Phillies Top 10 Stories of 2009: No. 10 -- Improvement on the Farm
by WholeCamels on Nov 29, 2009 9:38 AM EST
33 comments
First in a series of ten (seriously!) articles on the 2009 Phillies.
As recently as 2005, the Phillies farm system had the worst minor league winning percentage in all of professional baseball. Organizational winning percentage may not be the best way to judge system strength, but you get the idea. Things have turned around since then. So much so, that the organization has been able to unload six of their top ten prospects (Adrian Cardenas, Josh Outman, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald, Lou Marson, and Jason Knapp) at the deadline for pitching help, and they still have one of the best farm systems in baseball.
The biggest reason? The system's top three prospects -- RHP Kyle Drabek, and outfielders Michael Taylor and Domonic Brown. The three guys who were too good to trade for Roy Halladay.
More after the jump...
Drabek, coming off Tommy John surgery, posted a 3.19 ERA with 150 strikeouts and just 50 walks in 158 innings pitched between Class A Clearwater and Double-A Reading. Drabek only turns 22 early next month. The Phillies shut Drabek down in August when he led the minors in innings pitched; a judicious decision, considering his recent arm surgery. He projects as a #2 starter in the majors, but will likely spend all of 2010 in Double-A and Triple-A, barring disaster in Philadelphia.
Michael Taylor posted a combined .320/.395/.549 line between Reading and Triple-A Lehigh Valley, with 20 home runs. An extremely strong contact hitter (just 70 strikeouts) with a line-drive swing, the 6'6", 250 pound outfielder looks to force his way into the big leagues as soon as mid 2010 -- whether it's with the Phillies or another team remains to be seen. He'll be 24 next season, so he's just about "done."
Domonic Brown has emerged as the organization's top prospect. An exciting mix of tools and skills, Brown went .299/.377/.504 mostly between Clearwater and Reading in his age 21 season. Brown will need at least one more full year in the minors and will probably start 2010 in Reading.
Aside from those three, there's a great deal of organizational depth, particularly among the pitchers -- lower level guys with high upside like Trevor May and Brody Colvin, and future reliever types like Joe Savery, Mike Stutes and Vance Worley, not to mention Justin DeFratus, Austin Hyatt, Jonathan Pettibone, Matt Way, etc. etc. You get the idea. Grab a bunch of nice arms, and hope to hit on a couple of them. It's as good a strategy as any. Oh, and Scott Mathieson is hitting the mid to upper 90s again.
Among the position players, catcher Travis D'Arnaud and outfielder Anthony Gose lead the non-Taylor/Brown positional prospects, but both are still at least a few years away.
Of course there are weaknesses -- no real third base or middle infield prospects to speak of (unless Freddy Galvis can actually figure out how to hit a little) -- and a disconcerting tendency to go for toolsy outfielder types with high picks. But in 2009, the Phillies farm system proved beyond any doubt that it belongs in the top third in MLB. Quite a change from a few years ago, when it was one of the very worst.
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The Phils tradition of drafting “high-upside tools guys” is at least two decades old, and for most of that time it hasn’t gone real well: Jeff Jackson, Reggie Taylor, Greg Golson, et al. Anthony Hewitt and Zach Collier aren’t looking great either. But Michael Taylor and Brown arguably fit in that mold too, and they both look like potential MLB all-stars. I’d love to know why people within the organization think these guys have flourished where so many of their predecessors and contemporaries haven’t.
And as I wrote somewhere else recently—the Marson FanPost I believe—I think the Phils’ development of pitchers, both keeping them healthy (or healthier) and teaching them “how to pitch,” is one of the untold stories of the team’s late-’00s ascent. It gives me confidence that at least one of the high-upside May/Colvin/Cosart bunch will emerge as at least a #3 starter, and that one or two of the Carpenter/Worley/Stutes/Cisco crowd will prove surprisingly useful.
by dajafi on Nov 29, 2009 4:31 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
The Phils tradition of drafting "high-upside tools guys" is at least two decades old, and for most of that time it hasn’t gone real well: Jeff Jackson, Reggie Taylor, Greg Golson, et al. Anthony Hewitt and Zach Collier aren’t looking great either.
