Bryson Stott is expected to make his MLB debut in 2022, with the Phillies hoping that the top prospect can provide some immediate help to a lineup that both has plenty of holes, and is in need of a youth infusion. Stott has spent most of his two pro seasons at shortstop, but “if I have to move over [to another position], it is what it is,” Stott told NBC Sports’ Jim Salisbury and other reporters. “I just want to do anything I can do to get to Philadelphia and help that city and that team win. So whatever it may be, if it’s short or anywhere else, it’s obviously not up to me.”
Stott has also seen action at second and third base during his time in the minors, giving the Phillies some flexibility in determining both his eventual everyday role and what they might pursue roster-wise once the lockout is over. Second baseman Jean Segura is entering the last year of his contract and third baseman Alec Bohm is looking to bounce back from a rough 2021, and might not stick at third base over the long term anyway. It is also possible Stott might simply remain at shortstop, given how president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said back in October that incumbent Didi Gregorius wasn’t a guaranteed to even return in 2022, let alone remain the starting shortstop. The Phillies will benefit from some extra time to monitor Stott during ongoing minor league minicamps and minor league spring camp next month, as Stott isn’t locked out since he isn’t yet on Philadelphia’s 40-man roster.
More from the City of Brotherly Love….
- A breakout performance from Stott would be a nice win for a Phillies organization has had well-documented issues in drafting and developing players who eventually contribute at the big league level. Newly-hired player development director Preston Mattingly has a lot of work ahead in turning things around, though Mattingly told MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki and other reporters that “our system’s a lot deeper than people give it credit….I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a bunch of other teams’ top guys, and I think the guys in our system stack up with those guys. They don’t get the recognition that others do.” In the first months of his tenure, Mattingly has prioritized improving communication within the organization and throughout the different levels of the minor leagues, focusing on making sure that “everybody has the same message when it goes from staff to players…getting everybody with a consistent message going in the same direction” and also that the players themselves are well-informed about the team’s plans. As Mattingly put it, “it’s all a team effort, right? The players, the staff — it’s a two-way street. We got to work together; it’s their career, we’re trying to help them in any way possible.”
- Bench depth and pinch-hitting are both areas of need for the Phillies to address after the lockout, as The Athletic’s Matt Gelb notes that the team got very little pop from their pinch-hitters in 2021. The likely introduction of the universal DH will create the need for more position-player help, as Gelb indicates that the Phillies are going to rotate their everyday starters through the DH position rather than have a regular designated hitter.
Will the Phils ruin Stott by moving him all around like they did Kingery?
I do have to question the Phillies assessment if their own minor leaguers the past 5-10 years. The drafted guys have pretty much been a complete bust outside of Nola and Hoskins.
Bohm was runner up to ROTY. While the jury is still out following his sophomore slump, I think it would be unfair to label him a bust after his strong 2020 and his prospect pedigree.
Ranger Suarez and Hector Neris both belong with Nola and Hoskins. Dominguez, Stott, Rojas, all homegrown guys.
I think people are selective when deciding how important homegrown talent is to be quite honest. The Padres were everyone’s favorite team at this time last year, and how much of their roster is home grown? The Brewers offense is loaded with guys they didn’t draft. I understand the need for young talent to mix with veterans, but it’s far from the Phillies’ biggest problem in my opinion.
Neris is not home grown.
He was signed by the Phillies and has spent his entire career with them. If that’s not homegrown, what is?
You know what, you’re right, my bad. I thought he came up through the Mariners system.
But something you should keep in mind is the fact that even if your roster isn’t filled with home grown guys, its still important to draft & develop well because you can use prospects in trades to better your team. So, for example, the teams you cited may not have many home grown player on the 26 man roster, but perhaps they used some of their talent to obtain others that are.
@lemonlyman
Honestly though, outside of Nola and Hoskins, the 5 or 6 others you have rattled off are all suspects or one year wonders so far.
Yes, Neris has had a solid run, so I’ll easily add him to the mix. So that’s three in 10 years of draft picks to have an impact.
Suarez does look really nice. But let’s see what he does AFTER the league sees him 3 or 4 times and gets a book on him. I hope he does well.
But every other player you mentioned is pretty much barely hanging on to a roster spot, no?
Bohm looks to be the next Franco – meaning, expectations are too high to appreciate what they might have in front of them.
And for the record, I liked him!
