2022 Phillies Spring Training

[Austinfan]

Tortolero got a $450K bonus.

[nycphils]

Klentak! (shakes fist)

[julio]

Klentak! (shakes fist)

If you expect every high draftee, or every major international amateur signing, to work out, you will always be disappointed with the GM and/or the draft director. None of them get it right all the time.

[Austinfan]

I'd at least like to see them flash something in A ball.
It's more understandable when they burn out in AA b/c they can't hit a good slider.

[nycphils]

Good lord. No kidding. You are so patronizing.

[Sabin]

Good lord. No kidding. You are so patronizing.

Julio with a patronizing tone? Surely you jest.

[bkeich]

Yes, but occasionally would be nice.

Last draft pick to play well? Nola? Am I missing someone? Bohm is of course still in the mix, Stott and the picks after him are hopeful. Kingery, umm, no.

Last international signing? Well, there have been relievers, so Neris is the obvious answer to me, but other than relievers? Ummm, Ruiz?

[andyb]

You are always going to have higher rates of failures from prospects you sign at age 16 versus 18 versus 21. From all reports Tortolero was a pretty good fielder at the middle infield positions but just never hit. At that signing bonus level in Latin America we were probably signing him for the fielding tools and hoping he could learn to hit.

To get a good fielding middle infielder who can hit the bonuses tend to be much larger (as in Luis Garcia and William Bergolla and hopefully Jesus Caba). That does not mean it is not a disappointment when a midlevel bonus guy does not pan out. I am more worried about the overall track record as opposed to what level they get to. We do want to see 10%-20% of our midlevel bonus guys make the majors. We are not excelling on that of late either unfortunately.

[Austinfan]

A mid-level signing should be able to hit FBs. It's the breaking ball that ends the career of most hitters.
If you can hit FBs, you usually look good at the A ball level. So it's not a good sign for scouting if he couldn't show any hit tool at lower minor league levels by 21.

[julio]

That does not mean it is not a disappointment when a midlevel bonus guy does not pan out.

Well of course it's a disappointment - but it's the kind of disappointment that we have to expect, and accept (at some level). It's a disappointment when Rhys Hoskins strikes out with men in scoring position - but it's an inevitable part of the game. Signing 16 (or18, or 21) year old kids who don't develop as projected is also a disappointment - but it's also something that we have to expect, because we know that most of the kids the Phillies (or any club) sign will not develop into major-leaguers.

What irks me, I guess, is what seems the knee-jerk "blame it on Klentak" that has become prevalent around here. Jose Tortolero was signed in July 2016. Klentak was the GM then (he'd been in the job about 9 months), Johnny Almaraz was the scouting director, Sal Agostinelli was the chief latin scout.

But the commitment to Tortolero (to his buscone) would have been made 1-2 years before the July 2016 signing window (yeah, it's agin' the rules, but it's the reality). Ruben Amaro was the GM when that commitment was made; Almaraz took the scouting job in 2015; before that, it was Marty Wolever. Agostinelli was in the same position throughout. Klentak wasn't on a Phillies payroll.

Realistically, Klentak would have had little or no influence on the Tortolero signing. But Klentak has become the whipping boy, so Klentak gets the abuse. I mean, overall, Klentak did not succeed as the Phillies' GM. But because of that, we blame him for things that, objectively, he had little or no control over? Because it's easier to have a scapegoat? It just rubs me wrong.

[allentown]

This excuse is trotted out over and over again. I don't think you're doing this here, but it generally is in defense of the Phillies' profound failures in scouting and player development. Of course some mid-level signees will fail (although, in fairness this bonus back then was more than mid-level). But... almost all of our international signees failed. This one was more dramatic as he never gave a hint that he could possibly hit. Hitting is the toughest skill. To sign players who can't hit for big money, in the hopes that we can teach them to hit, has been a Phillies philosophical failure for many years. Tortolero was offered as one example of a system that I suspect you would agree was (is?) a failure for many years. Let's not sugar-coat it with bromides about more players fail than succeed. Of course we all know that. We also should all know that the Phillies scouting and development systems have been nearly worst-in-baseball for a period of at least a decade. I hope the corner has been turned and there are some positive signs, but I've heard tales of the light at the end of the tunnel and our superior low minors strength for over a decade. Our international program is a mess. Our development staff doesn't support the scouts. Losing Mead was a problem; a bigger problem was that he always felt he was very low priority for the Phillies development staff.

It's important for fans and media to keep holding the Phillies' brass's feet to the fire until they demonstrate that they have solved the problems with scouting and development. As of today, the results remain dismal. A couple of years will shine a light on whether the current 'turnaround' is for real.

Please don't become like TH, who savaged anyone who spoke the truth about the Phillies' scouting and farm system.

AF is correct in saying that a reasonably big $ LA signing needs to show something in the lower minors. If he doesn't, that is a failure of scouting/development. There are a huge number of plus athletes in the world who cannot play baseball. The Phillies still cling to much to drafting athletes with minimal baseball skills. This harkens back to Hewitt as the first round draftee.

