Prospect list coming in Sunday Inquirer
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Prospect list coming in Sunday Inquirer
Bob Brookover, Inquirer Baseball Columnist
The Inquirer, with input from Phillies beat writer Matt Gelb, super sub Marc Narducci and myself, recently put together a list of the Phillies’ top 25 prospects heading into the 2013 season. The top 10 will be revealed in the Sunday Inquirer with the following 15 coming in the Monday newspaper.
Look for a bonus list Monday of some of the prospects who did not make our list, but were in the conversation.
The best part about our top 25 list is that Phillies director of player development Joe Jordan agreed to comment on each of the players on our list.
Jordan briefly discussed the Phillies’ catching situation, which is intriguing at all levels, but it did not fit into what we were doing with our list.
Carlos Ruiz, of course, is serving a 25-game suspension to start the season because of a failed drug test last year. Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has indicated that the team will go with veterans Erik Kratz and possibly Humberto Quintero to start the season. He has not ruled out adding another veteran catcher.
Catching became a position of depth for the organization when the Phillies acquired Tommy Joseph from San Francisco in the Hunter Pence trade. Joseph and Sebastian Valle are the two most advanced catchers in the farm system and both appear ready for triple-A Lehigh Valley. Valle, in fact, finished last season with the Iron Pigs after Joseph joined the organization and became the top catcher at double-A Reading.
Cameron Rupp, a third-round pick in 2010, increased his value with a strong season at single-A Clearwater and it’s possible the Phillies will want him to remain the guy behind the plate at Reading for prospects such as Jesse Biddle, Adam Morgan and Austin Wright.
Jordan was asked if it was possible that Joseph and Valle could share the catching duties at Lehigh Valley.
“I don’t think that would be ideal,” he said. “We have some challenges ahead getting everybody in the right spot. Exactly where that is going to be has been heavily discussed, but yet to be determined.”
Shortstop Roman Quinn, the team’s second-round pick in 2011, also has Jordan excited because of his “top-of-the-scale speed.”
“We have to take our time, but he has a chance to impact a game in a lot of ways,” Jordan said. “He has to stay hungry. He was very hungry last year and he can’t lose that.”
Quinn, 19, will open this season at single-A Lakewood.
Read all about the top 25 prospects in the Sunday and Monday Inquirer and let us know what your list would look like.
The new center fielder is the big "??." If the kid can bat at least 285, steal 40 bases and make all the catches; that'll be sweet. He better catch everything hit his way because he has a lolly-pop arm. Hopefully Ruf can play at least as well as Burrel in his prime. The Phillies of old (70's and 80's) used to mop up on the sub 500 teams whenever they played them. This squad struggles with the Houston types of the NL; they must dominate the lower level teams (for a change) and play at least even with the upper tier teams to contend.— BKMcD- Like Kratz. He proved he can contribute.— dogman5
- nobody screamed about all the trades ruben made when he made them...no...all you IDIOTS were on board until you had the benefit of hindsight...typical STUPID philly fans— AlexSp
- The Giants are champs.After Posey and Panda and a very good pitching staff,how do they do it? Pitching,pitching ,pitching.How'd the Rangers,Angels,Yankees and even the Dodgers do with all their talent?I think the Phillies have a chance and can't wait for the season to begin.— youwish
- Phrontrunner: "the Phightins have the best top-to-bottom pitching staff in MLB"... you're quite ignorant -- after 2 starters (Hamels and Lee) rest of staff is at best mediocre and might be worse than last year if Halladay proves to be washed up and Kendrick and Lannan prove to be awful..
"off-season upgrades in CF and 3B": hard to see how Revere is an "upgrade" over Victornio who despite an off-season has much better arm, much better on base pctge and ops --and no replacement at all for Pence
while "upgrade" at 3rd base from last yerar's disaster just requires anyone adequate, unclear if M. Young is even that as he might be as bad a fielder as Wigginton and may be washed up as hitter too, in which case Phils still don't have a 3rd baseman..
