The Phillies celebrated one of their top position players of all time on Saturday, as he broke the Phillies' all-time Phillies hit record. While fans were celebrating and reporters were asking Rollins about his future and possibly moving in a trade, the Phillies shortstop of the future was on the move himself. The Phillies promoted their top prospect on Saturday from low-A Lakewood to high-A Clearwater.
The timing seemed a little strange; in the midst of celebrating Rollins the Phillies were inching his replacement closer and closer to the major leagues. However, the timing was more tied to the Phillies' recent draft. Yet-lower class A Williamsport began plan on Friday, and along with the Gulf Coast league team, received some of the Phillies' newly-signed players. In other cases, the new players at the lower levels bumped up some others. Crawford was among those.
At Lakewood, there was little else for Crawford to accomplish. Crawford batted .295, with an on base percentage of .398. Thanks in part to 16 doubles and three home runs, Crawford slugged his way to an OPS of .804. Crawford's top play was also enough to bump another Phillies prospect from his shortstop position.
Roman Quinn arguably was the fastest player in the Phillies system. The only reason I use the word "was" is that Quinn suffered a brutal achillies tear in 2013. As we saw with Ryan Howard, these injuries are pretty serious and can take a substantial amount of time to heal. But, Quinn is back, and reports are that he is 100% healthy. Can someone like Quinn maintain his speed long-term after an injury like that? We will see.
It is easy to look towards the future and salivate when envisioning Crawford and Quinn batting first and second in the Phillies ordered and playing surperb defense. But, the Phillies probably said the same thing in the late 1990s, as we watched center fielder Reggie Taylor and shortstop Jimmy Rollins coming up among the ranks. Taylor quickly faded away, and Rollins would go on to be the Phillies hit king. If one of the two works out the same, consider the Phillies and their fans lucky.
