Minor League Games - June 1, 2025

[julio]

AAA: Lehigh Valley (RHP Alan Rangel) at Norfolk - 1:05pm
AA: Erie at Reading (RHP Wil Crowe) - 5:15pm
High A: Jersey Shore (RHP Braydon Tucker at Greenville - 3:05pm
Low A: Clearwater (TBD) at Dunedin - 12:00 noon
FCL: no game scheduled

Rolling Scores Here - https://www.milb.com/scores/2025-06-01/all/all/phillies

Rolling Boxes Here - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/affiliates?teamId=143&date=06/01/2025

[Pat_Burrell]

I may go to the jersey shore/greenville game today. Moved to just outside Charlotte 4 years ago and live about 90 min from Greenville. Cool park and lots of dining close by

[andyb]

Crawford and Rincones combine for 8 RBI at LHV.

[owaistabish]

How long can they keep Crawford down

[andyb]

I think there is still the feeling that his ground ball approach won't work as well in the majors (and he needs the AAA time to refine his swing).

But that is saying an ideal development environment is more important than winning in the majors which it is not other than health concerns like with Painter. If Marsh continues to struggle they could make a move in the second half, but Marsh probably deserves a little more time (and he has been unlucky this year). There is really no reason to think Marsh is not a 750 OPS player still in a role where his batting against LHP is limited. That is probably about as good as the best Crawford would do now. But if Marsh is still a 630 OPS guy by the trade deadline maybe they think about it.

[Matt_Winkelman]

Marsh just hit .298/.385/.439 in May and Crawford has a ground ball rate higher than last year.

[zambonir]

Yeah it is probably not mathematically possible for Marsh to get to .750 on the year just like Nick couldn't get to .800 last year but so long as he keeps doing what he has been doing you just forget the first month happened.

[Squire]

Carter Mathison only has 25 hits for the season but 6 of them are homers

15 singles
3 doubles
1 triple
6 HRs

[fish]

I think there is still the feeling that his ground ball approach won't work as well in the majors (and he needs the AAA time to refine his swing).

At this point if his approach is going to fail he might need to see it to believe it. He seems like one of those guys that could come up and put up a good year then struggle the next two as the league adjusts to him. But, that’s part of the curve sometimes.

[Squire]

I think that was the theory in pushing him to AAA. They were hoping for a little more failure.

[andyb]

I think that was the theory in pushing him to AAA. They were hoping for a little more failure.

It is strange but having success with bad habits is really the issue. Major league infielders will get more of those ground balls and better pitchers will exploit his swing/miss rate. The Phillies challenged him because he is a mature kid and his tools definitely play anywhere. The question really is whether he can be an above average starter with his current approach.

[phillychuck]

Baseball types, especially scouts, are still hidebound conservatives at heart. They try to denigrate anything that is different and stamp it out. Many of those same scouts were telling their organizations to stay away from Ichiro Suzuki, Ryan Howard, and Mariano Rivera because their success was unsustainable given their unusual styles in the minor leagues or overseas. I’m not saying Crawford is an exact parallel to those guys, but he actually may be able to succeed hitting a lot of ground balls...I don’t think we can just assume MLB infielders will get to all those grounders. There are plenty of stellar AAA infielders who are great fielders but playing in the minors because they can’t hit enough. I’d rather see Crawford work on improving his chase rate and in-zone contact rate, and let the ground balls take care of themselves. We know an improved chase rate and contact rate will help him...we are only guessing about whether he can change his swing and get more balls airborne without hurting him in other areas.

[Matt_Winkelman]

The problem isn’t a style thing, it is a math equation. No one hits ground balls at his rate in the majors, the three current leaders are Yelich (60%) who has a ridiculous 35% HR/FB rate, Rengifo (56%) who has been horrible, and Wilson (55%) who does not strikeout. Crawford is at 64%. There just isn’t power that comes from ground balls, the league average is a .022 ISO, the league leaders in 2024 where Bellinger and Whit at .056.

Then there is what you need to actually achieve BABIP wise. To hit .280 with no power you need to have a .280 BABIP, with a 10% K rate you need to be at .304 with a 15% K rate you need to be .320, at 20% (where Crawford is now) that is a .336 BABIP. Given he will have no power he would need to probably hit near .300 and that is a .360 BABIP. Only Whit and Bellinger were over that mark on ground balls last year. Overall, only Rooker, Suzuki, and Judge were over the .360 mark overall.

Essentially you are hoping at the end of the day he is somehow built completely different from everyone ever or he will go to the majors and be someone totally different. We just watched Chandler Simpson just completely fail with a similar type of skill set.

[zambonir]

Yeah, this doesn't seem the same as trying to turn Mickey Moniak or Scott Kingery into Jayson Werth or Chase Utley, it seems more like trying to keep Crawford from turning into Johan Rojas, even if their bats were night and day in the minors.

[andyb]

The gap also between AAA and the majors seems larger today than in the past. Cal Stevenson had a 900+ OPS last year and he is not a good enough hitter for the majors. Weston Wilson went 30-30 and had 2 consecutive 800+ OPS years and himself is barely a major league hitter. Crawford at an .845 OPS does not translate to anything more than 700 in the majors these days.

Otto Kemp's year is more interesting to me if we are talking now. One could make the case that he is the new, younger version of Wilson and would be an improvement in that role. He has a 1000 OPS (which is probably not sustainable but still very good and better than Wilson). He is probably not as good defensively but since Wilson rarely plays the middle infield then the difference with Kemp is minor (they are both probably below average OFs).

Kemp seems more ready than Crawford and if Wilson struggles in the next month I can easily see them making that switch.

[zambonir]

Yeah I think there's just a lot of wishful thinking that younger prospect will do better than a AAAA never-was. But it might not be true.

[phillychuck]

Thanks to Matt for a thoughtful, data-filled reply!

I don’t think I’m making myself clear. My thought is that players are often what they are--what they are producing and their approach has been honed throughout their careers by trial and error, and simply adjusting their swing is NOT actually simple, it can destroy whatever success they have managed to find. I think the Phils would be better served to concentrate on things that are actually coachable, like swing percentage out of zone and enabling better contact in zone without messing with Crawford’s actual swing mechanics. You do NOT know the secondary effects of messing with mechanics, and those effects are almost always not positive. I think if Crawford improves his pitch selection the ground ball % will take care of itself. It’s easier to elevate a pitch in the strike zone regardless of your swing plane. So I would hope his GB% would drop naturally to a more reasonable level without a major swing adjustment. From watching him, he chases too many low, out-of-zone breaking balls which almost always result in ground balls when he hits them. It’s a lot easier to work on the chase rate than to alter the swing mechanics. In my humble opinion.

[andyb]

In the "maybe DSL won't be that good" category, DSL Red just lost 28-5 in their season opener. Closer loss for DSL White too. No sign of Jalvin Arias so he may be hurt. Better new position prospects seem to be on the Red team though pitching was the issue today.

[phillychuck]

When you don’t pay decent bonuses for any pitching, it’s not surprising to give up 28 runs in a game...well, actually, maybe 28 IS a surprise....

The DSL Red guys also struck out 17 times in 28 actual ABs in the game. They had 2 hits, one of which was a homer.

DSL Marlins may be better than the actual Marlins.

[flyers19rw]

With Crawford it’s like some people just want to find reasons why he’ll be a bust. These analysts have determined that to be the case and look for stats to substantiate their call. He’s hit well for the last three years but don’t let that get in the way.