This draft class is supposedly pretty strong, isn't it?
yes although a lot can change between now and June. The phils are in a dog fight for a top 4 pick, they went into yesterdays game in a 3 way tie for 4th with the Cubs/Brewers as each had 69 losses.
That said, looking at some farm system reviews... Our 2013 draft class is playing out of their minds almost across the board and we've got some serious organizational depth developing. We need some serious prospect development in the OF, but with Revere and Brown likely entrenched there already, we have some time.
Maikel Franco may be able to help sometime next season. Kid looks like a star.
It's been a really tough year for the farm system outside of Franco and Crawford. Going into this season, BA had the phils in the bottom 10 of the league for prospect systems but they got a lot of high praise for their draft in June. They could have 3 top 100 prospects when BA puts out next seasons rankings, but with several injuries to their top prospects (Morgan, Quinn, Watson, Joseph, LGJ, etc...) it means there's going to be a lot of question marks on how they bounce back next season.
As for OF prospects, I had hoped that Tyson Gillies would have had a better season, they changed his swing and it set him back but he's been much better of late. There's Kelly Dugan (AA) who recently got moved up to Reading after a good year in Clearwater (A+), he's shown good power and was a high pick in '09. Cameron Perkins is having a good year in Clearwater, he was having a great year until he got injured. In Lakewood (A-) there's the 17 year old Carlos Tocci, he's rail thin but fast and good in the field. There's also Dylan Cozens in the NY Penn League, he's showing some decent power but may end up at 1B since he's 19 and already has a huge frame.
I want Franco up as soon as possible, so that he can be exposed to MLB pitching because apparently his swing is long and he has poor pitch recognition. If that's true then minor league pitchers don't have the velocity or command to expose what some of the people scouting him see. The description Keith Law gave of him makes him seem like a similar player to the current version of Ryan Howard, but with the arm to play 3B.
Law doesn't seem to like Franco as much as others, but in the games I've seen him (Lakewood and Reading) he hasn't had problems with pitch recognition. The one thing that stood out was that he's not overly quick, but flashes impressive power. I have him as the phils top prospect and think he's going to be a good one.
I don't think the team is as ****ed as everyone wants to think. It'll be bad but I don't see it being horrible for too long.
Perhaps, but they will need to do a 180 with the pitching, as it's been a really tough year at both the major and minor level for their pitchers. I don't know how they fix the bullpen but I'm not sure if they have an answer from the minors next season. Really disappointed that none of the young arms in the pen have stepped up, thought for sure one of them would but perhaps moving Ethan Martin to the pen would work.
