Phillies Prospect Lists

Austinfan 2020-03-10 01:27:14 UTC #801

RA blew a window of opportunity, both by waiting too long, but also by what he took in trade, two of the Rangers prospects which analytics would have said were overrated due to lack of plate discipline (Williams, Alfaro). He went for prospects close to the majors (Pivetta, Lively, Eflin, etc), which ironically inflated the ranking of the system but also meant he was going for moves to save his job, not add upside.

Klentak wasn't given full authority when he took over, and I wonder how much pull he has and who is the final decision maker other than Middleton, and how much Middleton meddles.

2016 draft wasn't an unmitigated disaster, Stobbe is the only clear miss, Moniak, Gowdy, Romero, Irvin, Stephen, Hall, Young,
2017 could be a HR: Haseley, Howard, Seabold, Lindlow, Maton, Brodgon, Parkinson, Warren, Dohy, D Jones, B Brown, DJ Stewart, could end up with a starting OF, 2 SPs, and a couple RPs.
2018 draft, Bohm, no 2nd or 3rd rd picks, misses on 4th and 5th, but then Simmons, Cotto, Pipkin, O'Hoppe, Ramey, the juniors have been a disappointment
2019 draft, Stott the safe pick, Baylor the upside pick, then 4 Jrs with big arms. Too early to judge the rest of this draft.

While they haven't signed the top LA guys the last three years (but there's only a handful each year), Klentak has gathered a nice crew, Marchan, Gutierrez, Muzziotti, Morales, Aparicio, Garcia, Rojas, De La Cruz, Santos, Silva, Torres, Vargas, Betancourt, Castillo, Nava and elsewhere, Glogoski, Lin, Gessner.

How these players develop will determine how this system ranks the next couple years.
Outside of a few high college picks and college RPs, the bulk of talent is in the low minors where development is the key.

[Mod's note: Edited out inappropriate language. - J]

nycphils 2020-03-10 02:17:31 UTC #802

You wreck your credibility with this. Moniak is a disastrous 1.1 - if he becomes even a platoon starter that will be a win at this point. He’s not Brien Taylor or Appel, but he’s only the next step down at this point. Stobbe, Gowdy, etc. not one single player is looking like a reasonable bet to even be a regular player/more than a AAAA player. Any of them becoming an above average ML player - including Moniak - is extremely low after just 3 years. Awful.

Austinfan 2020-03-10 02:39:52 UTC #803

Go look at the top 30 in that draft - so far one of the worst drafts of all time:

'#2 Senzel, (24) 0.6 WAR .743 OPS
'#6 Puk (24) 0.2 WAR
'#8 Quantrill (24) 0.1 WAR
'#10 Collins (24) -0.2 WAR
'#11 Lewis (24) +0.3 WAR
'#16 Thaiss (24) +0.6 WAR
'#19 Dunn (23) +0.2 WAR
'#20 Lux (21) 75 AB
'#21 Zeuch (23) +0.3 WAR
'#25 Lauer (24) +0.4 WAR
'#28 Kieboom (21) -1.0 WAR

Two HS players got a cup of coffee, rest were juniors 2-3 years older than Moniak, not one standout in the group, Haseley outperformed the top 30 players in that draft last season and he was drafted a year later.
So taking Moniak and the extra money to sign a couple other players (Gowdy, Stephen) turned out to be the right move.

zambonir 2020-03-10 04:38:41 UTC #804

I think both things are true: 2016 was a disaster, and it's not really Klentak's fault (both because of the quality of the draft and because he wasn't necessarily the full decision-maker. Also, TNSTAAPP, re: Gowdy). Was the change in direction in 2017 reactive (either to the draft or the state of the system) or was it him and Almaraz showing their true philosophy? (Almaraz and Amaro still on the hook for 2015, but they went 1 for 2 at the top of that one.)

