2017 Phillies Top Prospect Lists

Austinfan 2017-01-30 16:48:26 UTC #221

Appel has more risk but more upside than Fisher.

I think they want to get Appel back to his college 2 seamer when he was dominant, Houston had him focus on a 4 seamer which added velocity but was more hittable (see Asher). "With Houston, Appel threw a four seam fastball almost exclusively, and he got almost no natural movement on the pitch. In college he threw a two seam fastball almost exclusively, which added some movement to his arsenal. " He throws the 2 seamer in the low 90s, which would then make a high 4 seamer his show-me pitcher, not his mainstay. The injury last year grounded those plans.

If Appel can spot a 92-94 two seamer knee high and outside, the "money" spots, he can return to #1 starter form. He has the stamina (assuming the elbow thing is a one off), the secondary pitches, just needs a FB he trusts.

With Cozens, Pullin, Quinn, Williams, and Goeddel probably in Lehigh this year, we have OF prospects, what we need are ML OFs. Moniak, Ortiz, Randolph in A ball, what I'd be looking for in a prospect for prospect trade is an OF for Reading.

Squire 2017-01-30 18:28:22 UTC #222

I do think Law is a little overly negative on the system but I think he is right to have Appel up higher. Appel came out of the gates pitching the best of his pro career putting up pretty gaudy numbers in AAA and then got hurt, pitched through an injury and was shut down.

As always I tend to think that these Top 100 lists ALWAYS over-consider ceiling and under-consider performance. The highest that Chase Utley was ever ranked in the BA Top 100 was 91 (I think). I don't think that they ever go back and critically analyze the careers of prior list people and adjust their thinking.

Sure Cozens and have Hoskins have flaws. But they also had 2 of the 5 best age-adjusted seasons in all of Minor League Baseball last year.

andyb 2017-01-30 18:52:37 UTC #223

I guess it would not be unreasonable to think Appel could put together 10 good minor league starts and be up with the big club pretty quickly. The stuff was basically still there. I was a little discouraged about him pitching poorly out of the stretch. Those types of mechanical adjustments really should have been made a long time ago which also might limit his late inning relief potential (which might make sense with his stuff and his lack of ability to hold it deep in games).

andyb 2017-02-05 14:37:14 UTC #224

Last Law post on sleepers, 1 per team: Elneiry Garcia. Not a bad choice since LHPs with some polish and a variety of pitches can succeed and move quickly. Though stuff-wise Garcia is not that far removed from an Adam Morgan type. Law also had him sitting a couple of MPH that what most other scouts had noted so it is possible he just likes Garcia and caught him live on one of his better days.

Austinfan 2017-02-05 17:11:41 UTC #225

My list of breakout prospects:

Garcia - LHP with top stuff
Anderson, 2nd full year after TJ surgery, his stuff is 100% back
Irvin - regained his college velocity, look for him to jump levels
Dyer - think he'll jump some levels this year
Appel - I think the Phillies get that 2 seamer back and he surprises
Ortiz - for a guy with a $4M bonus, he's been under the radar, may have been an overpay, but he held his own at 17 and has ridiculous power potential

andyb 2017-02-08 18:50:15 UTC #226

Fangraphs weighs in:

I think we still need the MLB.com refreshed list but we are nearing the end.

allentown 2017-02-08 21:36:54 UTC #227

Comparing Fangraphs' ratings of our prospects to those in other systems, we see an affirmation of what we thought: we are deep: he lists 33 prospects for us, but we are really low on elite prospects -- only Crawford (60) rated 60 or higher and only a total of 3 guys rated 50. Most of the other rated systems are stronger at the top than we are.

Austinfan 2017-02-08 22:23:13 UTC #228

We may have the deepest system in baseball, but we don't have the sexy guys at the top who get you great ratings.
And because when some of those second tier guys surprise, they'll graduate, and we'll remain a fringe top ten system.

andyb 2017-02-09 17:31:02 UTC #229

Fangraphs seems a pretty fair assessment. The writer knows the Phillies system very well from past work and has been at the front of identifying guys like Kilome and Sanchez in recent years. He might go a little too far in liking some of the shorter LA arms like Medina, but in general it is a well reasoned list.

Law is not wrong in saying that most of our top prospects have disappointed or have a major strike against them. Crawford is seen as slightly less valuable than a year ago. Alfaro has to control the strike zone. Moniak has little power and any HS hitter has a lot to prove. It is very true that some organizations like the Braves and Padres did much more than the Phillies in the past 12 months. Our system ranking probably should be around 10th. Law was too harsh, but star quality is more important than depth. A rebound from Williams would change some of these assumptions, but he is now in a very risky place prospect-wise.

