Prospect Lists - Phillies and Overall - 2022-2025

Matt_Winkelman 2023-02-03 14:32:57 UTC #143

The Phillies overhauled the program over the last few years, really targeting the Dominican Complex and then moving throughout the system. They have had programs for players during the season, and then big offseason programs domestically and in the Dominican Complex that have focused more on strength. I think largely it is not a big problem anymore, and when we are talking about skinny players who may not add enough strength it is really guys like Emaarion Boyd or William Bergolla where you worry about the frame and if there is only so much room to grow.

Philsmania 2023-02-03 16:23:29 UTC #144

Meanwhile, the Dodgers--love them or hate them--just keep on reloading. Baseball's best organization.

andyb 2023-02-03 17:07:27 UTC #145

Latest two pieces from Matt:

Next week for the big 3 pitchers I assume. Q and A from Keith Law below:

ESPN ranks the organization 24th:

And I think we get team lists from both ESPN and Keith Law next week.

zambonir 2023-02-03 18:54:13 UTC #146

Which also shows you how much things can change when ownership and/or the front office does... though perhaps also that when you are historically successful/wealthy and have a strong culture as a team, even a few bad owners can't mess it up forever.

Austinfan 2023-02-04 04:21:12 UTC #147

You need professionals up and down the system, guys at the top communicating and making sure everyone is on the same page. You also need a bunch of resources, but that pales compare to the value of turning a Rojas (10K) or De La Cruz (UDFA) into a ML starter.

Strength training is a lot more complex than giving kids 3 squares and a weight room.
There should be a custom program for every player, taking into account his frame, age, physical development, skill set and probable position. You don't want to slow down speedsters, or get power hitters so muscle bound they lose bat speed. You want pitchers to build their lower bodies and core to take stress off their arms, and so on.

It seems this was lost on the organization for decades, hopefully they've come into the 21st century, after spending most of the last century in pre-WWII mode.

andyb 2023-02-04 13:37:03 UTC #148

This stuff was never lost on the organization. They were just not very good at it. There have been several makeovers of the entire player development system over the past 20 years. The latest one seems the most promising, but it is not as if the organization did not try to do most of the things you say in your post. Though it is a bit simplistic. We wanted Jimmy Rollins to hit for some power because it made him better in addition to the speed and fielding. We have always wanted our pitchers to add velocity and build strength. We have actually doubled down on that of late, but it is not as if we never did it. Think what we did with Ryan Madson that took him from a skinny HS pitcher to a closer who consistently hit the upper 90s.

As I said, the current regime seems to know what they are doing. I do worry that the emphasis on spin rate will blow out some arms in the long run. I also worry that we have a lousy track record on improving hit tools. Hopefully the future will be better. Lamenting the past is kind of besides the point in a topic about our current prospects and which profile as the best.

phillychuck 2023-02-04 21:12:39 UTC #149

Is this where we are? ::

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftenor.com%2Fsearch%2Fold-man-yells-at-cloud-gifs&psig=AOvVaw3W3alMXJknULOvFBnf3rQU&ust=1675631511833000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCJDp7fnj_PwCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Austinfan 2023-02-05 03:29:22 UTC #150

It was lost for a long time, it's only the last couple decades, and really since Middleton became more powerful in the owners cabal, where they've started to catch up to the top teams in terms of investing in facilities, coaches, trainers and new technologies. Even though Klentak didn't do it well, he at least tried. But because these things take time, both to build and implement, and for the impact to be felt, we're still in catch-up mode.

andyb 2023-02-05 13:55:12 UTC #151

They almost always tried. Remember some guy named Arbuckle that gave us the 2008 core? Remember the Pope and even Dallas Green who in their time were pretty good at this scouting and player development thing?

All we can do is evaluate a regime after they are gone. We have no clue if the current regime will be successful. Frankly we should thank Ed Wade a bit for investing in Latin America after the organization forgot about it for a decade. And I also recall you (AF!) gushing about new complexes in Venezuela and the Dominican 15 years ago. Venezuela was well intentioned even if politics got in the way, but our new Dominican complex is not the first renewed effort down there. It is at least the 3rd or 4th.

Back to this thread. It should be about current prospects and not lamenting the past. Let's just not say the current regime is great because we really don't know that yet.

allentown 2023-02-05 18:55:22 UTC #152

Dallas Green and Paul Owens are a long way in the past. An important dividing line in that past is 1981, the year Bill Giles and his investors took over the Phillies from Ruly Carpenter. That marks the start of a long, and very dark, period for the Phillies farm. Dallas Green was gone almost immediately after Gile's took over. He took a lot of baseball people with him to the Cubs. He then took advantage of Bill Giles' pique at Bowa for demanding too big a raise and swindled the Phillies out of future HOF Ryne Sandberg. Giles also slashed spending on the farm and basically scuttled the Phillies very strong operation in the Dominican Republic, canning the top scout. Owens straddled the 1981 line, but despite the 1983 WS team, his best days were prior to Giles and, although he stayed with the Phillies, he was stripped of decision-making authority after 1984. Arby gave us the 2008 core and his time leading scouting and development was indeed the recent-time peak in the Phillies farm's contribution to the MLB Phillies. Then the Phillies chose RAJ over Arby and failed to entice Arby to stay with the team. Scouting and player development cratered, and the Phillies entered an extended period of changes in philosophy, and baseball-side professional staff -- a ton of churn and little success in sending impact players to Philly.