That said, it would be nice to be the team that drafted or developed the two promising late picks up there at 20 and 28. We have been that team at times in the past of course.

Austinfan 2020-03-10 14:03:42 UTC #805

Problem is you can't trade draft picks, taking Moniak was the equivalent, allowing you to afford two HS gambles.

andyb 2020-03-10 14:30:30 UTC #806

The problem is coming away with a below average haul when you had a huge allocation for the number one pick. That slot allocation has since been decreased, but it allowed them to give above average bonuses for their top 5 picks and their 11th pick. At the moment nobody looks like they'll be better than a second division starter. It is likely a huge miss on the cumulative return for multiple picks. I am also sure they wish they had picked either Senzel or Puk now. They just chose wrong even within the parameters of a weak top of the draft.

phillychuck 2020-03-10 14:37:28 UTC #807

They picked the high upside player in Moniak over Puk and Senzel. Taking a HS player is a gamble, there are literally no scouts that consistently can look at a HS player and distinguish between a future all-star in MLB and a future utility player watching them play against other 18-year-olds. That's one of the key take-aways from Moneyball. We rolled the dice on Moniak and it looks (at this early point) like we didn't roll well. But, it's still early...he's 3 full years younger than Senzel, lets see if he can post a 750 OPS (or more) in 2023 in the bigs.

bigegypt0417 2020-03-10 15:07:19 UTC #808

It's always interesting to see the hindsight post drafters asking "if we would have drafted this guy" as if somehow reviewing 2 years after the fact is a skill.

The Phillies went in to the draft with the idea of gambling on HS players at the top and it hasn't worked out. That was a draft that screamed boom or bust and so far it's been a bust.

A step forward for moniak and romero could certainly change that.

andyb 2020-03-10 15:13:45 UTC #809

Do you not think it is fair to evaluate how well a team did after a draft? The final grades won't be in for another 5 years, but it still looks pretty bad. The people on this board are not scouts. We are often wrong about who to draft and who to trade for and which prospect is best. We all know that. That is very different from evaluating the results of a draft after the fact though. It is not that the strategy the Phillies picked (gambling on HS players) was generally bad. It is the players they picked were not the correct players to pick. They spent several years obsessing on HS hit tools only to figure out that they were not really that good at evaluating HS hit tools.

Klentak has made some good picks too (like Howard). He just has not made enough of them so far.

Austinfan 2020-03-10 15:32:26 UTC #810

What have Senzel or Puk done to think they'll be better than Moniak. They're both 25 this year, not much upside left.

And that was the point of the gamble, in a draft where the top five was similar to Haseley or Stott, it made more sense to gamble on Moniak and garner better players later in the draft.

Gowdy was bad luck, if his arm comes around it's just a hiccup.
Stephen is 22 in the AAA, while he has some positional limitations, we'll see this year if he can rake.
The whiff was Stobbe, who has shown no sign of improvement.

We'll see if they've improved their development process this year.

Rafael Chavez, the Phillies minor-league director of pitching development, instructed Rosso to work this offseason at Driveline Baseball.

They also hired the co-founder of Driveline as their minor league director of hitting development.

Seems like they're all in when it comes to Driveline.

bigegypt0417 2020-03-10 15:32:36 UTC #811

It is fair...there are realities in that draft that can't be ignored. It wasn't the best draft to have the 1:1 pick. It was also a draft that was viewed as missing any premier talent. The phillies took a philosophy and drafting upside over floor. We can knock it all we want but it was a good gamble at the time IMO.

phillychuck 2020-03-10 15:34:10 UTC #812

To give a fair perspective to how we viewed Moniak and how the scouts view him at the time:

Londerhagen, ESPN:
"The Phillies select California prep outfielder Mickey Moniak. He's the best pure hitter in the draft, eliciting some future 70 scouting grades with his bat. His swing is fluid and compact, and Moniak shows some elite hitting traits in the way he adjusts to pitches mid-flight. While not a track star, Moniak runs well enough to stay in center field and has a good feel for the position.

