Early last year, I wrote about the lawsuit Miami had filed against the Marlins and Jeffrey Loria, alleging that Jeffrey Loria had used “fuzzy math” to depress the value of his club and avoid paying a share of the team’s sale proceeds to Miami and Miami-Dade County. (The County is also a party to suit against the Marlins and Loria.) With the new year starting, this seems like a good time to check in on the state of the suit.
When we last looked at this case, the Marlins, under the new ownership group helmed by Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter, rather dubiously claimed British citizenship as a way of moving the lawsuit to federal court (a process called “removal”) and attempting to force arbitration. Despite the less than stellar optics and even more questionable legal basis for the argument, the team nonetheless went all-in on their position that the team was, at least in part, a foreign citizen. In response, Miami sent Laurence Leavy – the attorney better known as “Marlins Man” for his formerly ubiquitous presence at Marlins games – and radio personality Andy Slater to the British Virgin Islands office where the team’s lawyers argued that one of the companies which owned the team, Aberneu, was ostensibly located. In a revelation that surprised no one, Aberneu, it turned out, had no offices or physical presence there – just a post office box. The Marlins, however, didn’t appreciate Slater’s involvement, and responded by revoking Slater’s press pass.
At oral argument on the issue of the team’s citizenship in July, the county emphasized that the team was, in all meaningful ways, an American company that did business in Florida, and showed the judge the evidence obtained from Slater and Leavy’s investigation. At that hearing, Judge Darrin Gayles indicated that she was skeptical of the team’s claim of British citizenship.
THE COURT: As I understand it, there is no question that the purchaser in this case is a U.S. corporation or is a U.S. entity. Right?
MR. DOYLE [attorney for the Jeter/Sherman group]: That is not correct, Your Honor. The buyer is an LLC that its citizenship is determined by its members under Supreme Court precedent and it has a non-U.S. member. So, therefore, it is the citizen of both the United States and outside the United States, foreign.
THE COURT: All right. So in situations where an LLC has dual citizenship, U.S. and foreign, can you point to me specific cases that say that in that situation it is a foreign country for purposes of the [New York] Convention [governing arbitration agreements]?
MR. DOYLE: Your Honor, we have not found such a case [.]
And later, Judge Gayles asked Doyle why the Marlins hadn’t attempted to raise the arbitration issue previously, before the state court. Doyle responded that “[t]he issue of the citizenship of the buyer was not known to me as counsel for the seller and it was in an investigation afterwards . . . that led us to discover that the buyer was, in fact, a dual citizen, foreign and domestic. So that information was discovered after the state court hearing.” That’s not entirely true, however – in fact, the team had moved to arbitrate the dispute in state court, and the state court judge, Beatrice Butchko, denied the motion on February 22, 2018, very early in the case.
So as you can probably see (and you can read the whole transcript for yourself if you’re interested), the Marlins’ attorneys weren’t really able to do a good job of articulating how a company that is both a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a foreign country somehow only qualifies as a foreign company for purposes of the law, nor were they able to explain adequately why they didn’t raise the arbitration issue before the state court when the case was first filed.
And so it was perhaps unsurprising when the Court denied the Marlins’ request to arbitrate the case in early August and sent it back to state court (a process called “remand”). Judge Gayles wrote that the team “face[s] an uphill battle in establishing the requisite citizenship to confer jurisdiction under the Convention[,]” adding that “[t]he Loria Marlins’ assignment of their rights to the Jeter Marlins likely did not . . . confer a more expansive right to arbitrate under the Convention.” In other words, the Court didn’t at all believe that the Marlins were a British citizen, and sent the case back to state court for the state judge to decide whether the case was arbitrable on the grounds that the state court had already taken the first steps towards doing just that in its February ruling (the one Doyle evidently forgot about).