Anywho, as I originally stated, Phils’ scouting hasn’t provided much at all in viable pieces to build around OR trade with.
Catcher – FA
2b – fa
3b – third year player on the bubble
SS – fa
1b – Hoskins
Lf – fa
Cf – ??
Rf – fa
Sp – Nola, fa, Suarez, fa, Eflin
Bullpen – Neris, who is nasty, then Yuck.
Is that normal? Maybe more so today. But for the past 10 year period, serviceable players drafted or acquired through trading said drafted players has yielded major pieces that are few and far between.
Hey, they are our hometown team and I root for them – unless playing my Mets!
Segura and Realmuto were acquired via trade.
Well, Sixto Sanchez looks like he could be okay and I wouldn’t call Jorge Alfaro a complete bust. And J.P. Crawford may have finally found his groove. None are still with the Phillies though.
Alfaro came in a trade. Not ‘homegrown’.
“Looks like he could be okay” and “may have finally found his groove” isn’t exactly making a case in the Phillies favor lol
I don’t think moving him to second will mess him up that badly. This Kingery stuff is also overblown. He legit just sucks at the MLB level. That’s it.
Kingery’s ability to play multiple positions was his only asset. Dude just can’t hit a baseball.
I’m surprised the phillies have not produced more good hitters recently, their minor league hitting coordinator is Jason ochart who is the founder of driveline hitting and one of the smartest modern data driven player dev guys who uses all the data stuff like blast, hittrax, kvest, force plates and so on.
Maybe he isn’t getting enough support and buy in by other coaches in the system and the front office is not enforcing cooperation.
Maybe it’s because using data is not an effective way of teaching hitters to perform against big league pitching. Fans, especially ones who’ve never played outside of little league, seem to have a sychophantic obsession with the nerds running these academies of nonsense
“Using data is not an effective way of teaching…”
While I quote just a snippet of your comment, it’s not taken out of context.
If you typed that in complete sincerity, I have sympathy for your frontal lobe.
paddy – Save your sympathy. My belief is that so many hitters struggle today because they have so much of this technical data thrown at them, trying to teach them how to get maximum exit velocity, the perfect launch angle, blah, blah, blah.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Paralysis of analysis”. This is what a lot of players experience these days. Hitting is difficult. You need to have the reflexes and strength to be able to hit big league pitching, smooth mechanics and the proper mindset.
Half of the players are up in the box worrying more about achieving the perfect this or that statcast number instead of letting their natural ability take over and it shows in the 3 true outcome farce today’s game has become.
It’s actually the left hemisphere of the brain that controls speech, writing and comprehension. The frontal lobe would be more like voluntary movement, expressive language, and higher level functions like planning and organizing.
But more than being wrong, you’re just being a jerk. Do I disagree with the statement about using data to teach? Yes, I do. But why can’t you disagree with someone, without being condescending?
What part of the brain makes you that way?
I will say this about all the data driven “coaching”, there is a very important place for it, but we are losing site of coaching that has actually played and succeeded at the highest level. There’s MUCH more to hitting than just data.
Factor in mental, emotional, fatigue, bad habits picked up during the season, psychological, adjusting for age, injury…there is just SO much more.
If I was an 8 year starting veteran player, I know I’d have a hard time listening to a guy who never got out of A ball carrying around an IPad, telling everyone what to do!
I never get when fans think that success as a major leaguer is a prerequisite for teaching the fundamentals or collecting and interpreting data. It makes no sense and it’s not how it works.
Obviously, data has a very real value to coaches, players, teams, front offices, and even fans. But I will offer Jeff Albert as an example of data overload. I don’t claim to know what Albert teaches or relies on, but he has been described as an analytics driven coach. Whatever his approach, it hasn’t worked for the Cardinals’ hitters. Three years of his teachings have resulted in very mediocre results and one fired manager. He has no professional playing experience and maybe that contributes to his inability to get results from the players. Whatever the problem is, I wish he would take it somewhere else.
@Lyman, Expressing sympathy was condescending? I wasn’t referring to either language association area nor language motor area of the left hemisphere. I was referring to the reasoning that lead to arguing for data not being helpful in teaching.
You have a point when it comes to paralysis by analysis. I think that’s more about how the data is used and communicated to players. Everyone learns in different ways and brings differing skill sets.
Is using data contributing to three true outcomes? It seems how the data is communicated or which area is stressed in coaching is a bigger factor.
I see the “Paralysis of Analysis” principle when some Managers over manage.
