1.5 HR/9, 3.83 BB/9 and 7.7 K/9 and had a 2:1 K/BB ratio. He had the added benefit of pitching in 2006 for the Gulf Coast League Phillies so he had some experience coming into 2007. The Phillies have high hopes for Savery and Drabek to contribute to the Phillies in 2010 and beyond or to be valuable trade bait in the event that the Phillies need to make a push for the playoffs ... The prize of the Threshers roster i
s Adrian Cardenas, the exceptionally talented high schooler from Florida whom the Phillies took in the supplemental round of 2006 Draft after Drabek. Cardenas, who destroyed high school pitching in Florida and accumulated awards like they were going out of style, has gotten off to a swift start in his first two seasons of minor league ball. Last season with the Blue Claws he had an OBP of .354 and hit 9 home runs and 30 doubles (.417 Slugging Percentage), along with 79 RBI and showed a lot of speed: 20 steals in 27 tries. Cardenas also posted impressive numbers in 2006 when he was drafted out of high school, stealing 13 of 16 bases in the Gulf Coast League and hitting four triples with a batting average of .318. He's a fast player who makes contact, plays terrific defense and has a little power. In terms of position players, Cardenas is clearly the prize pick in the Phillies system. Baseball America to Chase put him as the best position player in the Phillies system and second-best as a prospect to Carrasco, an opinion Baseball Prospectus and Top Prospect Alert shared. He bears a striking resemblenceUtley and will likely man a position in the outfield in 2010 or 2011 at Citizens Bank Ballpark ... After Savery, Drabek and Cardenas, the quality of the talent in Clearwater falls off a little. It is possible that while the quantity of talent isn't as deep in Clearwater, the quality might be better in the long run, as the Threshers might produce three terrific players.
IV. Lakewood Blue Claws (Single-A). Finally, we come to the Lakewood Blue Claws, who will be featuring players entering their first full season of minor league baseball in 2008. Nearly all of the players on the Blue Claws roster will be 2007 Draft choices who cut their teeth in Clearwater and Williamsport last season after they were drafted.
Notable Prospects:
Dominic Brown - Outfield
Travis Mattair - Third Base
Karl Bolt - First Base
Tyler Mach - Second Base
Freddy Galvis - Shortstop
Dominic Brown usually graduate to Single-A ball, not Short-Season Single-A in their second year) and played very well, stealing 14 of 21 bases and hitting five triples. Brown seems to have a lot of speed and a knack for getting on base, as he hit .295 in 2007 (.356 makes a nice starting point for our analysis of the Blue Claws roster. The 2006 Draft pick played in Williamsport last season (why, I am unsure, as Rookie LeaguersOBP) and managed to score 43 runs with a team that really struggled at the plate. Brown is the only prospect on the Blue Claws roster to earn much recognition from the pundits, ranking #6 on Baseball America's list, the second-best position player after Cardenas. Many have compared him to Darryl Strawberry ... The shame of it is that there is plenty of other talent on the Blue Claws. Freddy Galvis, the talented shortstop, deserves mention here as perhaps the finest defensive player in the Phillies system. Galvis can't hit - an abysmal .255 OBP in 2007 with the Crosscutters - but he can field and has won praise for his terrific fielding, being called the Phillies best defensive infielder by Baseball America. In a pre-season interview with the Daily News' Bill Conlon, Phillies minor league director Steve Noworyta stated that if the Phillies had to find a replacement in 2008 for Jimmy Rollins and if defense were the primary consideration, Galvis would be promoted to Philly over the other infield prospects in their system, quite a statement ... Karl Bolt, a 2007 draft pick out of the U.S. Air Force Academy, is another Jeremy Slayden-type who has flown under the radar of the scouts and pundits. Bolt was astonishing with the Gulf Coast League Phillies, hitting eight home runs and 31 RBI in 57 games. Bolt's Isolated Power (ISO) at the plate was a terrific .203. Bolt's OPS+ was 115, an impressive total in the weak-hitting GCL ... Another Blue Claw I am very impressed by is Tyler Mach, their new second baseman, who had a .362 OBP in the NYPL last season and hit five home runs and 38 RBI in 65 games. What really impresses me is that Mach drew 21 walks against 33 strikeouts, despite being a power-oriented hitter ... And finally, Travis Mattair, who struggled a little in the GCL last season (.297 OBP) but has great promise, and might be a worthy heir to Mike Schmidt as a Phillies Third Baseman ...
Conclusions: The Phillies systems don't really rate much notice from the pundits the way the Angels and their focus on high school players and the A's and their much derided fixation on college players occupy the attention of the punditry around Draft time. It is hard to argue with the development of players that the Phillies have made from within their system: Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Victorino, Ruiz, Utley, Myers ... These are all homegrown players, homegrown talent that honed their skills in Scranton and Reading and Clearwater on their way to Philadelphia. I doubt anyone beyond Happ or Jamarillo will make much of an impact from the farm system in 2008, but starting in 2009 and 2010, there will be an influx of talented players arriving in Philadelphia. Imagine a Phillies roster with Adrian Cardenas hitting behind Utley, J.Roll and Howard. Imagine Greg Golson stealing bases. Imagine Hamels and Myers getting teamed up with Outman and Carrasco in the rotation. The groundwork has been laid for a team that might not be merely good, but great in 2010. We shall see, but the future is bright, says I.
The interesting thing looking at the Phillies system is where the talent is distributed. The team's phobia about pitching, born out of four long seasons of watching home runs sail out of Citizens bank Ballpark, was to respond by devoting tremendous resources to getting pitching. Right there in the upper three levels of the Phillies system is a glut of pitching: Carrasco, Outman, Carpenter, Drabek, Savery, Happ. The team's realization that they needed to restock the position players within the system led to the Drafting of Donald and Cardenas in '06 but a real focus on position players in '07, when Mach, Galvis, and Mattair were taken.
So that's the farm report. We'll revisit this in a few weeks. Tomorrow I'll recap the Cubs & Phillies and give some thoughts on the week ahead.
With the 2008 Season under way I thought that I'd take a break from talking about the activity at Citizens Bank to focus on the Phillies four active minor league teams*.
* The Phillies actually have six established minor league teams: the four mentioned above as well as the Short-Season Single-A Williamsport Crosscutters and the Rookie League Gulf Coast League Phillies. The Crosscutters and GCL Phillies don't get their seasons started until the MLB Draft this summer because their rosters are filled out by the Draft.
We start first in beautiful Allentown, Pennsylvania ...
I. The Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Triple-A). The IronPigs begin their inaugural season as the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, the third move of the Phillies Triple-A site in the last three years. Previously the Phillies Triple-A team in the International League (IL) had been the Scranton Red Barons (now the Yankees Triple-A team), and then the Ottawa Lynx last season. The Lynx are now defunct - the final Canadian team in the fourteen-team IL - and the team moved to the Lehigh Valley area and was redubbed the "IronPigs" in honor of the Allentown-area's rich steel industry heritage.
I hope that the fans in Allentown aren't expecting a great baseball team because the 2008 IronPigs will likely struggle. The '07 Lynx finished the regular season with a 55-88 record, worst in the IL, and many of the same players return from a team that posted the highest ERA in the IL and featured the worst OPS in the IL.
Notable prospects:
Jason Jamarillo - Catcher
J.A. Happ - Pitcher
Jason Jamarillo is a player that really wasn't on my radar until he was listed on Baseball America's list of Top Ten Phillies prospects at #10. Jamarillo, a second-round pick by the Phillies in the 2004 Draft, was a 2005 South Atlantic League (SAL) All-Star with the Lakewood Blue Claws. He also also a 2007 mid-season All Star with the Lynx last season, hitting .271 (.350 OBP), with six home runs, 56 RBI and 52 Runs Scored. Jamarillo seems like a solid and dependable catcher, the sort of player who might be backing Carlos Ruiz up in 2009, or later this season if Ruiz or Chris Coste go down. What impresses me about Jamarillo is his bat control: 1.58 K/BB ratio at the plate ... J.A. Happ, who was picked in the third round of the 2004 Draft after Jamarillo, will be in his second season in Triple-A this year, having gone 4-6 w
ith a 5.02 ERA with the Lynx in 2007. Happ's sole major league appearance was a catastrophic drubbing at the hands of the New York Mets last June at what might have been the low point in the season for the Phillies. The experience seemed to kill Happ for 2007, as he had swiftly risen through the ranks of the Phillies minor league system in 2005 and 2006, posting a 2.81 ERA with a 4.05 K/BB ratio with the Clearwater Threshers and a 2.64 ERA with a 2.79 K/BB ratio with the Reading Phillies. Can Happ regain his form with the IronPigs? He's the most likely minor league candidate to make the Phillies rotation and contribute in any meaningful way this season ... After that the IronPigs roster looks a little thin of talent. Never fear, people of Allentown, because future members of the IronPigs include ...II. Reading Phillies (Double-A). If you live in the Reading metro area my advice to you right now is to go down to the Reading Phillies stadium and buy yourself some tickets. A lot of tickets. A slew of future major leaguers will be playing in beautiful Berks County, Pennsylvania, and you shouldn't miss out on seeing the stars of tomorrow ... Today.
