Phillies Prospect Lists

[Austinfan]

Thing is Garcia has shown very good plate discipline, but between COVID and starting this year injured, he's never got his bat on track. Hopefully, we can sneak him past other teams and he turns it around next year - with his glove, and plate discipline, he doesn't have to be a great hitter, .250/.310/.350 would get him by with a plus glove.

[andyb]

Drawing walks is not the same as good plate discipline or a hit tool. K rate was always in the mid 20s which is high for a guy with modest power and a low average. He might have been better served with a more aggressive approach since he really did not have the speed as well to take advantage of the walks.

[allentown]

but between COVID and starting this year injured, he's never got his bat on track.

I see it as a real stretch to blame his problems on Covid. Every team's low-minors players missed a year because of Covid. That is no particular disadvantage for our guys. Yes, Garcia was overmatched in low-A ball as an eighteen-year old. That was a development gamble which the Phillies lost. Garcia did ok repeating low-A as a twenty-year old. Then his bat crashed this season. Perhaps the injury got him off to a bad start; perhaps he played injured all season. Were that the sense that the Phillies have, would they have tried to sneak him through waivers? A constant throughout his minor league career is a disturbingly high K-rate.

The low-minors Phillies 'prospect' legitimately most negatively impacted by Covid was Yhoswar Garcia, because he was a year older than normal for the high-bonus international guy due to his lying about age, and then losing another year because of MLB penalty, before he could be signed. So, already down 2 years, he lost a third to Covid and lost more time to injury this season. So, he is a Latin American player with only 202 AB after his age 20 season. Luis Garcia had over 1000 AB after his age 20 season.

[zambonir]

Well no, they can't afford it in the big picture. But they can afford it in that someone else is the team's shortstop of the future and myriad other prospects have passed Garcia in the past few years. And they can afford it in that (as I originally posted to start this thread) nobody on this prospect-loving board even cared that much to mention it when it happened. His ship had already sailed. That story was already over. Much like Gamboa before him.

That they were willing to punt on Garcia instead of just DFAing a fringe pitcher is a sign of how little value he had at this point. but also a sign of how the modern 40-man roster simply can't accomodate players who can't help in the majors, at least not for very long.

[andyb]

It does reinforce the fact that rosters should be 42 instead of 40 these days. A kid like Garcia probably gets a nomadic existence now (or in a year if he clears waivers) when he is actually getting opportunity regularly with the Phillies. If he bounces around to 3 organizations next year he will probably not be better off than if he stayed put (and got paid a little better because he was on the 40-man roster here).

[Austinfan]

It's a problem for LA players, because they start at 17, are often physically undeveloped, and can be just hitting their stride at 22 in A ball when you have to protect them.

[andyb]

It's a problem for LA players, because they start at 17, are often physically undeveloped, and can be just hitting their stride at 22 in A ball when you have to protect them.

Do we really know that though? They are less developed because they are a year or two younger than HS players and 4-6 years younger than college players. Prospect development is pretty serious in the Dominican and Venezuela and starts very early.

They are signed younger and hit rule 5 eligibility younger. That could be most of what we are seeing.

[Austinfan]

They are also malnourished, most come out of extreme poverty by NA standards - until they get to a Bascones at 14 or 15, I suspect many do not get three squares a day, and these day especially those from Venezuela.

You do not see many American HS players with similar measurements to many LA players at 17-18.

[zambonir]

You post about the malnourished bodies of teenage Latin American players almost every day, but do you really know that? Yes, many of them grow up in extreme poverty but they would not be able to show off their baseball skills in the first place if they were truly that underdeveloped, let alone get $2.5 million for them (even mistakenly). Larry Bowa's listed weight (155) is still 15 pounds less than Luis Garcia's (170). Mickey Moniak was barely more filled out than Garcia as high school senior (190 lbs but he's three inches taller). Heck, Davonta Smith is still listed at 6'0" 170 in the NFL (he was 155 in high school).

[Taudawg]

In the 2020 Global Hunger Index, Dominican Republic ranks 32nd out of the 107 countries with sucient data to calculate 2020 GHI scores. With a score of 7.1, Dominican Republic has a level of hunger that is low.

Dominican-Republic.pdf

[andyb]

Most of the top prospects are in prospect camp pipelines by the time they are 12. Their economies are also much more developed than the stereotypes that are used. More to the point though, the top prospects are identified and put on separate development tracks much like any 12-14 year old here that is identified for various sports. They generally get good nutrition and some coaching (though probably not the analytics an American kid might be exposed to these days at least until they are 14 or 15).

Lots of 18 year olds that throw 90 grow into throwing 95 through physical development and coaching. Whether the Phillies are good at this compared to other organizations is an open question. Frankly it seems the priority on the domestic side is to find big kids who already throw in the upper 90s and hope to teach them to throw strikes. Without investing much money in Latin American pitching we are definitely taking our chances on skinny 16 and 17 year olds developing velocity. The results of such an experiment are probably as much luck as planning though.

[BaseballCat]

Luis Garcia to Tigers. Put here since we were just discussing him. Good luck

Tigers Claim Luis García From Phillies

[zambonir]

And this is just the reality of, a competing team doesn't have room on its 40, and a non-competing team does.

The size of the roster and Rule 5 is meant to create opportunities - including free agency - for players, but as has been noted, they often just fall into transactional/developmental limbo and lose out. Certainly true of most Rule 5 picks as well.

[julio]

In the 2020 Global Hunger Index, Dominican Republic ranks 32nd out of the 107 countries with sucient data to calculate 2020 GHI scores. With a score of 7.1, Dominican Republic has a level of hunger that is low.

Dominican-Republic.pdf

It is…interesting… that the GHI doesn’t seem to rank or evaluate the United States. I’m sure we’d all like to assume that’s because the United States doesn’t have a hunger problem. I’m pretty sure that assumption would be wrong.

[kmc1019]

Baseball America goes in depth on McGarry, Painter and Abel from last weekend in Hartford.......Good quotes include:
-McGarry: "With a deep arsenal of pitches, power and movement, McGarry could get outs in the major leagues right now"
-Painter: "The combination of power, movement, strike-throwing and pitchability is an extremely rare combination, and it left this writer thinking he had just watched the best pitching prospect he had seen all season."
-Abel: "Abel showed arguably the best stuff of the three"

Reading Rotation Flashes Tantalizing Talents In Andrew Painter, Mick Abel And...

[Taudawg]

High praise. It will be interesting to see where BA ranks them on the next update.

[Austinfan]

Notice McGarry had the same issue as Morales in his first AAA appearance.

It's not that AAA hitters are better than AA hitters, it's that you're more likely to face AAA plus guys who know how to work a count.

[schillingfan]

Bring McGarry up now.

[zambonir]

They've got time - at least the weekend. Seranthony's back first. And both McGarry and Eflin will require a 40-man move (Though I'm guessing Camargo's time is done. And Appel can probably go on the 60).

[phillychuck]