Now, you might think that the Marlins and Loria, unable to arbitrate after having two courts deny their request, and stuck in a state court that had already indicated displeasure with Loria’s creative accounting techniques, would open lines of communication to resolve the case. After all, to this point, the case doesn’t appear to be going all that well for the team or Loria. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the team and Loria appealed the state court’s denial of their arbitration request even though the case wasn’t over yet. Appealing a non-final order is called an “interlocutory appeal,” and, regardless of what you see on television, it’s actually pretty extraordinary. The general rule in every state – and Florida is no exception – is that you can’t appeal until after a case is over, because appellate courts tend not to like piecemeal appeals; they want to look at everything at once.
In fact, the very first thing the team did once the case was back in state court was to file what’s called a “Notice of Appeal” – the document beginning the appeal under Florida law. The team then asked for a stay of all proceedings for the appellate court to weigh in on the arbitration issue that two courts had already looked at and denied. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, again! At this point, an evidently exasperated Judge Butchko denied the stay outright on October 2, 2018, essentially ordering the team and Loria to stop playing around with demands for arbitration and start litigating the merits of the case.
Things looked very bleak indeed for the team and then, late last year, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal granted review (essentially accepting the case), and issued an order staying all proceedings – ordering everything to stop – until they’d looked at the case and decided the arbitration issue. That means that the whole case is essentially in limbo until a third court decides the same issue that two courts already have.
Now, as a matter of law, Butchko and Gayles largely got it right. But it’s also possible that the Appellate Court decides that it wants this case out of the judicial system; judicial economy is a virtue appellate courts adore, and it’s one of the primary reasons arbitration is so often upheld. Courts like the idea of cases being decided by someone who isn’t them, because (theoretically) it frees up judicial resources and relieves case backlogs. That being said, appellate courts tend to move pretty slowly, and it could very well be late 2019 or early 2020 before this issue is decided.
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
We continue our quick look at the 14 players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot who are certain to fall below the 5% threshold — with most of them being shut out entirely — but are worth remembering just the same.
A valuable player who started for five playoff teams, Polanco didn’t pack much punch with his contact-oriented approach at the plate, but he was quite a glove whiz, rangy and sure-handed, at home at both second base and third. In fact, he was just the second player to win Gold Gloves at multiple positions (after Darin Erstad), and his 136 career fielding runs ranks 31st among all infielders.
Born on October 10, 1975 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Polanco came to the U.S. on a student visa, attending Miami Dade Community College. Drafted by the Cardinals in the 19th round in 1994, he began his minor league career as a shortstop, and though he spent all of 1996 and ’97 as a second baseman, played more short than second during his 45-game callup in 1998. He spent most of his five-season tenure in St. Louis as a utilityman, earning an increasing amount of playing time as his offense improved. In 2000, he hit .316/.347/.418 in 350 PA, while in 2001 he upped his playing time to 610 PA while batting .307/.342/.383; he was a combined 23 runs above average at third base (his primary position), second and short, boosting his WAR to 4.5. The Cardinals made the playoffs in both of those seasons.
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In 2015, at just 22 years of age, Bryce Harper had one of the greatest offensive seasons of all-time. He hit .330/.460/.649 with 42 homers, and his 197 wRC+ was the 37th-best mark of the past 100 years and the 18th-best since integration, with only Barry Bonds posting a higher number this century. With that season, Harper delivered on whatever hype had been manufactured for him as a teen phenom and No. 1 pick overall, one who made his debut at 19 and had notched two All-Star berths before he turned 21. The best way to show the future potential for achievement is to actually do it in the first place. Harper showed he can be the best player in baseball because for one season, he was the best player in baseball.
In the three seasons since that MVP season, Harper has been more good than great, averaging 3.7 WAR per season. For the sake of a hopefully interesting exercise, let’s pretend we only know about Harper’s last three years. What if we throw out the 2015 season and ignore that Harper was actually so good that he put together All-Star caliber seasons at 19 and 20 years of age? What might that tell us, if anything, about Bryce Harper as well as his future?
