Notes of spring: Phillies’ Appel, Kilome, Eshelman, chemistry
By Sam Dykstra/MiLB.com
CLEARWATER, Florida — On a diamond behind Clearwater’s Bright House Field on Sunday, the future of the Phillies took batting practice. Prospects J.P. Crawford, Nick Williams, Roman Quinn and Darnell Sweeney laid down bunts and took their hacks alongside veteran infielder Emmanuel Burriss, who signed a Minor League deal in the offseason.
By the end of last season, three of the four (Crawford, Williams and Quinn) were part of a talented Double-A Reading roster that included six of the club’s top 10 prospects (as ranked by MLB.com) and fell one win short of an Eastern League title.
For all the individual talent that roster contained, it was how the group blended that the system’s top prospect will remember most fondly.
“I’m hoping that’s our team in the future,” Crawford said of that Fightin Phils squad. “We have a lot of guys that have a shot [at the Majors] and, hopefully, we have another good season this year. … Honestly, it started in the clubhouse. We all got along great, just hanging out after games and stuff, and I think that helped us on the field.”
It wasn’t hard to see that chemistry on Sunday. Crawford heaped praise on liners off the bat of Quinn, a speedster who’s made the move from shortstop to center field to clear room for himself and Crawford on any present and future roster. The group took its time admiring a homer off Sweeney’s bat.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed by the front office.
“Well, I hope that what we saw there as far as the chemistry, it’s hard to do that in professional baseball, where you have a lot of talent like that,” Phillies farm director Joe Jordan said. “But they were a team, had such a good clubhouse. Around the cage and BP, guys are going at each other. You know, it’s fun. It’s hard to do. I give the staff a lot of credit, but for the players, I think they’re into each other. In their mind, they sit around and talk about the future of being in a Major League lineup together. … It was a real, special group of players. It was kinda cool, really.”
The Phillies are noticeably in the middle of a rebuild. The big club hasn’t had a winning season since 2012 and its 63–99 record last year was baseball’s worst. Trades involving Cole Hamels and Ken Giles have beefed up an already impressive farm system. But even before that, the Phillies knew they’d have to make it a cohesive unit.
“All the stuff we’re talking about with that Reading club, with the culture, the environment, all those things were big points of emphasis at last year’s Spring Training,” Jordan said. “We had to change the culture. We’re about developing players, we all know that. But we talked about being good teammates. We talked about it every day. We made a point of style of play and playing for each other. The players executed it. It was a big point of emphasis, and the players went out and made it happen in Reading, over here [in Clearwater]. It was really a good year throughout the system. Reading just got a lot of the focus because of the players there.”
The system finished with a collective .533 winning percentage, sixth-best among big league clubs, and enters the 2016 season with the sixth-best group of position player prospects and 10th-best group of pitching prospects, in MiLB.com’s recent rankings. That’s a system that’ll easily factor into the top 10 once the overall rankings come out and has a decent shot at completing a successful rebuild.
The Phillies know they’ll just have to get the chemistry right, starting with the fact that all five members of Sunday’s hitting group are likely headed to Triple-A Lehigh Valley together.
“It was phenomenal what we did,” Jordan said. “Now we just have to go ahead and do it again.
OTHER NOTES
— Franklyn Kilome (pronounced KEY-lo-may) enters the season as the №8 prospect in the Phillies system — according to MLB.com — and is the first prospect in the system outside of the top 100 overall. (For what it’s worth, Baseball Prospectus has him at №95.) The 20-year-old right-hander posted a 3.28 ERA and 36 strikeouts over 49 1/3 innings at Class A Short Season Williamsport and has drawn raves for his mid-90’s fastball. If he’s going to become a consensus top 100 prospect and a legitimate prospect as a starter, he’ll need to make his changeup (to go with an average curveball) more of a weapon. But Jordan says the Phillies aren’t worried about that ahead of Kilome’s likely full-season debut this spring.
“I don’t think we’re to the point with him that that is our focus,” he said. “His focus is to continue to develop fastball command, curveball command. He’s got two pitches that are really, really good on occasion. Consistency, like any young player, that’s the focus. He’s got a changeup that he’ll use. But the focus for me and us is command of the first two pitches. At some point and time, we’ll expand it.”
— Mark Appel talked to MiLB.com’s Kelsie Heneghan last month about hitting the reset button with Philadelphia after the 2013 top overall pick spent three fairly rough seasons with the Astros. He has 5.12 career ERA, despite possessing a plus fastball and above-average slider, leading some to believe that his delivery might lack enough deception to make those offerings as effective as they could be. Appel is a non-roster invitee to Major League camp and is likely headed to Lehigh Valley, where the Phillies are confident they get the results from his talent.
“I’m certain our pitching people can help, but he’s the guy [we thought he was],” Jones said. “He’s going to figure out what works for him, and let’s go get that out of him.”
— Speaking of former Astros prospects, Thomas Eshelman joined the Phillies in the Giles deal, not even a year after being drafted 46th overall out of Cal State-Fullerton. (Thank the Trea Turner rule for that.) The 21-year-old right-hander walked only 18 batters over 376 innings at the collegiate level, good enough for a career rate of 0.4 BB/9. Eshelman might not possess the killer stuff as others in the system, like Appel, but his plus-plus control already has the Phillies raving.
“It’s unheard of in terms of what he was able to do in college,” Jordan said. “I’m looking forward to seeing him throw because, obviously, he’s an execution guy, a guy that can follow the glove with two or three pitches. I’m looking forward to seeing it in person.”