Data is vital to any learning experience. The missing element is how that data is communicated to the player. Don’t swing at pitches outside the zone we’ve established for you versus you need to walk more.
@bigjon Both you and dominikk touch upon the most important part of any skill or method that is taught. How is the data and knowledge communicated to those you are trying to teach/improve?
A lack of poor communication can make data translate poorly into performance.
Baseballclassic85’s line about data not being not being effective for teaching hitting( or anything) is just laughable.
How would BP help then? Isn’t that just data in a hitter’s brain that seems more intuitive than quantitative? I’m simplifying to show how absurd the “data is not an effective way of teaching,” is.
Maybe baseballclassic85 misstated his somewhat less absurd meaning behind his comment. Data is one tool in the toolbox for teaching, but it’s an essential tool.
Yes,all good teams use data now like measuring launch angle, exit velocity and so on.
Some teams even use pitching machines that replicate the spin and pitch shape of the next opposing pitcher
Actually, batting practice, if used correctly, is done to adjust muscle memory through repetition and visualization. If you practice bad habits, they in turn become standard muscle memory. It takes quite a bit of repetition to actually change a “natural” motion.
What do you propose is a more meaningful way to teach hitting as pitchers are using data?
Maybe dudes just can’t hit. It’s not little league where you can be a stud when your dad buys you a batting cage.
The Phillies have been a master class in doing everything possible to destroy the careers of hitting prospects. They bring up Rhys Hoskins and waste a year of him by signing Santana to play 1B and tried to force him as a LF. They bring up Kingery and force him to be super utility and SS to the point that he struggles on defense and shortly after loses the ability to hit. They refused to ever just put him at 2B until he was ruined. They see Bohm slugging in the minors and all the reports are defense at 3B will be an issue. Last year he has error after error, and one again, instead of making his life easier they leave him at 3B and his hitting falls apart.
You can argue Moniak and Hasley would end up at busts in any org, but one was drafted 1-1 and the other was like top 12 or 15 in the draft and the big strength both were supposed to have was the ability to put bat on ball and neither can do it now. I won’t give them the benefit of the doubt on developing them with the previous examples being present.
If they fail to develop Stott too, then it’s time to rebuild since we can’t pay $20 mil a year to cover up every position we can’t develop.
I never did understand why they did that with Hoskins.
But didn’t Hoskins have his best hitter years when he was playing left? It’s only been the last two years he’s regressed, hasn’t it? Because a position switch correlates with failure hitting, doesn’t mean it causes it. There are many many examples of guys who switch positions without it affecting their success at the dish.
Hoskins’ best year was his first, he’s been consistent since then. He’s just not the type you move around. He’s a poor fielding first baseman, the last guy you wanna try at other spots. You move around a SS or a CFr, not a first baseman.
The Rhys Hoskins experiment in LF didn’t work out. One example the move did work out in PHI was when Greg Luzinski who was such a poor fielding 1B, he was unusable there. He was moved to LF where he was passable. Many players who came up as 1B have been used in OF and 3B.
However, since 1893, these are the only players I can find who came up as 1B and were used as a starting 2B: Nap LaJoie (PHI), Frank Isbell (CHW), George Kelly (NYG), Rip Russell (CHC), Vic Power, Pancho Herrera (PHI) and Max Muncy (LAD).
Allen Craig and Matt Carpenter came up as 1st basemen and went on to play 2B for the Cards.
Where are you getting that Hoskins’ first year was his best? Check out the baseball savant page for Hoskins, 2021 was his best season yet. The Phillies were in first place until Hoskins got hurt for the rest of the season.
He was just hired a year ago. It takes some time to get buy-in, especially with the chaos of the last year. This year, the lockout is keeping the top-level prospects away from training even more.
Painter and Abel give me hope for the future. Overall poor drafting has really hurt the farm
When I saw the title I thought Johnny Bench might make a comeback!
I’m afraid there’s not enough Blue Emu in the world to get Johnny Bench back behind the plate.
No
Interesting that Johnny Bench is the only player named Bench to appear in the majors.
Johnny Couch is the only player named Couch to appear in the majors. Won 15 games for the Reds in 1922. Too bad they didn’t play in the same era, Could have had a ‘Johnny’ battery of Couch & Bench.
I still believe Philly is where Correa ends up. They are in a position of “go big or go home”. I also think Dombrowki’s endorsement was posturing. Stott will most likely be traded to help fill the void in CF.