To that end, I looked at outfielders who accumulated between 8 WAR and 14 WAR (Harper was at 11.2) and a wRC+ between 120 and 140 (Harper: 132) from the age of 23 through 25 from 1973 to 2008. I then eliminated those players who had below a 2.5 WAR or above a 6.0 WAR at 25 years old. This is the resulting group from age-23 through age-25, along with Harper.
Bryce Harper Age-23-to-Age-25 Comps
Name |
PA |
HR |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
wRC+ |
Off |
Def |
WAR |
Larry Walker |
1600 |
58 |
.280 |
.344 |
.469 |
128 |
51.2 |
11.2 |
12.0 |
Tony Gwynn |
1680 |
12 |
.329 |
.380 |
.415 |
127 |
48.4 |
11.8 |
11.9 |
J.D. Drew |
1359 |
58 |
.287 |
.386 |
.505 |
128 |
53.4 |
24.5 |
11.9 |
Ruben Sierra |
2081 |
70 |
.298 |
.345 |
.491 |
129 |
73.3 |
-28.9 |
11.8 |
Ellis Burks |
1702 |
51 |
.297 |
.360 |
.481 |
131 |
60.5 |
-6.8 |
11.7 |
Dave Winfield |
1836 |
53 |
.275 |
.351 |
.436 |
120 |
49.5 |
-1.5 |
11.3 |
Ellis Valentine |
1530 |
59 |
.290 |
.328 |
.484 |
125 |
41.0 |
15.7 |
11.1 |
Lee Mazzilli |
1980 |
47 |
.286 |
.374 |
.437 |
130 |
71.3 |
-33.6 |
10.8 |
Steve Kemp |
1847 |
62 |
.295 |
.384 |
.468 |
133 |
70.7 |
-29.3 |
10.7 |
Adam Dunn |
1821 |
113 |
.246 |
.379 |
.532 |
132 |
86.4 |
-42.7 |
10.2 |
Lenny Dykstra |
1443 |
26 |
.284 |
.350 |
.428 |
121 |
44.6 |
8.0 |
10.2 |
Dave Parker |
1408 |
42 |
.306 |
.348 |
.492 |
135 |
56.7 |
-7.5 |
10.1 |
Raul Mondesi |
1707 |
66 |
.296 |
.332 |
.501 |
121 |
46.9 |
1.5 |
10.1 |
Jack Clark |
1559 |
65 |
.275 |
.358 |
.485 |
135 |
59.8 |
-27.4 |
8.8 |
AVERAGE |
1682 |
56 |
.289 |
.359 |
.473 |
128 |
58.1 |
-7.5 |
10.9 |
Bryce Harper |
1814 |
87 |
.267 |
.391 |
.505 |
132 |
74.8 |
-21.8 |
11.2 |
What we have above isn’t a perfect match Harper, but in terms of age, position, and overall production, we have a decent set to work with. Perhaps the first question we might have is how those players performed at age-26, the age Harper will be next season.