Austinfan 2017-02-09 20:48:49 UTC #230

I'm not sure star quality is worth that much, outside of the top 20 or so, I looked at some of the past BA lists, and when you get past the top 20, odds of success fall off rapidly, which tells me each year there are a few "sure things" at the top, but the "probability of success" curve rapidly flattens out, so whether you have a bunch of guys i50-100 or 100-150 isn't going to make much of a difference.

So I'm happy with depth, you'd want a sure fire star or two, but if you don't have those, better a lot of lottery tickets than a bunch of second tier guys and not much depth behind them.

allentown 2017-02-09 21:26:12 UTC #231

Your fact doesn't suit your argument, even if the fact is correct as you stated it. Our depth guys aren't in the 100-150 range. They're lower than that.

julio 2017-02-09 21:33:46 UTC #232

I don't think "star quality" exists outside the top 20 or so. It's the absence of "star quality" in the top 20 that should be at issue here.

Austinfan 2017-02-09 22:00:03 UTC #233

Julio, think you confusing our top 20 with BA's top 20.
My point was if you look at past BA lists, outside the top 20 the probability of success falls off rapidly.
So whether we have guys ranke 70th or 150th (probably where a couple guys would be) doesn't make that big of a difference.

bigegypt0417 2017-02-10 13:49:39 UTC #234

The problem with that thinking is that the top 20 this year in many instances was made from the 70 to150 ranges from years past.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/2012/2612998.html

Quite a few stars on that list outside of the top 20

Squire 2017-02-10 14:51:23 UTC #235

This is a good list. Agree on all of those guys. I'm also expecting a bounceback year from Cornelius Randolph and a step-forward year from Lucas Williams.

Really can't way to see what the minor league rosters look like. LHV will be loaded. Reading will be less than last year but still at the top of the league. Clearwater should have good pitching but maybe struggle to hit. I think Lakewood is a total wildcard.

FWIW, BA Top 100 comes out today. Pretty sure it will be the same 3 guys (Crawford, Moniak, Alfaro)

andyb 2017-02-10 15:50:37 UTC #236

I don't think I have seen it online yet but just got the Kindle version of Baseball Prospectus 2017 book. They have a top 101.

4. Crawford
33. Alfaro
51. Williams (!!!)
56. Moniak (note that at least 5 draftees rank ahead of him - Senzel, Groome, Pint, Rutherford)
74. Kilome (!!!)
91. Medina (!!!!)

Suffice it to say, they will probably rank our system on the top 5 or 6. I think I stand by my contention that they should have always picked Groome. It is fascinating also to see how Rutherford continues to be ranked highly by everybody. Do the data geeks have age bias which allowed Rutherford to drop even though he should have been picked higher? Or is Rutherford's performance (1000+ OPS in Appy league, not just GCL) overrated because he was 19 instead of 18?

In general I think we had a good draft last year. But it is easy to also argue that it should have been a great draft. Moniak was a relatively weak 1-1 pick. Gowdy was a nice second pick, but one could argue that we overpaid there. Stephen was a nice bonus but really he is more of a Jason Michael 4th OF projection, so not really the potential star quality player we need. Saying Moniak was overdrafted does not mean I don't really like him as a prospect. It is just a realization that Senzel and Groome might be better prospects and we probably knew that before the draft.

Edit (Julio please help!) - the software autocorrected that 1-6 ranking. My post had Crawford 4th, Alfaro (33), Williams (51), Moniak (56), Kilome (74), and Medina (91).

phillychuck 2017-02-10 17:55:57 UTC #237

I made a quick edit that would display the numbers...no time to be subtle right now!

Austinfan 2017-02-10 18:16:50 UTC #238

Moniak is more of a longer term projection, he's not going to look as good in his draft year because he's physically underdeveloped, his upside really is a projection of how he'll fill out and how much power he'll develop because the other tools are there.

bigegypt0417 2017-02-11 06:11:25 UTC #239

4 phillies in tbe BA top 100...

Surprised with sixto sanchez...

andyb 2017-02-11 15:18:47 UTC #240

I don't disagree with that. My point is something you gloss over though. If just about every top 100 list puts 5 other 2016 draftees ahead of Moniak then there seems to be reasonable consensus that Moniak was not the best talent in the draft. Moniak's bonus was $100K less than Senzel ($6.1 million versus $6.2 million), so it is not as if we got a huge discount for drafting Moniak. One can love Moniak as a prospect and still think that he was not the best choice in the draft.