Some interesting stuff in this piece for sure.
Over the past few years, the organization has made a point of investing more in the academy, with the goal of replicating the team’s facility in Clearwater, Fla. The 70 Phillies minor league players in the Dominican Republic now have three full baseball fields at their disposal, remodeled bullpens, an agility turf field, a plyo wall, and almost the same technology as their counterparts in the United States, with the exception of a pitching lab.
They’ve hired three full-time strength and conditioning coaches to work under Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator Jose Salas, and three-full time staff members on the medical team. They’ve upped player salaries to $225 a week — which assistant director of player development Edwin Soto says ranks at the top of all 30 MLB teams.
“We have to make it a priority,” Soto said. “It’s going to be harder for players to graduate from the Dominican and come here, so we have to invest more in both the staff and resources, salaries, to expect the best out of those players there, so we can make more educated decisions on who to promote and who to not promote.”
Now that MLB’s Domestic Reserve List — which designates the maximum number of players for an organization in the United States — has dropped from 180 to 165, it’s as hard as ever for Dominican players to come to the U.S. Teams have to be more selective. With that in mind, the Phillies have emphasized their strength and conditioning programs abroad. The goal, for Mattingly, is to make sure all of his players have the same access to the same team resources.
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