Harper Age-23-to-Age-25 Comps at Age-26
Name |
PA |
HR |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
wRC+ |
Off |
Def |
WAR |
Dave Parker |
706 |
21 |
.338 |
.397 |
.531 |
146 |
35.4 |
17.2 |
7.7 |
Tony Gwynn |
701 |
14 |
.329 |
.381 |
.467 |
136 |
33.2 |
4.8 |
6.2 |
Raul Mondesi |
670 |
30 |
.310 |
.360 |
.541 |
138 |
32.5 |
3.8 |
5.7 |
Larry Walker |
582 |
22 |
.265 |
.371 |
.469 |
120 |
17.4 |
8.9 |
4.7 |
Dave Winfield |
649 |
24 |
.308 |
.367 |
.499 |
144 |
33.0 |
-14.8 |
4.3 |
Jack Clark |
659 |
27 |
.274 |
.372 |
.481 |
142 |
28.6 |
-13.9 |
3.9 |
Steve Kemp |
447 |
9 |
.277 |
.389 |
.419 |
136 |
18.2 |
0.6 |
3.5 |
Ruben Sierra |
656 |
17 |
.278 |
.323 |
.443 |
110 |
8.7 |
-0.2 |
3.1 |
Lenny Dykstra |
584 |
7 |
.237 |
.318 |
.356 |
96 |
-1.2 |
2.0 |
2.0 |
J.D. Drew |
496 |
18 |
.252 |
.349 |
.429 |
108 |
7.8 |
-5.6 |
1.8 |
Ellis Burks |
524 |
14 |
.251 |
.314 |
.422 |
98 |
-4.6 |
5.6 |
1.8 |
Adam Dunn |
683 |
40 |
.234 |
.365 |
.490 |
115 |
14.8 |
-21.7 |
1.5 |
Ellis Valentine |
261 |
8 |
.208 |
.238 |
.359 |
67 |
-11 |
0.1 |
-0.3 |
Lee Mazzilli |
376 |
6 |
.228 |
.324 |
.358 |
98 |
-0.2 |
-17.1 |
-0.4 |
AVERAGE |
571 |
18 |
.271 |
.348 |
.447 |
118 |
15.2 |
-2.2 |
3.3 |
More than half of the players had good or better seasons with another third coming in close to average, although Ellis Valentine and Lee Mazzilli came in below replacement-level. On average, the group comes in just a touch below their average performances from age-23 through age-25. As for the aging process, the group stayed roughly the same for three years, remaining pretty close to average for the late-20s and early 30s before dropping a bit more in the mid-30s.
There are a lot of different ways to take this information. One might be wariness of the aging process and forecasting deals 10 years into the future. Several players didn’t even make it to their late-20s as productive players. On the other hand, Harper’s young age means that the decline of the contract never gets too far down when it comes to expected production. Another viewpoint might focus on the individual player names and note that Harper compares pretty well to some Hall of Famers. The table below shows the production of the comps above from age-26 through age-35.
Harper Age-23-to-Age-25 Comps at 26-35
Name |
PA |
HR |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
wRC+ |
Off |
Def |
WAR |
Larry Walker |
5127 |
277 |
.331 |
.416 |
.613 |
147 |
323.1 |
6.4 |
48.6 |
Tony Gwynn |
5991 |
74 |
.340 |
.392 |
.460 |
133 |
249.9 |
-45.8 |
40.8 |
Dave Winfield |
6301 |
256 |
.290 |
.359 |
.496 |
136 |
263.7 |
-112.4 |
37.6 |
Jack Clark |
5092 |
230 |
.265 |
.397 |
.484 |
145 |
260.2 |
-107.8 |
33.5 |
J.D. Drew |
4753 |
179 |
.274 |
.383 |
.481 |
126 |
174.2 |
-1.0 |
32.9 |
Dave Parker |
5764 |
201 |
.300 |
.351 |
.491 |
127 |
168.4 |
-79.1 |
29.0 |
Lenny Dykstra |
3566 |
54 |
.288 |
.387 |
.421 |
124 |
118.4 |
42.0 |
28.6 |
Ellis Burks |
4519 |
214 |
.294 |
.371 |
.531 |
126 |
147.7 |
-39.2 |
24.4 |
Raul Mondesi |
4571 |
201 |
.264 |
.330 |
.478 |
109 |
61.5 |
-49.0 |
16.0 |
Adam Dunn |
5545 |
304 |
.231 |
.355 |
.476 |
119 |
115.6 |
-203.9 |
9.1 |
Steve Kemp |
2231 |
50 |
.270 |
.359 |
.402 |
115 |
37.6 |
-41.9 |
7.2 |
Lee Mazzilli |
2140 |
38 |
.239 |
.352 |
.351 |
103 |
11.8 |
-53.9 |
3.0 |
Ellis Valentine |
945 |
31 |
.248 |
.273 |
.402 |
86 |
-18.0 |
-10.5 |
0.2 |
Ruben Sierra |
3586 |
124 |
.258 |
.308 |
.435 |
92 |
-37.5 |
-109.3 |
-2.3 |
AVERAGE |
4295 |
160 |
.278 |
.360 |
.466 |
121 |
134 |
-57.5 |
22.0 |
The bare-bones look might examine the average and see a projected contract of close to $200 million. There’s also, based on this group, a little bit better than a one-in-five shot at Hall of Fame-level production with a roughly 50% chance at being worth a $300 million contract over the next 10 years. Opt-outs are going to drop that value some, as a few of the top results lose a bit of their value.
