Prospect Lists - Phillies and Overall - 2022-2025

[Austinfan]

With project pitchers, the breakthrough is more likely to come at 20, after a couple years filling out and adding velocity and refining secondary offerings.

The players left in the DSL are either less talented or late bloomers who will surprise simply because if they were already good enough they'd be in the US.

[Matt_Winkelman]

I am not the one asked, but it is a down year for the Phillies in the DSL. Their top Jalvin Arias has missed most of the year to injury. Cesar Mujica ($700,000) and Anderson Navas ($250,000 and touted as breakout) have both been poor offensively. I like the look of Jose Familia ($600,000), but he is extremely young and physically underdeveloped. Nathanael Cijntje ($337,500) was also supposed to be one to watch, but has missed most of the year to injury. When it comes to holdovers, Jaeden Calderon has good offensive numbers, but has some real swing and miss and is down the defensive spectrum (I have also seen him hit some balls quite hard). Victor Cardoza has been on a scorcher since moving from Red from White, but the BB and K rates give you some pause. Alirio Ferrebus was on fire for 3 weeks and that got promoted to the FCL before getting hurt. There are some other guys who physically look interesting, but they are more check back in a year.

Pitching wise there are some very interesting arms, but there aren't any guys who are real prospects yet. Eligio Arias is older and massive, but throws up to 96 with an interesting slider. Pedro Peralta has been a disaster numerically for the second straight year, but just turned 18 and is up to 98 while sitting 92-96 as a starter. Enderson Jean is an interesting RP with poor control. Joel Heredia went on a hot streak for a while and has been their best pitcher. He has a starter's mix and is up to 94. Darling Reyes is another big arm reliever with control problems. Alexander De Los Santos is still 17 and is extremely skinny, but 88-93 with a change and a slider and 2.31 ERA (actually he has been better than Heredia).

To got to the above list, there is no Caba or Tait here. Could there be a Escobar that needs two years in the DSL to develop, sure. There could be some Jean Cabrera types among the arms, maybe a hard throwing RP. It overall lacked a top guys and seems to in a bit of an ebb cycle. Something to note is that the 2023 signing class left very few secondary pieces behind (Calderon, Liranzo who was hurt, Peralta) because $3.35M of the $4.6M 23 budget went to Caba and Wen Hui Pan, which is money very well spent, but let the teams a bit young and starless.

[andyb]

Something to note is that the 2023 signing class left very few secondary pieces behind (Calderon, Liranzo who was hurt, Peralta) because $3.35M of the $4.6M 23 budget went to Caba and Wen Hui Pan, which is money very well spent, but let the teams a bit young and starless.

Though we do seem to have hit on some real prospects in the secondary signings in Tait and maybe Ferrebus.

Thanks for the detail. I was more just trying to predict if anyone will make the FCL list next year and unless there are breakthroughs we are probably mainly hoping Arias can do it in a healthy second season. Hard to see any of the pitchers likely to be on the list (and betting that the vast majority of every FCL list is position players anyway).

[owaistabish]

Interesting to note though - Aroon Escobar had two mediocre seasons in DSL and had a great one at FCL, however walk rates and low K rate stands out. Hoping that Calederon and Cardoza produce the same.

[andyb]

Escobar was fighting injuries most of the time in the DSL and he did have at least a midlevel bonus and some pedigree (Acuna family). But he did also take a major step forward with his hit tool and his other tools were as advertised (but maybe hidden by the injuries).

Hoping for a breakthrough also. It is just harder for older prospects to make any of these lists as the top prospects in a lower level league like this are judged half on their bonus and tools and only half on their performance (relative to age). That is why it was a little surprising to me that Escobar made it.

And selfishly we really want Escobar to do well so his 12 (maybe 13) year old cousin will sign with us if there is no draft by then.

[Matt_Winkelman]

I will say on Escobar, the visuals the last two years have been good, and then he has struggled to stay on the field (which this year was not a good move forward. But his first year 12.9% BB% 14.0% K%, second year 14.9% BB% 9.7% K%. He controls the strike zone really well and can hit the ball really hard. His timing was off and there was a lot of pop ups and weak fly balls. That is still somewhat of a problem, but the Escobar breakout has been sort of on the fringes for a while. My guess is Calderon and Cardoza are more on the Raylin Hererdia path, which I like Heredia (I liked him too much last year), but there are some real flaws.

