News of Phormer Phillies, 2023

[zambonir]

I was still thinking of him as a starter. Obviously nobody interested in keeping him on their 40 for the rest of the season, but sure, you never know. Does he actually still have the stuff?

[BostonRoss]

The Phillies should sign Howard so that we have someone to talk about every day who will never pitch for the Phil’s. I miss Noah Song .

[andyb]

Does he actually still have the stuff?

Looks like he was averaging 96 this year.
https://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=675921&time=&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=08/30/2023&s_type=2

There were reports of him at 98-99 in his minor league rehab earlier too.

[zambonir]

Appel is still hoping to play next year.

[zambonir]

Breaking news

[julio]

Reading is fundamental.

[David_Criss]

meant to put that up yesterday. Doht

[allentown]

Sorry, but Howard was never a can't-miss pitching prospect. 2nd-tier on a good season, although most of our minor-league pitchers were 3rd- or 4th-tier, if not 'why is he still here?'

[bkox]

Sorry, but Howard was never a can't-miss pitching prospect. 2nd-tier on a good season

These rankings may disagree

[zambonir]

If there's no such thing as a pitching prospect there's no such thing as a can't miss pitching prospect!

And sure, if you say he was one of the Phillies two best pitching prospects over more than a decade - between Aaron Nola and Andrew Painter - that might not be saying much. But he was still fairly well-regarded for a while, and leaguewide, not just as the best in a bad system.

Pipeline also had him ahead of both Abel and Stott in 2021. In retrospect he was already on his way to flopping, which BP was more in front off than the others. Had they traded him earlier (as they did with Sixto) they would have done better (though that was also a pretty good trade on paper, spoiled from being a good one by Crouse flopping just as badly).

[allentown]

Is a pitcher ranked as roughly the 40th-best prospect really 'can't miss' -- especially since he fell slightly, rather than rising, in 2021. If we're considering him as a SP prospect, that seems 2nd-tier to me. I guess it depends on what David Criss means by 'can't miss'. He reached the majors; he started 29 MLB games, he had a high K-rate in the majors, he just never had sufficient control, leading to too many walks and too many HRs.

[zambonir]

Well yeah this becomes semantics. Does "can't miss" mean "future All-Star" or just "guy who has a career"? I think most of us would like to believe Mick Abel still can't miss even though evidence suggests otherwise. And of course, with his injury, Painter is now closer to your 2nd-tier than the 1st he was on prior.

And was Sixto ever truly "can't miss" for anything other than surgery?

[bkox]

Really is no such thing as cant miss.. Something can always happen. Check out the top 10 prospect lists of the past and you will see major failues. Jo Adell of the Angels comes to mind.. but hes only 24 and still has some time to figure it out. But he was ranked #6 in 2020.

Pitchers are even less cant miss because of the higher chance for injury

But if we are talking "tiers" Well each team can have 180 on their minor league roster. Thats 5400 total prospects. Being in the top 100, puts that player in the top 1%

[zambonir]

But if we are talking "tiers" Well each team can have 180 on their minor league roster. Thats 5400 total prospects. Being in the top 100, puts that player in the top 1%

Well, that's a pretty good argument. But in reality so few of those 5400 people will ever make it (and so few of the players in A or lower will ever get to AA) that there is probably a much more narrow first tier.

It's basically the same (ultimately futile) argument about "ace" vs. "#1 pitcher." Some would say those things are the same. Some would say there's really only 10 or 15 of the former, not 20 or 30 (and in some cases two of them on the same team). Are the top 100 prospects in MLB a first tier in and of themselves or is the first tier the top 20 or 30 within that 100? I guess Atown has made the latter determination.

[bkox]

It would be a fun exercise to go through several years (or decades) of top prospect lists to see what the success rate of those lists.. and even breaking it down to top 20 etc.

[phillychuck]

Bohm was second on the 2020 list and Stott was third. Two successes out of the top 3.

Rojas was 16, Sanchez 17...those two have helped this year. Moniak was 11, and brought back value in trade, as did Maton who was 12.

[allentown]

No, it puts them in the top 2%.

[bkox]

[Sabin]

No, it puts them in the top 2%.

Lol. Well, depending upon where your slide rule (or hair splitter) cuts off the rounding the top 54 are within the top !%.

[bkox]

Guardians manager Terry Francona implies he will retire following the 2023...