With due respect, I have to object very strongly to this – people say this all the time, and it just isn’t accurate. If there really was a two-decade-long tradition that fit this description, there would be more than three examples from the pre-Hewitt era.
If you look at the historical record, the Phillies did not draft a ton of “high-upside tools guys” during either the Lee Thomas or Ed Wade eras (at least not with early-round picks – I don’t think anyone thinks the team ought to be valuing statistical performance over “raw ability” with lower-round picks). Their first-round picks were split fairly evenly between college and high school players, and the majority of their high school picks were pitchers, not “athletic” position players. There does appear to have been a shift that began under Pat Gillick, but that does not make a two-decade-long tradition.
I don’t even have a particularly strong opinion on which approach is correct. It’s just that facts are facts. If you go through the Phillies’ drafting record from 1988-2006 and sort them by category, it just doesn’t support the above statement.
by taco pal on Nov 29, 2009 5:12 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I don’t know the draft pools of each year nearly well enough to say for sure, but my guess would be that when “those guys” were there—the super-athlete types—the Phils went after them more often than not. When they took Wayne Gomes or Carlton Loewer in the first round, there might not have been a Jackson/Golson type on the board.
In other words, I’m not saying that they always took “the best athlete.” But I suspect that when the guy who fit that description was evaluated as a really superior physical specimen, they did take him.
Like you, I don’t (always) hate the approach; it depends on what else the organization has and needs, what other kinds of players are available, and other factors. But I do think it’s important to get some return on first-round picks. Jackson never made it above double-A; R. Taylor and (thus far) Golson topped out as quad-A guys. Hewitt seems to be in the Jeff Jackson mode—though it might well turn out that a guy like Brown who got a fraction of Hewitt’s signing bonus justifies the strategy.
by dajafi on Nov 29, 2009 7:09 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Well, we’re not going to be able to find a whole lot of 1990s-era predraft scouting reports online, so it would be a total guess. But I remain highly skeptical. Three guys in sixteen years is a modest number. By way of comparison, during that same time period the Blue Jays (whose GM, of course, was Pat Gillick) selected high school position players with their top draft picks seven times (1991, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000). Granted, not every high school position players is “toolsy” (whatever that means – ugh) but there’s enough of a correlation there to use it for rough comparative purposes at least. The Phillies, in contrast did it four times (the three guys you named, plus Mike Lieberthal who I guess doesn’t count as “toolsy”).
Anyway, I just have a hard time believing that the best Occam’s Razor explanation for the 3-for-16 ratio is that there were no reputedly athletic guys left on the board for them on 13 different occasions. And just as a general principle, I think it’s highly problematic to lump Jeff Jackson and Greg Golson together for any purpose at all, when they were selected 15 years apart under different general managers, different scouting directors, and different team presidents.
by taco pal on Nov 29, 2009 9:35 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I really hate the word “toolsy”. It’s a vague term, and different people use it to mean different things. Many people use it without even knowing what they mean by it. And to the extent the word has any meaning(s) at all, we already had plenty of non-vague non-neologisms that were already perfectly sufficient to get those meanings across.
But that pet peeve aside, good post. Are the Phillies really considered to have one of the best farm systems around? I haven’t seen any organizational rankings recently, but my impression had been that they were just thought to be above-average.
Also, Trade Ibanez!© That’ll solve the Taylor logjam.
by taco pal on Nov 29, 2009 5:22 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
ranking
Keith Law ranked the Phillies system 11th last January. With the seasons had by Drabek, Taylor, and Brown, not to mention D’Arnaud and May, I can’t imagine they slipped much, if at all, despite the Cliff Lee deal.
http://www.thegoodphight.com
by WholeCamels on Nov 29, 2009 6:06 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Agreed. The top three in the system is very strong — at least one, and possibly all three, will be Top 25 prospects when the various rankings come out — and there are enough intriguing arms and lower level position players to keep the system from being completely top heavy.
