2024 Phillies Minor League (Spring/Season) Discussion

andyb 2024-04-01 21:19:30 UTC #81

Rincon will likely get the majority of the starts there. He mostly pushed Bergolla to 2B last year and even in the prospect game this Spring he pushed Caba to 2B. I think they see Rincon as the best defensive shortstop of the bunch now though Caba has the potential to be just as good there or better.

Miller probably does not stay there too long I imagine so there would still be plenty of playing time at SS for Caba if they are both at Clearwater. Or Miller plays most of the first couple of months there and they work Caba in after some time at FCL.

phillychuck 2024-04-01 21:20:38 UTC #82

It is still really hard to hit in "Shore Town". It's pretty challenging to read the stats from there realistically. There are lots of position players on theat roster who have pedigree and potential. It would be nice to see them succeed.

With Boyd, Rincon, and Crawford (and Fergus and Schreffler to some extent), they could play small speedy ball, but they can't afford to lose baserunners on caught-stealing plays.

phillychuck 2024-04-01 23:29:12 UTC #83

We need some speculation on the Clearwater roster -- mostly the FCL guys with a few jumpers from the DSL like Tait I suspect. Tait is the only one I can predict. Might be a few repeaters, too.

C--Tait, Mendez, Sosa
IF--Saltiban, Kotowski, Soto, Gonzalez, Martinez, Helmig (1B/LF), Penner, Caba?, Miller?
OF--Heredia, Tonkel, Torres, Flores, Walton, Rosario, Viars

P--Segura, Castillo, Graves, Pena, Mejilla, Ventura, Gomez, Fuenmayor, Teran, Collins, ???

Squire 2024-04-02 14:18:20 UTC #84

Clearwater Roster:

https://www.milb.com/clearwater/roster

andyb 2024-04-02 14:29:31 UTC #85

Definitely a more interesting roster. Forgot about NPG in the infield too. Between Miller and Saltiban and him it is likely someone gets promoted to Jersey Shore by June or July to hopefully clear some space for Caba.

Pitching is more interesting though not super laden with prospects. Curious to see Ottenbreit this year now that he is a year clear of TJ surgery. Graves and Pena were always interesting HS projectable arms too.

phillychuck 2024-04-02 14:41:19 UTC #86

Wow..I did pretty badly. 0/3 on catchers with Albrect and Hettiger getting the nods. Mendez and Sosa had the most catcher ABs in the FCL last year and didn't move up. The high school guy and the Juco guy beat them out.

I forgot about NPG in the infield, too. Saltiban, NPG and Miller are a prospect-laden group. Anthony did very well in the FCL last season...don't know how I missed him.

Heredia, Kotowski, and Walton are OF prospects, with Viars getting one last chance (I guess) and Owusu-Asiedu rounding out the group. Don't know where Tonkel is.

Outside of Graves and Pena my list of possible pitchers are all not on the roster (and many were innings leaders in FCL last season). I should have remembered Ottenbreit.

This should be a really fun team to follow. I hope Tait shows up here soon. It seems like a lot of the Latin players who got most of the innings in FCL last year did not advance.

julio 2024-04-02 14:52:44 UTC #87

Gavin Tonkel was released on March 27th.

phillychuck 2024-04-02 15:03:26 UTC #88

Ah, didn't see it. I liked him, at least somewhat, as a prospect based on his game results. Phils know way more about guys at this level than we do, though!

Austinfan 2024-04-02 15:14:38 UTC #89

Seems they're being conservative with promotions, but I think at Clearwater down, it's a matter of how much time they want kids to have with instruction v playing games. Right now they can spend a lot of time with prospects, after the draft when new players come in, they may then aggressively promote and clear the board for the next group.

The other factor is a 1-2 year "hole" where the roster limits stateside slow the promotion of DSL players and thus players available for GCL and Clearwater this year . As DSL players get an extra year, they will be in "up or out" mode, with more time to evaluate, the ones sent stateside will be promoted more aggressively.

Matt_Winkelman 2024-04-02 15:30:44 UTC #90

Sosa was also released. Kotowski is 1B/DH.

