Minor League Games - June 29th, 2024

FCL has the Ferrebus debut, early hits from Tait and Caba. And Tjayy Walton rehabbing. Tjayy had a nice start to his season and is an underrated prospect IMO.

Geez- Caba, Walton, Ferrebus, Tait and Rosario is one of the most interesting prospect lineups I’ve seen in a long time in the Phillies system.

Really interesting start from Joshua Delacruz in the DSL. 18 yr old rhp, looks big and strong - 6 innings, 1 hit, 8 k. Threw a sharp curve, good split, a lot of changeups, and a fastball that got a lot of swing and miss (no radar gun but it looked 93-95)

Should have promoted Kingery and Hall (as many suggested) and started them...Nola would have had a win.

Probably too old...I wonder what Mitch thinks. If he did this two years ago, maybe...

He’s 20 at Low A, even a level at a time gets him to the bigs at 24. The thing with him, I think, is that at times his swing looks so natural and powerful in a way that reminds me of Freddie Freeman, but a lot of the rest of the time he looks robotic, like he’s actively thinking about swing mechanics.

He’s REALLY talented. It may never show itself above A ball, but this is what we hoped to see 4 years ago.

You're right about the age--I thought he was 21 or 22. However, he's rule 5 eligible next December ('25) which means he'd have to be on the 40 man roster by then or we'd probably get him sniped in the minor league phase of the rule 5 draft if he's actually producing. With a .365 BABIP right now I expect it's just a lucky streak...give him some credit, though, his walk rate is about 2X his best previous.

Viars is a July birthday and July 1 is the cutoff for the Baseball Reference age listing, so he is really almost 21. Aidan Miller has a June birthday and is also listed as 20 but is almost a year younger. In the same way we give Eduardo Tait a little extra credit for his age when he is really only a few months young for his signing class. Nothing wrong with that. Viars does seem to have turned the corner a bit on his pitch recognition which lets him get to his power more. But I would also say he is a bit older than the typical HS prospect in low A because of both the age and experience.

He has tools though and those are things you don't have to teach.

Hot, sweaty day in Durham, but the good guys won. Homers by Podkul, Hall, Kingery (off position player). Cardenas looked solid and he threw a ball in the stands that I caught. Well bounced off my hand and then a non graceful grab to pick up