The best way to look at these comps is to think of them as Bryce Harper’s floor. We’ve taken some of the very best attributes of Harper — namely his young debut and his great MVP season — and then eliminated them. Despite this elimination, he still resembles a few Hall of Famers and some Hall of Very Good-types. Here’s what the group above looks like through Age-25 with Harper as a comparison.
Harper Age-23-to-Age-25 Comps Through 25
Name |
PA |
HR |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
wRC+ |
Off |
Def |
WAR |
Bryce Harper |
3957 |
184 |
.279 |
.388 |
.512 |
140 |
199.7 |
-30.1 |
30.7 |
Jack Clark |
2818 |
105 |
.276 |
.350 |
.478 |
130 |
93.6 |
-20.3 |
17.4 |
Ellis Valentine |
2447 |
92 |
.290 |
.332 |
.480 |
123 |
66.3 |
13.4 |
16.6 |
Ruben Sierra |
3856 |
139 |
.280 |
.325 |
.474 |
115 |
66.5 |
-35.0 |
16.6 |
Adam Dunn |
2783 |
158 |
.248 |
.383 |
.518 |
131 |
124.5 |
-48.8 |
16.5 |
Ellis Burks |
2308 |
71 |
.291 |
.350 |
.470 |
123 |
62.8 |
-2.9 |
14.3 |
Dave Winfield |
2534 |
76 |
.273 |
.342 |
.433 |
118 |
59.0 |
-13.2 |
13.4 |
J.D. Drew |
1400 |
63 |
.291 |
.388 |
.519 |
132 |
61.7 |
26.1 |
13.0 |
Tony Gwynn |
1889 |
13 |
.325 |
.376 |
.412 |
125 |
51.3 |
11.7 |
12.9 |
Steve Kemp |
2483 |
80 |
.285 |
.374 |
.456 |
126 |
76.3 |
-42.6 |
12.1 |
Larry Walker |
1656 |
58 |
.276 |
.341 |
.459 |
125 |
47.0 |
12.7 |
11.9 |
Lenny Dykstra |
1716 |
27 |
.279 |
.348 |
.413 |
117 |
45.4 |
13.0 |
11.7 |
Lee Mazzilli |
2691 |
55 |
.275 |
.364 |
.410 |
120 |
61.6 |
-42.6 |
11.3 |
Dave Parker |
1552 |
46 |
.304 |
.344 |
.488 |
133 |
58.4 |
-3.5 |
11.2 |
Raul Mondesi |
1798 |
70 |
.295 |
.331 |
.501 |
121 |
49.6 |
-0.3 |
10.5 |
There are so few players like Bryce Harper in baseball history that it is tough to find a lot of good comparisons. In the past 100 years, there have only been 16 players within five WAR of Harper and also within 20% of his plate appearances. Of those 15 other players, 11 are in the Hall of Fame. Manny Machado is another player on that list, with the others being Jim Fregosi, Cesar Cedeno, and Vada Pinson. The 14 players averaged 37 WAR from age-26 through age-35, with eight of the 11 players who played since 1947 hitting that average.