Notable prospects:
Carlos Carrasco - Pitcher
Joshua Outman - Pitcher
Andrew Carpenter - Pitcher
Greg Golson - Outfield
Jeremy Slayden - Outfield
Jason Donald - Infield
Lou Marson - Catcher
Carlos Carrasco is the consensus pick by the experts as the Phillies top propect and Outman is right behind. Don't be surprised to see both occupying the #3 and #4 slots in the Phillies rotation as early as Opening Day 2009. Donald is a terrific prospect to occupy shortstop or second base in the event that Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley go down and Slayden is a major talent flying under the radar of most people. Let's start with Carlos Carrasco ... Carrasco is the consensus pick as the gem of the Phillies farm system these days. Baseball Prospectus (click here for Baseball Prospectus' article on the Phillies top prospects), Baseball America (click here for Baseball America's write-up on the Phillies) and Top Prospect Alert (click here for Top Prospect Alert's article on the Phillies prospects) all rank Carrasco #1 in the Phillies system, and Keith Law of ESPN made Carrasco the only Phillie prospect on his list of the Top 100 Prospects in the minor leagues right now. Carrasco was spectacular in 2006 along with Outman and Matthew Maloney, as the trio smashed the opposition on their way to a 2006 SAL title. Carrasco went 12-6 with a 2.26 ERA and 159 strikeouts in 159 innings in 2006. Carrasco advanced into Advanced Single-A with the Threshers early last season and dominated again, going 6-2 with a 2.84 ERA and 53 strikeouts in 69 innings. Carrasco struggled in Double-A with the Reading Phillies, going 6-4, but seeing his ERA spike two runs to 4.86. His formitable K/BB ratio dropped:
K/BB ratio:
Single-A ('06): 2.45
Advanced-A ('07): 2.41
Double-A ('07): 1.06
as long as possible, so don't expect to see him in Philadelphia with Brett Myers and Cole Carrasco needs to work on his control more and expect him to go back to those terrifyingly good numbers he posted in Si
ngle-A and Advanced-A ball soon. The Phillies want to protect CarrascoHamels until 2009 at the earliest. It seems likely that he'll spend most of 2008 in Reading before getting the call to go to Allentown until later in the season ... Vastly underrated is Josh Outman, a talented pitcher who was Carrasco and Maloney's teammate in Lakewood in 2006, where he went 14=6 with a 2.95 ERA. Outman joined Carrasco in Clearwater and was every bit as impressive, going 10-4 with a 2.45 ERA. Impressively, Outman struck-out 117 batters in 117 innings of work. Like Carrasco, Outman joined the Reading Phillies and struggled a little, going 2-3 with a 4.50 ERA. In many respects though, Outman out-pitched Carrasco in Reading: his K/BB ratio was 1.47. Despite his obvious talent and proven track record, Outman has largely flown under the radar of most observers, ranking fourth in Baseball America's, Baseball Prospectus' and Top Prospect Alert's looks at the Phillies farm system ... Andrew Carpenter is the third pitcher in the Reading Phillies rotation and he ought not to be ignored. Carpenter, who ranks ninth on Baseball America's list of Phillies prospects, went 17-6 with a 3.20 ERA in 2007 with the Threshers. Durable, tough, Carpenter got stronger as the '07 season wore on, going 10-2 with a 2.05 ERA after the Florida State League mid-season All Star Game. Not quite the strikeout pitcher Outman or Carrasco are, Carpenter is a solid pitcher who doesn't allow many walks (2.93 BB/9) ... Gregory Golson first selection in the draft out of John enters his fifth season in the minor leagues, hoping to finally make the majors after battling his way from rookie ball in 2004, when he was the Phillies draft choice out of Connally High School in Texas. Golson is an extremely talented individual who might make a great major-leaguer one day, but for a massive problem with his game. Let's start with Golson's pluses. The guy is fast. In 2007 he stole 25 of 33 bases (76%) with the Clearwater Threshers and hit three triples. After joining the Reading Phillies later in the season Golson hit two more triples and stole all five bases he attempted. Golson went to Arizona to play in the Arizona Winter League and was eight-for-eight in steals with the Peoria Saguaros and hit three more triples. All of this was on the heels of a season in 2006 where he stole 30 of 40 bases and hit six triples with Lakewood and Clearwater. Golson has speed. And Golson has some power at the plate: he hit fifteen home runs in 136 games last season. Golson has power. What Gregory Golson does not struck-out 173 times in 571 minor league At-Bats and drew just 23 walks. As a consequence player-of-comparison, had a minor league have is the ability to get on base. In 2007 Golson's .273 batting average looked much less impressive when compared to his .305 OBP. In 2006 Golson K'd 160 times in 546 At Bats and walked just 30 times. His OBP was a mind-bogglingly awful .277 ... Golson's usefulness to the Phillies, beyond being an occasional pinch-hitter and defensive substitution, is rather limited. Before Golson can hope of being Michael Bourn II (who had a minor league OBP of .377) , he needs to learn how to draw walks and avoid striking out. When he does that, he'll shine ... How Jeremy Slayden has flown under the radar of the pundits - he appears on no Top Ten list for Baseball America, for Baseball Prospectus or for Top Prospect Alert - and Billy Beane and the Oakland A's, I'll never understand. The 2005 Draft choice out of Georgia Tech had a break-out season in 2007, smashing 14 home runs and 73 RBI in 118 games in the pitching-friendly Florida State League with the Threshers. Slayden's OPS+ was a robust 117. Slayden has exceptional slugging skills (.171 ISO in 2007), draws walks (60 in '07, coupled with a .376 OBP), and even occasionally steals bases and moves speedily (seven-of-eight in steals and four triples in 2007). Despite hitting so well at the plate, Slayden doesn't strikeout as much as a player like Greg Golson. Slayden might not be the best defensive outfielder in the Phillies system, but he's the classic Moneyball walks-and-home runs player. Perhaps Slayden has never appeared on the radar of Billy Beane, but he ought to. I hope Slayden, who is probably my favorite Phillies minor leaguer, makes the Phillies eventually ... Jason Donald is an interesting case. Completely ignored by Baseball America, he's #8 on Baseball Prospectus' list and #10 on Top Prospect Alert's. The 2006 draft pick out of the University of Arizona is extremely talented middle infielder and ought to have a bright future in the Phillies organization backing up Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley in 2009. Donald began his minor league career in the New York - Penn League (NYPL) with the Batavia Muckdogs (the Phillies former Short-Season Single-A franchise) and did some impressive work: .347 OBP, 12 steals in 13 tries, two triples ... He joined the Lakewood Blue Claws and found himself in the awkward position of playing the same position - shortstop - as the Phillies highly touted prospect Adrian Cardenas (see, Clearwater). The Phillies liked Donald enough they shifted Cardenas over the second base in Lakewood and let Donald play short. Donald responded with a .409 OBP and three triples (though, bizarrely, he was caught stealing five of seven times). Donald played well enough that the Phillies moved him to Clearwater to play with the Threshers. Again, Donald played well: .386 OBP and five triples. In Clearwater, where he spent most of the season, Donald actually developed something of a power stroke, posting a .191 Isolated Power (ISO) at the plate, impressive in the FSL, where the league average for ISO was .122 ... It is a little difficult to evaluate Donald's defensive skills (see, Freddy Galvis, below) but he seems to be a solid player. If Eric Bruntlett struggles as the backup middle infielder, it would not surprise me at all to see Donald in Philadelphia by the end of the season. At a minimum, he'll be a member of the IronPigs ... Finally, we come to Lou Marson, the talented catcher who is on the Reading Phillies roster. Marson caught Maloney, Outman and Carrasco in '06 when the Blue Claws obliterated the opposition on their way to the SAL title and he continued to catch them in 2007 with the Threshers. Along the way he's posted some solid stats, including a .373 OBP with Clearwater last season and an impressive .336 batting average with runners in scoring position (BA/RISP). I'd expect to see Marson on the Phillies roster in 2010 ... As you can see, there is a lot of talent currently in the Phillies system at Reading. Reading residents are lucky that so many terrific players who will be occupying important roles with the Phillies in 2009 and 2010 currently on the Reading Phillies roster right now.III. Clearwater Threshers (Advanced Single-A). After Reading the second treasure trove of Phillies prospects sit in Clearwater. The Phillies have three terrific prospects who could have every bit as significant of an impact on the Phillies as Carrasco, Outman and Donald, although the prospects laboring under the hot Florida sun this year won't factor into the Phillies plans until 2010, at least.
Notable Prospects:
Joe Savery - Pitcher
Kyle Drabek - Pitcher
Adrian Cardenas - Infielder
We'll start with Joe Savery, the Phillies first selection in the 2007 Draft out of Rice University. The left-handed Savery went 2-3 with a 2.73 ERA with the Williamsport Crosscutters last season. Savery didn't surrender a single home run and struck-out 22 in 26 innings of work (7.5 K/9). Savery also allowed 13 walks, or 4.4 BB/9, which suggests that he's either still trying to get his control down or that he's going to be the type of pitcher who tosses a lot of pitchers because he tends to work the corners ... Kyle Drabek, the Phillies first selection in the 2006 Draft out of high school in Texas, will be hurling alongside Savery. Drabek threw well for the Lakewood Blue Claws before going down with an injury: amassing a 5-1 record with a 4.33 ERA. Drabek allowed 1.5 HR/9, 3.83 BB/9 and 7.7 K/9 and had a 2:1 K/BB ratio. He had the added benefit of pitching in 2006 for the Gulf Coast League Phillies so he had some experience coming into 2007. The Phillies have high hopes for Savery and Drabek to contribute to the Phillies in 2010 and beyond or to be valuable trade bait in the event that the Phillies need to make a push for the playoffs ... The prize of the Threshers roster i
s Adrian Cardenas, the exceptionally talented high schooler from Florida whom the Phillies took in the supplemental round of 2006 Draft after Drabek. Cardenas, who destroyed high school pitching in Florida and accumulated awards like they were going out of style, has gotten off to a swift start in his first two seasons of minor league ball. Last season with the Blue Claws he had an OBP of .354 and hit 9 home runs and 30 doubles (.417 Slugging Percentage), along with 79 RBI and showed a lot of speed: 20 steals in 27 tries. Cardenas also posted impressive numbers in 2006 when he was drafted out of high school, stealing 13 of 16 bases in the Gulf Coast League and hitting four triples with a batting average of .318. He's a fast player who makes contact, plays terrific defense and has a little power. In terms of position players, Cardenas is clearly the prize pick in the Phillies system. Baseball America to Chase put him as the best position player in the Phillies system and second-best as a prospect to Carrasco, an opinion Baseball Prospectus and Top Prospect Alert shared. He bears a striking resemblenceUtley and will likely man a position in the outfield in 2010 or 2011 at Citizens Bank Ballpark ... After Savery, Drabek and Cardenas, the quality of the talent in Clearwater falls off a little. It is possible that while the quantity of talent isn't as deep in Clearwater, the quality might be better in the long run, as the Threshers might produce three terrific players.IV. Lakewood Blue Claws (Single-A). Finally, we come to the Lakewood Blue Claws, who will be featuring players entering their first full season of minor league baseball in 2008. Nearly all of the players on the Blue Claws roster will be 2007 Draft choices who cut their teeth in Clearwater and Williamsport last season after they were drafted.
Notable Prospects:
Dominic Brown - Outfield
Travis Mattair - Third Base
Karl Bolt - First Base
Tyler Mach - Second Base
Freddy Galvis - Shortstop
Dominic Brown usually graduate to Single-A ball, not Short-Season Single-A in their second year) and played very well, stealing 14 of 21 bases and hitting five triples. Brown seems to have a lot of speed and a knack for getting on base, as he hit .295 in 2007 (.356 makes a nice starting point for our analysis of the Blue Claws roster. The 2006 Draft pick played in Williamsport last season (why, I am unsure, as Rookie LeaguersOBP) and managed to score 43 runs with a team that really struggled at the plate. Brown is the only prospect on the Blue Claws roster to earn much recognition from the pundits, ranking #6 on Baseball America's list, the second-best position player after Cardenas. Many have compared him to Darryl Strawberry ... The shame of it is that there is plenty of other talent on the Blue Claws. Freddy Galvis, the talented shortstop, deserves mention here as perhaps the finest defensive player in the Phillies system. Galvis can't hit - an abysmal .255 OBP in 2007 with the Crosscutters - but he can field and has won praise for his terrific fielding, being called the Phillies best defensive infielder by Baseball America. In a pre-season interview with the Daily News' Bill Conlon, Phillies minor league director Steve Noworyta stated that if the Phillies had to find a replacement in 2008 for Jimmy Rollins and if defense were the primary consideration, Galvis would be promoted to Philly over the other infield prospects in their system, quite a statement ... Karl Bolt, a 2007 draft pick out of the U.S. Air Force Academy, is another Jeremy Slayden-type who has flown under the radar of the scouts and pundits. Bolt was astonishing with the Gulf Coast League Phillies, hitting eight home runs and 31 RBI in 57 games. Bolt's Isolated Power (ISO) at the plate was a terrific .203. Bolt's OPS+ was 115, an impressive total in the weak-hitting GCL ... Another Blue Claw I am very impressed by is Tyler Mach, their new second baseman, who had a .362 OBP in the NYPL last season and hit five home runs and 38 RBI in 65 games. What really impresses me is that Mach drew 21 walks against 33 strikeouts, despite being a power-oriented hitter ... And finally, Travis Mattair, who struggled a little in the GCL last season (.297 OBP) but has great promise, and might be a worthy heir to Mike Schmidt as a Phillies Third Baseman ...
Conclusions: The Phillies systems don't really rate much notice from the pundits the way the Angels and their focus on high school players and the A's and their much derided fixation on college players occupy the attention of the punditry around Draft time. It is hard to argue with the development of players that the Phillies have made from within their system: Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Victorino, Ruiz, Utley, Myers ... These are all homegrown players, homegrown talent that honed their skills in Scranton and Reading and Clearwater on their way to Philadelphia. I doubt anyone beyond Happ or Jamarillo will make much of an impact from the farm system in 2008, but starting in 2009 and 2010, there will be an influx of talented players arriving in Philadelphia. Imagine a Phillies roster with Adrian Cardenas hitting behind Utley, J.Roll and Howard. Imagine Greg Golson stealing bases. Imagine Hamels and Myers getting teamed up with Outman and Carrasco in the rotation. The groundwork has been laid for a team that might not be merely good, but great in 2010. We shall see, but the future is bright, says I.
The interesting thing looking at the Phillies system is where the talent is distributed. The team's phobia about pitching, born out of four long seasons of watching home runs sail out of Citizens bank Ballpark, was to respond by devoting tremendous resources to getting pitching. Right there in the upper three levels of the Phillies system is a glut of pitching: Carrasco, Outman, Carpenter, Drabek, Savery, Happ. The team's realization that they needed to restock the position players within the system led to the Drafting of Donald and Cardenas in '06 but a real focus on position players in '07, when Mach, Galvis, and Mattair were taken.
So that's the farm report. We'll revisit this in a few weeks. Tomorrow I'll recap the Cubs & Phillies and give some thoughts on the week ahead.