and morons like you and ryanrockjazz just show your ignorance and parochial naivete if you think there are just a couple of posters who rip Amaro's awful destruction of this franchise over past few years and realize that Rube is incompetent -- go "enlighten" yourself if you dare and read SI, ESPN, crashburnalley, cbs, SBNation , the goodphight, etc etc instead of wallowing in your self-delusion— warbiscuit - You can't really think that those "commenters" are real Phillies fans? No way. They are shills. They have an agenda that is in no way aligned with a love of the Phillies. They are hoping Phils fans just continue to be blind to the horrendous personnel moves of Ruin Tomorrow Jr. — Copper34
- Doesn't SI pick the Eagles to win Super Bowl every year? — mwcnabb
- how Clueless Rube turned a championship team into a bad one with one of the highest budgets in baseball and never won in post-season:
1. signed an over-the-hill Ibanez for 3 yrs, $36 mil, 2. re-signed Moyer 2 yrs, 3. re-signed Bruntlett, 4. traded valuable backup catcher for nothing (Tashner), 5.did nothing to improve Phils bullpen in 2009 thus relying on a closer with an era over 7.0, 6. relied on an aged Pedro to be no. 2 starter in 2009 post-season, costing Phils World Series, 7. traded away Cliff Lee for peanuts, 8. traded away 3 top prospects for Halladay when could have kept Lee for same price, 9. signed Blanton to inexplicable $24 mil extension, 10. signed useless over-the-hill non-hitting Polanco (3 yrs, $18 mil wasted --no offense at 3rd base for 3 yrs), 11. signed Baez (2 yrs), 12. acquired Herndon and kept him on roster for all of 2010 so as not to "lose" him, 13. signed Schneider to 2 yr deal, then re-signed him, 14. failed to add a starter after losing Lee for peanuts thus requiring loss of 3 prospects to acquire Oswalt who provided only a half-season of half-decent pitching, 15. signed Gload and other worthless bench garbage, 16. gave Howard a $125 million extension almost 2 years before his current contract was due to expire--the worst extension in baseball history, 17. did nothing to improve worst bench in baseball in 2010, 18. did nothing to assist fading offense in 2010, thus costing Phils chances in 2010 post-season, 19. did nothing to replace Werth after 2010 thus having to trade 3 top prospects in July to acquire overrated Pence, 20. went into 2011 post-season with still suspect offense and bench, costing Phils chance in 2011, (that's just 2009-2011 so far)...— warbiscuit - ryanrockjazz": rube won "World Championship" as g.m.?! you're as ignorant as you are stupid— warbiscuit
- cont. - Rube's awful moves/non-moves 2011-2013:
21. kept Mike Martinez, 22. did nothing to replace Howard's lost production at 1b for 2011, 23. did nothing to replace Utley's lost production at 2b, 24. did nothing to replace Polanco's non-existent offense at 3b, 25. signed closer Papelbon for absurd price that could have acquired legitimate offense (Ramirez, Beltran, many other options) or more depth in bullpen, 26. wasted $50 mil on a closer who had been and remains awful in big spots; 27. signed over-the-hill d.h. Thome for NL team with no DH, 28. did nothing to add a lefty reliever pre-season other than sign a consistently awful Willis, 29. did nothing else to help bullpen other than awful Qualls, 30. acquired Wigginton, 31. acquired Nix, 32. let Moss go for nothing, 32. let Grilli go for nothing, 33. let Vogelsong go for nothing, 34. traded Pence away for useless trash, 35. traded Victorino for awful Lindblom and trash, 36. traded Blanton for nothing, 37. did nothing to strengthen 2013 outfield other than a slap hitter in cf, 38. did nothing to strengthen 3rd base except an over-the-hill awful fielding Young, 39 did nothing to improve starting pitching other than awful Lannan, 40. got no corner outfielder other than awful fielder/awful person/mediocre hitter D.Young, 41. kept Manuel as manager, etc.— warbiscuit - only an imbecile would think a g.m. "improves" a team by getting 2 guys named Young to be starters who can can't field at all (or hit much) and a center fielder who can catch but not throw and can't hit anything other than an occcasional single, and "improves" the starting staff by adding Lannan and Cook— warbiscuit
- Those two keep counting the prospects as stars and what the phil's currently have as garbage. Grass is always greener. If the Phils had not made those deals and missed the playoffs those years they would have been yelling that Rube held on to guys that are still not in MLB and passed on Oswalt who had a great second half that year and Pence. You can't win with biscuit and Copper just tune them out and move on.— rhcjr2
- Oswalt
2010 post-season: 1-1, 19.2 inn., 8 runs (6 er), 3hrs
2011 post-season: 0-1, 6 inn, 5 er (1hr)
total 2010-2011 post-seasons: 1-2 3.93 era,13 runs (11 earned), 4 hr's
2011 regular season: 10-11 3.69 for team that went 102-60
cost for 2 good months of Oswalt (Aug-Sept 2010): Villar (shortstop with power -- higher ranked than any current Phils hitting prospect, incl Brown and Mayberry and Ruf), Gose (already in majors --may be future Bourn or Revere), Happ (current no. 4 or 5 --probably more upside than Lannan)— warbiscuit - Steve Carlton had losing record in 1983 when Phils made WS. Cliff Lee blew 4-run lead. Loser Ben Francisco won game 3 of 2011 NLDS with homer. — mwcnabb
