Minor League Games - September 3, 2024

[julio]

AAA: Lehigh Valley (TBD) @ Buffalo - 6:05 pm
AA: Erie @ Reading (RHP Noah Skirrow) - 6:45 pm
High A: Jersey Shore (RHP Casey Steward) @ Aberdeen - 7:05 pm
Low A: St. Lucie @ Clearwater (TBD) - 6:30 pm

Rolling Scores Here - https://www.milb.com/scores/2024-09-03/all/all/phillies

Rolling Boxes Here - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/affiliates?teamId=143&date=09/03/2024

[Austinfan]

Steward is someone to keep an eye on.
19th rd pick in 2023
Big boi, 6'5 260

"Steward has been good in the rotation first with the Threshers and then the BlueClaws. He is a big right hander, and saw a bit of a velocity increase, getting his fastball up to 97 and averaging just under 94. His fastballs and changeup have been hit in the zone (but he has gotten some expansion with the 4-seam and change). A lot of his success has come from the combination of sweeper and gyro slider, getting misses in the zone and limiting damage. He might be a reliever, but there is some back end starter potential."

Phillies definitely need 5th and 6th starter candidates in the system, if they extend Ranger, top 4 spots are set for 3 years, and Painter returns. Then you have Abel, Johnson and a bunch of arms in Reading that are a few years away.

[andyb]

Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 23 8/27-9/2)

Week in review from Matt. Interesting comments on Chace. It really looks like he was never developed as a starter that much and the Phillies are more intentional in that respect. He'll need a full year next year to see if he can handle the workload but early returns have been promising.

[owaistabish]

Great fleece by the Phillies. Can Seth Johnson perhaps be an option for starting five next year in place of Walker?

[andyb]

I think the hope for Seth Johnson is that he would be an option midseason next year. It will be his last option though this year was as much about building up his innings after TJ surgery. He'll probably be on a looser 120-140 inning limit next year where hopefully he can show he belongs in the majors in the second half.

Chace has clearly exceeded expectations so far. He'll need to rule 5 protected this season and I imagine at the time of the trade the Phillies were a little unsure about doing that.

[Austinfan]

Abel, Painter, Johnson, Pina will probably be the Lehigh rotation next spring.
Chace, Cabrera, Castellano, McGowan, Steward at Reading.

[kmc1019]

Crawford 3 hits and 2 steals tonight, now at .323 with a growing sample size at Reading as a 20 year old . Wish he would hit for more power but the kid gets on base and can fly and play defense.

Miller gets a base hit in his AA debut.

[andyb]

Crawford just hits too many ground balls. He has decent exit velocity so the lack of power could be a correctable problem. It might mean he'll need an extra year, but at least we don't need to rush him.

[phillychuck]

I hear what everyone is saying, but I'm perfectly fine living with Cerawford in CF--he's an elite defender, close to as fast as Rojas, an elite base stealer who doesn't get caught often, has good strike zone judgment, and a high LD rate. I want him to learn to hit just a few more balls in the air and a few fewer grounders, but not at the expense of any OBP. He's a perfect top of the order place setter. If I were to ask him to do anything, it would be to get his BB% back to the 8-9% range. I'm fine with a .130-ish ISO for now. Players that make a lot of fair-balll contact often do have to learn to be comfortable going deeper into counts in order to draw walks--hitting a fair ball early in the count is a fairly certain way not to draw a walk.

[andyb]

The BB rate is correlated with power to some degree though. I am not down at all on Crawford as a prospect. I just think he has some things to work on and might be slightly overrated in the rankings. That does not mean the physical tools are not there to be a very good major league CF. The defense now is also probably not elite. Good but not great, but we have a tendency to rate defense higher than it is before we see advanced metrics. Remember the gushing about Marsh in CF when he got here? It might have looked great compared to an aging Odubel Herrera, but it was merely OK in CF after we saw what a legitimately good defensive CF like Rojas or Pache could do.

All this means is that Crawford needs another year or year and a half of development. He moved quickly because of his polish but at the upper levels things like strike zone judgement get tougher. Miller may be a much more ready major league hitter at this point than Crawford (which is more a compliment of Miller than a knock on Crawford). Crawford is succeeding right now with an approach that will need some tweaks at the next level.

[Austinfan]

You don't need power to draw walks, Richie Ashburn! You need a good sense of the K zone and the ability to foul off strikes that aren't in your sweet spot (Stott is probably the most talented at that and should walk more).

Ben Revere had zero power, didn't walk and still managed to put up seasons of 2.3 and 2.1 WAR despite being a below average fielder. If Crawford is an above average CF, with his speed, hitting .300 with a .130 ISO would make him a 3-4 WAR player. If he can add a little power and walk more, he could be an elite CF.

I don't care how Crawford is hitting .320, just want to see him continue at this level in AAA ball next year.
He's going to add power from filling out his frame the next 2-3 years, they can tweak his swing but I wouldn't make drastic changes.

[andyb]

Power is not the only way to draw walks, but it sure helps. And it is likely the difference between Crawford being an above average starter and one who is just in the 1.5-2,5 WAR range which is very replaceable.