Labels: Cardenas, Carrasco, Drabek, Minors, Outman, Savery
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The 2007 Farm Report: Part I (GCL, Williamsport & Lakewood)
I devoted a little time this season to discussing the progress of minor leaguers in the Phillies system because I hadn’t previously done so and thus the meteoric rise of players like Michael Bourn, Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard caught me by surprise. Had I scoped out their minor league stats and paid attention to them there, I would have had more to say when they made their debuts with the Phillies.
This season has to be rated as something of a disappointment for the Phillies, when looking at their minor league teams. In 2006 there was a lot of reason to be cheery about the Phillies minor league prospects. The 2006 Lakewood Blue Claws, the Phillies Class-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League (SAL), won the 2006 SAL title. Three of the Phillies six minor league teams led their league in ERA in 2006: Lakewood, the Short-Season Single-A Batavia Muckdogs, and the Triple-A Scranton Red Barons. The 2007 Phillies farm teams weren’t so good. The Advanced Single-A Clearwater Threshers and Blue Claws posted winning records, but the other four teams did not. Ominously, the Phillies new Triple-A team, the Ottawa Lynx, in particular looked awful, going 55-88 and falling 29 games behind the Red Barons, now the Yankees Triple-A affiliate.
Here are the high-lights, but mostly low-lights, from the Phillies three low minor league teams:
Gulf Coast League Phillies – The GCL Phillies season kicked off right after the 2007 MLB Draft when the Phillies assigned their draft picks to either Rookie League or Short-Season Class-A ball. Primarily high schoolers were assigned to the GCL Phillies squad, who proceeded to post a 28-32 record in the GCL North, finishing fourteen and a half games behind the GCL Yankees, who at 42-17 had the best record in the GCL.
The 2007 GCL Phillies were nothing spectacular, finishing thirteenth of sixteen teams in terms of runs scored per game (4.15 R/G vs. the GCL average of 4.62), and a respectable eighth in terms of runs allowed per game (4.47 R/G). Looking over the numbers, it appears that the GCL Phillies pitching was pretty lousy, but they were saved by decent fielding. The GCL Phillies were slightly better than the league average in Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER), .643 vs. .639, and they committed 92 errors. (The GCL Reds led the GCL with 127.)
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
ERA – Earned Run Average: (Earned Runs * 9) / IP = ERA
ERA – Earned Run Average: (Earned Runs * 9) / IP = ERA
HR/9 – Home Runs allowed per nine innings: (HR * 9) / IP
BB/9 – Walks per nine innings: (BB * 9) / IP
K/9 – Strikeouts per nine innings: (K * 9) / IP
FIP – Fielding Independent Pitching: (13*HR+3*BB-2*K / IP) + League Factor Evaluates a pitching by how he would have done with an average defense behind him by keeping track of things that a pitcher can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs allowed) as opposed to things he cannot (hits allowed, runs allowed).
DER – Defense Efficiency Ratio: (Batters Faced – (Hits + Walks + Hit By Pitch + Strikeouts)) / (Batters Faced – (Home Runs, Walks + Hit By Pitch + Strikeouts)) How often fielders convert balls put into play into outs.
DER – Defense Efficiency Ratio: (Batters Faced – (Hits + Walks + Hit By Pitch + Strikeouts)) / (Batters Faced – (Home Runs, Walks + Hit By Pitch + Strikeouts)) How often fielders convert balls put into play into outs.
Fielding Percentage: (Putouts + Assists) / (Putouts + Assists + Errors). How often the player successfully handled the ball.
On-Base Percentage (OBP): How often a player gets on base. (H + BB + HBP) / (Plate Appearances)
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate. Runs Created (RC): A stat originally created by Bill James to measure a player’s total contribution to his team’s lineup. Here is the formula: [(H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) times ((S * 1.125) + (D * 1.69) + (T * 3.02) + (HR * 3.73) + (.29 * (BB + HBP – IBB)) + (.492 * (SB + SF + SH)) – (.04 * K))] divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF).
RC/27: Runs Created per 27 outs, essentially what a team of 9 of this player would score in a hypothetical game.
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate. Runs Created (RC): A stat originally created by Bill James to measure a player’s total contribution to his team’s lineup. Here is the formula: [(H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) times ((S * 1.125) + (D * 1.69) + (T * 3.02) + (HR * 3.73) + (.29 * (BB + HBP – IBB)) + (.492 * (SB + SF + SH)) – (.04 * K))] divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF).
RC/27: Runs Created per 27 outs, essentially what a team of 9 of this player would score in a hypothetical game.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
Travis Mattair and Travis D’Arnaud, the Phillies supplemental first-round and second-round picks respectively, didn’t play particularly well …
Mattair, a graduate of Southridge High School in Kennwick, Washington, and the Phillies third pick and 83rd overall, hit .235 / .297 / .340 with a .637 OPS and 3.29 RC/G. Mattair, a third baseman who also DH’d for the GCL Phillies, posted disappointing numbers. His OPS was under the league average (.691) and the team average (.678). Mattair struck out five times as often as he walked: 58 to 12, or 4.83 K/BB ratio.
D’Arnaud, the Phillies second pick and the 37th overall, hit even worse: .241 / .278 / .348, with a 2.69 RC/G and .626 OPS. Like Mattair, D’Arnaud was pretty shaky making contact on the field of play: 23 K’s vs. 4 BB’s, or 5.75 K/BB ratio. Both of these guys will have to step things up if they want to make the majors.
The GCL Phillies best players were Arlon Quioz, the GCL Phillies centerfielder who hit .272 / .378 / .364 and stole 20 of 25 bases with the GCL Phillies, and Karl Bolt, an Air Force Academy graduate who hit .256 / .336 / .459, with an impressive .795 OPS and 5.30 RC/G. Quiroz led the GCL Phillies with a 5.62 RC/G, by the way. I am very impressed by Bolt, who struck out just 34 times in 233 plate appearances. Bolt displayed real power at the plate, hitting eight home runs. Playing in large stadiums in the damp summer Florida air, GCL players don’t typically hit for power, but Bolt did:
ISO
Karl Bolt: .203
GCL Phillies: .117
GCL Avg.: .107
Of the GCL Phillies pitching, the less said the better. Miguel Matos was the best of a bad bunch, going 6-3 with a 3.36 ERA. Nobody stands out from the Phillies as being particularly talented here. It is worth noting that it appears that the Phillies invested heavily in position players and college pitchers, so the poor quality of the Phillies GCL pitching isn’t really a cause for worry. The Phillies aren’t counting on these guys to fill out the rotation in 2012.
Moving along to beautiful Williamsport … the 2007 Williamsport Crosscutters, the Phillies new
Short-Season Single-A affiliate (replacing the Batavia Muckdogs), finished the season at 34-42, finishing thirteen games behind the Auburn Doubledays, the Toronto Blue Jays team. Despite the disappointing finish, the Crosscutters actually have quite a bit of talent on their roster. Of the Phillies first eleven picks in the 2007 Draft that signed with the team, nine were college players. Mattair and D’Arnaud were the sole high schoolers the Phillies picked before round eleven. This is where the bulk of the Phillies 2007 Draft cut their teeth.
Offensively, the Crosscutters were a disappointment, scoring just 4.07 R/G, twelfth of fourteen teams and well off the league average of 4.52. Defensively, they were much better, allowing just 4.28 R/G, fifth-best in the New York – Penn League (NYPL). The Crosscutters team ERA was a very good 3.57 ERA, fifth in the NYPL and better than the league average of 3.89, and they did better than the league averages in home runs allowed, walks allowed and strikeouts:
NYPL / Williamsport
HR/9: 0.52 / 0.41
BB/9: 3.52 / 3.04
K/9: 7.86 / 7.94
I ran the numbers on Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and determined that the Crosscutters FIP was 3.55 in 2007, 0.02 better than their ERA. This was a team with a lot of pitching talent. We begin with Joe Savery, the Phillies first-round pick … nineteenth overall … out of Rice University, pitched well enough, going 2-3 with a 2.77 ERA in just seven starts. Savery will obviously be in the uniform of the Lakewood Blue Claws in 2008 and has a very bright future ahead of him, although it is difficult to evaluate him on just twenty-six innings of work in the NYPL.
Clearly, the Phillies best pitcher was Drew Naylor, the twenty-one year-old right-hander who led the NYPL in strikeouts with 97 on his way to an 8-6 record with a 3.29 ERA. In 93 innings of work Naylor allowed just three home runs, or 0.29 HR/9 and had a 3.46 K/BB ratio. His FIP reveals just how well he pitched: he out-pitched his “real” ERA by nearly a third of a run, 2.94 FIP.
Close behind Naylor were the Crosscutters other main starters, Tyson Brummett and Chance Chapman. Brummett, the Phillies seventh round pick out of UCLA (233rd overall), and Chapman, the Phillies eighth round pick (263rd overall), were talented pitchers taken out of UCLA and Oral Roberts respectively. Brummett went 5-5 with a 3.39 ERA while Chapman went 5-3 with a 2.08 ERA. Their FIP ERAs are much closer. Here are the Crosscutters four main starters FIP ERAs:
Starters FIP:
Chapman: 2.92
Naylor: 2.94
Brummett: 3.16
Savery: 3.51
Moving on to the Phillies position players … Check out the Phillies top performers in terms of Runs Created per 27 Outs:
RC/G:
Mach: 5.73
Spencer: 5.38
Brown: 5.37
Rizzotti: 5.11
Mitchell: 4.00
Durant: 3.79
Taylor: 3.40
Myers: 2.70
We’ll start with Mach. Tyler Mach was the Crosscutters best position player in a lot of respects. Taken in the fourth round, 143rd overall, out of Oklahoma State, Mach is going to be an extremely talented member of the Phillies one day. Mach hit five home runs and had 38 RBIs. He displayed impressive bat control, notching just 33 strikeouts against 21 walks.
After Mach the Phillies had a number of other impressive performers:
OPS:
Tyler Mach: .803
Matthew Spencer: .789
Dominic Brown: .756
Matthew Rizzotti: .741
Derek Mitchell: .701
Mike Durant: .666
Michael Taylor: .665
D’Arby Myers: .582
Team: .662
NYPL: .697
Spencer, Mach, Taylor and Rizzotti were taken in sequence in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth rounds. Aside from Taylor, who struggled a little, each one played quite well and made a compelling case to advance on to play with the Lakewood Blue Claws in 2008.
Rizzotti, in particular, is an intriguing player, standing at six-foot-five inches, weighing in at 235 pounds, and having graduated from that baseball hotbed, Manhattan College, a three-time Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) First-Team selection and the 2005 MAAC Rookie and Player of the Year. Though he hit just two home runs and had 27 RBIs, he seems to be extremely talented and could turn into a tremendous player. Though he struck out 63 times with the Crosscutters, he did manage to draw thirty walks. He seems like the prototypical slugger-with-a-good-eye. How did Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s not snatch him up?
Despite their sub-.500 record, the 2007 Crosscutters were loaded with talent and played quite well.
Moving along, we journey from north-central Pennsylvania to the Jersey Shore, where the 2007 Lakewood Blue Claws play. After
the 2006 season, where the Blue Claws went 84-55 (.604) and won the SAL title 3-1 over the Augusta Green Jackets, there was bound to be a let-down. With last year’s trio of Matthew Maloney, Josh Outman and Carlos Carrasco having moved on to Clearwater and Reading, the Blue Claws pitching staff was all-new in 2007.
Still, the 2007 Blue Claws were an extremely talented team on the mound, finishing fourth of sixteen teams in team ERA at 3.75. By far the Phillies best pitcher was the unfortunately named Antonio Bastardo, who was a blistering 9-0 with a 1.87 ERA in just fifteen starts as a Blue Claw. Kyle Drabek, the Phillies first selection in the 2006 Draft, pitched alright as a Blue Claw, going 5-1 with a 4.33 ERA. Drabek got a decent number of strikeouts (7.66 K/9), but allowed a lot of walks (3.83 BB/9) and a large number of home runs (1.50 HR/9) before injuring his arm. Drabek might still develop into a stellar pitcher, but these are issues he needs to sort out.
The rest of the Blue Claws rotation is a far cry from the glory days of 2006. Carlos Monasteros (11-11, 4.62 ERA), Darren Byrd (9-11, 4.04 ERA) and Edgar Garcia (4-9, 4.12 ERA) are a far-cry from the stellar performance Matt Maloney, Josh Outman and Carlos Carrasco turned in last season.