I’d say it’s a top third system, probably in the 8 to 10 range when all’s said and done.
by PhillyFriar on Nov 30, 2009 9:36 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Here are some more numbers. (Baseball Reference never ceases to amaze me, by the way. Is there any info they don’t have? Great resource.)
During the Thomas and Wade administrations (1989-1995) the Phillies chose the following types of players in rounds 1 through 3, including compensation picks.
First Round (17 total) – 4 HS Hitters, 5 HS Pitchers, 5 College Hitters, 3 College Pitchers
Second Round (13 total) – 3 HS Hitters, 4 HS Pitchers, 4 College Hitters, 2 College Pitchers
Third Round (16 total) – 6 HS Hitters, 4 HS Pitchers, 2 College Hitters, 4 College Pitchers
Combined (46 total) – 13 HS Hitters, 13 HS Pitchers, 11 College Hitters, 9 College Pitchers
So the team leaned toward high school players over college players, but only very mildly. And pretty much all of that “lean” came from the third round, not the first or second.
Again, I realize that not all HS players are considered “toolsy” and not all college players are considered the opposite of “toolsy”, but there is a correlation. If the Phillies were as extreme in their “tools-orientation” as the received wisdom says they were during this time period, you would be able to see something more than this in the HS/college breakdown. The fact is that the received wisdom is just wrong.
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 2:09 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
HS picks are risky, and in all likliehood someone picked from HS in the first 3-4 rounds is likely very skilled, but projected. I look at toolsy , in common use, as being a very skilled player, but who requires a lot of projection and needs serious development. Those 26 HS players were likely “toolsy” by that definition.
by Cormican on Nov 30, 2009 6:56 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
The point is that a 26/46 ratio (and an even lower 16/30 ratio in the first two rounds) does not indicate a huge amount of favoritism toward that kind of player. I don’t have the time to go around and collect data on the draft histories of all 26 teams that were around back then, unfortunately, but off the top of my head I suspect that that ratio is right in the mainstream.
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 7:06 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
In contrast, here’s the Gillick/Amaro drafting record:
First Round (6 total) – 4 HS Hitters, 1 HS Pitcher, 0 College Hitters, 1 College Pitcher
Second Round (5 total) – 3 HS Hitters, 1 HS Pitcher, 0 College Hitters, 1 College Pitcher
Third Round (6 total) – 1 HS Hitter, 2 HS Pitchers, 2 College Hitters, 1 College Pitcher
Combined (17 total) – 8 HS Hitters, 4 HS Pitchers, 2 College Hitters, 3 College Pitchers
Small sample size, but I think it’s reasonable to draw a preliminary conclusion that a major philosophical shift occurred in 2006. The idea that there’s some sort of continuity between the pre- and post-Gillick approaches on “toolsiness” (bleah – last time I’m using that term) is simply not supported by the facts. (And maybe that’s just as well, because it seems like the Gillick approach has worked out better for us.)
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 2:50 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
what the heck does "toolsy" mean?
I’m just asking…
by JWoody on Nov 30, 2009 3:13 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
You know what the five tools are?
Hitting for average, hitting for power, running, fielding and throwing.
“Toolsy” really should mean that a player has most or all of these tools. However, it’s often used to denote players who scouts believe have the potential to develop the tools. Unfortunately, the latter sort of “toolsy” player generally turns out to not be very good at baseball.
by phatj on Nov 30, 2009 3:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
That’s one way to define that word. Other people seem to use it in other ways. Some people just use it to denote draft prospects they dislike regardless of whether or not they share any actual similarities.
If that word really just refers to guys with athletic ability, we already have a word for that: athletic. If it refers to guys with yet-untapped athletic ability, we have a word for that too: raw. The word adds nothing of value to the English language.
