January-February 2022 Phillies Minor League Transactions/Discussion

A pair of Phillies minor league free agent signings yesterday, SS Kevin Vicuña and 1B Aldrem Corredor. Both assigned to AA Reading and look to be depth moves.

— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) January 5, 2022

As a man who lies to himself in the mirror every day, I can guarantee "The Corredor" does not weigh 202 lbs based on that profile picture. But welcome aboard Aldrem!

Phillies hired former AL Rookie of the Year Pat Listach as bench coach for their Jersey Shore team

— Jon Heyman ( @JonHeyman ) January 6, 2022

That ROTY season was his only really good season. A rookie flash in the pan.

Some general news

The union’s regulations forbid agents from “Acquiring, holding or seeking to acquire or hold, either directly or indirectly, any ownership or financial interest in any Major League, Minor League or other professional baseball club or in any related business, firm or venture … unless previously authorized in writing by the MLBPA to do so.”

On the coaching side, Mattingly starting to bring in some of his people:

Old story that MLTBR revived due to Nats making some hires. Obviously numbers are dated for Phillies too now (and method is a bit haphazard).

The Nationals had the smallest player development staff in the majors, according to a Washington Post review of media guides and minor league staff announcements for every MLB team. The analysis found the Nationals listed 46 full-time employees working as coordinators or directly with minor league players at their four affiliates, their Florida complex and in the Dominican Republic. The New York Yankees and Mets had more than 80, as did a handful of other teams. As for the rest of the National League East, the Miami Marlins listed around 70, the Philadelphia Phillies had 57, and the Atlanta Braves, the reigning World Series champions, had 51.

The staff data shows only the Phillies had fewer managers, coaches, athletic trainers and strength coaches assigned directly to their four main affiliate teams (Class AAA, Class AA, high Class A, low Class A). The Phillies had 19 to the Nationals’ 20, which was tied with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cardinals and Rockies.

It will be interesting to see if the team maintains 2 DSL squads. A few other teams also had multiple FCL teams. Not sure the domestic roster limits will allow that in the future. The 19 signings is probably a sign they will still keep 2 DSL squads for at least one more year (assuming there are a few more signings yet to be announced also). Clearly teams will continue to keep players in the DSL longer to get around the domestic roster limits.

These numbers were from the 2021 media guides though, so they are definitely out of date. I assume we'll get more info beyond the Gelb thing you posted later or tomorrow too. Of course it would also be easy to go light on complex staffing if the whole major league operation is going to be there without any major league players for 1-3 months.

"former Nationals prospect" yes, "New Phillies prospect," I dunno.

Via Gelb's mailbag today, this is by one of the Phillies' recent hires. Perhaps not coincidentally he ranks the system's 2021 development (based on the formula he explains in the story) highly. 11th for hitters, 6th for pitchers. Wait, didn't we just clean house!

This is very difficult to follow. Since I can't find anything different, I think they run this analysis for every player in the minor league organization and weight each player's contribution by IP or PA. So, our top 30 prospects are given no more weight than the organizational filler. That seems wrong. It also seems that he evaluates the player development performance by how much the player changed from what would be expected from his prior seasons and a standardized aging formula. This leads to some (for me) obvious flaws:

1. a guy with the talent to be good, but who has received inferior development in his career within an organization, such that his expected performance is low, would be a shining star of development if he received normal developmental support in year being studied.

2. a team that signs skinny guys requiring physical maturation will rank higher on development based simply on normal muscle gain, compared to a team who signs less physically undeveloped prospects.

3. there is no measure of how much MLB talent a minor league organization actually produces, although poor performance here might be laid at the feet of the scouts. Given how little MLB talent the Phillies have produced in the past several seasons, combined with the weak ranking (and team performance) of our prospect list, it is hard to see how Phillies could rank in top half.

Also looking at what comes out the product end of the sausage-making machine, it's hard to see how the Braves could be ranked #30 (albeit just for 2021) in position player development.

The Phillies rank significantly lower for 2021 than for 2018 to 2021

On the signing of Corredor: seems a good depth signing, mainly to have an injury-replacement guy at Allentown. Knowing how bare the cupboard is for DH/LF/1B it's conceivable he actually makes the 25-man if he has a guaranteed release if not promoted by 1 June (those deals could be most interesting in a season which may not start with for-real games before mid-May)

The words “long term prospect” as used in the article could qualify as an oxymoron.

A little more on one of the minor November transactions. Yet another kid (age 29 now) who bounced around and learned to throw harder as he got older.

The Athletic has a truly inspirational article on Daniel Brito and the miraculous progress he's made.

I don’t have access. Miraculous as in having a normal life or miraculous as in playing baseball again?

(Both would be good answers to hear)