In terms of position players, the Blue Claws have a number of talents on the roster. Foremost amongst them is Adrian Cardenas, the Phillies supplemental first-round pick in the 2007 Draft, who has excelled and might be the best position-player prospect in the Phillies system right now. Cardenas had a .384 OBP with thirteen steals in sixteen attempts in Rookie League ball in 2006 and built on that with a .354 OBP and nineteen steals in twenty-six tries in 2007 with the Blue Claws. There are a lot of things to like about Cardenas: he’s got speed (thirty doubles, nineteen steals) and power (1.048 OPS+) and he reminds me a lot of Chase Utley. He even plays the same position as Utley: second base. Cardenas switched after playing shortstop, his high school position, in the Gulf Coast League. Cardenas is so athletic he could play any position aside from pitcher or catcher. I see him manning left field for the Phillies in 2009 or 2010.
Quintin Berry also turned in an impressive performance in 2007: .395 OBP, 55 steals in 73 tries. Berry has a lot of speed and has really shown a lot of control with his bat at the plate. His nearly .400 OBP is a product of a good eye at the plate: 61 walks to 85 strikeouts. Berry’s walks per plate appearance (BB/PA) is .104, an impressive total (i.e., he drew a walk every tenth time he got to the plate). Berry’s Runs Created per 27 Outs (5.93) is better than Cardenas’ (4.96). Berry and Cardenas are rays of hope for the future in the Phillies system.
GCL Phillies: .117
GCL Avg.: .107
Of the GCL Phillies pitching, the less said the better. Miguel Matos was the best of a bad bunch, going 6-3 with a 3.36 ERA. Nobody stands out from the Phillies as being particularly talented here. It is worth noting that it appears that the Phillies invested heavily in position players and college pitchers, so the poor quality of the Phillies GCL pitching isn’t really a cause for worry. The Phillies aren’t counting on these guys to fill out the rotation in 2012.
Moving along to beautiful Williamsport … the 2007 Williamsport Crosscutters, the Phillies new
Short-Season Single-A affiliate (replacing the Batavia Muckdogs), finished the season at 34-42, finishing thirteen games behind the Auburn Doubledays, the Toronto Blue Jays team. Despite the disappointing finish, the Crosscutters actually have quite a bit of talent on their roster. Of the Phillies first eleven picks in the 2007 Draft that signed with the team, nine were college players. Mattair and D’Arnaud were the sole high schoolers the Phillies picked before round eleven. This is where the bulk of the Phillies 2007 Draft cut their teeth.Offensively, the Crosscutters were a disappointment, scoring just 4.07 R/G, twelfth of fourteen teams and well off the league average of 4.52. Defensively, they were much better, allowing just 4.28 R/G, fifth-best in the New York – Penn League (NYPL). The Crosscutters team ERA was a very good 3.57 ERA, fifth in the NYPL and better than the league average of 3.89, and they did better than the league averages in home runs allowed, walks allowed and strikeouts:
NYPL / Williamsport
HR/9: 0.52 / 0.41
BB/9: 3.52 / 3.04
K/9: 7.86 / 7.94
I ran the numbers on Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and determined that the Crosscutters FIP was 3.55 in 2007, 0.02 better than their ERA. This was a team with a lot of pitching talent. We begin with Joe Savery, the Phillies first-round pick … nineteenth overall … out of Rice University, pitched well enough, going 2-3 with a 2.77 ERA in just seven starts. Savery will obviously be in the uniform of the Lakewood Blue Claws in 2008 and has a very bright future ahead of him, although it is difficult to evaluate him on just twenty-six innings of work in the NYPL.
Clearly, the Phillies best pitcher was Drew Naylor, the twenty-one year-old right-hander who led the NYPL in strikeouts with 97 on his way to an 8-6 record with a 3.29 ERA. In 93 innings of work Naylor allowed just three home runs, or 0.29 HR/9 and had a 3.46 K/BB ratio. His FIP reveals just how well he pitched: he out-pitched his “real” ERA by nearly a third of a run, 2.94 FIP.
Close behind Naylor were the Crosscutters other main starters, Tyson Brummett and Chance Chapman. Brummett, the Phillies seventh round pick out of UCLA (233rd overall), and Chapman, the Phillies eighth round pick (263rd overall), were talented pitchers taken out of UCLA and Oral Roberts respectively. Brummett went 5-5 with a 3.39 ERA while Chapman went 5-3 with a 2.08 ERA. Their FIP ERAs are much closer. Here are the Crosscutters four main starters FIP ERAs:
Starters FIP:
Chapman: 2.92
Naylor: 2.94
Brummett: 3.16
Savery: 3.51
Moving on to the Phillies position players … Check out the Phillies top performers in terms of Runs Created per 27 Outs:
RC/G:
Mach: 5.73
Spencer: 5.38
Brown: 5.37
Rizzotti: 5.11
Mitchell: 4.00
Durant: 3.79
Taylor: 3.40
Myers: 2.70
We’ll start with Mach. Tyler Mach was the Crosscutters best position player in a lot of respects. Taken in the fourth round, 143rd overall, out of Oklahoma State, Mach is going to be an extremely talented member of the Phillies one day. Mach hit five home runs and had 38 RBIs. He displayed impressive bat control, notching just 33 strikeouts against 21 walks.
After Mach the Phillies had a number of other impressive performers:
OPS:
Tyler Mach: .803
Matthew Spencer: .789
Dominic Brown: .756
Matthew Rizzotti: .741
Derek Mitchell: .701
Mike Durant: .666
Michael Taylor: .665
D’Arby Myers: .582
Team: .662
NYPL: .697
Spencer, Mach, Taylor and Rizzotti were taken in sequence in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth rounds. Aside from Taylor, who struggled a little, each one played quite well and made a compelling case to advance on to play with the Lakewood Blue Claws in 2008.
Rizzotti, in particular, is an intriguing player, standing at six-foot-five inches, weighing in at 235 pounds, and having graduated from that baseball hotbed, Manhattan College, a three-time Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) First-Team selection and the 2005 MAAC Rookie and Player of the Year. Though he hit just two home runs and had 27 RBIs, he seems to be extremely talented and could turn into a tremendous player. Though he struck out 63 times with the Crosscutters, he did manage to draw thirty walks. He seems like the prototypical slugger-with-a-good-eye. How did Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s not snatch him up?
Despite their sub-.500 record, the 2007 Crosscutters were loaded with talent and played quite well.
Moving along, we journey from north-central Pennsylvania to the Jersey Shore, where the 2007 Lakewood Blue Claws play. After
the 2006 season, where the Blue Claws went 84-55 (.604) and won the SAL title 3-1 over the Augusta Green Jackets, there was bound to be a let-down. With last year’s trio of Matthew Maloney, Josh Outman and Carlos Carrasco having moved on to Clearwater and Reading, the Blue Claws pitching staff was all-new in 2007.Still, the 2007 Blue Claws were an extremely talented team on the mound, finishing fourth of sixteen teams in team ERA at 3.75. By far the Phillies best pitcher was the unfortunately named Antonio Bastardo, who was a blistering 9-0 with a 1.87 ERA in just fifteen starts as a Blue Claw. Kyle Drabek, the Phillies first selection in the 2006 Draft, pitched alright as a Blue Claw, going 5-1 with a 4.33 ERA. Drabek got a decent number of strikeouts (7.66 K/9), but allowed a lot of walks (3.83 BB/9) and a large number of home runs (1.50 HR/9) before injuring his arm. Drabek might still develop into a stellar pitcher, but these are issues he needs to sort out.
The rest of the Blue Claws rotation is a far cry from the glory days of 2006. Carlos Monasteros (11-11, 4.62 ERA), Darren Byrd (9-11, 4.04 ERA) and Edgar Garcia (4-9, 4.12 ERA) are a far-cry from the stellar performance Matt Maloney, Josh Outman and Carlos Carrasco turned in last season.
In terms of position players, the Blue Claws have a number of talents on the roster. Foremost amongst them is Adrian Cardenas, the Phillies supplemental first-round pick in the 2007 Draft, who has excelled and might be the best position-player prospect in the Phillies system right now. Cardenas had a .384 OBP with thirteen steals in sixteen attempts in Rookie League ball in 2006 and built on that with a .354 OBP and nineteen steals in twenty-six tries in 2007 with the Blue Claws. There are a lot of things to like about Cardenas: he’s got speed (thirty doubles, nineteen steals) and power (1.048 OPS+) and he reminds me a lot of Chase Utley. He even plays the same position as Utley: second base. Cardenas switched after playing shortstop, his high school position, in the Gulf Coast League. Cardenas is so athletic he could play any position aside from pitcher or catcher. I see him manning left field for the Phillies in 2009 or 2010.
Quintin Berry also turned in an impressive performance in 2007: .395 OBP, 55 steals in 73 tries. Berry has a lot of speed and has really shown a lot of control with his bat at the plate. His nearly .400 OBP is a product of a good eye at the plate: 61 walks to 85 strikeouts. Berry’s walks per plate appearance (BB/PA) is .104, an impressive total (i.e., he drew a walk every tenth time he got to the plate). Berry’s Runs Created per 27 Outs (5.93) is better than Cardenas’ (4.96). Berry and Cardenas are rays of hope for the future in the Phillies system.
All in all, the low minor league teams had so-so seasons. Their high minor league counterparts weren't as good. We'll talk a little about that on Friday.
Labels: Cardenas, Drabek, Minors
Friday, June 08, 2007
Minor Leaguers Week, Part IV: Adrian Cardenas
Lots of stuff to talk about today … First a couple of thoughts on the MLB Draft coverage. I thought that ESPN did a nice job covering the draft. They definitely tried to make the process accessible to the viewers and attempt to convey the most information they could, in contrast to ESPN’s NFL Draft coverage, which focuses in on the players stories. With baseball being an information-laded sport, I like that and I thought that ESPN did a nice job. They are really trying to move the Draft from being an event for hardcore baseball junkies to making it accessible to the public. I’ll watch next year.
I guess that it figures that the Phillies were going to select a pitcher with their first-round draft pick. I like what I see about this Joe Savery kid. He seems to have good stuff and would fit in with the Phillies. It might be a little to hope that he’s the next Cole Hamels, but he certainly looks and sounds the part. His hopes of reaching the majors in the fall of 2008 is wildly optimistic, however. But I like that confidence.
The rest of the Phillies picks were all good – with their supplemental first-round pick the team took Travis D’Arnaud of Lakewood High School in California. D’Arnaud comes highly recommended by Baseball America for his skills as a defensive catcher. That’s good in a division where he might be seeing Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez for ¼ of the season.
Travis Mattair of Southridge High School in Washington was the Phillies second-round pick. He’ll be a good third baseman with some power at the plate. Right there, the Phillies addressed what I felt were their two major issues of focus – third base and catching.
In the third round the Phillies took Brandon Workman, a high school pitcher from Texas who has a good fastball and apparently stands six foot four. They also took Matthew Spencer, a slugging outfielder from Arizona State. In the fourth round, the Phillies selected Tyler Mach of Oklahoma State University, a slugging second baseman. Finally, in the fifth round the Phillies took Michael Taylor, an outfielder from Stanford who will likely develop himself into a power hitter.
Seems to be a definite flavor to the Phillies picks – Mattair, Spencer, Mach and Taylor all rate as power hitters. I noticed a trend towards speed and small-ball in the Phillies approach this season and worried a little about a philosophical shift in the team’s outlook, but I think we can safely say that the Phillies are committed to the long ball Thank goodness. Notice also that the Phillies three picks after they took Savery were high schoolers. Interesting.
Finally, I’d like to discuss the Phillies stunning three game sweep of the Mets last night, which moves them to within a game of the Braves and within five of the Mets. I think the series couldn’t have been more psychologically shattering to the Mets. Game two they were leading with two outs when Jimmy Rollins clocks the three-run home run to put the Phillies ahead to stay. Last night, with the Mets ahead 3-2, Pat Burrell quiets the naysayers with a huge solo shot off closer – and Phillies hater – Billy Wagner. If the Phillies can build on this success going into interleague play, which starts tonight against the Royals, that would be terrific, because you have to figure that the rest of the N.L. won’t fare well against their A.L. counterparts, so even if the Phillies struggle, they won’t lose too much ground.