There are even fewer comparable players in history who have hit free agency heading into their age-26 season. If we look at the comps from the beginning of the post where we ignore important, relevant facts, Harper is merely worth a $200 million investment. If we look at the last batch of comps or apply his five-win projection forward with aging, he might be worth $400 million to $500 million. There’s going to be considerable downside to the contract Harper requires, and any opt-outs are going to remove some of the best-case scenarios, but there is almost as much upside in Harper as there has been in any free agent we’ve ever seen, Alex Rodriguez excepted, because we don’t have to guess at what Harper is capable of. Combine those abilities with his age, and the team that nabs Harper isn’t just contending with the risk of a potential albatross; they are also adding the possibility of greatly exceeding the value of his contract.
Just a few weeks ago, something incredible happened. On an otherwise ordinary day in Venezuela, a pitcher named Rick Teasley became the first person to ever strike out Willians Astudillo twice in a game. Teasley is a former Rays draft pick who’s played baseball all over the globe, and Ben Lindbergh and I were delighted to chat with him for the Effectively Wild podcast. He remembered the pitches he threw to Astudillo with great detail. Those are pitches one wouldn’t soon forget.
The Venezuelan winter league regular season is now over. Astudillo wound up fourth in the league in plate appearances, with 261. Against Teasley, that one evening, he struck out two times. Against everybody else, every other evening, he struck out two times. Willians Astudillo has completed another regular season. He finished with four strikeouts. And it only gets better from there.
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Nothing spurs interest and action quite like a deadline. It’s why we love Game Sevens. It’s why we love July 31. It’s why we’re almost always let down by the winter meetings — the end doesn’t actually mean a single thing. When good players are available on the offseason market, some sort of deadline does exist, because teams and players generally want to be settled in time for opening day. But we don’t know when Bryce Harper is going to sign. We don’t know when Manny Machado is going to sign. We did know when Yusei Kikuchi was going to sign. Yusei Kikuchi had a deadline.
Kikuchi was posted in early December, and by the rules of the new MLB/NPB agreement, he had a 30-day window to make a decision. The end of the window was going to be…today, January 2, so we’ve known for a while Kikuchi would pick a team around the turn of the calendar. (Deadlines also allow humans to procrastinate.) Word first started spreading late on the east coast’s New Year’s Eve. Kikuchi is going to pitch for the Mariners. The Japanese lefty hopes to be a fit for the Mariners’ aggressive and optimistic rebuilding timeline.
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Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain led the Brewers offense in 2018.
(Photo:
Ian D’Andrea)
The World Series may have been a battle of big market Goliaths, but one last David held out in the Milwaukee Brewers. Powered by two MVP candidates in the outfield, the remnants of the best logo of the 1980s, and perhaps most strangely, the confusing, awesome powers of Wade Miley, Milwaukee stood strong long past the pumpkinization of other sabermetric-darling Cinderellas. And when they went down, of the seven non-Boston teams to survive the wild card round, the Brew Crew was the only one to take their opponents to an elimination game, making Dylan Thomas proud.
The Setup
Of the franchises that underwent a significant teardown cycle over the last decade, the rebuilding of the Milwaukee Brewers may have been among the most low-key. One reason for this is that while other franchises that had to be dragged into their down cycles kicking and screaming and pretending disaster was not upon them, Milwaukee showed an unusual realpolitik about the state of their franchise. A lot of teams would have taken the wrong lesson from Milwaukee’s 82-80 2014 season, when they surprisingly led the NL Central uninterrupted from the second week of the season until the end of August, and believed they were just a couple mediocre veterans away from the promised land.
The Brewers, on the other hand, saw the opportunity to trade Yovani Gallardo while the getting was good (before a 30% drop in strikeout rate was reflected in his ERA). And when 2015 became a mess, the team wasted little time dithering, jumping straight into a rebuild before the roster was a bleak Kafka-esque wasteland of value while simultaneously transitioning to a new braintrust let by David Stearns, with the handoff from Doug Melvin being one of the smoothest transfers of power in human history.
