Minor League Games - July 8th, 2025

[Squire]

AAA: Lehigh Valley (TBD) at Syracuse - 6:35PM
AA: Reading (RHP Koyo Aoyagi) at Chesapeake - 6:35PM
High A: Jersey Shore (RHP Gabriel Barbosa) at Aberdeen - 7:05PM
Low A: Fort Myers at Clearwater (TBD) - 6:30PM
FCL: FCL Tigers at FCL Phillies (TBD) - 12 Noon
DSL: DSL Phillies Red (LHP Aneury Montilla) at DSL Marlins - 11:00AM
DSL: DSL Miami at DSL Phillies White (RHP Pedro Peralta) - 11:00AM

Rolling Scores Here - https://www.milb.com/scores/2025-07-08/all/all/phillies

Rolling Boxes Here - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/affiliates?teamId=143&date=07/08/2025

[andyb]

Late night Phillies game means the Tuesday minor league review gets posted earlier:

Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 15 7/1-7/7)

[zambonir]

Law update

Scouting Cam Schlittler, Konnor Griffin, Justin Crawford, Vance Honeycutt and...

Justin Crawford improving his approach
> Phillies outfield prospect Justin Crawford had a couple of hits for Lehigh Valley in the July 2 game and showed some real judgment at the plate, but man, I don’t know why or how he is still hitting with his hands starting out so high. It’s why he’s still rocking a 61 percent groundball rate, despite plenty of strength to hit for some real in-game power. He’s currently hitting .343/.416/.451, so I suppose it seems odd to complain about his swing, but you can see there’s no power in there — and that his slugging percentage is inflated by his speed grabbing some extra bases.

But is that last part a bad thing?

[Matt_Winkelman]

Yes in that it makes the slugging percentage less predictive and impactful. I don't know if this captured by modern stats yet, but a double because you are able to stretch it has marginally less ability to drive in a run than a double that is solidly hit into the gap. It isn't slugging, but an infield single has less chance for a player to go first to third or score from second than a conventional single. With defenders usually better in the majors you also expect some plays made possible by poor defense to decrease vs him driving the ball into the gaps.

[zambonir]

Sure, makes sense. I'm definitely a skeptic on him, but seems like the believers celebrate his infield singles and ability to turn to singles into doubles. That is a gaudy BA/OBP, how much lower is it w/o infield singles?

[Matt_Winkelman]

If I did the Savant query correct, 18 of his 95 hits are infield hits or were deflected by an infielder. This is really cooking the books, but if you turned all of those into outs his average would fall from .343 to .278, if you did half that would be .310. For OBP that would drop him from .416 to .356 and .388 respectively. It would also drop his SLG to .386 and .419 so the really poor math outputs of cutting infield hits.

Current: .343/.416/.451
Remove half: .310/.388/.419
All outs: .278/.356/.386

[phillychuck]

Even removing half that’s a pretty productive player. How are the reports on his CF defense this season? Is he improved? I don’t see him making a lot of outstanding plays, but I don’t see more than about 20% of the Pigs’ games.

[Matt_Winkelman]

Not great, he continues to struggle with reads and first step, and then some with routes. He has great closing speed and catch making ability, but he makes it much more difficult on himself.

[andyb]

Removing half though puts his AAA stats into the good but not great area. With the larger difference these days between AAA and the majors it might not be enough without some improvement. It also does not address the big major league question of whether pitchers would just take advantage of his approach over time.

[schooldoc]

Is Max Kepler providing us with any reason NOT to find out what Crawford can do at the MLB level? I don’t think so. I feel like their reluctance in letting him go is tied to the $4.5 million owed to him, knowing that someone will pick him up for MLB minimum and that there’s a non-zero chance (10-20 pct?) that he goes somewhere else and actually produces for one of the Phils’ rivals.

[zambonir]

I guess I see it differently, from everything that has been said about both his bat and defense it is not at all clear Crawford would be an upgrade over Kepler or Marsh, or if it would be best for his own development to come up. He could most naturally replace Rojas but not as a LHB.

The problem is it is also not clear anyone better is available in a reasonable trade. I don't think it is the money at all, they will eat it by the end of July if it makes sense, just as they did Whit and Didi and even Josh Harrison and Familia.

[Austinfan]

Crawford is 21, to be this productive in AAA at that age, even despite his flaws . . .

[zambonir]

Which is why he is still very much a prospect! I just think the drumbeat to call him up overestimates what he can do probably do in MLB this season, as well as what the Phillies are missing.

[fish]

Painter got hit again. His slider was good, his fastball at the belt and under looked good, but you’d expect an above the belt fastball from a 6’7” guy to hop, but it doesn’t - when it’s 94-96 it looks pretty flat and very hittable. Guys jump at it like they know it’s coming, maybe because the vertical look of his curve wasn’t there to keep them honest. His cutter was hittable and he didn’t have a good change or curve tonight.

His problems looked part command, part pitch mix, and part fatigue. I think he could use a good 21 day rest. He throws pitches callled a sinker, but he could use more arm side run. If his cutter is going to be usable he needs his better fastball. 2 years ago he used to thrown intentional high sweepers to play with his fastball that worked better.