Alright, let’s talk about Adrian Cardenas. Did you know that Adrian Cardenas will be a Phillie one day? One day … Opening Day 2010, Opening Day 2011 … You will see Adrian Cardenas standing at Citizens Bank Ballpark wearing the Red Pinstripes. This is as close to a fact, a scientific, discernable truth, as I can see. A player this good cannot be denied in his dream to become a big league ballplayer.
The Philadelphia Phillies took Adrian Cardenas in the first round of the 2006 MLB Draft with the thirty-seventh overall pick. The Monsignor High School graduate from Miami Lakes, Florida, was electrifying in his senior season of high school, becoming the Baseball America 2006 High School Player of the Year. He hit .647 (yes, that is a BATTING AVERAGE), with eighteen doubles and eighteen home runs to go with 65 RBIs. Cardenas was picked by the Phillies with their second first-round pick and sent to the team’s Rookie League affiliate in the Gulf Coast League (GCL).
Cardenas hit .318 (.384 OBP) in the GCL, stealing thirteen bases in sixteen tries and hitting four triples and two home runs. In the spacious parks of the GCL, Cardenas had a rare blend of speed with power at the plate. He was promoted in 2007 to Lakewood to play with the Blue Claws. Since Jason Donald is considered to be a superior shortstop prospect, Cardenas was moved to second base to make room for Donald.
Thus far in the South Atlantic League (SAL), Cardenas is hitting .268 (.317 OBP) with seven home runs, eight doubles and thirty-eight RBIs. Despite playing in a ballpark that is considered to be the worst for offense in the SAL, Cardenas has managed to put up good numbers for the Blue Claws.
The player that Cardenas reminds me of is Chase Utley. It is a little hard to compare Utley and Cardenas’ minor league stats because they haven’t played at similar junctions in their careers – Cardenas has played in Rookie League and Single-A ball, while Utley got started at Short-Season Single-A ball in Batavia in 2000, then advanced past Single-A to Advanced Single-A in Clearwater. Still, their slugging percentages and On-Base Percentages are nearly identical at both phases:
OBP:
Cardenas (2006, GCL): .384
Utley (2000, Batavia): .383
You get the idea. Don’t be worried that the Phillies are going to deal Cardenas because they have a long-term deal set with Utley to play second base until the year 2013 or whatever it is. Cardenas is such a terrific athlete he could easily replace Jimmy Rollins at shortstop, or he could move into the outfield and play any position out there.
I hope, when the Phillies work out with Cardenas in Spring Training they get to know their young colleague quite well because he’ll be a big part of the team before they know it. Utley, Rollins, Howard … and Cardenas. This guy is a superstar in the making.
Have a nice weekend and I will talk to everyone on Monday.
(1) comments
I guess that it figures that the Phillies were going to select a pitcher with their first-round draft pick. I like what I see about this Joe Savery kid. He seems to have good stuff and would fit in with the Phillies. It might be a little to hope that he’s the next Cole Hamels, but he certainly looks and sounds the part. His hopes of reaching the majors in the fall of 2008 is wildly optimistic, however. But I like that confidence.
The rest of the Phillies picks were all good – with their supplemental first-round pick the team took Travis D’Arnaud of Lakewood High School in California. D’Arnaud comes highly recommended by Baseball America for his skills as a defensive catcher. That’s good in a division where he might be seeing Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez for ¼ of the season.
Travis Mattair of Southridge High School in Washington was the Phillies second-round pick. He’ll be a good third baseman with some power at the plate. Right there, the Phillies addressed what I felt were their two major issues of focus – third base and catching.
In the third round the Phillies took Brandon Workman, a high school pitcher from Texas who has a good fastball and apparently stands six foot four. They also took Matthew Spencer, a slugging outfielder from Arizona State. In the fourth round, the Phillies selected Tyler Mach of Oklahoma State University, a slugging second baseman. Finally, in the fifth round the Phillies took Michael Taylor, an outfielder from Stanford who will likely develop himself into a power hitter.
Seems to be a definite flavor to the Phillies picks – Mattair, Spencer, Mach and Taylor all rate as power hitters. I noticed a trend towards speed and small-ball in the Phillies approach this season and worried a little about a philosophical shift in the team’s outlook, but I think we can safely say that the Phillies are committed to the long ball Thank goodness. Notice also that the Phillies three picks after they took Savery were high schoolers. Interesting.
Finally, I’d like to discuss the Phillies stunning three game sweep of the Mets last night, which moves them to within a game of the Braves and within five of the Mets. I think the series couldn’t have been more psychologically shattering to the Mets. Game two they were leading with two outs when Jimmy Rollins clocks the three-run home run to put the Phillies ahead to stay. Last night, with the Mets ahead 3-2, Pat Burrell quiets the naysayers with a huge solo shot off closer – and Phillies hater – Billy Wagner. If the Phillies can build on this success going into interleague play, which starts tonight against the Royals, that would be terrific, because you have to figure that the rest of the N.L. won’t fare well against their A.L. counterparts, so even if the Phillies struggle, they won’t lose too much ground.
Alright, let’s talk about Adrian Cardenas. Did you know that Adrian Cardenas will be a Phillie one day? One day … Opening Day 2010, Opening Day 2011 … You will see Adrian Cardenas standing at Citizens Bank Ballpark wearing the Red Pinstripes. This is as close to a fact, a scientific, discernable truth, as I can see. A player this good cannot be denied in his dream to become a big league ballplayer.
The Philadelphia Phillies took Adrian Cardenas in the first round of the 2006 MLB Draft with the thirty-seventh overall pick. The Monsignor High School graduate from Miami Lakes, Florida, was electrifying in his senior season of high school, becoming the Baseball America 2006 High School Player of the Year. He hit .647 (yes, that is a BATTING AVERAGE), with eighteen doubles and eighteen home runs to go with 65 RBIs. Cardenas was picked by the Phillies with their second first-round pick and sent to the team’s Rookie League affiliate in the Gulf Coast League (GCL).
Cardenas hit .318 (.384 OBP) in the GCL, stealing thirteen bases in sixteen tries and hitting four triples and two home runs. In the spacious parks of the GCL, Cardenas had a rare blend of speed with power at the plate. He was promoted in 2007 to Lakewood to play with the Blue Claws. Since Jason Donald is considered to be a superior shortstop prospect, Cardenas was moved to second base to make room for Donald.
Thus far in the South Atlantic League (SAL), Cardenas is hitting .268 (.317 OBP) with seven home runs, eight doubles and thirty-eight RBIs. Despite playing in a ballpark that is considered to be the worst for offense in the SAL, Cardenas has managed to put up good numbers for the Blue Claws.
The player that Cardenas reminds me of is Chase Utley. It is a little hard to compare Utley and Cardenas’ minor league stats because they haven’t played at similar junctions in their careers – Cardenas has played in Rookie League and Single-A ball, while Utley got started at Short-Season Single-A ball in Batavia in 2000, then advanced past Single-A to Advanced Single-A in Clearwater. Still, their slugging percentages and On-Base Percentages are nearly identical at both phases:
OBP:
Cardenas (2006, GCL): .384
Utley (2000, Batavia): .383
You get the idea. Don’t be worried that the Phillies are going to deal Cardenas because they have a long-term deal set with Utley to play second base until the year 2013 or whatever it is. Cardenas is such a terrific athlete he could easily replace Jimmy Rollins at shortstop, or he could move into the outfield and play any position out there.
I hope, when the Phillies work out with Cardenas in Spring Training they get to know their young colleague quite well because he’ll be a big part of the team before they know it. Utley, Rollins, Howard … and Cardenas. This guy is a superstar in the making.
Have a nice weekend and I will talk to everyone on Monday.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Farm Report 2007: The Warm Waters of the Florida Coast
Ah, the minor leagues. I happened to be flipping through the channels Tuesday afternoon when I chanced upon Bull Durham on – of all channels – We. The movie is a hilarious and poignant tale of life and love in the minor leagues, and if anyone hasn’t seen it, they ought to. Seeing the movie inspired me to write another in my Farm Report series looking at the minors. Today, we are talking baseball in Clearwater, Florida.
Clearwater, is a small town located on the Gulf of Mexico a little north of the city of Tampa and Tampa Bay. The Threshers are the Phillies Advanced Single-A team in the Florida State League (FSL) and play in close proximity to the Phillies Gulf Coast League (GCL) team in Clearwater. While those of us in the frigid Northeast look longingly on the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico and watch people walking around in t-shirts and bathing suits, the Threshers play ball trying to get north to join the Phillies affiliates in Reading and Ottawa before making the move to the Phillies themselves. Advanced Single-A is the next step up from the Phillies lower-rung affiliates in the GCL (Rookie League), in Williamsport (Short Season Single-A) and in Lakewood (Single-A). Most of the players in Clearwater this year are in their third year of minor league baseball, having graduated from rookie league or Single-A short-season ball in 2005 and having played in Single-A in 2006. A lucky few, usually guys who started in Short-Season Single-A, are starting just their second season when they join the Threshers. These guys are hoping to show enough stuff to jump to Reading or Ottawa sooner rather than later. Cole Hamels impressed the Phillies enough to leap from Clearwater in 2006 to Scranton to the Phillies despite hurling just twenty innings for the Threshers.*
* Hamels is a special case. His abortive rise through the Phillies system was due to injuries which slowed his ascent. He had actually briefly pitched in Reading – Double-A ball – in 2005 before starting the season over in Clearwater in 2006.
At the moment the Threshers are 24-19 and are in second-place in the six-team FSL West, five games behind the Sarasota Reds. There is some real talent on the Threshers roster right now, although most of it is in the form of pitching. For whatever reason, the Phillies minor leagues are stacked with hot pitching prospects and the Phillies have a bunch in Clearwater. The team faces a real dearth of position-player talent, with a couple of exceptions. Adrian Cardenas, the Phillies much-ballyhooed shortstop currently at Lakewood, is that notable exception. Aside from Mike Costanzo, the Phillies have few players in Ottawa and Reading capable of making an impact with the Phillies.
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
ERA – Earned Run Average: (Earned Runs * 9) / IP = ERA
FIP – Fielding Independent Pitching: (13*HR+3*BB-2*K / IP) + League Factor Evaluates a pitching by how he would have done with an average defense behind him by keeping track of things that a pitcher can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs allowed) as opposed to things he cannot (hits allowed, runs allowed).
HR/9 – Home Runs allowed per nine innings: (HR * 9) / IP
K/9 – Strikeouts per nine innings: (K * 9) / IP
BB/9 – Walks per nine innings: (BB * 9) / IP
Runs Created (RC): A stat originally created by Bill James to measure a player’s total contribution to his team’s lineup. Here is the formula: [(H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) times ((S * 1.125) + (D * 1.69) + (T * 3.02) + (HR * 3.73) + (.29 * (BB + HBP – IBB)) + (.492 * (SB + SF + SH)) – (.04 * K))] divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF). If you use ESPN’s version be advised that it is pitifully is out-of-date, however. James adjusted RC after the 2004 season ended.
RC/27: Runs Created per 27 outs, essentially what a team of 9 of this player would score in a hypothetical game.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
On-Base Percentage (OBP): How often a player gets on base. (H + BB + HBP) / (Plate Appearances)
Walks per plate appearance (BB/PA): BB / PA = .BB/PA Avg
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate.
The Threshers most talented position player is Gregory Golson. Golson, a centerfielder, is an immensely talented player who keeps doggedly working his way through the Phillies system, having recently sent time with the Phillies Single-A affiliate in Lakewood, New Jersey. After Cardenas and Michael Bourn, who already plays with the Phillies, Golson was ranked by Baseball America as the Phillies top position-player prospect, placing tenth overall after Cardenas, Bourn and seven pitchers. I was surprised to see that the Phillies promoted Golson in 2005 to the Threshers, despite turning in a terrible performance, hitting just .220. Golson had just 33 Runs Created with the Blue Claws in 2006, or 2.9 per 27 Outs. To my surprise, Golson turned that around in the Florida State League, hitting .264 in 2006 and .281 thus far this season. His Runs Created per 27 Outs rose to 5.3 and 4.8. My surprise at Golson’s success in the FSL is further deepened by the fact that the FSL is, generally, considered to be a pitchers league, with the humidity and the large ballparks constraining the offenses.
