Phillies Prospect Lists

[andyb]

Bowden has Bohm at 23 but Howard unranked on his top 50:

Jim Bowden's Top 50 prospects for 2020

Keith Law will have his more extensive lists and organizational top 10s at a later date for the Athletic.

[bkeich]

I look at Moniak having the same OPS as Cornelius Randolph and come away unimpressed with his offensive stats. He is a year younger so a better offensive prospect, but that is in comparison to someone who is a non-prospect these days. Moniak also is worse on the OBP side of the equation, so that is also not encouraging. He is probably somewhere in the 10-15 range in our system. He probably has the tools to be better than that, but not sure he has the tools to be better than a below average regular.

If Moniak wasnt the #1 pick he wouldnt be much of a prospect either. We keep hoping to see that he is but the simple fact is his NUMBERS have not justified him being very much of a prospect, he was easily passed by Halseley who really is kinda the same (#1 round, uninspiring selection who might be a #4 OF, not enough power to call a future star). I am sure we will continue to hope with Moniak, and he will eventually get his chance at the ML level, but I think if he was an average starting ML OF at this point it would be a surprise. If he hangs around for 5-10 years as a 200 AB / season guy we would think that is about what we are seeing and if he flames out completely we would be disappointed.

[allentown]

I think that is a fair summary, which means he is a disappointing 1.1 who, despite remaining healthy, isn't going to be a guy who moves the needle for his organization.

[Lawman]

Agreed. I do question whether he may be better then Haseley or Kingery, and whether he could challenge one of them for a starting spot in CF.

[andyb]

That probably depends on how good a defensive CF Moniak turns out to be. He probably has a little more speed out there than Haseley (who ironically has the better hit tool these days). It is just hard to figure out how that translates into defense. Lots of players in the minors are supposed to have good defensive instincts then grade out the opposite in the majors.

We have no perfect CF prospects at the moment. Beyond Moniak the next two also have flaws. Muzziotti is probably the fastest and the best defensively, but has no power and patience. Rojas has the best tools but is far away and could easily grow into more of a corner OF.

I will say that defense is less important in today's 3-outcome game. Acceptable defense paired decent offense is the Haseley theory and any of these CFs could provide some combination of that (with Muzziotti being the outlier with better defense and below average offense).

[andyb]

Fangraphs Braves list is up. A very top-heavy system for them. No longer the depth they have had in the recent past.

Top 27 Prospects: Atlanta Braves

[Squire]

MLB.com has Bohm as the #1 3B Prospect on their Top 10 by position lists. He's listed as the best hitter and highest ceiling

[Austinfan]

How is Haseley a 4th OF prospect?

I mean was he a late round pick, mediocre college and minor league performance, struggled to hit as a rookie after being rushed to the majors? Showed he couldn't handle CF and was a mediocre corner OF?

Haseley had just under 2000 PA in college/minor leagues before his ML debut, which is on the low side.
He was a starting pitcher in college (24 starts his last two seasons) as well as a position player.
He made rapid progress through the minors, college to Lakewood, Clearwater/Reading, Reading/Lehigh/ML in his 2nd full season of professional ball.

He doesn't have sexy tools like Quinn, but he has solid all around tools.
Slightly above average in CF, top fielder at the corners.
Struggled at first as a hitter, 0 BB in his first 64 PA, then 13 in his last 178 PA.
Slumped in August, finished strong in September with .786 OPS.
Pretty much what you'd expect from a kid who should have spent the whole season in Lehigh.

[fish]

How is Haseley a 4th OF prospect?

I feel like the wide range of opinion on Haseley is likely to depend on if you are looking at him from the outside, or a fan that watched him in 2019. Personally, I saw a kid with a solid approach and skills with what appears to be the aptitude to keep improving. If i'm a fan from another team looking at him, i'd be inclined to question his ability to be more than a 4th OF. Both perspectives have gaps/flaws.

[andyb]

Slightly above average in CF, top fielder at the corners.

This is why. He is NOT considered above average in CF. Right now the consensus is below average. The sample size for any advanced stats is way too small now to be meaningful. He seems to have good instincts paired with below average range. Whether that translates into average CF defense is an open question and really key to seeing if he is much more than a 4th OF (as a corner position would require more offense than maybe he is capable of).

[Austinfan]

Where do you get below average range from?
He's not slow, he has good instincts, getting a good jump on balls is half the battle. He's not going to win a golden glove, but nothing suggests he'd be less than average or slightly above.

