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.
(2) comments
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
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
2008 MLB Draft Focus
This week is Draft Week in baseball as the thirty major league baseball teams attempt to build for their future by drafting high school and college talent into their rosters. We'll spend some time this week talking about the Phillies recent drafts and the players they will take this Thursday.
This will be the second year in a row in which you can watch the draft on ESPN, which I intend to do Thursday evening off my DVR. (News I haven't broken to my wife yet ...) The MLB Draft has never held the attention of the public quite the way that the NFL Draft has for a number of reasons, some of which the MLB is trying to change. For one thing, the draft never used to actually be in a central location but was done over the intercom. No Commissioner striding to the podium to announce the next pick under the glare of the TV cameras as Bud Selig will do Thursday afternoon, and as the NFL as done for years in New York City.
The problem with the MLB's efforts to make the Draft an Event with a capital E is that, unlike the NFL, NBA and (to a lesser extent) NHL drafts, the MLB Draft will have absolutely no immediate impact on the teams that make their selections today. The '98 Minnesota Vikings took a gamble on Marshall wide receiver Randy Moss with the 19th pick of the first round of the Draft that season and landed an impact player who helped spark the Vikings to 556 points and a 15-1 record (after going just 9-7 the previous season) thanks to his 1,313 yards and 17 touchdowns. No player taken today is going to have that kind of impact in 2008 or even 2009. David Price was taken #1 overall last season from Vanderbilt and he has played no role whatsoever in the Tampa Bay Rays success in '08.
The players being taken today are going to be the cornerstones to their franchises in 2010 or 2011 at the earliest. Most of these players are going to make their MLB debuts in 2012, however. The lack of impact that these players will have on their teams makes the MLB Draft a spectacle for the hard-core baseball fan. The NFL Draft promises: "See tomorrow's players today!" The MLB Draft promises: "See the distant future's players today!"
Additionally, thanks to college football and basketball being televised to prominently by ESPN, CBS, ABC and the like, many fans are familiar already with the players they see on Draft Day. College baseball is barely on the radar of most baseball fans. High School baseball? Forget about it ...
So while I am skeptical that the MLB Draft will ever be an Event with a capital E, I applaud baseball for shaking up the status quo and attempting to make it interesting for the public. While baseball has traditionally been a sport given to tradition above all else, I enjoy seeing the powers that be attempt to grow the game and give something to get the fans fired up. This is the kind of forward thinking we typically don't see from Major League Baseball.
History. So where does the draft come from? The major league draft, which was adopted by baseball following the winter meetings in December of 1964, grew out of a concern that New York Yankees were dominating the game. The persistent dominance of the Yankees between 1921 and 1964 (in 44 years they won 29 American League Pennants and 20 World Series), in which the Yankees would attract and sign marquee talent like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle led Major League Baseball to institute the draft. Scouts like Tom Greenwade used to specialize in locating talent and signing them to the Bronx Bombers before other teams were aware these players existed. Suddenly the legions of scouts that the Yankees had criss-crossing the country looking for talent now longer had the ability to corner a player and lock him into a deal. Aging already, the Yankees went into an eclipse in the mid-to-late 1960's.
Theory. Typically teams took players in the MLB draft somewhat equally from college and high school and simply selected the players their scouts rated as the best. Scouts typically would give high ratings to high school players because they were more raw in terms of their talent and were the subject of more speculation. Speculation that oftentimes would prove erroneous. The proliferation over the last decade of sabremetric analysis in the game as well as the internet as turned the draft philosophies on its head. Bill James wrote in his 1988 Baseball Abstract: "Of all the studies I have done over the last twelve years, what have I learned? ... [After listing four things, James lists as the fifth:] Players taken in the June draft coming out of college (or with at least two years of college) perform dramatically better than players drafted out of high school." The ten points listed by James, of which the foregoing was number five, became known as A Bill James Primer.
The split between the sabremetric pundits and the baseball establishment over high schoolers vs. college players continued into the 1990's and 2000's. In the book Moneyball, author Michael Lewis spends a lot of time dissecting the Oakland A's draft in 2002 for many reasons. The '02 Draft showcases the A's approach to the game in a nutshell: their focus on stats over scouting, their focus on proven college talent over speculative high school talent, their obsession with keeping their costs reasonable. The experience and failure of Billy Beane the ballplayer, the talented high schooler from San Diego taken in the first round of the 1980 Draft, is what drives Billy Beane the A's General Manager.