And, admittedly picking the right LA kid at age 15, or even 14, is the hardest job in scouting. Hard, but so many other organizations do it so much better. We compete against the Braves in NL East. They have lapped us multiple times now in developing LA stars. They have All-Stars, we are still staggering around at the level of ineptness where we don't even know the correct age of the kid we give our biggest bonus of the year.

Breich mentions Ruiz as our best (only) success in finding an international position player over the last decade plus. A great signing, but since he was an older guy playing in Mexico, not really an example of success in the international July signing period for 16-year olds. We also had Cesar Hernandez, who is a good July example. He goes all the way back to July 2006,

[bkeich]

I knew I was forgetting some, yes Cesar is certainly a "hit". As Is Hoskins for the drafting path, but still, our success rate is just horrendous. Hopefully the luck swings back the other way soon as it did fit the 2007-11 core.

[phillychuck]

I think Agostinelli gets way too much of a pass in terms of being held responsible for the LA failures. He probably needs to be replaced, but that has to be done carefully, because the obscene relationship is actually more important than scouting in LA for now. If we get a LA draft, that changes.

[andyb]

All I said was Tortolero not making it was a disappointment but not unexpected. Kids with a handful of tools (fielding in his case) get signed with the hope that they develop elsewhere. That is what $450K gets you these days.

I also implied that our success percent with these mid-level bonus guys is not as good as it should be. I just think we are bad at getting the better prospects to sign. I actually think a draft could help us because it takes that whole negotiation with the buscones thing out of play and we are simply not good at that aspect of the process. Tortolero did show that he could field in the minors. He just could not hit as well as guys like Luis Garcia and even Jonathan Guzman. And we drafted Stott who immediately leaped over him on the depth chart. We have had a lot of 4th and 5th round picks from the draft that fail too. Most of them get to a higher level (AA or AAA) but they were drafted usually at age 21 where it is easy to get them to the upper minors rather than starting at age 16 in the DSL.

No excuses for the Phillies, but we need to realize that most $450K bonus prospects in Latin America do not make it. That is part of the reason we really need to hit on our top signing or two each year.

[zambonir]

Pretty sure NYCPhils was being sarcastic with the cartoonish/emoji-like shakes fist.

[allentown]

My comment was addressed to Julio. But to "I also implied that our success percent with these mid-level bonus guys is not as good as it should be, at least with position players", I'll point out that our success rate on both mid-level and primo bonuses has been zero for quite a while. There are guys in the pipeline who may change that trend, but our last true position player success goes way back to Cesar Hernandez in 2006.

Another topic which gets too little consideration: the Phillies have all but given up on the DR, which is the richest of the international markets. Our top bonuses in the 2016 class all went to prospects from VZ. The top bonus, almost $1 MM, went to SS Brayan Gonzalez, who was dropped back in 2019 and never got above Williamsport. Aparicio was cut earlier this year. I think 2B/3B Nicolas Torres is still with the Phillies and put up good # second half at Lakewood last year. SS Raymond Mora and Luiggi Mujica never left DSL, SS Luis Rojas made it to GCL and was released last year. Best position signing was Muzziotti, who had been freed by MLB for the sins of the Red Sox. Those are all of the mid-bonus position players from 2016.

[Austinfan]

The problem is most of these guys never even made it to AA ball.

If you're identifying players with promise, you figure most should make it to AA ball before a fatal flaw is exposed. When they can't even sniff your top 30 list in A ball, you wonder exactly what qualities they had to make it worth paying real money to sign them.

Ortiz was a waste of $4M, but at least he's shown enough to see why you'd gamble on him, just not with that kind of money.

[zambonir]

It's all a bit of a chicken/egg isn't it? Obviously more guys should stick, but when you also factor in that the Phillies have had three different GMs, three different Presidents (if you count Gillick if not Monty), three different scouting directors and three different development directors, not only are you not succeeding and not making it possible to succeed, but each new regime is probably more willing to cut bait more aggressively.

As has been discussed, what's interesting is that Sal has survived every cycle, though I think he has lost power each time (he had to answer to Minnitti under Klentak and now reports to Velandia, whereas I suspect he had a more direct line to the GM, or at least equal footing with the domestic scouting director, before that).

[zambonir]

Phils and Jays tie 2-2 today, game rained out after 6.

As spring training gets close to over I can't help but wonder - we're making an awfully big deal out of the small-sample performances of Stott, Moniak and Bohm (both good and bad), as well as deeming Didi to be on track. That being the case what do we make of Vierling and even Segura having awful springs?

[allentown]

what do we make of Vierling and even Segura having awful springs?

It's hard to say, especially regarding Vierling. If we are talking SSS, then we must admit that his claim to fame was 75 plate appearances with the MLB Phillies. His minor league performance was very mixed: 1.065 OPS in 99 PA at Reading, followed by .690 OPS in 230 PA in Allentown. The positive slant is that the guy is streaky, and that except for a bad 2019 in CLW, he has always had good to excellent OBP. For Segura, the optimistic view is that last year was his best OPS in the past 5 seasons and that this is his age 32 season and that it isn't unheard of for older players to start slowly in ST.