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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
For better or worse, I’m a completist. In 15 years of analyzing Hall of Fame ballots using my JAWS system, I’ve never let a candidate pass without comment, no matter how remote his chance of election. From the brothers Alomar to the youngest Alou and the elder Young, I’ve covered them all. It should come as no surprise, then, that I’m tackling the minor candidates on the 2019 Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot in addition to the major ones — of which there were 21 this year. That leaves 14 to go.
To be eligible for election, a player must appear in games in at least 10 major league seasons, with a career that ended at least five calendar years ago, and then be nominated by at least two members of a six-member screening committee — a step that can produce some arbitrary results, as I noted last month. Given the backlog of strong candidates, this is no tragedy in the grand scheme of things, since most newcomers have no shot at gaining the 75% of the votes necessary for election. Indeed, the 14 players in question have received a total of four votes among the 140 ballots published thus far; nobody here will come close to the minimum 5% needed to remain on the ballot. Just the same, these one-and-done candidates were accomplished players who deserve their valedictory, so I’ll spend the remainder of this series running through the ones about whom we might say, “They also served.”
Ankiel’s path through the majors — from pitching phenom through a debilitating bout of the yips and then Tommy John surgery to a second career as an outfielder — was unlike any other. As I wrote last month, his mere appearance on this Hall of Fame ballot is a triumph unto itself, even if his numbers offer no reasonable basis for election.
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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Philadelphia Phillies. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.
**Editor’s Note: Sixto Sanchez and Will Stewart were removed from this list on 2/7/19 when they were traded to Miami for J.T. Realmuto.**
All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Catching Depth
Deivi Grullon, C
Juan Aparicio, C
Logan O’Hoppe, C
Abrahan Gutierrez, C
Edgar Cabral, C
Grullon has elite arm strength and hit 21 homers at Double-A last year. The power output was likely caricatured by Reading’s ballpark and Grullon is a slow-twitch, immobile defender, and a 20 runner with below average bat speed and is probably more of a third/inventory catcher than a true backup despite the hose and pull pop. Aparicio has a well-rounded collection of tools (5 bat, 45 raw, can catch, 45 arm) but at age 18, is a hefty 5-foot-8, 210, and it’s going to be tough to keep that frame in check. Gutierrez is similar. O’Hoppe was a nice late-round flier, an athletic, projectable catcher from the northeast with the physical tools to hit and catcher’s intangibles. He turns 19 in February and is probably going to take a while to develop. Cabral gets some Henry Blanco comps because he’s similarly built and is a tough guy with a 7 arm, but to say Cabral will have a 16-year career that starts in his late-20s is probably excessive. He profiles as a third catcher.
Young Lottery Tickets
Logan Simmons, SS
Leonel Aponte, RHP
Carlos De La Cruz, OF
Keudy Bocio, CF
Brayan Gonzalez, INF
Joalbert Angulo, LHP
Jhordany Mezquita, LHP
Simmons signed for $750,000 as a 2018 sixth rounder. He’s super toolsy but sushi raw and may never hit. Aponte, 19, has a projectable frame (6-foot-4, 150) and can spin a breaking ball (2650 rpm) but he’s a below-average athlete and only sits 86-90 right now. De La Cruz has a power forward build at 6-foot-8 and is an extreme power projection long shot. Bocio has plus bat speed and a lean, projectable frame but he’s an extreme free swinger. Gonzalez was sent to the NYPL at 18 and struggled, striking out in 40% of his PA’s. Visually he remains advanced on both sides, tracking pitches well and playing polished defense. He projects as a utility type. Angulo is a lanky, low-slot teenage projection arm. The Phillies wanted to sign Mezquita as an international amateur but he moved away from the U.S. and to the Dominican too late to qualify, so the Phillies stashed him in Hazelton, PA, where he didn’t play high school baseball, and drafted him in the 2017 eighth round. He sits 88-91 and has an average curveball.