Beane was a bust as a player because he was an unproven talent who could, in the eyes of scouts, be molded into a big leaguer. The scouts who saw Billy Beane play saw Billy Beane as the next Mickey Mantle. Billy Beane the General Manager has no interest or confidence in the capacity of minor league instructors to mold players or try and make them something they are not. Billy Beane wants proven talent, which is why the '02 A's took college players exclusively and took players that other teams took a pass on. Perhaps things didn't work out with Jeremy Brown, the much maligned catcher the A's took from the University of Alabama in the first round, in the minor leagues, but the A's success from 1999 to now otherwise underscores why the A's are such a successful franchise despite owning one of the smallest payrolls in the game. Author Michael Lewis wrote about the A's preparation for the 2002 Draft:
So what is the actual evidence for college superiority? According to Baseball Between the Numbers (see, Table 7-1.1 on page 237), College players are much, much more likely to make it to the majors than high schoolers. The percentage of high-school players drafted between 1984-1991 who made the majors was just 41%. In that same time period, 60% of college players drafted made the majors. Amongst high schoolers drafted between 1992-1999, 39% made the majors. About 57% of college players during that same time period made the big leagues. So College players are roughly 50% more likely to make the majors than a high schooler, which validates the A's belief in drafting college players. The A's need to develop talent from their farm system and cannot afford to have their draft picks come up short.
According to Baseball Between the Numbers (I am referencing Chapter 7.1, "What Happened to Todd Van Poppel?" by Dayn Perry, in this post, by the way), "High school pitchers remain the riskiest selections in the first round [of the Draft]. This is mostly because, unlike college hurlers, they haven't made it through the 'injury nexus'." That is partly why high schoolers are such a risky bet for big league teams to take.
Now, at this point, I ought to note that not every team follows the A's focus. The Anaheim Angels, for example, focus aggressively on taking high school talent and developing it. With their deep pockets and focus on small ball, the Angels are almost like baseball's Anti-A's. And the Angels have been successful in developing talent on their farm system, so there is a powerful counter-argument to be made that high schoolers are a good bet too: you get to shape and mold their development and you get to bring them aboard before they get into college and possibly suffer injuries. For teams with large payrolls, high schoolers are a good bet.
So that's basically where the draft comes from and what some of the theories about it are.
(3) comments
This will be the second year in a row in which you can watch the draft on ESPN, which I intend to do Thursday evening off my DVR. (News I haven't broken to my wife yet ...) The MLB Draft has never held the attention of the public quite the way that the NFL Draft has for a number of reasons, some of which the MLB is trying to change. For one thing, the draft never used to actually be in a central location but was done over the intercom. No Commissioner striding to the podium to announce the next pick under the glare of the TV cameras as Bud Selig will do Thursday afternoon, and as the NFL as done for years in New York City.
The problem with the MLB's efforts to make the Draft an Event with a capital E is that, unlike the NFL, NBA and (to a lesser extent) NHL drafts, the MLB Draft will have absolutely no immediate impact on the teams that make their selections today. The '98 Minnesota Vikings took a gamble on Marshall wide receiver Randy Moss with the 19th pick of the first round of the Draft that season and landed an impact player who helped spark the Vikings to 556 points and a 15-1 record (after going just 9-7 the previous season) thanks to his 1,313 yards and 17 touchdowns. No player taken today is going to have that kind of impact in 2008 or even 2009. David Price was taken #1 overall last season from Vanderbilt and he has played no role whatsoever in the Tampa Bay Rays success in '08.
The players being taken today are going to be the cornerstones to their franchises in 2010 or 2011 at the earliest. Most of these players are going to make their MLB debuts in 2012, however. The lack of impact that these players will have on their teams makes the MLB Draft a spectacle for the hard-core baseball fan. The NFL Draft promises: "See tomorrow's players today!" The MLB Draft promises: "See the distant future's players today!"
Additionally, thanks to college football and basketball being televised to prominently by ESPN, CBS, ABC and the like, many fans are familiar already with the players they see on Draft Day. College baseball is barely on the radar of most baseball fans. High School baseball? Forget about it ...
