Minor League Games - Monday, August 7, 2017

[andyb]

I asked Housenick about this, and the Cape Cod League page that says Rhys played RF. His reply was that he wasn't sure - it's been some time since they had this conversation.

It will be interesting. That there's some history suggests it might not be a disaster - but that it was abandoned in college suggests it wasn't such a great idea, either.

it looks like the worst of the weather is moving out to the east, so maybe they'll get the AAA game in tonight. Should be worth a listen.

I remember distinctly one of the draft review articles that year talking about Hoskins as more likely to be an OF than a 1B. That writer was probably wrong but I bet it was someone who saw him in the Cape Cod league that summer.

Agree that the fact that the Phillies have never tried it (even in instructional league it appears) means they never really thought he would be good at it. I DO think the new post-Amaro regime is much more aware of advanced defensive stats and they got the concept that even if Ruf had an 800 OPS in the outfield he was likely not better than a good defensive 700 OPS guy. So they never seriously tried with Hoskins. Stassi was always a little more credible out there because he at least played it a bit and did have a pitcher's arm.

Edit - this fangraphs 2014 system evaluation does refer to him as a RF. Not sure it means much.

Evaluating the Prospects: Philadelphia Phillies | FanGraphs Baseball

[julio]

Here's a link to a writeup (credited to phuturephillies, probably originally from mlb.com, given the format) on Hoskins from the time of the 2014 draft. I found this in our 2014 draft picks thread (archives are useful things!):

https://www.philliesphans.com/t/the-2014-philadelphia-phillies-draft-picks-signings/41685/78

I would think the recurring references to a "right field profile" probably DO tell us one thing - they strongly imply an adequate outfield arm. The rest of the package? Don't know yet.

Let me just add that, while I'm skeptical, and somewhat annoyed that the Phillies don't already know whether Hoskins can handle this or not... the information we're finding does suggest that this might not be as bad an idea as my first reaction. We'll see.

And to the point about the Phils not already knowing: If Hoskins can play a respectable LF, or RF, then it would have helped more than a little bit to have known that three months ago - because if he's an OK outfielder, he should have been promoted some time ago. I'd hate to think the Phillies are trying this now because somebody in South Philly just now realized that Hoskins had this Cape Cod experience, and scouting evaluations, back in 2014.

[allentown]

With all of the OFs in the system, the injuries make now the time to try this experiment.

[zambonir]

if he's an OK outfielder, he should have been promoted some time ago.

But this isn't really true because they didn't have playing time, and it was reasonable to keep him in AAA for a full-half-season. Even Williams only got called up because of injury. And they weren't going to call Hoskins up as a bench player (unlike Perkins and Stassi).

[Austinfan]

Stassi started the season with the Phillies, and Martin has been putrid in Reading.
So it's not like they had a lot of 1B options at Lehigh.
And the last couple years, they were worried about finding PT for all their OFs, before they got promoted/dropped like flies.

[California_Dreamin]

Actually julio, I have no problem giving you data on the two A league full season teams for July. Here are the day by day run totals in July for Clearwater with one game eliminated because it was an outlier that I referred to..they scored 13 runs in a mid July game but that was so much of an outlier we should not allow it to skew the other 29 games.

Here are the game by game #'s for Clearwater....3,0,2,5,4,8,2,3,1,3,7,1,1,6,6,0,1,4,4,2,3,1,3,4,4,3,0,2 and 6...29 games and 89 runs...an average of 3 per game.

Lakewood was so bad, they didn't even have an outlier game. Here are their July totals game by game...8 [and it was VERY down hill from here],2,3,3,0,4,5,4,4,6,6,1,4,1,1,0,1,2,2,5,2,2,4,2,0,2,3,2...28 games, 79 runs for the month...an average of a putrid 2.8 runs per game.

And its very clear that both LHV and Reading have not been scoring runs consistently for quite some time. I can do the rookie clubs also if you wish but am sure the results would be the same, especially at GCL where they have been struggling to score runs for awhile, even with a collegiate slugger batting 4th in the order.

July was terrible and August has not gotten better. Look, I enjoy poetry but really didn't want Phillie pharm clubs to "go in with a bang and out with a whimper." And unless things turn around soon, whimpering may be the loudest sounds we will here, especially if/when Hoskins are promoted.

[schillingfan]

The reverse happened between Burrell and Travis Lee. Burrell had been set to play 1B when the Schilling trade was made. They switched Burrell to RF so that Travis Lee could play 1B. Of course Travis Lee turned out to be a waste.

[California_Dreamin]

Phils had the same dilemma back in 1970 when their best slugger, Deron Johnson, played first base and they had a young slugger, Greg Luzinski, ready for the big leagues so they moved him to LF and he stayed there for the rest of his Philadelphia career.

That said, Joseph is no Johnson and we can only hope that Hoskins has any kind of Luzinski like career. And it begs the question of why do it now when the Phils FINALLY seem to have a young and skilled threesome in Williams, Herrera and Altherr with Quinn and Cozens possibly contributing sometime in 2018.

[California_Dreamin]

I decided to do Williamsport also and the results are a bit better, but not much. They had two outlier games of 11 and 12 runs so I will give numbers with them and without them in the equation. To be fair, its also worth noting that Williamsport did not suffer from many of those dreaded 0 and 1 run games that seem to be occurring as frequently as June bugs in June but still...take away those two games and the results are not satisfactory. Here they are...