As a corner OF he would be an elite fielder, and those guys don't require great offense - few corner OFs are plus defenders, Gardner for example was wRC 115 and 3.6 WAR (FG), Kepler wRC 121 and 4.0 WAR, Anderson wRC 114 and 3.1 WR, In CF, wRC of 100 and mediocre fielding is still worth around 2 WAR.

So Haseley is likely to be a 2-3 WAR OF - only 44 OFs had 2.0+ WAR last year (Fansgraphs).

And he's not a career minor leaguer who is tapped out, he's relatively inexperienced as a college player who was also a starting pitcher and only 2 1/2 minor league seasons.

[andyb]

Where do you get below average range from?

Virtually every single scout.

Fangraphs: "Haseley is fringy to average for most scouts in center field". Arm is not that great either. We also don't know if he is "elite" in a corner. You seem to make these assumptions without a whole lot of data. We also don't really know whether his offense will be good yet either. I don't know if he'll be a 100 wCR+ offensive player yet. There is a good chance he will. We just don't know it yet.

[phillychuck]

I wonder sometimes about the scouts. Haseley was a college pitcher who threw a 93-95 mph fastball. Some teams were looking to draft him as a pitcher. How is that not an elite OF arm?

[andyb]

I think he was more 88-90 from the mound. I was surprised when scouting reports noted he had a below average arm but those reports have been pretty consistent. I expected him initially to be more of a RF because of the pitching arm.

[phillychuck]

Even a 90 mph fastball is an above average outfield arm. I have also been surprised by those reviews. I haven't seen him make any long throws in games yet, so I don't have any personal observations. Maybe right now it's just working on OF footwork so he can use his arm strength...

[phillychuck]

1:21 is an OF assist--good throw to 2B from the wall. Looks like at least an average arm to me.

[flyers19rw]

I wonder sometimes about the scouts.

Precisely. Things that I've seen said about the Phillies top prospects.-Haseley, a former college pitcher, is an OF with a weak to average arm. Bohm can't field; best suited as a DH in the AL. Howard is an arm injury waiting to happen. Stott doesn't have the range to play SS. When I see these types of comments, I understand why analytics is taking over player evaluation from the eyes of scouts.

[andyb]

Saying the scouts are all wrong though is kind of a jury nullification strategy. Relying on stats, where the defensive stats are notoriously unreliable, can be equally bad or worse.

Scouts are usually not completely wrong. Maybe Hoskins develops a better hit tool than scouts anticipated, but they were basically right about his defense and the swing/miss in his game. The increase in velocity from Howard has also raised his stock, but it is not as if the scouts have been wrong there on the big picture. With Bohm I have no clue how good his defense is now. Scouting reports are pretty much all we have, so ignoring them would be ignorant.

[Austinfan]

Most of these "scouting reports" are from amateurs, so take them with a grain of salt.

I watched the players, Haseley is solid in CF, lacks great speed, but gets a good jump, and a solid arm. As a hitter was too eager at first, but really worked counts well the last month or so of his rookie season, hits to all fields and has a legitimate shot at being a .300 BA hitter.

Hoskins as a hitter is his own worst enemy, when he struggled he started over swinging and chasing pitches, we'll see if he gets back on track this year. Like Howard, he's best when he hits to the opposing alley (Right center) b/c he has park power in every direction. Gets in trouble when he gets pull happy.

Howard was an upside pick, didn't start many college games, 14 which is less than Haseley. 124 IP. So he was as much a projection off of his frame and his feel for secondary pitches as actual scouting.

Bohm should at the least be as good fielding as Franco, which if he hits, will be good enough, though it suggests that a fielding upgrade at SS is in the team's future.

[andyb]

Most of these "scouting reports" are from amateurs, so take them with a grain of salt.

No they are not. The credible sites and publications talk to actual scouts or have scouts themselves.

We (including both me and you) are the amateurs. You keep saying stuff that you have no way to verify. Have you even seen Bohm field more than 10 balls? Franco graded out as below average but not awful. We do NOT know that Bohm is going to be that good. Even the scouts are not sure yet. But they (and the credible publications that talk to them) know more than you and I do.

How many people here thought the scouts were wrong when they said Franco was really slow? The scouts were right about that and Franco's limited athleticism might be the number one thing that held him back from being an average regular.