So while I am skeptical that the MLB Draft will ever be an Event with a capital E, I applaud baseball for shaking up the status quo and attempting to make it interesting for the public. While baseball has traditionally been a sport given to tradition above all else, I enjoy seeing the powers that be attempt to grow the game and give something to get the fans fired up. This is the kind of forward thinking we typically don't see from Major League Baseball.
History. So where does the draft come from? The major league draft, which was adopted by baseball following the winter meetings in December of 1964, grew out of a concern that New York Yankees were dominating the game. The persistent dominance of the Yankees between 1921 and 1964 (in 44 years they won 29 American League Pennants and 20 World Series), in which the Yankees would attract and sign marquee talent like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle led Major League Baseball to institute the draft. Scouts like Tom Greenwade used to specialize in locating talent and signing them to the Bronx Bombers before other teams were aware these players existed. Suddenly the legions of scouts that the Yankees had criss-crossing the country looking for talent now longer had the ability to corner a player and lock him into a deal. Aging already, the Yankees went into an eclipse in the mid-to-late 1960's.
Theory. Typically teams took players in the MLB draft somewhat equally from college and high school and simply selected the players their scouts rated as the best. Scouts typically would give high ratings to high school players because they were more raw in terms of their talent and were the subject of more speculation. Speculation that oftentimes would prove erroneous. The proliferation over the last decade of sabremetric analysis in the game as well as the internet as turned the draft philosophies on its head. Bill James wrote in his 1988 Baseball Abstract: "Of all the studies I have done over the last twelve years, what have I learned? ... [After listing four things, James lists as the fifth:] Players taken in the June draft coming out of college (or with at least two years of college) perform dramatically better than players drafted out of high school." The ten points listed by James, of which the foregoing was number five, became known as A Bill James Primer.
The split between the sabremetric pundits and the baseball establishment over high schoolers vs. college players continued into the 1990's and 2000's. In the book Moneyball, author Michael Lewis spends a lot of time dissecting the Oakland A's draft in 2002 for many reasons. The '02 Draft showcases the A's approach to the game in a nutshell: their focus on stats over scouting, their focus on proven college talent over speculative high school talent, their obsession with keeping their costs reasonable. The experience and failure of Billy Beane the ballplayer, the talented high schooler from San Diego taken in the first round of the 1980 Draft, is what drives Billy Beane the A's General Manager.
Beane was a bust as a player because he was an unproven talent who could, in the eyes of scouts, be molded into a big leaguer. The scouts who saw Billy Beane play saw Billy Beane as the next Mickey Mantle. Billy Beane the General Manager has no interest or confidence in the capacity of minor league instructors to mold players or try and make them something they are not. Billy Beane wants proven talent, which is why the '02 A's took college players exclusively and took players that other teams took a pass on. Perhaps things didn't work out with Jeremy Brown, the much maligned catcher the A's took from the University of Alabama in the first round, in the minor leagues, but the A's success from 1999 to now otherwise underscores why the A's are such a successful franchise despite owning one of the smallest payrolls in the game. Author Michael Lewis wrote about the A's preparation for the 2002 Draft:
Billy [Beane] had his own idea about where to find future major league baseball players: inside [the computer of] Paul [DePodesta, then-Assistant General Manager] ... He'd flirted with the idea of firing all of the scouts and just drafting kids straight from Paul's laptop. The Internet now served up just about every statistic you could want about every college player in the country ... From Paul's point of view, that was the great thing about college players: they had meaningful stats. They played a lot more games, against stiffer competition, than high school players. The sample size of their relevant statistics was larger, and therefore a more accurate reflection of some underlying reality. You could project college players with greater certainty than you could project high school players. The statistics enabled you to find your way past all sorts of sight-based scouting prejudices ...Moneyball, pages 37-38.
So what is the actual evidence for college superiority? According to Baseball Between the Numbers (see, Table 7-1.1 on page 237), College players are much, much more likely to make it to the majors than high schoolers. The percentage of high-school players drafted between 1984-1991 who made the majors was just 41%. In that same time period, 60% of college players drafted made the majors. Amongst high schoolers drafted between 1992-1999, 39% made the majors. About 57% of college players during that same time period made the big leagues. So College players are roughly 50% more likely to make the majors than a high schooler, which validates the A's belief in drafting college players. The A's need to develop talent from their farm system and cannot afford to have their draft picks come up short.