[owaistabish]

On Heredia - I totally agree. Still a fan of him as I have seen a few of his prospect videos and he has tremendous raw power and a great arm with a little bit of speed as well. Hoping he develops into an average hitter with improved plate discipline.

[owaistabish]

Oddly enough, Kenny Acuna posted on his instagram today.

[gmwannabe]

Andy, I will jump on what you stated above. with a lot of these hitting prospects, where are the pitching prospects to join them when they move up the ladder.? I know the NIL is hurting getting the high school pitchers but, the phils need starters, in my opinion.
gm

[andyb]

Part of this is that there are virtually no high dollar Latin American pitching prospects any more. So no team has many pitchers that are obvious prospects as early as FCL. I doubt that there were more than 5 pitchers on today's top 20 (not having seen the list since it is paywalled).

[Austinfan]

Given the attrition rate on young pitchers, you're probably as well off with a half dozen late bloomers who develop than one or two blue chips who are likely to blow out their arms. Problem is you don't know which pitchers will develop until they do, so until then the cupboard looks barren.

[zambonir]

But you don't get a half-dozen late bloomers or a half-dozen blue chips. What you might get is 3-4 pitchers out of a dozen total.

[Austinfan]

You get more bloomers b/c you start with 20-30 longshots, blue chips are expensive, a lot of bonus in LA, a high pick in the draft. So you only can afford 1 or 2 a year at best.

The reason teams stopped paying them big money in LA or use top picks in the draft is the attrition rate, you'll risk $300K but not $3M, you'll use a late 1st or 2nd rd pick on a big HS arm but not a top 10 pick.

It's a complicated formula that values upside higher when determining expected value. But even with upside, the high risk of young pitchers has caused them to be heavily discounted.

[andyb]

But there is no reason to think the Phillies get any more of these late bloomers than anyone else. You act like late bloomers is a concerted strategy and it just isn't.

It is big that 3 guys with large or at least medium-sized bonuses (enough to be known in Tait's case) look like they are prospects. It is kind of meaningless projecting the Phillies with any sort of pitching out of FCL. A couple will probably make it. Most won't. And chances are those couple that make it won't be great prospects anyway.

This organization has really decided that they want to develop less pitching and that they will buy what they need in trades or free agency. That is really our pitching strategy even though we are putting as much effort into developing unheralded prospects as anyone else.

[fish]

They have a lot of lefties in the DSL that look great in uniforms but have less than impressive stuff, but I really like the angle and stuff of Raymon Rosario- 89-93 mph, but another little uptick in stuff and could get interesting.

https://x.com/philsplayerdev/status/1818701058878722298?s=46&t=mvOU_pmOKCjCzc-L4tyU4w

[andyb]

Missed this a few days ago. New MLB.com midseason top 30. Article and links here:

https://www.mlb.com/news/phillies-top-30-prospects-2024-midseason-update?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage

Not a bad list. System rank 16. They have Nori and Burkholder 7 and 8 just behind Abel. Tait up to 5th. Those sound right to me. Johnson 15th and Chace 26th so they are a bit lower on the trade additions. Spikerman 12th.

[xogfog]

ESPN's midseason top 100 prospects list by Kiley McDaniel had Painter and Miller at 21 and 22 and Caba at 68, but surprised Crawford was not on the list.

[owaistabish]

Indeed - even though he is hitting lights out.

[gmwannabe]

Well from what I saw last night, McDaniel was spot on. Went out to the Reading game last night. What a disappointment. Crawford didn't get the ball out of the infield and and struck out twice. Tall, Really skinny player. Kind of like Domonic Brown but skinnier. But, Crawford had 4 hits earlier in the week so who knows. Beautiful night a the ball park but not so good for the phils. SS Schwenke looked real good, defensively though.
gm

[bigegypt0417]

eyeball scouting based on watching a single game scouting is not...scouting.

Crawford needs work on mechanics but you can't dismiss what he's doing as a 20 year old in AA.