Moniak doesn't have a frame that projects for much power, but the combination of elite hitting potential and the ability to play a premium defensive position makes him a potential All-Star. While any player selected with the first pick overall could sign for an underslot deal, Moniak will likely sign for a bigger discount than other alternatives, giving the Phillies a lot of financial flexibility at their next pick (42nd overall)."

Reading the draft thread most of us were positive, and even during the 2016 GCL season we were on board.

Just FYI.

andyb 2020-03-10 15:43:00 UTC #813

It is not just the 1.1 pick. It is the other 5 players signed with money saved because we got a huge drafting allocation. And it is not like there will not be others drafted near Moniak that are likely better than him too. There were few stars at the top of the draft, but there were good players.

bigegypt0417 2020-03-10 16:01:51 UTC #814

Nothing you just typed changed anything I said. The phillies had a philosophy at the time and in the weeks following that draft most experts thought they did well.

In hindsight...it ended up not being the best outcome. The results are not what you would have wanted.

The Phillies drafted Moniak on his upside and that doesn't seem to have worked out...yet.

julio 2020-03-10 16:19:24 UTC #815

Too early to be sure, of course, but at this point it looks like the best HS pick in the 2016 draft may have been Bo Bichette, taken #66 by the Jays. Of course, he was passed over by ALL 30 clubs in the first round...but there it is.

There are couple of college drafts from 2016 who, as of now, have more career WAR than Bichette - but given he's younger, and plays a premium position (SS), I'd have trouble valuing Pete Alonso more highly than Bichette!

The first-round guys who were talked about as alternatives to Moniak? Senzel, Puk, Pint, Ray, Anderson - Adam Haseley has produced more WAR than all of 'em put together, and the Moniak critics here aren't, as a rule, very high on Haseley.

Bottom line, looking at the top three rounds of the 2016 draft - Bichette, a couple of pitchers who will have some value, the one-dimensional Alonso... and not much. Moniak may yet be one of the better returns on this group... and that ain't sayin' much.

phillychuck 2020-03-10 16:25:23 UTC #816

Interesting exercise for y'all--if you re-ordered the draft based on knowledge through the 2019 season, wouldn't Moniak still go in the first round (looking at performance and remaining potential)? I think he'd be somewhere between 15-25 based on a quick review of the draft.

andyb 2020-03-10 17:15:47 UTC #817

Are you saying they get a pass because their philosophy was wrong? Not because they might have picked the wrong players? I also don't care what experts thought (and remember those are media experts). Time tells us who was right and who was wrong.

julio 2020-03-10 18:10:13 UTC #818

Yeah... and so far, time is telling us that it really didn't matter much who the Phils chose in that draft - look at their performance; there's not a lot of "there" there.

bigegypt0417 2020-03-10 18:39:56 UTC #819

Cool. So in hindsight...you think it was a bad draft.

Do you feel better now?

Some drafts don't work out and that one seems to fit that bill...so far.

It wasn't only writers...it was actually industry people...I would care about their opinions far more than yours. You seem to be selective on the weight you give experts and it always seems to be when they agree with you that their opinion should be listened to.

andyb 2020-03-10 21:27:24 UTC #820

Though the two prospects most often speculated about that we did not pick are Senzel and Puk. Their development was delayed a year or two in each case by injury or they would likely have had significantly more major league playing time. I would prefer either at the moment. Yes it was a bad draft. But it can also be true that there were better choices available at the top. We could have even tried to save MORE money with our pick to have more money later in the draft. That later part is also part of the failure. Gowdy was mostly bad luck, but I do remember thinking it was a pretty significant overpay at the time for a guy that was rated where he had been rated.

Note also that 2 other top 10 picks, Ian Anderson and Matt Manning are currently rated in the top 50. HS picks of course take time, but they are seen as better picks than Moniak.