4,2,6,4,6,0,7,6,8,1,4,4,6,3,1,11,5,5,2,4,12,1,1,2,5,4,5...total of 119 runs in 27 games or an average of 4.4 runs per game [very satisfactory and totals that Suarez and Medina would love to receive.] Take away the two outlier games and we have 25 games, 96 runs per game...about 3.8 Not bad, not great.

I also think it should be noted that July, with its warm weather, should be a time when hitters are at their best, not yet beaten down by the dog days of August and in mid season form skill wise. This has not been the case with our pharm clubs.

Again, I want to emphasize that on the opposite end of the scale...the pitching, I suspect the numbers are superb. I cannot recall a season when the system had so many talented arms in the rotations and low hit, low run games have proven the norm and not the exception. This speaks to me of a system that has incorporated some very solid pitching coach models and have taken good care of the young arms in the stable.

But methinks that our favorite team has not yet conquered an overriding philosophy on hitting, system wide, and it is speaking volumes now with the high propensity of strikeouts and low output of runs.

[DougLindsay]

10 runs through 3 for Clearwater. Chalk this one up as an outlier.

[allentown]

Reading and Allentown both played. Reading has lost 6-2. Both teams had 9 hits, but Reading had only 1 walk against 12 Ks, while Akron had 4 BBs and only 5Ks, and a HR, while Reading committed 2 errors. Same pattern as yesterday, when Reading had 0 BBs and 8 Ks and definitely should have been charged with an error. Saturday Reading won 4-2, but again 0 BBs vs 7 Ks. There really is a pattern here.

LV up 1-0 after 4.5, with a nice 5 IP by Thompson. Now 2-0 after 5 as Kingery triples and scores the 2nd run.

Good for CLW. Erik Swanson, who had been having a good year, really was routed.

[julio]

CD - Thanks, but I already have the day-by-day run totals for the Phils' affiliates. In order to evaluate whether their run-scoring is less consistent than other teams in each of their leagues, I would need ALL the day-to-day run totals for every team in each league. You have observed that the Phils's affiliates' run totals are all over the place; whether that reflects some kind of failure, or whether it's just normal (for the league in question, or for baseball teams in general) can only be determined by comparing their performance to all the other teams in the league (or in multiple leagues, to get higher confidence in the results).

But methinks that our favorite team has not yet conquered an overriding philosophy on hitting, system wide, and it is speaking volumes now with the high propensity of strikeouts and low output of runs.

I wouldn't expect that the Phillies have fully changed the direction of the organization, in terms of the plate discipline of their players at all levels. Even if they're totally committed to acquiring players with great plate discipline, and weeding out players who don't have that skill, this change is going to take several years to be effective. And that said, it's not likely that they're only acquiring players now who have great on-base skills; just as it will take years to turn over the player population, it will take time to identify which scouts can be trusted to identify players with the skill set the current management wants, and replace those who cannot.

[EDmuch]

You know, the knee jerk, almost hysterical, anti-management reaction of many posters on this site to anything management does, no matter how small or insignificant, is starting to become boring.

[julio]

Rhys Hoskins just had his first challenging chance in left field, and it was scored a double. Ball was sliced between Hoskins and the line; he took what looked like an OK route, but didn't get to the ball, which bounced on the turf just short of the warning track, then off the wall and away from Hoskins back toward center. Hoskins ran it down, but the runner was easily into second. It looked like a catchable ball, although it would have required a nice play.

Hoskins had two put-outs in earlier innings - which I did not see (dinner - food is a priority!).

[flyers19rw]

Rhys is 2-3 so far tonight with a SB.

[phillychuck]

Both LV and CLW blew their leads late (LV currently still batting in the bottom of the 9th, so all hope is not lost...). CLW blew a huge lead. Despite all the losing, it was a decent night for the prospects who played, especially Crawford and Hoskins, who had multi-hit games.

[julio]

Hoskins looked OK on routine plays in LF. There were two hard-hit balls that he didn't field. The first was the double I described above; the second was a ball that glanced off the fence where it goes from six feet to eight feet high, then (apparently) hit something behind the fence and bounced back on the field. It was ruled a triple, but Provence argued that it was really a HR. Hoskins wasn't going to make a play on it (it would have required a fleet outfielder, plus a well-timed leap to pull it back from the wall), but, as with the earlier double, his pursuit of the fly ball left him in no position to deal with a rebound. If he's going to stay in LF, he's going to have to learn to anticipate when he needs to concede the hit, and deal with a rebound off the wall, to prevent hitters getting extra bases.

[Philsmania]

Phils had the same dilemma back in 1970 when their best slugger, Deron Johnson, played first base and they had a young slugger, Greg Luzinski, ready for the big leagues so they moved him to LF and he stayed there for the rest of his Philadelphia career.

That said, Joseph is no Johnson and we can only hope that Hoskins has any kind of Luzinski like career. And it begs the question of why do it now when the Phils FINALLY seem to have a young and skilled threesome in Williams, Herrera and Altherr with Quinn and Cozens possibly contributing sometime in 2018.

For the moment at least, Altherr is hurt. But yes, ultimately they will need to sort things out. Interesting to note how neither Luzinski nor Burrell ever moved back to first though I suspect that the arrivals of Montanez and Thome respectively had something to do with that.

[bkeich]

Greg Luzinski, ready for the big leagues so they moved him to LF and he stayed there for the rest of his Philadelphia career. (actually a quote from CD)

I was at a spring training game where I saw Maddox catch a foul ball. As you might imagine that doesnt happen often. You can probably guess which side of the field he did it on.

Visions of HK saying "And Luzinski is under the ball, and Maddox makes the play"... somehow I am reminded of the Bad News Bears.