Summary from yesterday's games. Carlos De La Cruz going deep!
If you watched today’s game, it was a Phillies minor league game! None of the big boys made the trip.
I did not watch today - using the warm Virginia day to do some outdoor things on the last day of my "Spring Break". Hoping to watch tomorrow since free on MLB, but more likely to be a big boy day at least initially. Thanks for thinking of me!
20 yr old Oswald Medina
https://twitter.com/therealdb35/status/1506286978853179402?s=2135
10:1 K:BB ratio in the DSL last season, although at 19 he could have been stateside. He started 14 games, but young pitchers only pitch about 4 innings per start in the DSL. Impressive movement on his pitches, only 6 walks in his 58 IP.
Should keep an eye on him this season! Gotta stay healthy with the increased workload most pitchers have in the stateside leagues.
Kind of a mini Jake Arrieta with the cross body delivery giving him lots of movement. Not a big guy and it does not look like he throws especially hard, but maybe he has some potential as a Pat Neshek type reliever.
Medina was one of the older DSL prospects the Phillies had last year. Fangraphs reported his fastball was around 88 last year with good slider and changeup movement. He has projection and put up 6 walks to 65 strikeouts 2https://t.co/W79M2hKzgH2
— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) March 23, 2022
Some fairly significant minor league releases in the last couple of weeks:
Released: RHP Yoan Antonac | RHP Ji Tae Lee | LHP Manuel Silva | LHP Jaylen Smith | C Juan Aparicio | OF Ben Pelletier
Aparicio and Pelletier had their moments over the years but never could take that next step forward at higher levels.
It's partly the impact of the new limits on players under control. But, to be fair, this is his 6th season in the organization and he will be 22, which is old for a LA player who would likely have started in Jersey Shore. His hitting hasn't been great and the team probably isn't rating him highly defensively. He didn't make BA's top 40. Neither did Pelletier. A 6 years ago $450K bonus suggests another scouting misevaluation, although those aren't infrequent with young LA players.
"Kingery fell into the temptations of the longball in recent seasons and his strikeouts soared. He has spent time working on some swing changes with the Phillies staff and new hitting coach Kevin Long. He believes his swing path is in a good place as he heads off to minor-league camp."
“Kevin has a really good understanding of looking at your swing and helping right away,” Kingery said.
He added that his swing path is “clearing itself up because he’s getting into a good attack position and driving his front leg down and through,” instead of trying to lift the ball.
“The goal is hard contact, line drives, gap-to-gap, and if I catch it in front, it’ll go in the air,” he said.
Gee, maybe they shouldn't have tried to turn everyone into a power hitter with the angle swing?
As we've read repeatedly, he pursued that on his own with a private swing coach. Partly because he felt pressure to live up to his contract.
And let's also be clear, BASEBALL turned everyone into power hitters by making the ball more lively and the parks smaller among other changes. There is no mystery why launch angle became a thing - it is because home runs became easier to hit and along with the uptick in walks, became more productive for teams to teach their players to become better home run hitters.
Do we really want to say that launch angle was a bad idea for other middle infielders like Jose Altuve and Francisco Lindor and Robinson Cano and DJ LeMahieu? Maybe Kingery went too far into buying into launch angle, but maybe we step back and see he never really learned the strike zone adequately. As Z said, this was as much Kingery as the Phillies. And nobody should really blame Kingery when middle infielders were suddenly expected to all hit 20 home runs.
It is mostly that HR = $$ both for the teams (ticket sales, merchandise, TV etc.), and the players in bigger contracts
Yes it was dollars that fed that, but the point I was making was that taking guys like Kingery and have them hit more home runs was a good analytics strategy. The Phillies did not encourage Kingery to hit more home runs to make money. They did it (or Kingery did it) to win more games because it was easier to hit home runs.
In Kingery's case he also did it to himself, thinking that's what he had to do to live up to his contract and become a starting 2B. Remember, before COVID, the Phillies were prepared to move Segura to 3B (and in fact, did, with Kingery starting 25 games of that 60-game season) and maybe even trade him if Kingery locked down the position once Bohm arrived. It was only after (and during) that miserable 2020 that Kingery was shuffled back to utility/longshot CF and Segura showed he belonged at 2B.
Nothing should ever be one-size fits all whether it is hitting approaches or analytics vs. eye test. But if a data-driven front office takes 20 players and emphasizes launch angle and HRs above all else in the current game they will probably have the most success. With the Phillies it's not about teaching the wrong things so much as not teaching the right things well (or perhaps correctly). Seems unlikely Long's approach is different from his predecessor/former assistant; he's just better at communication and teaching (we hope). I imagine the new assistant pitching coach/minor league coordinator is probably not all that different from Chris Young either; but Chris Young never should have had the top job.
It's the one size fits all approach that is flawed.
Slower players that will struggle to put up good BABIP and clog the basepaths are probably helped by the launch angle approach, sacrifice some BA for more SA.
Faster players that don't have the build to consistently reach the seats are better served by developing gap power and a more level swing, higher contact rates.
Slow players that don't have the power to consistently reach the seats are called "career minor leaguers" unless they're good defensive catchers.
Some more releases sprinkled in with the previously announced ones.
#Phillies have released the following minor league players:
— MiLB-Transactions ( @tombaseball29 ) March 29, 2022
RHP Dylan Castaneda
RHP Jose Ulloa
RHP Yoan Antonac
RHP Ji Tae Lee
LHP Manuel Silva
LHP Jaylen Smith
C Juan Aparicio
1B Joe Genord
OF Ben Pelletier
Also released, LHP Tyler Adams, IF Guarner Dipre, IF Edgar Made
— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) March 29, 2022
My understanding is Kingery did this on his own, the Phillies did not stop him, but it was not their idea. Was his motivation to win more games for the Phillies? Perhaps to some degree, but I find it more likely that he was trying to establish his career as a player and show the Phillies he was worth the contract they gave him, but also the future contract he was hoping to get later.
He and his handlers knew that HR would make his case compelling that he could leverage to stay in the majors, become a starting position player and get paid accordingly.
I would also argue that for some players launch angle and other analytics driven approaches can really help build their value and earn more money, but for some players, like Kingery, I think it has really hurt his chances and demonstrated a misunderstanding of what made him a valuable player in the first place and a pretty obvious drive, pun intended, to shortcut the development process and make him a power hitter that he never was before.