I am not entirely sure that Golson would make it in the majors however, because his upswing at the plate is largely a product of more luck at the plate. As a Blue Claw in 2006, Golson’s batting average on balls he put into play was .286. That has climbed to .360 and .397, even while Golson has only marginally improved his batting eye, drawing walks in .046 BB/PA with Lakewood and .064 and .059 in Clearwater. Like Bourn, Golson looks like he’ll be well-suited to pinch-running and entering games as a defensive substitution. So far this season Golson has swiped twelve of fifteen bases, and last year he took thirty of forty (23 of 30 in Lakewood and 7 of 10 in Clearwater). Baseball America rates Golson as the Phillies best base-runner, best outfield arm and best overall athlete. I think Golson will at least make it to Ottawa. I’d like to see a better hitting eye from Golson before I believe that he has a shot at making the next step to Philadelphia.
After Golson, there is a real talent drop-off, although the Phillies have a real talent that has flown under the radar of most observers. The Threshers main power threat is outfielder Jeremy Slayden, who has hit six home runs in 142 At-Bats. In a league where the average slugging percentage is .362, Slayden is bashing at .543, good enough for seventh in the entire FSL.
Impressively, Slayden is displaying a terrific eye at the plate, striking out just thirty times, compared to Golson’s 53. Slayden is that rare power hitter with a good eye: he actually has 32 walks, two more than strikeouts! … Naturally, a closer reading of Slayden’s numbers from 2005 and 2006 reveal that this selectivity at the plate is a recent development – his .190 BB/PA in Clearwater is over twice as good as his .091 BB/PA in Lakewood. Slayden’s Runs Created per 27 Outs is a robust 9.4 this season (7.1 in Lakewood). Similarly Slayden has nice power stats from Batavia (the Phillies old Short-Season Single-A team) and Lakewood. Here are Slayden’s ISO numbers:
2005 (Batavia): .196
2006 (Lakewood): .200
2007 (Clearwater): .209
There is a lot of power to Slayden’s swing and I am a little baffled that no-one has looked at his solid performance inside of the Phillies system and mentioned his major-league prospects. From a pure reading of his stats, Slayden has a real future.
Keep an eye on this Jeremy Slayden kid.
As I noted, there isn’t a ton of position player talent within the Phillies system. The Threshers right now are an arsenal of pitching and probably have the finest pitching staff of any team in the Phillies minor league system right now. Leading the way is twenty-year old Carlos Carrasco, the Phillies top prospect according to Baseball America. Carrasco, along with Josh Outman and Matt Maloney, obliterated the competition in the South Atlantic League (SAL) in 2006, helping to lead the Blue Claws to the 2006 SAL title. Carrasco was an impressive hurler in 2006, going 12-6 with a 2.26 ERA. It was an terrific performance especially given that Carrasco had gone 1-7 with a 7.04 ERA in Lakewood in 2005. Carrasco’s minor league record in Lakewood and Batavia in 2005 had been 1-10 with a 8.41 ERA, so the dominating performance in 2006 was even more impressive.
Thus far this season Carrasco is doing well, with a 4-1 record and a 4.28 ERA. After having such a nice season in 2006, Carrasco has fallen a little to earth in 2007, striking out 16.7% of the batters he faces (1-in-6), a decline from 24.7% in 2006 (1-in-4). Still, he has the finest fastball in the Phillies minor league system and ought to be a near-lock to make it to Triple-A and probably to make it to Philadelphia.
Josh Outman, the third member of Matt Maloney and Carlos Carrasco’s triumvirate in Lakewood last season, is a player I am very intrigued with. Outman pitched very well alongside Carrasco and Maloney, going 14-6 with a 2.95 ERA. Outman pitched just as well as Carrasco, the much-discussed prospect, and Maloney, the hard-throwing hurler who pitched the final game to win the SAL title:
The Triumvirate: FIP
Maloney: 2.97
Carrasco: 3.16
Outman: 3.23
Outman has, according to Baseball America, the best slider in the Phillies system, which is a pitch that might suit him well when he comes to Philadelphia. Outman is 3-3 with a 3.89 ERA thus far in Clearwater and is doing a nice job getting strikeouts, striking out about 20% of the batters he’s facing in the FSL, about what he accomplished in 2006 (25%). If he could keep his walks lower (5.25 BB/9), he’ll be in great shape to move onto Reading next season.
Finally we come to Andrew Carpenter. Carpenter, the Phillies second-round pick and third overall selection out of Long Beach State University, had gone 7-4 in his last year of college before the Phillies selected him and he went to Clearwater to start with the GCL Phillies. Carpenter pitched just three innings and found himself on his way to beautiful Batavia, New York, to begin his career with the Muckdogs. In Batavia Carpenter hurled just eleven and two-third innings before the season ended. He jumped Single-A ball in Lakewood and these innings he’s throwing in Clearwater are the first real glimpse of his talent we are getting. Thus far he’s out-pitching the Lakewood alumna, Outman and Carrasco, as well as the other members of the Threshers five-man rotation, Daniel Brauer and Patrick Overholt:
Starting Pitcher FIP:
Carpenter: 3.53
Overholt: 4.47
Outman: 4.73
Brauer: 4.76
Carrasco: 5.64
At the moment Carpenter has a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and has been doing a great job of keeping his walks allowed low (2.49 BB/9). Carpenter is a sure bet to move on and has a bright future ahead of him.
There you go, the 2007 Clearwater Threshers. Enjoy them now, Floridians, because they’ll be in Philly before you know it …
Nice little 2-1 series win over the Blue Jays gets the Phillies to 22-22. Ah, .500 baseball. The 2006 team was actually doing a little better at this point last season, having won 13 of 14 games to start the month of May. I like how the ’07 Phillies have bounced back and I especially like the fact that they’ve largely done it without Ryan Howard. This is a better, stronger team that last season’s.
(1) comments
Clearwater, is a small town located on the Gulf of Mexico a little north of the city of Tampa and Tampa Bay. The Threshers are the Phillies Advanced Single-A team in the Florida State League (FSL) and play in close proximity to the Phillies Gulf Coast League (GCL) team in Clearwater. While those of us in the frigid Northeast look longingly on the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico and watch people walking around in t-shirts and bathing suits, the Threshers play ball trying to get north to join the Phillies affiliates in Reading and Ottawa before making the move to the Phillies themselves. Advanced Single-A is the next step up from the Phillies lower-rung affiliates in the GCL (Rookie League), in Williamsport (Short Season Single-A) and in Lakewood (Single-A). Most of the players in Clearwater this year are in their third year of minor league baseball, having graduated from rookie league or Single-A short-season ball in 2005 and having played in Single-A in 2006. A lucky few, usually guys who started in Short-Season Single-A, are starting just their second season when they join the Threshers. These guys are hoping to show enough stuff to jump to Reading or Ottawa sooner rather than later. Cole Hamels impressed the Phillies enough to leap from Clearwater in 2006 to Scranton to the Phillies despite hurling just twenty innings for the Threshers.*
* Hamels is a special case. His abortive rise through the Phillies system was due to injuries which slowed his ascent. He had actually briefly pitched in Reading – Double-A ball – in 2005 before starting the season over in Clearwater in 2006.
At the moment the Threshers are 24-19 and are in second-place in the six-team FSL West, five games behind the Sarasota Reds. There is some real talent on the Threshers roster right now, although most of it is in the form of pitching. For whatever reason, the Phillies minor leagues are stacked with hot pitching prospects and the Phillies have a bunch in Clearwater. The team faces a real dearth of position-player talent, with a couple of exceptions. Adrian Cardenas, the Phillies much-ballyhooed shortstop currently at Lakewood, is that notable exception. Aside from Mike Costanzo, the Phillies have few players in Ottawa and Reading capable of making an impact with the Phillies.
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
ERA – Earned Run Average: (Earned Runs * 9) / IP = ERA
FIP – Fielding Independent Pitching: (13*HR+3*BB-2*K / IP) + League Factor Evaluates a pitching by how he would have done with an average defense behind him by keeping track of things that a pitcher can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs allowed) as opposed to things he cannot (hits allowed, runs allowed).
HR/9 – Home Runs allowed per nine innings: (HR * 9) / IP
K/9 – Strikeouts per nine innings: (K * 9) / IP
BB/9 – Walks per nine innings: (BB * 9) / IP
Runs Created (RC): A stat originally created by Bill James to measure a player’s total contribution to his team’s lineup. Here is the formula: [(H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) times ((S * 1.125) + (D * 1.69) + (T * 3.02) + (HR * 3.73) + (.29 * (BB + HBP – IBB)) + (.492 * (SB + SF + SH)) – (.04 * K))] divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF). If you use ESPN’s version be advised that it is pitifully is out-of-date, however. James adjusted RC after the 2004 season ended.
RC/27: Runs Created per 27 outs, essentially what a team of 9 of this player would score in a hypothetical game.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
On-Base Percentage (OBP): How often a player gets on base. (H + BB + HBP) / (Plate Appearances)
Walks per plate appearance (BB/PA): BB / PA = .BB/PA Avg
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate.
The Threshers most talented position player is Gregory Golson. Golson, a centerfielder, is an immensely talented player who keeps doggedly working his way through the Phillies system, having recently sent time with the Phillies Single-A affiliate in Lakewood, New Jersey. After Cardenas and Michael Bourn, who already plays with the Phillies, Golson was ranked by Baseball America as the Phillies top position-player prospect, placing tenth overall after Cardenas, Bourn and seven pitchers. I was surprised to see that the Phillies promoted Golson in 2005 to the Threshers, despite turning in a terrible performance, hitting just .220. Golson had just 33 Runs Created with the Blue Claws in 2006, or 2.9 per 27 Outs. To my surprise, Golson turned that around in the Florida State League, hitting .264 in 2006 and .281 thus far this season. His Runs Created per 27 Outs rose to 5.3 and 4.8. My surprise at Golson’s success in the FSL is further deepened by the fact that the FSL is, generally, considered to be a pitchers league, with the humidity and the large ballparks constraining the offenses.
I am not entirely sure that Golson would make it in the majors however, because his upswing at the plate is largely a product of more luck at the plate. As a Blue Claw in 2006, Golson’s batting average on balls he put into play was .286. That has climbed to .360 and .397, even while Golson has only marginally improved his batting eye, drawing walks in .046 BB/PA with Lakewood and .064 and .059 in Clearwater. Like Bourn, Golson looks like he’ll be well-suited to pinch-running and entering games as a defensive substitution. So far this season Golson has swiped twelve of fifteen bases, and last year he took thirty of forty (23 of 30 in Lakewood and 7 of 10 in Clearwater). Baseball America rates Golson as the Phillies best base-runner, best outfield arm and best overall athlete. I think Golson will at least make it to Ottawa. I’d like to see a better hitting eye from Golson before I believe that he has a shot at making the next step to Philadelphia.
After Golson, there is a real talent drop-off, although the Phillies have a real talent that has flown under the radar of most observers. The Threshers main power threat is outfielder Jeremy Slayden, who has hit six home runs in 142 At-Bats. In a league where the average slugging percentage is .362, Slayden is bashing at .543, good enough for seventh in the entire FSL.
Impressively, Slayden is displaying a terrific eye at the plate, striking out just thirty times, compared to Golson’s 53. Slayden is that rare power hitter with a good eye: he actually has 32 walks, two more than strikeouts! … Naturally, a closer reading of Slayden’s numbers from 2005 and 2006 reveal that this selectivity at the plate is a recent development – his .190 BB/PA in Clearwater is over twice as good as his .091 BB/PA in Lakewood. Slayden’s Runs Created per 27 Outs is a robust 9.4 this season (7.1 in Lakewood). Similarly Slayden has nice power stats from Batavia (the Phillies old Short-Season Single-A team) and Lakewood. Here are Slayden’s ISO numbers:
2005 (Batavia): .196
2006 (Lakewood): .200
2007 (Clearwater): .209
There is a lot of power to Slayden’s swing and I am a little baffled that no-one has looked at his solid performance inside of the Phillies system and mentioned his major-league prospects. From a pure reading of his stats, Slayden has a real future.