The current regime seems to be an improvement. It replaced what can politely be described as incompetent, unsuccessful, near chaos. Recent top draft picks have been a lot better. We seem to finally have more consistency restored to player development. Our Latin American operation still strikes me as a mess. Yhoswar Garcia is an inexcusable and embarrassing failure. LA scouting and bonus negotiation still needs a major fix. It looks like they have made major steps to improve development at the Phillies Dominican Academy.

You are correct that it will be at least 3-4 years until we can assess the impact of the most recent changes in scouting/development. I'll add our analytics capability to that list.

Austinfan 2023-02-05 19:02:21 UTC #153

Scouting yes. Development?

The 2000 teams were mostly 1st and 2nd picks plus Howard and a lot of low level FAs.
2008:
Ruiz LA
Howard 5th rd
Utley no. 15
Rollins 2nd rd
Burrell no. 1
Victorino Rule 5, Werth, waivers, Feliz 1yr FA
Coste, Jenkins, Dobbs, Brunlett but Golson no.21,

Hamels no. 17, Myers no. 12, Moyer, Kendrick 7th rd, Eaton no. 11, Blanton (for Cardenas no. 37, Outman 10th rd)
Lidge (T Bourn 4th rd), Madson 9th rd, Condrey, Romero, Seanez, Gordon
Happ 3rd rd

They were good at finding undervalued FAs off the scrap heap, but that team had 6 1st rd picks, 1 2nd, 1 5th, 1 7th, 1 9th and one Latin player.

allentown 2023-02-05 20:48:42 UTC #154

Well, Burrell was the only top 10 pick. Contrast to how many picks we had in top 10 after the WC. Your list does demonstrate our LA failings go back quite a long time: Ruiz a special case signed in Mexico as an older guy. The 16-17 year old LA bonus babies not on your list.

andyb 2023-02-05 22:34:04 UTC #155

Developing first round picks (especially mid to late ones) is still development. Sometimes it is real hard to know what your point is. You are just listing players. 2008 was a pretty good home grown core. It was a mix of handful of high picks with a bunch of mid ones. True there was not much in Latin America, but blame that on Bill Giles and being cheap for a decade and a half. I am not sure what counting number one picks even means to this discussion. Especially ones they traded for or signed as a free agent.

The Phillies of 2022 and the Phillies of 1980 all had a bunch of high picks on them too. Hint - that is what just about all world champions have. There were a whole bunch of high number one picks and expensive Latin American signings on the Astros last year too. Yordan Alvarez cost the Dodgers $16 million plus tax penalties as an amateur free agent. Where were the Phillies in that free market? Every Latin American star does not sign for $10K which seems to be your recommendation every time you look at our big signings.

We don't need to be cheap. We need to be better at this.

zambonir 2023-02-06 00:56:25 UTC #156

I think Klentak will probably end up looking pretty good in terms of development and the overall organizational infrastructure, even as his big failures (Kapler, Chris Young) and easy successes (acquiring major league stars) are obvious. There were other mistakes, especially early on, and more importantly IMO, a lack of alignnment throughout the organization and no leadership from MacPhail, both things Dombrowski seems to have fixed. But Barber, Fuld, Rice, Velandia and all kinds of key people were Klentak holdovers, as is Thomson for that matter. Ditto analytics (Corrine Landry, for instance). It is still ironic to me that Fuld was part of that disastrous start but then pivoted to running the optimization and training department before he got the promotion.

andyb 2023-02-06 12:52:36 UTC #157

Keith Law top 20. As usual some surprises. Rojas 3rd (which we knew). Lee 4th ahead of McGarry and Crawford. Muzziotti a surprise 7th and there was some real offensive improvement last year around the numerous injuries.

fish 2023-02-06 14:48:57 UTC #158

And a very large contingent of 2022 draft picks- I kind of like it.

Austinfan 2023-02-06 15:05:01 UTC #159

They had to patch with a LOT of free agents on short-term deals (partially b/c they didn't want to bust the cap).
That is usually due to the inability to develop players, the top picks are where you find most of your stars, but good organizations build depth so they have a flow of cheap contracts and injury fill-ins, instead of hoping they can buy a bench and bullpen and back end starters each season.

The Phillies need to hit on some of their big money LA signings, but they also just need a deeper organization that can supply back of the rotation, back of the bullpen, bench guys, platoon guys, etc. They're starting to get there, but are still a few years away from a farm system without a big hole in the middle (Reading won't have much this season).

andyb 2023-02-06 15:31:26 UTC #160

I still fail to see your point. All teams have a goal of a good minor league system and hitting on their top picks and expensive signings. There is no disagreement here. You just listed a bunch of players from 2008 that really had no apparent thesis.

The Phillies have been mediocre in drafting and development and in Latin America the past 10-15 years. Hopefully things are looking up with Painter and Abel. None of this is really in dispute though. They are trying some new things now. I hope they work. I don't know that they will though. This is a place to discuss how well they are doing now. I doubt they will take any of our advice on what they should do.

andyb 2023-02-06 18:20:46 UTC #161

Matt is drawing this out.....

phillychuck 2023-02-06 19:03:26 UTC #162

Not a bad thing...you get more words this way!