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 3:52 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
for taco pal
toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy toolsy
toolsy
http://www.thegoodphight.com
by WholeCamels on Nov 30, 2009 6:40 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
how's that expression you like to use go again? oh yeah.
BASTARD IN A BASKET!
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 7:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
WC is glad there is no toolsy bit of him in you.
by Wet Luzinski on Dec 3, 2009 1:15 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Toolsy
Pretty much a nice way of saying a guy is athletic but lacks skills. Michael Jordan was toolsy. Greg Golson is outrageously toolsy. Anthony Hewitt is absurdly toolsy.
Toolsy says a guy could become awesome, but will more likely suck because baseball skills don’t just come to the guys with the most athletic ability.
Skills: The ability to swing the bat and hit the ball over the fence. The ability to diagnose and hit off-speed pitches. The ability to control the strike zone. The ability to read a pitcher and steal bases. These things are likely more innate. If a guy lacks them in high school and/or college, he probably won’t develop them in the pros. You can teach fielding and baserunning to an extent, but if a guy doesn’t have the stuff to control the strike zone and read off-speed stuff he’ll never be a regular in the bigs.
Anthony Hewitt and Zach Collier are toolsy. They could become all-stars. They will more likely not make it to the majors.
Manny Ramirez is the defiinition of a skilled baseball player. But he doesn’t run fast enough to be a plus in the field or on the basepaths.
Anthony Gose is toolsy and developing skills. He has shown that he can hit some, control the strike zone a little, and run on minor-league pitchers.
Michael Taylor and Domonic Brown are skilled baseball players. They can hit the fastball and off-speed stuff for average and power. They control the strike zone. They also have the natural athleticism that allows them to excel on the basepaths and in the field. This makes them truly outstanding prospects.
by Governator on Nov 30, 2009 8:30 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
So you think “toolsy” means “raw”. Even if that were a universal definition, we already had a word for that: “raw”. And it isn’t a universal definition. Many people use “toolsy” to refer to very athletic players, whether they’re raw or not.
Also, you’re not even being consistent with your usage. You’re really just using the word to identify players who haven’t had success, post hoc. When Zach Collier was drafted, he was actually seen as being reasonably polished for a high school player. When Dominic Brown was drafted, he was actually seen as being raw. The fact that you think the reverse is true indicates that you aren’t really clear on what you mean by the word. You just call people skilled if they do well, as Brown has, and you call people toolsy if they do poorly, like Collier (so far) has.
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 9:07 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Evaluation is always ongoing
Isn’t the rating/discussion of prospects a dynamic thing? Don’t we have to adjust what we think of them as they increase their sample size of statistics?
You’re right in the sense that I associate “raw” with “toolsy.” Why? Because I can say that he’s a five-tool or four-tool or whatever-tool player if that’s what he becomes. But “toolsy?” “Toolshed?” That stuff, to me, just means he could wind up expressing those tools at some point.
And I did think about Collier when I was writing that. His 08 GCL performance was really encouraging. But he really struggled last year, and the positives he showed in 08 pretty much disappeared in 09.
Basically, I wouldn’t call Brown or Taylor “toolsy.” I’d call them four- or five-tool players, because they have proven all those tools rather than just being capable of them.
Taylor is also a different story here. Maybe he just gets lumped in because he’s a big, athletic black kid. But he was a major star in HS and the Phillies made a nice bet they could bring that out of him after he shed the Stanford Swing.
And was Brown really “raw” when he came out?
I get that he was a big-time athlete with major upside, but he translated that ability pretty immediately, with a .356 OBP and .105 ISO at A- in 07 and a .382 OBP and .126 ISO in 08. His GCL numbers weren’t quite as nice, but then again D’Arby Myers and Zach Collier (so far) have proven that GCL success doesn’t necessarily mean a lot.
Long story short, you have athletic prospects that can hit, and athletic prospects that you hope can learn/figure out how to hit. It was known when Hewitt was picked that he struggled mightily against top competition on the wood bat circuit. The Phils have recently seemed to be of the mind of stockpiling the latter in hopes of generating a few of the former.