Keep an eye on this Jeremy Slayden kid.
As I noted, there isn’t a ton of position player talent within the Phillies system. The Threshers right now are an arsenal of pitching and probably have the finest pitching staff of any team in the Phillies minor league system right now. Leading the way is twenty-year old Carlos Carrasco, the Phillies top prospect according to Baseball America. Carrasco, along with Josh Outman and Matt Maloney, obliterated the competition in the South Atlantic League (SAL) in 2006, helping to lead the Blue Claws to the 2006 SAL title. Carrasco was an impressive hurler in 2006, going 12-6 with a 2.26 ERA. It was an terrific performance especially given that Carrasco had gone 1-7 with a 7.04 ERA in Lakewood in 2005. Carrasco’s minor league record in Lakewood and Batavia in 2005 had been 1-10 with a 8.41 ERA, so the dominating performance in 2006 was even more impressive.
Thus far this season Carrasco is doing well, with a 4-1 record and a 4.28 ERA. After having such a nice season in 2006, Carrasco has fallen a little to earth in 2007, striking out 16.7% of the batters he faces (1-in-6), a decline from 24.7% in 2006 (1-in-4). Still, he has the finest fastball in the Phillies minor league system and ought to be a near-lock to make it to Triple-A and probably to make it to Philadelphia.
Josh Outman, the third member of Matt Maloney and Carlos Carrasco’s triumvirate in Lakewood last season, is a player I am very intrigued with. Outman pitched very well alongside Carrasco and Maloney, going 14-6 with a 2.95 ERA. Outman pitched just as well as Carrasco, the much-discussed prospect, and Maloney, the hard-throwing hurler who pitched the final game to win the SAL title:
The Triumvirate: FIP
Maloney: 2.97
Carrasco: 3.16
Outman: 3.23
Outman has, according to Baseball America, the best slider in the Phillies system, which is a pitch that might suit him well when he comes to Philadelphia. Outman is 3-3 with a 3.89 ERA thus far in Clearwater and is doing a nice job getting strikeouts, striking out about 20% of the batters he’s facing in the FSL, about what he accomplished in 2006 (25%). If he could keep his walks lower (5.25 BB/9), he’ll be in great shape to move onto Reading next season.
Finally we come to Andrew Carpenter. Carpenter, the Phillies second-round pick and third overall selection out of Long Beach State University, had gone 7-4 in his last year of college before the Phillies selected him and he went to Clearwater to start with the GCL Phillies. Carpenter pitched just three innings and found himself on his way to beautiful Batavia, New York, to begin his career with the Muckdogs. In Batavia Carpenter hurled just eleven and two-third innings before the season ended. He jumped Single-A ball in Lakewood and these innings he’s throwing in Clearwater are the first real glimpse of his talent we are getting. Thus far he’s out-pitching the Lakewood alumna, Outman and Carrasco, as well as the other members of the Threshers five-man rotation, Daniel Brauer and Patrick Overholt:
Starting Pitcher FIP:
Carpenter: 3.53
Overholt: 4.47
Outman: 4.73
Brauer: 4.76
Carrasco: 5.64
At the moment Carpenter has a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and has been doing a great job of keeping his walks allowed low (2.49 BB/9). Carpenter is a sure bet to move on and has a bright future ahead of him.
There you go, the 2007 Clearwater Threshers. Enjoy them now, Floridians, because they’ll be in Philly before you know it …
Nice little 2-1 series win over the Blue Jays gets the Phillies to 22-22. Ah, .500 baseball. The 2006 team was actually doing a little better at this point last season, having won 13 of 14 games to start the month of May. I like how the ’07 Phillies have bounced back and I especially like the fact that they’ve largely done it without Ryan Howard. This is a better, stronger team that last season’s.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Farm Report 2007: A Closer Look at Baseball on the Jersey Shore
I suspected that the Phillies might have problems with that Shawn Hill guy … Last night’s 4-2 loss to the Nats breaks up a five-game win streak for the Phillies and basically ensures that the Phillies will exit the month of April with a sub-.500 record. The only way the Phillies can avoid that is to sweep the Marlins this weekend and take Monday’s game against the Braves.
Yeah, that’ll be tough …
The way that I see it, the N.L. East race is evolving into a race between two teams … the Braves and the Phillies. Forget about the Mets. The Mets are the beneficiaries of a lot of luck so far. At the moment they are allowing just 3.45 runs per game, best in the N.L. Don’t think this is the product of good pitching. The Mets Fielding Independent Pitching ERA is worse than the Phillies, and we are giving up nearly a run and a half more per game. The Mets, at the moment, are playing absurdly good defense. This is shielding people from realizing that their pitching staff is really struggling. The Mets will crash back down to earth in May and June and will be out of the playoff picture in July. The Marlins will likewise slump and falter. The race for the N.L. East title is a race between the Phillies and the Braves.
Alright, today’s edition of the Farm Report turns its eye towards the Jersey shore to look at how the Lakewood Blue Claws are doing. The Blue Claws, the Phillies Single-A minor league affiliate, are well into the 2007 season and hope to duplicate their 2006 South Atlantic League (SAL) Championship. The ’06 Blue Claws boasted one of the strongest pitching staffs in the minor leagues, featuring heralded pitching prospects Josh Outman, Carlos Carrasco and Matthew Maloney. Here is how they did in 2006:
Maloney: 16-9, 2.03 ERA
Carrasco: 12-6, 2.26 ERA
Outman: 14-6, 2.95 ERA
Largely thanks to the trio’s exceptional performance the Blue Claws easily took the SAL Championship three games to one. Maloney’s complete game shutout in the final game was the 20th shutout that the Blue Claws hurled in 2006. The trio have since moved on, Maloney to the Double-A Reading Phillies while Carrasco and Outman advanced to the Advanced Single-A Clearwater Threshers.
It will be interesting to see if the Blue Claws can come close to repeating their 2006 dominance on the mound. Key to this will be the development of the Phillies first pick in the 2006 draft, Kyle Drabek. Drabek, a nineteen-year old right-hander from Victoria, Texas, is coming off a rough start with the Phillies. After the 2006 Draft Drabek was assigned to the Phillies Gulf Coast League (GCL) affiliate to cut his key playing rookie ball. Drabek struggled in the GCL, going 1-3 with a 7.71 ERA in six starts. In twenty-three and one-third innings of work Drabek struck-out fourteen while walking eleven. The numbers were not an auspicious beginning to Drabek’s career with the Phillies.
Drabek was promoted to Lakewood this season and is off to a strong start. In three starts this season Drabek is 1-0 with a 3.50 ERA. Impressively, Drabek has transformed himself this season:
Lakewood / GCL
ERA: 3.50 / 7.71
HR/9: 1.50 / 0.77
BB/9: 1.50 / 4.24
K/9: 9.50 / 5.40
K/BB: 6.33 / 1.27
I’m a little surprised, though Drabek’s 2006 campaign was based on just 23 innings of work.* Now that he’s getting steady work, he’s responding quite well. After his rocky start in the GCL there were real concerns that he’d make it in the majors, but Drabek's start with the Blue Claws strongly suggests that he has a chance.
* In case you didn’t know how this worked: draft picks are sent to either Short-Season Single-A ball or to Rookie League ball depending usually on their experience. High Schoolers like Drabek go play Rookie League ball and college players go to Short-Season A. This season’s Blue Claws are almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of the GCL Phillies and the Batavia Muckdogs, the Phillies old Short Season Single-A affiliate in the New York – Penn League (NYPL). The Phillies new NYPL affiliate are the Williamsport Crosscutters.
Anyway … At
the moment the Blue Claws … Who have one of the best logos in the minors, by the way, if I can make another brief digression … I never thought that a crab could be cute and cuddly, but it is… The Blue Claws are 8-8 (.500) and sit in third place in the SAL North, five and a half games behind the 14-3 (.824) West Virginia Power, the Milwaukee Brewers SAL affiliate. Interestingly the Blue Claws inflicted two of the Power’s three losses. The Blue Claws aren't hitting particularly well, but they are fifth of sixteen teams in the SAL in terms of ERA.
Also joining the Blue Claws from the GCL is Adrian Cardenas, the absurdly talented shortstop who hit very well in the GCL, with a .384 OBP (.318 batting average with 17 walks) and displayed a lot of speed (four triples and thirteen of sixteen steals). Cardenas is a rising star in the Phillies system and reminds me a lot of Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, middle infielders with a nice combination of speed and power. Like Drabek, Cardenas was a first-round pick of the Phillies, and like Drabek, Cardenas was a very heralded high school player. Baseball America named Cardenas their 2006 High School Player of the Year.
Cardenas has so far struggled in the SAL, hitting just .258 with a .288 OBP (just three walks). Despite getting on base nineteen times (three walks, thirteen singles and three doubles), Cardenas has just one steal in two tries and hasn’t hit a triple yet. Very disappointing.I have confidence, however, that Cardenas will improve dramatically.
Other players of note ...
Jason Donald, another 2006 Phillies draft pick, is also on the Blue Claws roster. Donald, a shortstop out of the University of Arizona who hit .263 with a .347 OBP in Batavia last season, is hitting .299 with a .365 OBP. I’m not inclined to give Donald’s performance a clean bill of health, however, because Donald has hit just one triple this season and has been caught all five times he’s attempted to steal a base. Last season he hit two triples and swiped twelve of the thirteen bases he tried to take. Still, I think Donald has a future with the Phillies because he seems like a player with a good batting eye.
Quintin Berry, the Blue Claws centerfielder, is a player to watch as well. A 2006 draft pick out of San Diego State University, the left-handed Berry has seven steals in nine tries, something in line with his nineteen steals in twenty-three attempts with the Batavia Muckdogs in 2006. I am somewhat skeptical about his major league chances given that his OBP is just .315.
Finally, Edgar Garcia, a free agent the Phillies picked up. Garcia pitched well in Batavia, with a 2.98 ERA and 46 strikeouts compared with ten walks. I don’t think many realized how good Garcia was because his record was a paltry 3-5. So far this season Garcia is off to a hot start, at 1-0 with a 2.95 ERA. His opening start of the year was a masterful seven-inning victory that saw him surrendering just one run on four hits, while not walking anyone and getting five strikeouts. Along with Drabek, the Blue Claws have a potent 1-2 combination in the rotation that will make them one of the most formidable pitching staffs in the SAL.
There you go, the 2007 Lakewood Blue Claws. We’ll check back with them later in the year and see how they are doing.
Have a nice weekend. Here is the tentative schedule of posts for next week:
Monday: The Month of April, a recap
Tuesday: Farm Report, Reading
Wednesday: Charlie Manuel vs. Bobby Cox
Thursday: What’s Wrong With __________? (player to be named later)
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Yeah, that’ll be tough …
The way that I see it, the N.L. East race is evolving into a race between two teams … the Braves and the Phillies. Forget about the Mets. The Mets are the beneficiaries of a lot of luck so far. At the moment they are allowing just 3.45 runs per game, best in the N.L. Don’t think this is the product of good pitching. The Mets Fielding Independent Pitching ERA is worse than the Phillies, and we are giving up nearly a run and a half more per game. The Mets, at the moment, are playing absurdly good defense. This is shielding people from realizing that their pitching staff is really struggling. The Mets will crash back down to earth in May and June and will be out of the playoff picture in July. The Marlins will likewise slump and falter. The race for the N.L. East title is a race between the Phillies and the Braves.
Alright, today’s edition of the Farm Report turns its eye towards the Jersey shore to look at how the Lakewood Blue Claws are doing. The Blue Claws, the Phillies Single-A minor league affiliate, are well into the 2007 season and hope to duplicate their 2006 South Atlantic League (SAL) Championship. The ’06 Blue Claws boasted one of the strongest pitching staffs in the minor leagues, featuring heralded pitching prospects Josh Outman, Carlos Carrasco and Matthew Maloney. Here is how they did in 2006:
Maloney: 16-9, 2.03 ERA
Carrasco: 12-6, 2.26 ERA
Outman: 14-6, 2.95 ERA
Largely thanks to the trio’s exceptional performance the Blue Claws easily took the SAL Championship three games to one. Maloney’s complete game shutout in the final game was the 20th shutout that the Blue Claws hurled in 2006. The trio have since moved on, Maloney to the Double-A Reading Phillies while Carrasco and Outman advanced to the Advanced Single-A Clearwater Threshers.
