I have no idea if he can be good or healthy from a prospect standpoint, but it is good to see Christian McGowan on the list of players throwing bullpens.

Ramon Marquez, though I will hear cases for Cody Bowker and Sean Youngerman. Marquez was signed barely a year ago so it isn't like they had a ton of time to work with him. The fastballs are probably always going to be meh, but could the changeup rocket him to Reading as a mid-rotation guy? Sure.

Good on Seranthony on getting paid and then being in trade rumors for all of the next two years.

Reminder than Rincones, Painter, Cabrera, Johnson, Curet, Chace (hurt), and McFarlane are on the 40 and get automatic invites. Otherwise every invited you would expect, and I mean that in terms of Bechtold and Walling, but not Daniel Harper. Bryan Rincon is a small surprise.

It is real fucking cold outside

Also I don’t think we give the whole AL West enough crap, and while this moved MLB talent to the AL, the NL to AL gap seems to be really widening.

I dislike the Nationals being smart now

Washington Nationals Opening Day Starter Griff McGarry inches closer to reality

I assume some guys will have opt outs after spring, but AAA is shaping up to have actual real pitchers you can cycle through as the year goes on. LH depth is nice to have just generally

Great article here by @jrodrigues39.bsky.social and I love the visuals! www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...

I am sorry, if you pitch 176 innings in 33 starts you aren’t an ace, you are a protected #2. Aces pitch innings consistently and take the load off of the bullpen. This is my old man opinion.

That feels like a lot for a rental (I am ok, but not high on Peralta) and another piece, which is why I guess it makes sense for Milwaukee, but also it is bad for baseball that Milwaukee is doing this.

You should be angry about this and you should not be in solidarity with the players here. Structuring the contract to avoid state income taxes is a thing they do to steal from you.

I think the answer is that it depends, and it also probably involves Johan Rojas getting playing time, even if it is just to platoon with Marsh and be the defensive replacement with him moving over to LF.

I would go over, just because of the glove. Bohm has been a perfectly ok hitter for the most part and the Miller being that would probably be fine. I just think Miller's floor is solid defensive 3B and it took 4 years for Bohm to get close to that.

Different type of player than Marsh other than handedness and limitations. Rincones probably gets up for injury or platoon reasons in 2026. Marsh fills an important role on the team right now in that he is the backup CF which means they don't need a backup on the bench. Rincones is not a good glove

1. Can he stay healthy 2. Can he hold velocity in starts on normal rest 3. Can he find a third viable pitch to survive when guys chase less 4. Does he actually have command or is it just stuff and throwing it in the zone The first one is the biggest one by far.

Some of it starts with avoiding hitters who can't hit, either because their pitch recognition is garbage or they show they just cannot hit the ball hard. They also have been poor at optimizing contact in a way that will lead to be power.

Biomechanics are not my area of expertise, but I can say his release point is lower and more towards 3rd since 2022. Between 2022 and April 2025 he lost a little vertical, but gained 2" horizontal making it less cut and then between April and Sept he lost 3" of vertical. That makes it more ordinary

He would be in the top 10, probably at 7. That is essentially valuing him like a late 1st round pick putting him between Nori and then Fisher/Obermueller. He has more variability than that type of player, but that seems to be the best spot on the risk/talent scale.

There is a chance that everything just doesn't work and there is no floor for Crawford. However, yes I think he probably can cobble together passable defense in CF plus below average offense and good base running. That might be a near 2 WAR player, that will drive you crazy.

Looking at Luis Robert, how sure are we sure that 2023 isn't just the aberration where he was able to pull fly balls. His HR/FB rate is 23.0% that year and 12.0%, 13.5%, 12.3% in the surrounding years. He is chasing less and his raw power hasn't changed, but you really are chasing a ghost.

In case you missed it earlier, the full list is up in one place. Also I hopefully will have time to answer questions on here today, so go ahead and ask any questions you have about the system, certain players, philosophy overall, or to tell me I ranked a player wrong.

I don't know what the solution is (other than totally redoing the entire underlying salary structure so that young players aren't so underpaid), but there is a fundamental problem that some teams can spend cash well beyond all other teams.

In case you missed any of the parts, full Phillies Top 50 list all together in one place.

