2024-2025 Winter Ball - Arizona, Latin America, Australia, etc

[andyb]

Almost time to start talking winter ball. Arizona schedules announced below. Phillies players are with Glendale this year.

Arizona Fall League Announces 2024 Schedule, Teams

Also Steve Potter reporting that another contingent will be going to Australia this year (Adelaide). There will also be an international tournament in November called the Premier 12 where a number of Phillies minor leaguers have been invited.

9/5/24 : Just Sayin

[Austinfan]

Adelaide is a good idea, the lower minor leaguers struggle to get PT in winter ball, so this gives them a chance to hit the FIL then got to Australia and get another 30? games under their belt.

The higher level guys do AFL and some cases winter ball.

[Taudawg]

Today feels like a good day for Arizona Fall League rosters to be announced

[Squire]

Our AFL participants are:

Bryan Rincon, SS
Gabriel Rincones, OF
Wen Hui Pan, RHP
Griff McGarry, RHP
Christian McGowan, RHP
Otto Kemp, 2B/3B
Jordan Dissin, C
Tristan Garrett, LHP
Wesley Moore, LHP

[andyb]

A little surprised to see no Crawford or Miller in Arizona. Participants appear pretty heavy on injury rehab though without Painter.

[Austinfan]

Not sure about Dissin as a prospect, Moore was but really regressed this season.
The others all seem to have upside, even Kemp who's on a "do or die" trajectory at 23.

Ricones is the one to watch for me, struggled for a while but strong season this year, big, can hit with power, seems to have the arm for RF. Castellanos replacement?

[fish]

Participants appear pretty heavy on injury rehab though without Painter.

Maybe discussed in another thread, but did anyone else catch the blurb the other day (I think from Dombrowski?) that “there’s been a lot of talk about Painter going to the AFL but nothing had been decided yet”, which was a revelation because all of their talk was about him not going.

[zambonir]

yeah it was commented on but clearly they stuck to their originally expectation.

[andyb]

The bulk of the Australia participants have not been announced yet, but unsurprisingly NPG has signed for another year.

https://adelaidegiants.com.au/news/nikau-impact/

Steve Potter on Arizona here:

9/25/24 : Arizona Fall League

[andyb]

Arizona starts Monday. Some notes on other leagues here. There is still a possibility that they will get Painter a short appearance or two in Arizona. And the reason Crawford is not there is that he is on Team USA in the Premier 12 tournament.

10/3/24 : Winter League Notes

[Austinfan]

Fall Instructs continue at the Dominican Academy with the six week session scheduled to wrap up by this week’s end - it began in early September. There will be two five week High Performance Camps beginning on 10/13/24 - one at the Dominican Complex and the other at Carpenter Complex in Clearwater. Currently there are 15 players continuing rehab work at Carpenter Complex - they will continue thru at least mid November.

Is this something new?

[andyb]

Over the last few years they have been moving in this direction of having multiple performance camps at various times as opposed to one giant instructional league. Bring in 20-30 players at various intervals instead of 75 at once.

[Austinfan]

It sounds like they do both, the FIL then these performance camps afterward.
Maybe they use FIL to identify what players need to work on, then give them more personalized attention at performance camps?

[andyb]

They call it instructional league because there are still informal games with other clubs, but it is just a more segmented development environment than they had before. Who knows whether it is better, but they now have like 30-40 minor league coaches so they just do more things in the offseason with all that personnel.

[gmwannabe]

painter to pitch on Saturday! hope for the best.

[andyb]

Story on Athletic:

Phillies prospect Andrew Painter to pitch in fall league. What scenarios are in...

20 inning goal is actually a lot for Arizona. Anticipates a half dozen starts or more ramping up to 3-4 innings. Feels like they want to give him a shot to make the team in Spring Training though I'd be fine with a slow ramp-up and a month in the minors starting in May assuming he'd be on an innings limit next year.

More here. Sounds like Dombrowski understands the goal of having Painter available at the end of next season and not just the beginning.
https://www.mlb.com/milb/news/andrew-painter-pitching-in-afl-with-eyes-on-2025-phillies-roster?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage

[Austinfan]

I think he may pitch more than people think.
He's had two years to add strength, especially lower body strength.
So he may be a freak that can throw 98 without maximum effort because of his overall strength.
And as a four pitch pitcher, he doesn't have to rely on pounding the zone with velocity.

[andyb]

I'd be shocked if he pitches more than 100 innings next year. And if he is such a freak, why did he just have TJ surgery? Throwing at high velocity is an unnatural act. The Phillies will be very careful with him next year because of that.

Bonus is an extra year of control if they start him a month late. That is better than one less year of control and shutting him down in September like the Nationals did with Strasburg. There may be little medical evidence about the optimum number of innings after TJ surgery, but the Phillies will be cautious. Arizona is interesting if he does throw 20 innings, though many pitchers on his surgery schedule would have come back for the last month of the minor league season anyway.

[andyb]

I also do not think the timing is a coincidence with the chance at getting continued rehab work at the Phillies complex about to take a real blow. This was always a possibility, but doing it now vs a week or two might be storm related.

— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) October 7, 2024

[Austinfan]

He'll be 2 years past surgery this summer, so it's not like he had it in January 2024 and is a little past one season.
While you want to be cautious, most pitchers that far from surgery aren't that vulnerable.

And it does matter how he develops velocity, some pitchers are "maximum effort" and put more stress on their arm, Painter may end up more like Wheeler, who has almost "effortless" velocity. I think some of this is mechanics where a big pitcher can use their legs and body as well as their arm to create velocity.

While I don't see him throwing 180 innings, I think he can go past 100 if it's spaced out with recovery time.
Once a week or so (i.e. skip him when there are off-days) would be around 20-25 starts at 5-6 IP.