According to Baseball Between the Numbers (I am referencing Chapter 7.1, "What Happened to Todd Van Poppel?" by Dayn Perry, in this post, by the way), "High school pitchers remain the riskiest selections in the first round [of the Draft]. This is mostly because, unlike college hurlers, they haven't made it through the 'injury nexus'." That is partly why high schoolers are such a risky bet for big league teams to take.
Now, at this point, I ought to note that not every team follows the A's focus. The Anaheim Angels, for example, focus aggressively on taking high school talent and developing it. With their deep pockets and focus on small ball, the Angels are almost like baseball's Anti-A's. And the Angels have been successful in developing talent on their farm system, so there is a powerful counter-argument to be made that high schoolers are a good bet too: you get to shape and mold their development and you get to bring them aboard before they get into college and possibly suffer injuries. For teams with large payrolls, high schoolers are a good bet.
So that's basically where the draft comes from and what some of the theories about it are.
The Phillies position on Draft Day. The Phillies own the 24th, 34th, 51st, 71st, 102nd and 109th picks in the draft, or 6 of the top 109 picks. Why so many? The Phillies were given supplemental first and third round picks (#34 and #109 respectively) for losing Aaron Rowand to free-agency and failing to sign Brandon Workman, the Phillies third-round pick in the '07 draft. The supplemental picks, particularly the first-rounder, will pay huge dividends to the Phillies in the long run and will confirm the team's wisdom of not sacrificing draft picks to re-sign pricey free agents. As James wrote in the '88 Baseball Abstract: "The chance of getting a good player with a high draft pick is substantial enough that is clearly a disastrous strategy to give up a first-round draft pick to sign a player like Rick Dempsey, Pete Falcone, or Bill Stein." (This is #6 in the 10 points to the Bill James Primer.)
The Phillies ought to be able to leverage their large number of draft picks into a few talented players. Who will they pick?
Phillies Draft History. The Phillies have shown a real focus on pitchers recently. Four of their last five first-round draft choices have been pitchers.
First Round Picks
2007: Joe Savery, LHP
2006: Kyle Drabek, RHP
2005: No Pick (Took 3B Mike Costanzo in 2nd Round)
2004: Greg Golson, OF
2003: No Pick (Took 2B Tim Moss in 3rd Round)
2002: Cole Hamels, LHP
2001: Gavin Floyd, RHP
2000: Chase Utley, 2B
1999: Brett Myers, RHP
1998: Pat Burrell, 1B
1997: J.D. Drew, OF
1996: Adam Eaton, RHP
Take notice of the success the Phillies have generally had too: every one of those 1st rounders taken between '96 and '02 have made the majors and, aside from J.D. Drew, is or has been on the Phillies roster.
Winding their way right now through the Phillies system is a slew of great pitching talent: John Outman, Carlos Carrasco, Savery, Drabek, Drew Carpenter. The future is bright for the Phillies pitching staff as Outman and Carrasco (and possibly Savery) might be in the rotation in 2009 to supplement Hamels and Myers, two other former first-round picks.
The Phillies most recent draft does suggest, however, that the team might be moving back towards an emphasis on position players. The Phillies took position players with five of the six picks they had following their selection of Savery with the 19th overall pick. They selected seven pitchers in a row in rounds 7-13, but their focus was clearly on the position players.
It is difficult to predict who the Phillies will take in the draft, but I have heard a lot about the Phillies being interested in Anthony Hewitt, a talented high school shortstop from Connecticut. He is the name that keeps popping up in discussions with the Phillies. I tend to think that the Phillies will take a position player with their first round pick for the first time since they took Greg Golson in '04.
Misc. Points: This will be the final draft Pat Gillick oversees as the Phillies G.M. You have to wonder how much imput he'll have and how much imput someone like Assistant G.M. Reuben Amaro, who is Gillick's likely heir apparant, will have on the team.
I'll post some more thoughts tomorrow and Thursday, but I thought that I might put a few things out there now ...
Labels: Carrasco, Drabek, Golson, Hamels, MLB Draft, Myers, Outman, Savery
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, 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 01, 2007
Spotlight on Kyle Drabek
The Phillies season kicked off … sort of … with the Phillies 12-4 victory over the Florida State Seminoles. The game was clearly exhibition for the Phillies, who hammered the young Seminoles with a home run by Chase Utley and timely hits by Pat Burrell. Hey, Ryan Howard scored from first base on one of Burrell's doubles!
Today the Phillies face-off with the Detroit Tigers, last year’s miracle team and near-champions.
