Minor League Games - April 8th, 2023

[Squire]

AAA: Scranton Wilkes-Barre at Lehigh Valley (RHP TJ Zeuch) - 12:35PM
AAA: Scranton Wilkes-Barre at Lehigh Valley (TBD) - 5:35PM
AA: Reading (RHP Mick Abel) at Richmond - 4:05PM
AA: Reading (TBD) at Richmond - Game 2
High A: Jersey Shore (RHP Gunner Mayer) at Brooklyn - 2:00PM
Low A: Clearwater (TBD) at Bradenton - 6:30PM

Rolling Scores Here - https://www.milb.com/scores/2023-04-08/all/all/phillies

Rolling Boxes Here - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/affiliates?teamId=143

[andyb]

Yesterday's wrapup. Looks like Cabrera has seen a small uptick in velocity. Noah Song back throwing too.

4/7/23 : Minor League Roundup

[bkox]

Combined no hitter for CLW

[fish]

Aldegehri was around 93, with a slow but really tight curve. He stayed out of the middle of the plate and was rewarded.

[andyb]

Rough night for Abel. Only one ball in play. But got only 2 outs among the 7 batters he faced as he must have hit his one inning pitch limit.

[andyb]

Here is the roundup. Should these go in the previous thread or next day's thread? Question because they get posted after we are done with our real time observations during the game.

4/8/23 : Minor League Roundup - No Hitter by Clearwater!

I only caught an inning of Aldegehri. Really nice command as you say. Really hard to know if the stuff translates at higher levels at his velocity, but being left-handed is always a plus. Ranger Suarez made it with stuff sort of like that. Gavin Tonkel sighting in the complex game. Outfield is pretty crowded at Clearwater now, but the kid deserves a chance at some point.

Troy Schreffler (15th round pick out of Maryland last year) stole as many bases last night (4) as he did all of last season. Guessing he is just on the roster as the extra outfielder subbing for all the better prospects, but it is an aggressive promotion to Jersey Shore for his first pro season when players like Rincones and Fergus are a level below him.

[andyb]

Love this box score from Chattanooga vs Rocket City yesterday. At least we have not seen that level of final inning bullpen implosion in Philly.

Lookouts 7, Trash Pandas 5 Final Score (04/08/2023) on Gameday

[Squire]

Every year I get sucked in on guys who are tearing the absolute cover off the ball in spring training and then have no use for a bat when the bell rings. Fool me thrice shame on me.

[andyb]

Week one review - not all bad. Good opening weeks among others for Hao Yu Lee, Dalton Guthrie, Carlos De La Cruz, Emaarion Boyd, and some Clearwater pitching (Aldegheri, Cabrera, McFarlane's stuff if not results).

4/9/23 : Week One Minor League Review ( 3/31 to 4/9)

[fish]

Clearwater's pitching depth is really....not good so far. To be sure, there are quite a few good arms, but in the first weekend of the season i've seen three older college lefties throwing 89 mph (Fausnaught, Wilkinson, Ronan) and bullpen righties topping out at 93 mph (Dallas, Henriquez, and Ramirez). Henriquez occassionally threw the ball with really good cut, and movement otherwise, but I thought the reports on him were high 90s.

[andyb]

If you step back we really have not spent much on Latin American or HS pitching the last few years outside of our number one picks. So we have fewer good arms in the lower minors to start with.

Obviously it is nice to have depth, but we do have some good arms down there. McFarlane has a really high ceiling (and a pretty low floor of course).

[Matt_Winkelman]

There is always some amount of filler or innings that are needed (you did bring up 4 NDFAs, an older international arm, and a minor league R5 pick) . I also would not take velocities in April in Clearwater as where guys will be (mostly on a Henriquez type). On the flip side Samuel Aldegheri, Orion Kerkering, Andrew Walling, and Jean Cabrera all looked better than expected in addition to the McFarlane jump. Rao and Segovia looked as expected. We have not yet see Castillo, Estanista, and Bortka.

As for what is missing. It is definitely some international arms, namely the 2018 and 2019 classes. It is the 2021 pitching class, in this case Jose Pena Jr being a bit of a bust and Micah Ottenbreit still recovering from Tommy John. The 20 round draft is definitely hurting, but also on the international side the 2020 skipped year. But also there is 17 pitchers on the roster and some of them are not going to be studs.

[andyb]

Guessing they might want to wait a month on some of the arms at Clearwater too. Without a short season A level they probably do not want some of their younger arms pitching the entire season.

I know they have extended spring games, but it might not be the worst thing if they extended the FCL season a bit. Maybe 80-90 games starting in May. The draft picks don't play much anyway and they could also do some sort of first half/second half thing if the team changed dramatically midseason.