This feels like the offer made last summer that the White Sox finally just accepted

I am just going to try and block and move on when it comes to takes. There is just too much terrible analysis out there that is being compounded by trying to become a Take

So a cheater, an abuser, and Jeff Kent

The owners were going to push for a cap no matter what happened this winter. They’re full of shit and can never be taken at face value

I do not believe history will look kindly on this voting bloc of writers for deciding that the only use of the character clause should be players explicitly suspended for PED usage

Like that is just the thing they were going to point at. They were 100% going to push for a salary cap when they were doing their union busting clubhouse tour while Kyle Tucker was still an employee of the Chicago Cubs.

The flip side of running it back, who is the best player the Phillies have let walk prior to Ranger Suarez this offseason? The contenders are what? Rhys Hoskins off a knee injury, Jeff Hoffman, Zach Eflin?

As we talk about the Phillies and their offseason. Here is what the bullpen was on July 29, 2025. Jordan Romano Orion Kerkering Matt Strahm Tanner Banks Alan Rangel Daniel Robert Max Lazar Seth Johnson

I spent a lot of time on the Justin Crawford section. There are some numbers that indicate he made real improvements right up until his season ended to injury. I generally think the narrative on him focuses on the wrong things, and we all get bogged down in one specific number when talking about him

I assumed the JT incentives were going to be playing based and not awards. If he actually accomplished any of these it would be completely worth the extra money.

Why I write the list is not about ranking, you all would know who these 5 players are even if I started at the top. I wrote a decent amount about Crawford and Painter, their flaws and strengths, why I have hope and why they might drive you insane.

This is another vote of confidence that Otto Kemp can be a LF platoon bat.

Phillies 2026 Top Prospect - The Top 5

Top 5 of the list complete and scheduled. Will have the whole thing in a single piece on Wednesday. Which despite having a couple more supplementary things, means I am ready for the 2026 season, or really ready to take a break until Spring Training.

Now that it is written, some general thoughts and trends from the process: - I may have overvalued relief prospects with late inning potential, but the overall trends in the sport are valuing relievers more and back end starter and bench types less.

The top 5 of the list are sent to editing. It is a short bit about why Aidan Miller is really good, some normal sized writeups on Aroon Escobar and Gage Wood, and then novels on Andrew Painter and Justin Crawford. It isn't that Miller is boring, he just isn't particularly controversial.

Sometimes you torture the micro stats enough and they finally crack open and tell you what you were looking for. Justin Crawford pitches in the heart of the zone while ahead in the count. It turns out you need to crush the pitches you are supposed to crush.

One thing that has always been true about me is that I like small sample size data in the minor leagues. Players are much more in flux and making adjustments constantly. The data is also really noisy, hard to access, and not always predictive so it isn't easy to work with.

On my last player writeup of the list and was finally able to sit down and pull data. So Justin Crawford GB%/LD%/FB%/IFFB% by month: April - 55.9%/25.0%/14.7%/4.4% May - 65.2%/22.7%/10.6%/1.5% June - 58.9%/23.2%/12.5%/5.4% July - 57.7%/17.3%/23.1%/1.9% August - 51.2%/28.8%/16.3%/3.8%

So we have now had Tucker, Bichette, Realmuto, and Caratini come off the board in the last 24 hours like the whole market had things worked out and was waiting on Tucker for the different dominoes to fall.

Part of sports is realizing that you as fans are getting played by the narrative that needs your clicks and attention. It is totally fine to be part of that because it is fun and exciting, but when we start to unravel it all that doesn't mean the reporting was the whole truth.

Once again chiming in to point out that a world where half the top free agents are signing short term with opt outs as soon as next offseason is not actually a world where the top player agents expect a lasting lockout or a salary cap

Phillies international signing list form the other site.

So the reporting is that the Dodgers and Mets were both Tucker first with Bichette backup with high AAV and opt out deals and Bichette and his camp knew that. The Phillies met the long term deal request, but ultimately the high AAV framework was more attractive and when the Mets offered he signed.

Everyone wants their GM to be creative and dynamic, and what they think is Andrew Friedman, but what you usually get is Jerry Dipoto or worse.