On the mound for the Phillies last night was Kyle Drabek, who surrendered a lead-off home run to the Seminoles before settling down. While Drabek struggled a little against the Seminoles at various points, try to remember that Drabek is actually younger than some of the Seminoles.
Drabek was one of the Phillies two first-round picks in the 2006 draft. Just eighteen years old (nineteen now), the Woodlands High School graduate and son of former Major Leaguer Doug Drabek was the Phillies first pick, just a few spots ahead of Shortstop Adrian Cardenas. Baseball America evaluated Drabek this way:
Intrigued, the Phillies brought Drabek aboard, continuing a trend the team has had in recent years of stockpiling pitchers in the draft. Baseball America rates seven pitchers amongst the Phillies top ten prospects, including five of the top six. Drabek rates as the Phillies second-best prospect, right after Lakewood hurler Carlos Carrasco.
After being picked the Phillies sent Drabek to the Gulf Coast League (GCL) to play with the Phillies rookie team down in Clearwater. Drabek started six games for the GCL Phillies, going 1-3 with a 7.71 ERA. Here is a brief summary of his six starts:
July 15: Minor-League debut. Loss. Threw one inning and surrendered three earned runs on four hits and a walk. Struck one batter out.
July 22: No-decision. Threw four innings and struck out two. Walked four batters and allowed four hits on his way to surrendering five earned runs.
August 1: Loss. Threw five innings and gave up four runs on seven hits. Got two strike-outs and didn’t allow a walk.
August 7: Win. Went five innings and didn’t surrender a run. Scattered just three hits and a walk while striking out five batters.
August 12: Loss. Drabek made his sole road start of the season. Went just three and a third innings, allowing a whopping eight runs on ten hits and two walks. Also allowed the only two home runs for the season in the third inning. Drabek struck-out just two batters.
August 17: No-decision. Drabek allowed no earned runs and scattered five hits and three walks in five innings of work, striking two batters out. While Drabek didn’t allow a run, he did allow eight base-runners in just five innings, too high a percentage to be successful in the long-run.
I actually have confidence in Drabek’s long-term development as a player. In 2006 he allowed 70 balls to be put into play, thirty-five of which were groundballs, twenty-three were fly-balls, ten were line-drives and two were pop flies. The average Phillie and the average Major Leaguer had 44% of the balls put into play be grounders, while Drabek put 50% into play as grounders, a massive benefit for the team given that Citizens Bank Ballpark is so unfriendly to flyball pitchers. Phillies pitchers allowed 21% of the balls put into play to be Line-Drives, of which approximately 3/4 fall for hits. Drabek allowed just 14% of his balls put into play to be Line-Drives. What these stats tell me is that Drabek was done in, partly, by bad defense. The Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER) that the GCL Phillies posted behind Drabek was just .586, an absurdly terrible percentage that won’t be repeated in 2007. The GCL Phillies played terrible baseball behind Drabek and he’ll enjoy better defense in the future. As long as Drabek can improve upon his control, the quality of the defense behind him will catch up. Tellingly, the Phillies allowed four unearned runs when Drabek pitched, for a 1.54 UERA.
Check out the differences between Drabek and the rest of the GCL:
Drabek / GCL
HR/9: 0.77 / 0.34
BB/9: 4.24 / 3.26
K/9: 5.40 / 7.57
K/BB: 1.27 / 2.32
Control, allowing too many cheap base runners, was Drabek’s problem in 2006. Once he fixes those issues he’ll turn into a good pitcher. More tomorrow!
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Today the Phillies face-off with the Detroit Tigers, last year’s miracle team and near-champions.
On the mound for the Phillies last night was Kyle Drabek, who surrendered a lead-off home run to the Seminoles before settling down. While Drabek struggled a little against the Seminoles at various points, try to remember that Drabek is actually younger than some of the Seminoles.
