Archive for May, 2010

MLB has announced that the late-June interleague series between the Phillies and the Jays will be relocated to Citizens Bank Park due to a scheduling conflict with the freakin’ G20 World Economic Summit. The freakeist part of the whole announcement is that the Phillies will be the away team for the series and the DH will be used. That’s right, the DH will be used in a NL park. Cue the wailing, moaning, and gnashing of teeth from NL fans, and cries of “Who wants to see the pitchers hit?” from AL fans.

http://zozone.mlblogs.com/archives/2010/05/yep_phillies_get_3_more_home_g.html

He’s lost 37 pounds.  He’s sexier.

But he’s batting .167 with 0 home runs for the Padres.

Slimmer Stairs Still Stepping Up to the Plate | NBC Philadelphia.

May has some of the better stuff in the Phillies system, but he’s a long way from harnessing it, as inconsistent and at times sloppy mechanics lead to widely varying velocity, break and command.  So far in the Florida State League, the 20-year-old has been putting it all together, sitting consistently in the low 90s while touching 94 mph, showcasing two much-improved secondary pitches in his curveball and change, all while striking out 39 in just 24 innings.  He’s walked 12 and hit a pair of batters, so the control is still shaky, but this has the potential for a major step forward.Back in March (really back in January) I put together a top 10 prospects list. As we know, the status of prospects is a fluid thing. I think things have changed enough that it’s time for an update.

The ranking system is pretty straight forward and is described below. All evaluations come with upside/downside projections and of course rely on the player remaining healthy. For this update, I’ll note any status changes from the previous list in a stock up/stock down format.

The ranking system:

• 5 star – Future All-Star/Elite talent.
• 4 star – MLB average to above average talents.  Players who will consistently put up between 2-4 WAR most healthy seasons.
• 3 star – MLB role players.  These guys may or may not be starters but they will usually be between .5-2.5 WAR per season.
• 2 star – Replacement level/Organizational soldier.  These guys will probably have fringe MLB talent and will struggle to become more than the 25th man on a roster.  Sometimes these guys are briefly useful and sometimes they fool everyone.
• 1 star – Really? is this ever going to show up on a top 10 list?  A 1 star athlete has no semblance of talent or projectability.  When a player is listed with 1 star downside, that means there is considerable risk of him being a complete bust.

5 Star Athletes:

1. Domonic Brown, age 22, STOCK UP: Brown remains King of the Hill by authoring a .347/.402/.607 triple slash with the Reading Phils to date. Scouts were just beginning to seriously worry that Brown’s power ceiling might be lower than they thought after popping only one homerun in April. He’s since allayed those fears by hitting 3 in the early part of May. There’s not much else to say about Brown, he’s dominating non-Strasburg pitcher’s in AA and it’s only a matter of time until he’s promoted to AAA. Brown still has 4 star downside.

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Get well soon, Doggie.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the current back-up plan to Brad Lidge in the ninth is one of our resident Cuban defectors. Fortunately, it’s the good one. In your face, Ryan Edmund!

I suck. Just like TheRuckus said I would!

Jose Contreras is, to use the technical parlance, owning the shit out of the hitters right now. His velocity is up, and his breaking pitches look awesome. His swinging strike rate is an eye-popping 22.3% – to put that in perspective, Brad Lidge’s 2008 mark was 15.3%. His 16.43 K/9 is second in the majors behind Carlos Marmol (or CarLOLs MarmLOL, as the case may be). All caveats about small sample size acknowledged, so far Contreras is doing a good job of making me look like the genius I am.

Last night against the Cardinals, he entered the game in the 10th, quickly striking out Ryan Ludwick on a two-seamer that the stadium gun recorded at 98. Of course, that gun also clocked Hamels at 95, so it was probably a little hot. Let’s move on before I have to make a dumb taser joke. Anyway, Contreras had Albert Pujols looking mortal on a couple of splitters before surrendering a double on a 1-2 pitch that was more a result of terrible defense by Ben Francisco than anything else. He bounced back to fan Matt Holliday on an absolutely filthy split and got David Freese to foul out to first.

Lidge looked decent last night, but Charlie rightly wants to ease him back into the swing of things. Contreras is pretty clearly the best reliever on the team right now, and it behooves us to use him as such. Hopefully, more like we did last night than with a three-run lead in the ninth, but I’ll take anything that keeps Danys Baez from pitching multiple innings. Or at all, really.

Here’s my favorite Mets posts from PSD during the 9 run outburst tonight.  Will keep updating as the night goes along.

yes i usually post on another board and of course it’s down now, but they have the mets pitches. they are aware of whats coming. charlie manuel knows how to pick that stuff up and santana was tipping his pitches. when the fastball was coming the elbow had more of a bend and when the change was coming it didn’t. the problem was not using his slider and curve.
the phillies have a cam i’m sure in there scoreboard and figured out the mets signs the last 2 games.  -  http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13187170&postcount=2399

Yeah, nothing to do with the fact that we have quite a few all-stars on our team.  But it’s because we have a camera in centerfield.  Lulz.

Wow, we have been brought back down to earth…we have shown our true colors – http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13187130&postcount=2381

Admission is the first step to solving your problems.

Our two aces just gave up ~15 runs in back to back games… WOW. – http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13187036&postcount=2338

Since when do the Mets have two aces?

God ****ing damnit **** sucking ****ing **** **** this **** sucking piece of ****. This **** ****ing sucks my dick. ****k **** **** **** ****. – http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13186984&postcount=2317

About sums it up.