While the Philadelphia Phillies prospects for success in the 2016 season are likely to be panned by most national outlets, a few have been very kind to the team's top minor-league talents recently. MLB Pipeline ranked seven of the Phillies prospects as being in the top 100 last week, the most of any team. Baseball Prospectus called J.P. Crawford the fourth best prospect at any level in the minors.
The best endorsement, however, came from Sports Illustrated's Cliff Corcoran yesterday afternoon, who put together a formula to combine the two countdowns, which saw the Phillies system check in as the highest rated in the entire league.
With eight prospects named to one list or the other, the Phillies have the most top-100 players of any organization in baseball. That group is led by 21-year-old shortstop J.P. Crawford, the 16th overall pick in the 2013 draft, but it has been fleshed out significantly in the last year by importing talent from other clubs. Williams, Thompson and Alfaro all came over from the Rangers’ system in the Cole Hamels trade last July, while Appel was acquired from the Astros this off-season in the swap that netted Houston closer Ken Giles. Meanwhile, the 18-year-old Randolph was Philadelphia’s top pick in last June’s draft (selected 10th overall out of Griffin (Ga.) High School), and the team will surely add another top-100 prospect in June when it makes the first pick in this year's amateur draft.
Crawford, Williams, Thompson, Alfaro and Quinn all topped out in Double A last year, while Appel reached Triple A, so look for 2017 to be the season that this crop of prospects starts to make an impact for the Phils.
While some may rank the Phillies system a little lower when other rankings come out, the transformation that their system has had in one season is nothing short of amazing. Prior to the 2015 season, Baseball America said they had the 21st best farm system, Baseball Prospectus ranked them as having the 20th best system, and ESPN called them the 25th best system.
The transformation has largely come due to the trades of Cole Hamels (netted Jorge Alfaro, Nick Williams, Jake Thompson, among others) and Ken Giles (netted Mark Appel). These prospect rankings also don't count the success that both Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff (also landed in the Hamels deal) had at the major league level last year and that Vincent Velasquez was the top piece acquired in the Giles deal. And Odubel Herrera had a ton of success in his rookie season after being selected in the Rule-5 Draft in 2014.
Tim Kelly (@TimKellySports) is the Managing Editor of Philliedelphia.com, focusing on news and features.