I expect Klassen to join the Threshers, it is possible he isn't pitching in the first 3 games (sort of like Abel with AAA). With the FCL starting in May, I would not expect to see Tait with the Threshers until after that season ends (same with Caba). Essentially all the pitchers moved up except Enrique Segura who just turned 19. They will definitely be adding pitchers from the DSL for the FCL season.

andyb 2024-04-02 15:58:40 UTC #91

Klassen will definitely be interesting to watch as he has shown some really good stuff in the minor league Spring games. McGowan is another of our better pitching prospects not yet assigned. Assume there is some fluidity to the rosters as we rotate starters through tandem starts and have a slightly larger effective roster than the one named initially. Guessing there is less of that this year though with the lower roster limit. 165 actually does not allow for much of a reserve/developmental list at each level compared to last season, especially with 5 rosters going at once earlier in the season.

More on Clearwater here:

andyb 2024-04-02 16:30:26 UTC #92

My Top 53 prospects by Opening Day assignments.
MLB: 1
AAA: 5
AA: 9
A+: 13
A-: 14
FCL: 9
DSL: 1
DFA: 1
— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) April 2, 2024

Interesting breakdown here that shows how bottom heavy the system is. Assume we discount the DSL count because those prospects are mostly unknown and have not played much if at all. Usually we see a larger count of prospects at FCL though we might be pushing a few more to A ball than typical.

RTaylor 2024-04-02 16:32:41 UTC #93

Ethan Wilson hasn't been assigned yet, or maybe is among the players assigned "to the organization."

Squire 2024-04-02 16:41:03 UTC #94

I honestly do not remember seeing his name mentioned in one minor league game round up. I presume he is injured.

Austinfan 2024-04-02 16:45:41 UTC #95

Do guys on 60 day disabled list count against the 165 limit?

andyb 2024-04-02 16:49:37 UTC #96

Teams are allowed 10 players on long term IL that do not count on the 165. I believe we used all 10 slots in late March. Beyond that it is just bad luck for teams unfortunately. If they did not limit the slots teams would abuse it.

phillychuck 2024-04-02 17:21:25 UTC #97

Matt, the initial CLW roster has Kotowski listed as under the outfielders...are they possibly trying him in LF? They also have Luis Caicuto, a pick-up from the D-Backs org in the rule 5 draft (minor league portion) , listed as a DH only. He seems to be a deep-back-up catcher.

andyb 2024-04-02 17:26:52 UTC #98

If I remember Caicuto correctly he was the guy that was really good in the Arizona Complex League a couple of years ago but struggled with injuries last year.and was not protected in the minor league rule 5. Offensive oriented catcher but still definitely a catcher.

Just turned 21 and never played in the DSL so really not that experienced for a young player in Low A ball.

Matt_Winkelman 2024-04-02 17:56:36 UTC #99

The positions are old and just carryover, the Clearwater graphic has Caicuto as a catcher and Kotowski as an infielder.

Looks like no one was put on the non-60 day IL for the rosters so any minor injury was assigned to FCL as well as guys still ramping up.

On the DSL side, I don't rank just signed players which keeps the numbers down preseason, the last guy ranked but not promoted from last year was Angel Liranzo who is a 17 year old throwing in the high 80s, but good command and feel (sort of a Ranger Suarez starter kit) and was expected to repeat.

andyb 2024-04-02 18:11:08 UTC #100

Not saying you should rank the DSL guys as there really isn't much to go on. Just noting the count of the players there is artificially low because of that. There are almost certainly a half dozen players down there if not more that would belong in a top 50 if we had the info to rank them properly. Now especially with most signees expected to play 2 or 3 years down there rather than 1 (the real prospects used to get promoted quickly to get them to the better training facilities in Clearwater), there are just going to be more hard to place prospects in the DSL.

I kind of expect the DSL to go to 2 levels at some point since most organizations have 2 teams there. A rookie and rookie-advanced set of levels would probably provide a better experience for the older players and make them a bit easier to rank.