I’m ultimately fine with it, because drafting is a market process. The process of drafting Reggie Taylor, Dom Brown, Michael Taylor, Collier, Gose, Hewitt, Jiwan James, et. al. has netted us two future starters in Brown and Taylor, as well as a possible Carl Crawford clone in Gose and an All-Star centerfielder in Victorino (rule 5 pick, but same kind of idea). You can’t hit them all, but the Phillies have actually done a decent job with this athletic outfielder thing. Now if they could only find a third baseman….
by Governator on Dec 1, 2009 3:12 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
You’re not “associating” raw with toolsy. You’re using them as synonyms. In that case, you should use the word that everyone understands the meaning of, not the annoying neologism that many other people use to mean something else.
Brown was certainly thought to be raw when they drafted him, which is what matters. If he developed more quickly than expected or turned out not to be as raw as they thought he was, that’s not really relevant.
Did I say that Taylor was “toolsy”? I don’t think I did. There was a reason for that.
by taco pal on Dec 1, 2009 10:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I’m only using it in the context of this conversation. I also agree that there are better, more specific words to use. I was just throwing my opinion out there. Raw athlete works for me. But people will always use it to describe alluring prospects with high-ceilings.
by Governator on Dec 1, 2009 12:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I don’t think Taylor was ever regarded as “the ‘t’ word.” If anything he might have been deemed “overpolished” due to his years in Stanford.
http://www.thegoodphight.com
by WholeCamels on Dec 1, 2009 12:42 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Nice piece, WC, and good discussion here.
Taco pal: I get your frustration with “toolsy.” As I understand it: used correctly, it should refer to someone who has all (or most) of the five tools, particularly speed. But it has developed into something of a pejorative term in some corners, especially with respect to the failed toolsy guys like Jackson. So yes, Gose and Collier are toolsy, but Dom Brown is toolsy as well, as is B.J. Upton — it’s just that the latter two have thus far succeeded in developing those tools into skills. Whatever the case, it can be a bit overused.
by PhillyFriar on Nov 30, 2009 9:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Admittedly, part of the reason it bothers me is probably just because I think it’s an annoying-sounding word. It sounds like something Gollum from Lord of the Rings might say.
by taco pal on Nov 30, 2009 11:00 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
It’s a term for which what’s not said is more important than what’s said. Sort of the prospect equivalent of “she has a pretty face!” or “she has a great personality.”
http://www.thegoodphight.com
by WholeCamels on Dec 1, 2009 8:35 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I better stop calling Mrs. WL “toolsy.” All these years I thought it was endearing.
by Wet Luzinski on Dec 3, 2009 1:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
OTOH, applying the term to a gentleman is tantamount to the highest praise.
http://www.thegoodphight.com
by WholeCamels on Dec 3, 2009 1:45 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
sort of funny, in that in my younger single days, I had worked up a prospect schematic based on the 5 tools as applied to romantic prospects.
Speed: roughly equivalent to eye appeal/looks—won’t last forever, but gets your attention.
Defense: a kind of common sense/everyday resilience. Handles routine problems with high reliability and few errors. In most romantic parlance, aka “low maintenance.”
Throwing Ability: a hyper resilience: has ability to get out of a bad crisis or emergency.
Hitting for Average: has the stuff for a long haul romantic partnernship.
Hitting for Power: good in bed.
Hence, Mrs. WL is “toolsy.”
by Wet Luzinski on Dec 3, 2009 10:30 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Middle Infield prospects
I was reading a few articles about the Reds system, where they have almost the opposite issue. They had so many infield prospects, they started shifting them to the outfield (Frazier, possibly the one man error machine that is Francisco) or moving them to third (Valaika). The Reds may eventually trade some of them for arms, but they’re still a few years from contending. Which is a shame, because I love some of the Reds prospects (position players anyway, I’m not fond of most of the pitchers in their system).
by Cormican on Dec 1, 2009 3:28 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
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