We don't want Crawford to be Ben Revere. We want him to be his Dad. Ben Revere was never close to elite. His Dad was elite for a few years and very good for a long time. When someone points out flaws in a prospect, don't take it personally. We are here to analyze prospects and project how good they are. Throwing up hypothetical comparisons to a Hall of Famer who was among the best in baseball history at one aspect of the game (contact, i.e. Richie Ashburn) is just an unhelpful non sequitur comparison.

[Austinfan]

My point with Revere is just hitting .300 makes you a passable starter, even if you're a mediocre defender (but not if your Castellanos bad in the OF!).

Crawford has a lot more upside than that, but I wouldn't obsess over power, as Bohm shows, you can be a pretty good hitter with alley power (ISO .163, .172), 44 doubles but only 13 HRs.
According to Fansgraph, Bohm is now a positive fielder, if he keeps that up, some tough decisions with MIller probably less than 2 years away.

[andyb]

You are just not reading the scouting reports though. He is hitting the ball in the ground. His swing is geared for contact in a way he probably would not draw too many walks if he did not change it. That is why he probably needs a year or two in the minors and why he might be over-ranked in that top 100 BA poll (the whole point here). He is not making some top 100 lists simply because scouts see these flaws too.

Then you revert to saying these extreme comparisons like Ben Revere which are meaningless (and Revere had a higher average in the lower minors than Crawford by quite a bit). Bohm also has defensive projection issues even if he has become close to average now. His speed is already declining and he is precisely at the age where defensive range starts to slip. It is highly likely he'll be below average defensively in a couple of years after he has turned 30.

Nobody is obsessing over power with Crawford. We can note a clear flaw in his approach that limits him as a player without obsessing. That is called analysis.

[zambonir]

And yet, Bohm could still use more power, and will probably never be a truly viable 1B or DH as he ages. When your strengths are hitting for average and RISP, not pure OBP or HRs, there are a lot more highs and lows.

It's not that Crawford has to get to the majors and slug .500. But if he never slugs higher than .450 in AA or AAA he likely won't be elite in MLB.

[Austinfan]

At 3B, range is not the issue it is at SS/2B/CF, it's more about reaction time and reflexes, and some of that improves with experience/anticipation. So I'm not worried about Bohm's range until his early 30s, it's more a matter of whether his improvement is sustainable. It's a bigger issue with Turner, who is an average fielder who'll get worse as he loses a step.

Crawford shouldn't be swinging for the fences, he's not the next Schwarber!

While they should tweak his swing, they should also be cognizant of "if it ain't broken, don't fix it," that is, don't make major changes that could screw him up. Line drives better than GBs, but given his speed, GBs better than Ks.

[zambonir]

Of course we are having another Alec Bohm discussion in the wrong thread but I'm still as worried about his bat. If he never has another month like he did in April over the next two seasons you are probably looking at a 105 OPS+ player, just as he's always been. Which, along with his apparently improved defense (though DRS says something very different than WAR) makes him an every day major leaguer but not someone I want to see playing here in his early 30s.

[Matt_Winkelman]

I went through this all on Twitter so I am going to plagiarize myself.

No one is asking him to uppercut or become a power sell out, you just want him in the gaps. I will put it this way. His father never had a GB% > 55% and had a career rate of 49.1%, but a LD rate of 20.4%. If he hits GBs at a high rate his ceiling is very limited.

Right now he is at 62%, there are only 12 batters in the majors this season with a GB% > 55% and only James Wood has a wRC+ greater than 90

Overall in MLB this year:
GB: .246 AVG .024 ISO 41wRC+
FB: .217 AVG .428 ISO 125wRC+
LD: .698 AVG .202 ISO 356 wRC+

We have already baked in the he shouldn't be a slugger, but in the last 4 years there are 2 qualified seasons with a GB% > 60, Raimel Tapia 2021 (75 wRC+) and 2023 Tim Anderson (60 wRC+). Next on the list are 2022 (58.6%) and 2023 (57.3%) Christian Yelich who will occasionally have bonkers HR/FB ratios. He was a 110 and 122 wRC+ on those years, well down of 2018-2019 Yelich who ran 51.8% and 43.2% ground ball rates.

It really does not how fast you are, you are just losing the math race. If we just look at Reading this year, there are 17 hitters with at least 100 PAs and Crawford is 15th in ISO. He is 492 out of 492 in ground ball rate among all minor leaguers with at least 400 PAs. He is at the absolute bottom of the metric. To put it in another sport, hitting ground balls is taking mid range twos in basketball, you can do it and in many circumstances they can be positive, but if everyone else is hitting threes, making layups and dunks, and getting free throws you just are not going to win in the long run.

[zambonir]

Well, someone here was ready to have him skip AAA and even compete for an MLB job out of spring training next March. I think we can probably rule that out. And I guess you can't take advantage of the Reading ballpark if you don't hit it in the air.

[flyers19rw]

Last night RAJ was discussing Crawford and the possibilities for him making the club next spring. He didn't rule that out. He specifically stated that the difference between AA ball and the show right now is not that great. Basically AA ball right now is the equivalent of AAA ball next spring.
With Crawford's numbers in Reading being what they are, it would not be a surprise if he's in CF in April, 2025. The biggest thing holding that back would be whether or not the Phillies want to start his clock that soon or not.