Cloyd, Ruf win awards, Arizona Fall League roster announced
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Cloyd, Ruf win awards, Arizona Fall League roster announced
Matt Gelb, Inquirer Staff Writer
On the day he was promoted to the majors, Tyler Cloyd won honors as the top pitcher in the Phillies minor leagues.
Cloyd and slugging double-A first baseman Darin Ruf were named 2012 Paul Owens Award winners, the award annually given by the Phillies to their top minor leaguers.
The honors were hardly shocking. Cloyd has already won International League pitcher of the year while going 15-1 with a 2.26 ERA across two levels. He will likely have a month-long tryout in the Phillies rotation.
Ruf's success is well documented. He is aiming for the Eastern League's triple crown by hitting .317 with 37 home runs and 98 RBI. Those 37 homers are more than any player in all of minor-league baseball.
Additionally, the Phillies assigned seven players to the Arizona Fall League. The most notable are three position players — third baseman Cody Asche, catcher Tommy Joseph and outfielder Zach Collier.
Asche, 22, is having a big season at Reading with a .307/.359/.527 line. Joseph was acquired in the Hunter Pence trade. Collier, 21, is hitting .267/.334/.403 at single-A Clearwater. He is subject to the Rule 5 draft this winter if not added to the 40-man roster.
The pitchers going to AFL are righties Tyler Knigge, Kyle Simon and Colby Shreve and lefty Jay Johnson. They will all play for the Peoria Javelinas, which will be guided by Reading manager Dusty Wathan.
Teams will typically send top talent to the fall league as a showcase event to see how they compete against others.
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Clearwater's Austin Wright also was named FSL pitcher of the year....despite being regarded in house as a lesser prospect than either ascending Adam Morgan or the organizations top rated prospect in local product Jesse Biddle (not bad considering he,like Morgan, skipped a level this season)...Add Kyle Simon, who came over in the thome trade, as a guy on the radar...excited for Asche to continue to see better pitching as he's conquered 2 levels this season after also skipping Lakewood to begin the year....Any Winter ball for Maikel Franco?...the guy turned 20 but 2 days ago and has 80 RBIs despite a horrid start at Lakewood...he's gonna be a run producer.— bearsfriend- Why waste an AFL spot on Collier? After watching him in Clearwater this season when he came off a suspension for failing a drug test I did not see him show any tools that could project to the major league level. No team would ever take him in the Rule Five draft. Come On!— Dull
