2024 Phillies Minor League (Spring/Season) Discussion

[andyb]

BA on Caba:

Starlyn Caba has been one of the most impressive young players I've seen in spring. Might be a 70 defender at shortstop with good bat-to-ball skills and approach on both sides of the plate. Here's a quick look at the RH swing. #Phillies pic.twitter.com/C3jCKImP3J

— Geoff Pontes ( @GeoffPontesBA ) March 27, 2024

[Squire]

Here is the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs Roster according to Steve Potter

3/29/24 : Lehigh Valley Opening Day roster

[Squire]

Dakota Kotowski with a couple of bombs today.

https://www.milb.com/news/kotowski-crushes-two-homers-in-exhibition-tie

[Austinfan]

Unfortunately, 24 year old college FAs who play 1B have very long odds against them.

[zambonir]

Would still love to know the politics/legality/PR that led to the Phillies honoring their original deal with Garcia.

The Phillies have released OF Gavin Tonkel and OF Yhoswar Garcia. Garcia signed for $2.5M in March 2020 after his signing was delayed by an age discrepancy. He hit .225/.303/.308 in 3 seasons with injuries and ineffectiveness limiting him to 90 games all in A- or FCL.

— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) March 28, 2024

[allentown]

Would still love to know the politics/legality/PR that led to the Phillies honoring their original deal with Garcia.

It was an extremely strange action at the time. It also seemed clear at the time that this would be the end result of this signing. I doubt there is anything legal or baseball/U.S./Latin American politics involved, as teams have walked away from commitments, with zero fault on the player side, because they chose to tie up more pre-16-year olds than they could afford to decide and then chose the ones they still wanted come signing time. These teams paid no penalty. Phillies take a strange approach to PR. Whose posterior was being covered at this multi-million cost. Yhoswar joins the pantheon of inexplicable international bonus deals and domestic draft issues.

In honoring the deal, the Phillies looked like chumps. That can't possibly increase future success. In dealing with sharks, you need to look credibly strong, not like a push-over. Incompetence and focus on the PR side of things is a bad look for an organization which always says it has a burning desire to win.

[Austinfan]

They need to raid organizations that have been successful in LA, obviously the in house people don't have a clue.
Has any million plus bonus LA player made it to the majors for the Phillies over the last decade?

[zambonir]

By politics I just mean, what did the Phillies feel it might cost them with the baseball community or a particular agent there if they walked away or at least renegotiated? Beyond that, the implication is that the Phillies didn't think it was the player or agent's fault (or it was possibly their own mistake) and that they still liked the player just as much. Both of which are somewhat inexplicable, since the fact of his age and value is the same regardless of how it came to pass.

I guess the only scenario that makes sense to me is that the Phillies did try to lower their offer, the player's camp rejected it, and the Phillies couldn't live with losing him even if he never would have gotten that from another team either, because they had no else lined up.

[andyb]

I agree that it was probably politics or relationships with various agents/buscones. Once Garcia was older he probably should have signed for something more in the $300K-$500K range. He had speed and defense, but the power projection for an older player would have been less along with having less time to develop his hit tool (which never happened).

Hopefully the reorganization of the international scouting department (i.e. Sal getting pushed into a more senior role) will help on the negotiation front. Caba seems like a pretty good signing so far, though I am always nervous putting so much of our pool into any single player.

[fish]

They need to raid organizations that have been successful in LA, obviously the in house people don't have a clue.

Garcia signed while Klentak was GM. A lot has changed since then and their signing classes seem to have improved based on outside opinion.

[allentown]

We can only hope. The bottom line remains stark: the next big-bonus LA player signed by the Phillies in the international under-25 phase to succeed with the Phillies will be our first..

[andyb]

Carlos Carrasco got $300K way back in 2003. That certainly would be a million dollar bonus today. Guessing the original bonuses for George Bell and Juan Samuel and Julio Franco were pretty small of course.

The last 15 years has been pretty grim unfortunately for the larger bonus guys.

[Austinfan]

Heck, what bonus babies got to AA ball much less the show?

[allentown]

Carlos Carrasco got $300K way back in 2003

I believe the two Korean pitchers, who combined for $2 million, were of that vintage, making them the big bonus dudes. I'm talking about guys whom they handed about 80% of our international bonus budget. Agree that Carrasco was a large bonus for the time.

[andyb]

Carrasco probably got close to half the money we gave out that year. If I recall it was all small bonuses unless we gave up a draft pick and then we compensated by signing an international player for that perceived bonus slot (which were only suggested back then).

Ortiz is probably the only one to get close to 80% of our allocation. I do worry when someone like Luis Garcia or William Bergolla or even Starlyn Caba gets something in the 40%-60% range though. It just seems we are putting too many eggs into one basket and I never though Garcia or Bergolla projected as being good enough for that level of bonus. They were more $1 million guys than $2 million guys. Hopeful on Caba of course but again I worry if we gave him too much relative to his talent level. He could still be a really good player if he merited only a $1.8 million bonus instead of $3 million.

FWIW I like the bonus strategy this year. One medium high bonus for a guy with a loud power tool. Then spread the rest around in the $100K-$500K range.

[andyb]

Here is the BA prospect article that grew from all that Twitter video. All but the Crawford report behind the paywall.

Spring Training Intel On 12 Phillies, Blue Jays And Rays Prospects — College...

[allentown]

Memory fades, but I thought Encarnacion had above 60% of budget. Together, the 2 Koreans did.
Caba, doing well thus far, got about 65% of 2023 bonus pool.
Bergolla got about 40% of pool in 2022
Flores got about 27% of pool in 2021
Yhoswar got about 52% of 2019 pool

[Austinfan]

You're gonna miss on some of these guys, but ALL of these guys?

And not just miss, but miss big, when a million plus bonus can't even make it out of A ball, your scouts did a lousy job. It's one thing to fail in AA or AAA when you see a steady diet of ML FBs, followed by a steady diet of breaking stuff, but if you can't hit A ball pitching there is something wrong with your vision, your eye to hand coordination or your bat speed.

[zambonir]

It's still not just the scouting. Clearly there was nothing about the development staff, or the support systems in place for these players to start their pro careers, that was optimal. That seems a much more likely factor than the possibility that every scout in the organization got every player wrong in terms of judging basic physical skills/potential.

[andyb]

I think it is the value negotiation as much as the scouting. We are not getting the very top guys in the class who often are worth the money. Then we feel we have to give similar bonuses to guys in the next tier. Bergolla just does not look like a $2 million guy since his SS defense is average at best and he has no power along with average speed. No matter how good his bat to ball skills are, one pays for tools and upside and he just has less of that than the typical $2 million signing.