It will be interesting to see if the Blue Claws can come close to repeating their 2006 dominance on the mound. Key to this will be the development of the Phillies first pick in the 2006 draft, Kyle Drabek. Drabek, a nineteen-year old right-hander from Victoria, Texas, is coming off a rough start with the Phillies. After the 2006 Draft Drabek was assigned to the Phillies Gulf Coast League (GCL) affiliate to cut his key playing rookie ball. Drabek struggled in the GCL, going 1-3 with a 7.71 ERA in six starts. In twenty-three and one-third innings of work Drabek struck-out fourteen while walking eleven. The numbers were not an auspicious beginning to Drabek’s career with the Phillies.
Drabek was promoted to Lakewood this season and is off to a strong start. In three starts this season Drabek is 1-0 with a 3.50 ERA. Impressively, Drabek has transformed himself this season:
Lakewood / GCL
ERA: 3.50 / 7.71
HR/9: 1.50 / 0.77
BB/9: 1.50 / 4.24
K/9: 9.50 / 5.40
K/BB: 6.33 / 1.27
I’m a little surprised, though Drabek’s 2006 campaign was based on just 23 innings of work.* Now that he’s getting steady work, he’s responding quite well. After his rocky start in the GCL there were real concerns that he’d make it in the majors, but Drabek's start with the Blue Claws strongly suggests that he has a chance.
* In case you didn’t know how this worked: draft picks are sent to either Short-Season Single-A ball or to Rookie League ball depending usually on their experience. High Schoolers like Drabek go play Rookie League ball and college players go to Short-Season A. This season’s Blue Claws are almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of the GCL Phillies and the Batavia Muckdogs, the Phillies old Short Season Single-A affiliate in the New York – Penn League (NYPL). The Phillies new NYPL affiliate are the Williamsport Crosscutters.
Anyway … At
the moment the Blue Claws … Who have one of the best logos in the minors, by the way, if I can make another brief digression … I never thought that a crab could be cute and cuddly, but it is… The Blue Claws are 8-8 (.500) and sit in third place in the SAL North, five and a half games behind the 14-3 (.824) West Virginia Power, the Milwaukee Brewers SAL affiliate. Interestingly the Blue Claws inflicted two of the Power’s three losses. The Blue Claws aren't hitting particularly well, but they are fifth of sixteen teams in the SAL in terms of ERA.Also joining the Blue Claws from the GCL is Adrian Cardenas, the absurdly talented shortstop who hit very well in the GCL, with a .384 OBP (.318 batting average with 17 walks) and displayed a lot of speed (four triples and thirteen of sixteen steals). Cardenas is a rising star in the Phillies system and reminds me a lot of Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, middle infielders with a nice combination of speed and power. Like Drabek, Cardenas was a first-round pick of the Phillies, and like Drabek, Cardenas was a very heralded high school player. Baseball America named Cardenas their 2006 High School Player of the Year.
Cardenas has so far struggled in the SAL, hitting just .258 with a .288 OBP (just three walks). Despite getting on base nineteen times (three walks, thirteen singles and three doubles), Cardenas has just one steal in two tries and hasn’t hit a triple yet. Very disappointing.I have confidence, however, that Cardenas will improve dramatically.
Other players of note ...
Jason Donald, another 2006 Phillies draft pick, is also on the Blue Claws roster. Donald, a shortstop out of the University of Arizona who hit .263 with a .347 OBP in Batavia last season, is hitting .299 with a .365 OBP. I’m not inclined to give Donald’s performance a clean bill of health, however, because Donald has hit just one triple this season and has been caught all five times he’s attempted to steal a base. Last season he hit two triples and swiped twelve of the thirteen bases he tried to take. Still, I think Donald has a future with the Phillies because he seems like a player with a good batting eye.
Quintin Berry, the Blue Claws centerfielder, is a player to watch as well. A 2006 draft pick out of San Diego State University, the left-handed Berry has seven steals in nine tries, something in line with his nineteen steals in twenty-three attempts with the Batavia Muckdogs in 2006. I am somewhat skeptical about his major league chances given that his OBP is just .315.
Finally, Edgar Garcia, a free agent the Phillies picked up. Garcia pitched well in Batavia, with a 2.98 ERA and 46 strikeouts compared with ten walks. I don’t think many realized how good Garcia was because his record was a paltry 3-5. So far this season Garcia is off to a hot start, at 1-0 with a 2.95 ERA. His opening start of the year was a masterful seven-inning victory that saw him surrendering just one run on four hits, while not walking anyone and getting five strikeouts. Along with Drabek, the Blue Claws have a potent 1-2 combination in the rotation that will make them one of the most formidable pitching staffs in the SAL.
There you go, the 2007 Lakewood Blue Claws. We’ll check back with them later in the year and see how they are doing.
Have a nice weekend. Here is the tentative schedule of posts for next week:
Monday: The Month of April, a recap
Tuesday: Farm Report, Reading
Wednesday: Charlie Manuel vs. Bobby Cox
Thursday: What’s Wrong With __________? (player to be named later)
Labels: Cardenas, Drabek, Minors
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Adrian Cardenas
The other day I talked about Kyle Drabek, the Phillies first pick in the 2006 Draft, and noted the impressive strides that Drabek made as a player last season that seemed to fly under the radar of most fans. Today I want to turn my attention to Adrian Cardenas, the Phillies talented shortstop-of-the-future.
The Phillies drafted Cardenas, who was just eighteen years old, in the first round of the draft out of Monsignor Pace High School in Opa Locka, Florida. The immensely talented Cardenas hit .647 (75-for-116), with eighteen home runs, eighteen doubles, three triples and fourteen stolen bases. Cardenas had a whopping 65 RBIs and 52 runs scored. Cardenas led Monsignor Pace to a victory in the state title game. Baseball America was so amazed by Cardenas performance that they named him the 2006 High School Player of the Year. The Phillies liked him so much they took him with the thirty-seventh pick in the draft, after they took Drabek.
A calm, intelligent player (he graduated in the top ten percent of his class), Cardenas seems to have an outstanding background and poses a low character risk. He moved from high school ball to the Gulf Coast League – rookie league – very well, leading the GCL Phillies in On-Base Percentage (OBP) and Slugging Percentage. Cardenas was clearly the GCL Phillies finest player, placing first on the team in runs scored, RBIs, and stolen bases. He finished fourth in the Gulf Coast League in OBP and was eighth in stolen bases.
It is difficult to evaluate if Cardenas will be a power hitter given that it is difficult to hit many home runs in the GCL (The Tigers rookie team led the league with thirty-five in fifty games), but his two home runs don’t seem to dictate that he’ll be a singles hitter for his entire career. I looked it up and discovered that of all of the balls put into play in the GCL in 2006, 48% of them were ground-balls, 12% were line-drives, and 31% were fly-balls (the rest were pop flies). When Cardenas put the ball into play, he hit grounders 45% of the time, line-drives 17% of the time and 32% were fly-balls. Cardenas .826 OPS is one-hundred and sixty-one points above the GCL average. Generally, I found Cardenas’ numbers to be pretty much average-to-above-average, which suggests to me that he won’t be a singles hitter exclusively. Cardenas will develop a little power to his swing.
Speed isn’t an issue. Cardenas is fast. He attempted sixteen steals in 2006 and was successful thirteen times. He also hit four triples. The triple, which requires a player to round the bases and go 270 feet while the ball is still in play, is the most exciting play in baseball and requires a lot of speed to make happen. Cardenas’ four triples tied him for fourth in the GCL with four other players. He’s got speed to burn.
I looked at Cardenas and it struck me that he resembled Chase Utley a lot, so I looked at Utley’s numbers from when he entered the minors in the summer of 2000. Because Utley played baseball at UCLA he got to skip rookie league ball and advance to short-season Single-A ball in Batavia. The comparisons between Utley and Cardenas are uncanny:
Cardenas / Utley
GPA: .283 / .283
ISO: .124 / .137
Yes, the comparisons aren’t perfect: there are some differences between the GCL circa 2006 and the New York-Penn League (NYPL) circa 2000, but the basic similarities are there. They both hit two home runs in almost the same number of At-Bats (153 for Utley, 154 for Cardenas), they drew nearly the same number of walks (18 for Utley, 17 for Cardenas), and they struck out nearly the same number of times (23 for Utley, Cardenas 28). They profile as nearly the same player.
In the final analysis, I think the Adrian Cardenas has a very, very promising future. He’ll advance swiftly through the minors (expect to see him in Single-A Williamsport or Single-A Lakewood in 2007) and arrive in Philadelphia in 2009 or 2010. He’s an extremely talented player and I will be shocked if he isn’t wearing a Phillies uniform in the future.
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The Phillies drafted Cardenas, who was just eighteen years old, in the first round of the draft out of Monsignor Pace High School in Opa Locka, Florida. The immensely talented Cardenas hit .647 (75-for-116), with eighteen home runs, eighteen doubles, three triples and fourteen stolen bases. Cardenas had a whopping 65 RBIs and 52 runs scored. Cardenas led Monsignor Pace to a victory in the state title game. Baseball America was so amazed by Cardenas performance that they named him the 2006 High School Player of the Year. The Phillies liked him so much they took him with the thirty-seventh pick in the draft, after they took Drabek.
A calm, intelligent player (he graduated in the top ten percent of his class), Cardenas seems to have an outstanding background and poses a low character risk. He moved from high school ball to the Gulf Coast League – rookie league – very well, leading the GCL Phillies in On-Base Percentage (OBP) and Slugging Percentage. Cardenas was clearly the GCL Phillies finest player, placing first on the team in runs scored, RBIs, and stolen bases. He finished fourth in the Gulf Coast League in OBP and was eighth in stolen bases.
It is difficult to evaluate if Cardenas will be a power hitter given that it is difficult to hit many home runs in the GCL (The Tigers rookie team led the league with thirty-five in fifty games), but his two home runs don’t seem to dictate that he’ll be a singles hitter for his entire career. I looked it up and discovered that of all of the balls put into play in the GCL in 2006, 48% of them were ground-balls, 12% were line-drives, and 31% were fly-balls (the rest were pop flies). When Cardenas put the ball into play, he hit grounders 45% of the time, line-drives 17% of the time and 32% were fly-balls. Cardenas .826 OPS is one-hundred and sixty-one points above the GCL average. Generally, I found Cardenas’ numbers to be pretty much average-to-above-average, which suggests to me that he won’t be a singles hitter exclusively. Cardenas will develop a little power to his swing.
Speed isn’t an issue. Cardenas is fast. He attempted sixteen steals in 2006 and was successful thirteen times. He also hit four triples. The triple, which requires a player to round the bases and go 270 feet while the ball is still in play, is the most exciting play in baseball and requires a lot of speed to make happen. Cardenas’ four triples tied him for fourth in the GCL with four other players. He’s got speed to burn.
I looked at Cardenas and it struck me that he resembled Chase Utley a lot, so I looked at Utley’s numbers from when he entered the minors in the summer of 2000. Because Utley played baseball at UCLA he got to skip rookie league ball and advance to short-season Single-A ball in Batavia. The comparisons between Utley and Cardenas are uncanny:
Cardenas / Utley
GPA: .283 / .283
ISO: .124 / .137
Yes, the comparisons aren’t perfect: there are some differences between the GCL circa 2006 and the New York-Penn League (NYPL) circa 2000, but the basic similarities are there. They both hit two home runs in almost the same number of At-Bats (153 for Utley, 154 for Cardenas), they drew nearly the same number of walks (18 for Utley, 17 for Cardenas), and they struck out nearly the same number of times (23 for Utley, Cardenas 28). They profile as nearly the same player.
In the final analysis, I think the Adrian Cardenas has a very, very promising future. He’ll advance swiftly through the minors (expect to see him in Single-A Williamsport or Single-A Lakewood in 2007) and arrive in Philadelphia in 2009 or 2010. He’s an extremely talented player and I will be shocked if he isn’t wearing a Phillies uniform in the future.
