When was the last time there was a really good Phillies prospect? (not that I like Keith Law…but really?)
Was excited to see Stott on Law's list, then you read it and it seems like he's the next Marlon Anderson
Good, but not really good. I mean good, like top third. We do get prospects they put in the 50 to 100 range. Have we had any worthy of top twenty?
I read what Phillies fans and media write about Bohm. Why should the rest of the baseball world rate him higher than we do?
Abel and Painter are great H.S. pitching prospects. As such difficult to rank. Pitchers have so many opportunities to flame out due to injury from H.S. graduation to completing their first MLB season. Both Abel and Painter have the talent to be #1/2 starters in MLB coupled with a high risk of medical flameout before reaching AAA. H.S. pitcher is a demographic we seem to scout very well, but it is the riskiest demographic for a first round pick. For the Phillies, but not for the rest of baseball, a H.S. position player is a riskier first rounder than a H.S. pitcher.
A lot of sentiment that Stott is an MLB starting IF sooner than later, seemingly no sentiment at all that he is a future All-Star and very divided opinion on whether he can stick at SS.
Even without serious injury some pitching prospects just regress when they get older. McKenzie Gore for example was number 59 on Keith Law's list after being 2nd overall. Had some blisters and lost some feel in the last year and is now scuffling at age 22. Abel did have enough questions in 2021 (sore shoulder, control issues) where I can see his ranking drop even if he has the exact same number one potential he did before the season.
Keith Law's just missed list (14 total, no Phillies):
I don't get too excited about those lists, basically the obvious candidates.
It's guys like Rojas that make or break your system, if he puts it together he jumps two levels and is a top 50 prospect next year - if he doesn't, he doesn't.
I mean who had Ranger Suarez on their top 100 list?
An annoying trick is to quickly highlight and copy all the text on the web page (control-A, control-C on a PC) and then dump it into a blank word processing document (control-V). Needs to be done in like half a second....
The more I look at these top 10s it really seems we have a top 5. Abel, Stott, Painter, Rojas, O'Hoppe. And then a huge leap to whomever you rank as 6th. It is like we have 5 prospects who should be in a typical top 10 and the next 15 belong in a second 10 (11-20) type ranking in a good system.
One issue in ranking the Phillies is outside of Stott and O'hoppe, our best talent is A and below - which is good, far more upside, and bad, much higher chance of flopping.
Which means this time next year we could be top ten or bottom ten, depending on the progression of two or three high ceiling/high floor prospects.
Your theory depends on our talent base at A or below really being better than the competition's and there is really no basis for that. And Abel and Painter really don't count in that equation because every team out there will have its last couple of number one picks in the lower minors.
I think the depth at A and below is decent, but I also see very few high ceiling talents there. Plus, we may not be smart enough to know who the next Curtis Mead is when the Tampa Bay Rays come asking. I hope we are smart enough but there is no evidence yet that we really are.
The Inquirer is a soft paywall I think, you just have to clear your cookies to read a few articles before hitting it again. But yeah whatever you think of the lists the major league beat writer isn't really an expert anyway.
We all know that great players aren't always on the lists or in the high rounds. But the Phillies haven't produced any of those in a while either.
More paywall stuff, this time from Baseball America's "2022 Organization Talent Rankings":
Top 5: Seattle, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City
Phillies at #23, slightly up from past couple years, with this blurb (and I'd suggest that the 2017 and 2018 rankings of the same have not exactly translated to improved success for the big club, casting doubt on this ranking):
Notes:
2021: 27 | 2020: 26 | 2019: 12 | 2018: 7 | 2017: 6
Top 100 Prospects (2): RHP Mick Abel (51), SS Bryson Stott (67)
The Skinny: After years of underwhelming talent coming through the pipeline, Philadelphia has bet on prep pitching in the first round of consecutive drafts. Mick Abel and Andrew Painter are exciting young pitching prospects, but outside of shortstop Bryson Stott, the Phillies have very little coming in the short term.
So when the Phillies had the sixth best farm system in 2017, who were the prospects that reflected that ranking? I’m guessing mostly guys that didn’t pan out, like Kingery?
JP Crawford was ranked 12th overall in 2017 and 16th overall in 2018 so those talent rankings did produce a little. Hoskins too. Of course Kingery and Quinn and Nick Williams are disappointments from that era.
In general it is better to be ranked higher than lower though I know these rankings are driven much more by who is at the top of the system.