Upper-Level Pitching Depth
Drew Anderson, RHP
Connor Seabold, RHP
Cole Irvin, LHP
J.D. Hammer, RHP
Thomas Eshelman, RHP
Colton Eastman, RHP
Anderson was off and on the DL a bunch in 2016, his first year back from Tommy John, but his stuff blossomed anyway and he was a surprise 40-man add that November. The Phillies have continued to develop him as a starter and he’ll likely compete for the rotation’s fifth spot in the spring. He has a four-pitch mix, and can spin a solid breaking ball. He’s a No. 5 or 6 starter type, like everyone in this group, except for Hammer who is a mid-90s/changeup relief prospect who was hurt for most of 2018. Seabold is a true 40 for those who think he has plus command of an average fastball and slider. Irvin is a soft-tossing lefty whose changeup has improved in pro ball. He dumps a ton of curveballs in for strikes and might be Tommy Milone. Eshelman and Eastman are similar pitchability righties.
Bat-only Types
Matt Vierling, OF
Dylan Cozens, OF
Austin Listi, OF
Ben Pelletier, OF
All of these guys need to hit a ton to profile because of where they are on the defensive spectrum. Vierling was the club’s 2018 fifth rounder out of Notre Dame. He hit well at Lakewood after signing and is a fairly athletic prospect who spent his early college career as a two-way player. He has some strength-driven power but probably needs a swing change to get to it in games. Cozens is the toolsiest player of this group and has elite power/size/athletic ability, but he’s also plateaued at Triple-A and has red flag contact rates. Listi has some strong underlying indicators (he hits the ball in the air and had strong peripherals at Hi-A last year) but he’s 25, very old for the levels at which he has competed, and looked out of place in the AFL from a tools standpoint. Pelletier is only 20 and has promising hitter’s hands, but imbalanced footwork. If that gets cleaned up, he might break out as he’s performed for two straight years despite these issues.
Pitching Curiosities
Ramon Rosso, RHP
Josh Tols, LHP
Damon Jones, LHP
Jose Taveras, RHP
Rosso is a low slot cutter/breaking ball righty who struck more than a batter per inning over a season split between Low and Hi-A. He sits in the upper-80s and his stuff doesn’t appear to merit the results he’s already gotten, so we might be underrating him. Tols is 29 and has a work of art, 69 mph curveball that spins at 3050 rpm. He’s physically and mechanically similar to Timmy Collins but doesn’t throw nearly as hard. Jones is a big-bodied, 24-year-old lefty whose fastball plays above it’s velo due to deception and extension. He has an average curveball. Taveras’ velocity was way down last year, but he’s a similar extension/deception arm whose stuff is good in short stints before hitters can adjust.
System Overview
The new Phillies regime has been around long enough that it’s now fair to attempt to identify talent acquisition trends. Perhaps mostly notable so far is how the club has targeted upside in the middle rounds, often scooping up $500,000 – $1 million prep prospects in the fifth to 11th rounds. The player development arm of the organization is transitioning to the philosophy du jour, as the org has brought on adventurous, contemporary thinkers like Driveline Baseball’s Jason Ochart, who will oversee hitting instruction. Several of the prospects in this system would benefit from well-executed swing alterations (especially Haseley and Bohm, and perhaps Moniak), arguably making the new player development infrastructure the focal point of the organization’s growth now that the big league team is good again.
Despite having graduated or traded five 45 FV or better prospects in the last year, the Phillies have a respectable group of high-end talent largely thanks to the emergence of several additions from 2017. Paired with high-upside players like Bohm and Garcia is an awful lot of interesting depth, specifically from Venezuela, which is notable because political and social unrest in the country have made it dangerous and difficult to eat and obtain medicine there, let alone find baseball players.
There are fourteen Venezuelans on this list if we include those in the Others of Note section, which is a much greater number than any other organization we’ve audited so far. The Phillies have several Venezuelan people in influential front office positions and are one of the few teams to still operate an academy there at a time when the U.S. government and MLB have advised citizens and team employees to avoid the country or reconsider travel there.