Phillies hire new director of amateur scouting

BUSTER POSEY and Madison Bumgarner. Matt Adams and Trevor Rosenthal. Eric Hosmer and Yordano Ventura. Manny Machado and Zach Britton.

The first two already have World Series rings with San Francisco, the second two helped lead a new wave of Cardinals into another World Series appearance 12 months ago, and the last four are all key contributors to the rousing successes in Kansas City and Baltimore this season.

While 26 of baseball's 30 teams have hit the road, those eight players are still playing in the postseason. The other similarity they share? All our homegrown talents, either drafted by their current teams or signed as young, international free agents.

"Player development and scouting has always been the backbone of every organization," Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said 2 weeks ago. "It's been the backbone of ours for many years. We've had many players playing right now, our core guys, putting us in a position of success every year. They're all homegrown guys. We've got to get back to bringing that caliber of player back to our system. That's our goal."

Amaro's words came after the Phillies announced the firing of assistant general manager and scouting director Marti Wolever, who had been with the organization since 1992. Yesterday, the Phillies hired Wolever's replacement.

Johnny Almaraz was announced as the Phillies' new director of amateur scouting.

Almaraz, 49, comes to the Phillies from the Atlanta Braves organization, where he was the director of international scouting and operations for the last 5 years. Almaraz, who joined Atlanta in 2007, previously spent 16 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, where he had stints as both the director of player personnel and director of player development, among other roles.

During his career, Almaraz signed All-Stars Julio Teheran (Atlanta), Johnny Cueto (Cincinnati) and Adam Dunn (Cincinnati), among others.

In the Braves' 2014 media guide, Almaraz is described as being "best known for his work as a scout and his dedication to the reinstatement of the Reds presence in Latin America" while with Cincinnati and establishing himself in Atlanta as someone "recognized by many as one of the most prolific talent evaluators in baseball."

"We couldn't be happier to add someone of Johnny's caliber to our baseball operations staff," Phillies player personnel director and assistant GM Benny Looper said in a statement yesterday. "He has established a reputation for being able to identify future major league talent and brings a great deal of experience to the Phillies."

The Phillies, one of the National League powers during the first decade of the 21st century, have failed to finish each of the last three seasons with a winning record, in part because of the team's failure to add more homegrown talent to an aging core of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels and Carlos Ruiz.

Each of those five players were either drafted by the organization or signed as amateur free agents. All of them played pivotal parts in the Phillies winning five straight National League East titles, two NL pennants, and the second World Series championship in franchise history.

But all four position players will be 35 years or older when the 2015 season begins and Hamels, who turns 31 this winter, represents the last successful top pick the organization made (under Wolever) in the last dozen years. (To be fair, the last two top picks, Aaron Nola and J.P. Crawford, are too early into their professional careers to be evaluated yet).

But since the Phillies selected Hamels in the first round of the 2002 draft, the team has seen little return in the amateur draft. The last 12 top selections - Greg Golson, Mike Costanzo, Adrian Cardenas, Kyle Drabek, Joe Savery, Anthony Hewitt, Kelly Dugan, Jesse Biddle, Larry Greene, Shane Watson, Crawford and Nola - played in a combined five major league games in 2014.

Among amateur international signings, only Ruiz and reliever Antonio Bastardo have risen to become major contributors at the big-league level for the Phillies in the last decade.