Drabek was one of the Phillies two first-round picks in the 2006 draft. Just eighteen years old (nineteen now), the Woodlands High School graduate and son of former Major Leaguer Doug Drabek was the Phillies first pick, just a few spots ahead of Shortstop Adrian Cardenas. Baseball America evaluated Drabek this way:
There may not be a more gifted player than Drabek in this draft, but he also comes with makeup concerns. On the mound, he shows better stuff than his father, former Cy Young Award winner Doug. Though he's 5-foot-11, he has the arm speed
to deliver 94-95 mph fastballs and top out at 97. His best pitch may be his 78-82 mph spike curveball, which is all but unhittable. The lone knock on the pitch is that he relies on it too much. "He has as good an arm as anyone," an American League scouting director said. "When his fastball and curve are on, he
has the best two-pitch combination in the draft." Drabek has a decent slider and feel for a changeup, though he rarely needs to use either at this point. He finishes a bit upright in his delivery, but his mechanics are otherwise sound and the ball comes out of his hand easily. He could also make a case for being the best high school position player in the draft, as he's a comparable hitter to New Jersey's Bill Rowell and would have a better shot at playing shortstop as a pro. Yet some teams are backing away from Drabek. He's high-strung on the field, and there are off-field issues as well, but he'll still go in the middle of the first round.
Intrigued, the Phillies brought Drabek aboard, continuing a trend the team has had in recent years of stockpiling pitchers in the draft. Baseball America rates seven pitchers amongst the Phillies top ten prospects, including five of the top six. Drabek rates as the Phillies second-best prospect, right after Lakewood hurler Carlos Carrasco.
After being picked the Phillies sent Drabek to the Gulf Coast League (GCL) to play with the Phillies rookie team down in Clearwater. Drabek started six games for the GCL Phillies, going 1-3 with a 7.71 ERA. Here is a brief summary of his six starts:
July 15: Minor-League debut. Loss. Threw one inning and surrendered three earned runs on four hits and a walk. Struck one batter out.
July 22: No-decision. Threw four innings and struck out two. Walked four batters and allowed four hits on his way to surrendering five earned runs.
August 1: Loss. Threw five innings and gave up four runs on seven hits. Got two strike-outs and didn’t allow a walk.
August 7: Win. Went five innings and didn’t surrender a run. Scattered just three hits and a walk while striking out five batters.
August 12: Loss. Drabek made his sole road start of the season. Went just three and a third innings, allowing a whopping eight runs on ten hits and two walks. Also allowed the only two home runs for the season in the third inning. Drabek struck-out just two batters.
August 17: No-decision. Drabek allowed no earned runs and scattered five hits and three walks in five innings of work, striking two batters out. While Drabek didn’t allow a run, he did allow eight base-runners in just five innings, too high a percentage to be successful in the long-run.
I actually have confidence in Drabek’s long-term development as a player. In 2006 he allowed 70 balls to be put into play, thirty-five of which were groundballs, twenty-three were fly-balls, ten were line-drives and two were pop flies. The average Phillie and the average Major Leaguer had 44% of the balls put into play be grounders, while Drabek put 50% into play as grounders, a massive benefit for the team given that Citizens Bank Ballpark is so unfriendly to flyball pitchers. Phillies pitchers allowed 21% of the balls put into play to be Line-Drives, of which approximately 3/4 fall for hits. Drabek allowed just 14% of his balls put into play to be Line-Drives. What these stats tell me is that Drabek was done in, partly, by bad defense. The Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER) that the GCL Phillies posted behind Drabek was just .586, an absurdly terrible percentage that won’t be repeated in 2007. The GCL Phillies played terrible baseball behind Drabek and he’ll enjoy better defense in the future. As long as Drabek can improve upon his control, the quality of the defense behind him will catch up. Tellingly, the Phillies allowed four unearned runs when Drabek pitched, for a 1.54 UERA.
Check out the differences between Drabek and the rest of the GCL:
Drabek / GCL
HR/9: 0.77 / 0.34
BB/9: 4.24 / 3.26
K/9: 5.40 / 7.57
K/BB: 1.27 / 2.32
Control, allowing too many cheap base runners, was Drabek’s problem in 2006. Once he fixes those issues he’ll turn into a good pitcher. More tomorrow!
Labels: Drabek, Minors, Pitching
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Phillies Baseball Begins
The Phillies play the Florida State Seminoles today. Yesterday the young Marlins beat the University of Miami Hurricans 12-7, so the Phillies had better triumph against the Seminoles or there will be a lot of tongue wagging about the new and improved Phillies. Most interesting to be is the fact that the Phillies have Kyle Drabek, their first choice in the draft going for them. I am eager to see if Drabek will improve on his showing from his performance in the Gulf Coast League. This could be a big moment for Drabek.
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Labels: Drabek, Pitching, Spring Training
