Minor League Games - August 13, 2024

[Squire]

AAA: Lehigh Valley (TBD) at Worcester - 6:45PM
AA: New Hampshire at Reading (RHP Noah Skirrow) - 7:00PM
High A: Winston-Salem at Jersey Shore (RHP Casey Steward) - 7:05PM
Low A: Tampa at Clearwater (TBD) - 6:30PM
Rookie: Season Concluded
DSL: DSL Rangers Blue at DSL Phillies Red (TBD) - 10:00AM
DSL: DSL Phillies White (TBD) at DSL Rockies - 11:00AM

Rolling Scores Here - https://www.milb.com/scores/2024-08-13/all/all/phillies

Rolling Boxes Here - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/affiliates?teamId=143&date=08/13/2024

[owaistabish]

Cardoza another HR - 7 for the season.

[andyb]

Week in review from Matt. Some new draftee video inside including Nori's bridge league HR which was opposite field - but probably just barely cleared the fence because he is running really hard till 2B.

Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 20 8/6-8/12)

[andyb]

Much more on Abel here from the Athletic. Sounds like they want him to finish the season strong and then come back next year to compete for a job.

As Mick Abel grinds through disappointing season, Phillies prospect searches for...

[Matt_Winkelman]

335' 93.2mph 41 degrees. We don't get wind for these, but if it wasn't blowing out hard to left I would be surprised.

[fish]

Much more on Abel here from the Athletic

Man, I guess he really in his head this year. I’d like to see him try to ride some late season success and push his innings in the AFL.

[andyb]

I wonder if they just shut him down after the season rather than the AFL. His innings will be about the same as the past 2 years, but imagine the number of pitches he threw are more. Plus AAA goes several weeks in September, so he may have 6 more starts to go (and hopefully 30+ innings in those starts).

Hard to know who their AFL priorities will be. Crawford probably leading the list. Rincones needs more playing time. On the pitching side McGarry seems an obvious candidate. Injury rehab guys like McGowan and Pipkin too if they are healthy. Just not sure they'll want to push Abel too much unless they really want to showcase him for the trade market (and I assume health and development will be higher priorities for him).

[Matt_Winkelman]

Pan is probably going. Rincones maybe, he did go last year (as did McGowan and Baker who are both candidates). Wesley Moore missed time to injury, Daniel Harper feels like a guy they would send, maybe Otto Kemp on the hitting side, or Keaton Anthony, maybe Trent Farquhar because he missed time.

[owaistabish]

DSL Pitching Review:

8/12/24 : Reviewing the DSL - Part One of Two - Pitchers

[andyb]

Big moving day in the minors including Nori and Burkholder up to Clearwater.

8/13/24 : Phillies Minor League Transactions (Promotions/Releases)

If MLB had redone their top 30 almost the entire lineup for today's Clearwater game would be shaded red. Might have to watch some of this one on MLB tonight.

[fish]

Burkholder tripled and scored in his first AB, and looks to have suffered a serious knee injury hitting the bag on a ground out in his second AB.

Well, he walked off so maybe not that bad.

Nori with a hard hit ground ball single up the middle for 2 rbi and his first pro hit. Saltiban followed up with an impressive opposite field homer on a down and away breaking ball.

[dcsman]

For those without an Athletic subscription, could you please provide a few salient points or some insight as to what was said here? Thanks!

[fish]

For those without an Athletic subscription, could you please provide a few salient points or some insight as to what was said here?

About what?

[phillychuck]

Think he's referencing the Mick Abel article andyb posted a link to.

[andyb]

Hard to post too many details from the article as it is one of those stories about a pitcher struggling and making minor adjustments to get his velocity back and improve his command. There are just not a lot of newsy bullet points in there.

Bottom line is that it seems good that he has turned a corner. Second decent start in a row last night though as pointed out, 4 BBs in 5 IPs still means he has stuff to work on. He is missing more bats now which is good and seems healthy which was a concern. I am still all in the mode of letting him finish the season strong and then give him an offseason program to work on so he can come to Spring Training and hopefully be what we thought he might be this year. A couple months of good play next season and he actually might be ready for a major league role giving us potentially 2 real midseason options in Abel and Painter who are volumes better than the patchwork we are using in our rotation now.

[BaseballCat]

Couple of bits I got out of it. He was offered a “pause” on his season to work things out in Florida and he declined. This was one thing I was thinking he should do as I did not want him to continually struggle at LV. To his credit he declined and wanted to work it out at LV. They also wanted to treat him and Painter equally so he did not feel passed by Painter. Painter was clearly a fast mover before he was injured, but both were promoted to Reading at the same time. Painter was clearly ready, not sure Abel was. Would have it been better for him to stay at JS or would it have been worse if he was passed by Painter. Hard to say

[zambonir]

Yeah I respected the fact that he didn't want to pause and also that the Phillies had offered it. But the fact that they had to play status/ego games with him and Painter was obviously a mistake especially considering the context of Abel's lost senior season. To be fair, he was also humming right along originally.

He is still only 22 and 5.2 years younger than the average AAA pitcher (which is of course a lot of much older minor league free agents). Any positive path for next season - he spends the whole year in AAA pitching effectively, he he seizes a rotation spot, he's the #6 or #7 - would be a good result (and all make him tradeable too, should Painter be rolling and Ranger gets extended. Both of them doing well also gives the Phillies the ability to not overpay Ranger if he is determined to get a free-market price).

[andyb]

Even if Ranger gets extended I don't think it matters too much in how we see Abel. That would give us 5 pitchers on long term deals with Walker having 2 years left. If Walker pitches poorly he will lose his rotation spot, but more importantly, what are the odds of all pitchers staying healthy and effective? Pretty slim. If that happens there might be trades to deal with the logjam, but frankly I might prefer to trade one of the veteran pitchers if one of the two kids is pitching well.

Too much pitching is a good problem to have and the fact remains that we have the resources to overpay a bit if we have to (i.e. extend Ranger). We overpaid a bit for Walker, but we had lots of uncertainty beyond Wheeler and Nola at that time.

[phillychuck]

I feel slightly differently about Abel turning down the "pause" opportunity. I think a good organization doesn't leave this decision in the hands of its 22-year-old pitcher. I would present it as, "We are sending you to Florida for a few weeks so you can get back on track. When you have figured things out we will bring you back." I think it shows a lack of confidence in the player-development people themselves to present this as a choice. Any player would turn it down because not to do so would be seen as weak. If you're in charge of an athlete's development, make the choices that matter, don't let it up to him.

[zambonir]

Well, that's fair too. But I'm just not sure they saw one option as being significant better or worse than the other. There was downside to just packing it in and pitching in meaningless situations and there was downside in struggling. There could have been upside in the mental break and focusing only on mechanics, but also upside in battling through it. You are also still working with a higher caliber of instruction and catchers in Allentown (including easier opportunities for Brian Kaplan and Mattingly to come there though I assume Mattingly is in Clearwater regularly).

And Iron Pigs games are basically exhibition games from the MLB team's perspective. I was kind of expecting him to get sent back to AA, if anything.