Prospect Lists - Phillies and Overall - 2022-2025

[bkox]

appreciate that Matt!

[andyb]

Next part of Matt's rankings is 17-26. A bold Brad Pacheco ranking here.

Phillies 2025 Top Prospects – The Middle #17-26

[Matt_Winkelman]

Something that I sort of danced around because they aren't real games and I have to do the tracking by hand and there are no stats is that we have DSL and a couple FCL instruct games. So I have like 4 Angel Liranzo unofficial games and 2-3 Pacheco games, some extra Burkholder PAs, another half dozen Ferrebus games, as well as some other guys where we have very limited actual games.

[andyb]

It is great that Pacheco's stuff looked good in those games. Guessing the midlevel ranking is more about the mush in the middle of the rankings than anything else of course. I imagine we are getting a better feel for DSL competition these days with the revised roster rules making most organizations leave midlevel international prospects down there for an extra year or two. Competition level is much closer to FCL/GCL these days than it was previously.

[Matt_Winkelman]

It is the mush in the middle, I would feel more comfortable with him closer to 30. For pitching I am looking a little less at the competition, though it is worrying if they aren't missing bats in the DSL, I am looking more at what the stuff looks like. So in Pacheco I see a guy where the fastball shape passes the eye test and he sits 91-95 with some future possible velocity growth. The delivery looks fine and while I don't always love a big breaking curve as the only breaking ball, it does fit the fastball movement well. The changeup is extremely raw, but I did see ones that show there is something there. Overall, he was more advanced than the other DSL arms and was probably equivalent to a mid-late draft day 2 high school pitcher.

[andyb]

Getting closer to the top. Wondering a little who is 5th (unless we are still ranking Caba since this might have been written before the trade). Painter, Miller, Crawford, Tait, ???

Phillies 2025 Top Prospects – The Actual Middle of the System #6-16

[Matt_Winkelman]

Caba would have been 3, but he and Boyd were not written yet at time of trade. The name you are missing is actually ranked 3rd on this list.

[Squire]

Updated BA Top 100

Andrew Painter is 9
Aidan Miller is 36
Eduardo Tait is 93
Justin Crawford is 96

FYI Caba is 72

[Austinfan]

Rather have Tait than Caba, though Crawford and Caba are probably a wash.

My breakout candidates:
Johnson, 2 years from TJ
Abel, doubt he's totally lost it.
Mendez, has the eye to hand coordination, fix his swing and . ..
Nori, same, fix his swing to get more pop
Graves, frame and age where a jump in velocity could result in a big improvement

I'm not sure you can teach a young hitter how to hit breaking balls or develop real plate discipline, I suspect a lot of that is innate, the ability to see spin and the eye to hand coordination to adjust in real time.

Same with command, most of those high velocity/poor command pitchers have failed to improve.
Command is probably related to another innate talent, body control, which relates to consistent mechanics and not developing a "tell" on some pitches.

[bkox]

FYI Caba is 72

wow so without that trade the Phiillies would have had 5 in the top 100. When was the last time that happened

[andyb]

The name you are missing is actually ranked 3rd on this list.

That is an aggressive ranking but I like the stuff....

[Squire]

Fangraphs Phillies Top 30 Here:

Philadelphia Phillies Top 30 Prospects

[allentown]

And Fangraphs has 'the name you are missing' at #3, also. They are higher on our pitchers and lower on our position players than most lists.

[zambonir]

What were the Orioles thinking?

[Matt_Winkelman]

There is some thought they are just bad at pitching development. Here is the guy they traded for Eflin (https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=baumei000jac). They have sort of the old style of Astros pitching with piggy backs and not having guys really work on pitching.

[zambonir]

Even so, I still can't believe Gregory Soto got almost as good a return as the Angels got for Estevez (but that's also what made them nicely paired moves).

[andyb]

Fangraphs ranking only 30 players is not a great sign for depth. They rank all players over a certain FV and many teams get 40-50 players ranked.

[andyb]

Even so, I still can't believe Gregory Soto got almost as good a return as the Angels got for Estevez (but that's also what made them nicely paired moves).

Kind of amazing that our return for Soto is also going to end up so much better than our return for Dominguez who is now an actual useful pitcher.

[zambonir]

That was a pretty fair one-for-one swap though (well, okay, Phillies had to throw in Pache). It tilted in O's favor because they deemed Seranthony worth keeping and Hays wasn't. Part of that was his bad luck/health but clearly the Phillies overrated him a bit (having wanted him in the past, and seeing him as an everyday player).

If Seranthony has a better year than Alvarado and someone in the middle tier doesn't step up (or Romano/Kerkering aren't great) we will definitely lament his absence.

[andyb]

And the top of the list:

Phillies 2025 Top Prospects – The Top 5

Interesting thoughts on Crawford. The first sentence is perceptive: In many ways Crawford gets credit for things that won’t work at the next level while hiding skills more impactful than often talked about.

I have sort of had that take too. The swing is not built for power so the contact approach and high OBP may not work as well without some power. And the defense is merely good but nowhere near great. He'll need more offense than Rojas to succeed there.