Minor League Games - Wednesday, July 12, 2017

[bigegypt0417]

"Theo Epstein told me 10 years ago, 'The higher in the minor leagues you go, the more performance matters.' And the higher he's gone, the worse his performance has gotten," Manuel said.

This is your quote...I am pretty sure it's obvious to everyone that this is true.

Again...you seem to like to tell us things we all know.

[allentown]

Appel was the #1 pick, how's that excite you these days?

Pitchers get injured. Today's report is he's (Appel) likely going on DL for sore shoulder. A first rounder or a 10th rounder are equally likely to be injured. It doesn't mean he wasn't a good pick at the time. Shoulders are tough and have ended many a pitching career.

[Austinfan]

Appel sucked in Houston and he sucked here before he was injured.
To be fair, I think Houston ruined him by trying to turn him into a 4 seam power pitcher when his college success came from his 2 seamer (similar to Nola).
Could be they screwed up his mechanics and he's never been able to recover.

[California_Dreamin]

Every time I hear the name Appel, I think of Arauz and Fisher. Both would look awfully good in the Philadelphia organization right now and Fisher might already be in Philadelphia.

[Austinfan]

Arauz isn't much of a loss, we have beaucoup LA IFs as good, some with higher upsides, and our Arauz is pitching just fine.
Fisher is a solid player (though PCL stats should be treated with skepticism), but we're loaded with LH OFs with promise.
Appel was a gamble that we lost.

So it comes down to Velasquez and Eshelman.
Velasquez isn't a disappointment to me, I thought he should have spent a full year in AAA ball given his lack of innings, so if he doesn't get it together until next season, no big deal
And if he can't get it together as a starter, he probably has an upside as a RP similar to Giles.

So in a sense, Eshelman will make/break this deal. Not because he'll be a top pitcher, but if he's a AAAA pitcher we basically traded a proven RP for a potential RP/SP.
If Eshelman can be a solid back of the rotation guy (30 starts, 180 IP, 4.00 or less FIP/ERA), then we got what we needed, pitching depth.

[zambonir]

Given his hamate injury early on the absence of Fisher doesn't bother me that much, but it's certainly ironic, and also shows how where you were drafted can still trump performance at the trade table, at least in terms of perceived value. I mean, which would be worse, if the Phillies had a scouting report that made them feel good about Appel and they were totally wrong, or if they didn't but still wanted him more based on pedigree/ceiling?

[allentown]

I doubt they cared about pedigree. Perhaps they saw him as PR eyewash. Perhaps they thought he was mishandled by Astros and saw something they believed they could fix. He had enough pro experience, that pedigree shouldn't matter much at that point. I could have been as simple as the 4-seam/2-seam change.

[zambonir]

Well, it's kind of chicken/egg. He had pedigree because nearly everyone in baseball once ranked him high enough to go 1-1. So you have to look at that and decide, does he still have what made him that, or is it gone. Same Q people are asking about Crawford right now.

I suppose it was also about position. It wasn't just, "we are worried about Velasquez and therefore demand you improve your offer by giving us Appel instead of Fisher," it was, "we are worried about Velasquez and therefore want more pitchers." Which is hard to argue with. Because, y'know, TINSTAAPP. I'm not more bummed about Appel than I am about Thompson, even if there's more reason to retain optimism about the latter.