That’s an interesting postulation. I just don’t see Philly hemorrhaging that kind of money again. I could see a surprise Story signing, but Correa? That would be a shocker.
He may not have teams bidding on him at all like he and Boras expected, which could negatively impact his offers in FA. I could see a scenario where he’s back in Houston too.
I think ownership is making a huge statement that they aren’t willing to pay that money to these guys. I get TX did, NYM did, but who’s left?
The question of “who’s left?” is driving my opinion. There may be 5-7 teams left who could afford to pay Correa. But of that group I don’t see anyone who needs him as bad as the Phillies. The Braves and Mets both have reason to believe that better health will make them stronger than last season. The Marlins are looking for ways to seriously improve. The Phillies have to decide if they want to remain competitive or blow it up and start over. I don’t think they can reasonably expect to win the division with small improvements and better health.
Yeah, man it’s a valid point and a valid team in terms of the market and ability to spend. It just seems that ownership has operated to the contrary this year and last. You think they’d be willing to go to what Correa/Boras are looking for on that type of deal? I honestly don’t know – didn’t think so, but don’t know.
An org doesn’t need home grown players as much as it needs prospects with value. It needs to acquire, thru the draft or otherwise, the right prospects and then develop them to the point that they can either contribute to the MLB team or be used in trade for players who can contribute to the MLB team.
It really doesn’t matter how an org builds its team, as long as the team is successful.
Using the Guardians as an example, since I’m from Ohio…
Does it really matter whether Corey Kluber was homegrown (he wasnt) or whether Shane Bieber was (he was)?
With the Pads, does it matter that Tatis wasn’t home grown?
If somebody trades two major prospects to Oakland for Olson, those prospects have fulfilled their promise, even though they never play for their original team.
I agree with what you’re saying. However, player development plays a major role in the process. The Phillies have failed to consistently develop players over the last 10 years regardless of how they were acquired. The Indians/Guardians have shown the ability to consistently develop players, especially pitchers, over the same time frame. That track record also likely improves the value of their prospects in trades.
Yea the concept of “homegrown” gets twisted up a bit. Who cares what team drafted a player or how the player was originally acquired? What’s important is who develops and promotes them.
“ who develops and promotes them.”
I agree with this. What if the drafting team does a piss poor job with the prospect & lets him go or trades him to another team who truly develops him? I suggest home grown is better defined as the development organization.
@CATS44 agreed on ‘fulfilled their promise’ It really doesn’t matter what Russ Davis and Sterling Hitchcock amounted to for the Mariners, the Yankees got Tino Martinez for them, so for the Yankees, they fulfilled their promise, the player development team & front office hype machine flipped those two guys for a hero.
Hasely, Moniak and Randolph have disappointed for their draft spots. If those players develop it would have been a different story.
Moniak is looking like one of the all time busts
Drafting Moniak over Senzel was just plain dumb.
They have struggled in development and properly churning a roster. If you want to see roster churning done right, look no further than the Rays and Giants. The Phillies don’t take enough flyers on players and wait way too long to cut bait with others. This needs to improve. I’m hoping with the infusion of Rays FO talent that this at least starts happening on the pitching side of the equation.
obviously it’s easy to say as a Phillies fan, but I tend to agree with Mattingly. The first DD draft looks promising, and some of the deep 2020 INTFA class could break out this year.
But Maikel Franco…nvm…
Dave Dombrowski has his work cut out for him with the Phillies Roster.
Bryson Stott should be starting @ SS in ’22 unless Trevor Story is on the Phillies shopping list.
Alec Bohm needs to seize the 3B job, hit and field like he has in the past.
CF looks like a deal for the Rays Kiermaier or Manuel Margot or Lauriano from Oakland.
LF, bullpen, bench rotation could be upgraded by trades, waiver wire etc..
I expect Dave Dombrowski to put together one of his signature blockbuster deals, perhaps with multiple teams involved and multiple players coming back to Philly.
I would try to hold onto the Phillies Top 4 or 5 prospects, but anyone else would be fair game in a deal.
Okay, I thought that these saber metric guys sought out players that filled a need..not necessarily star power..but lesser known talents to round out field and bench..I don’t know how you can get a hitter to be better with a computer..just my $.02c worth
Play Didi, delay but promote Stott to avoid super 2. Sign Bryant. Move Bohm to LF or use him in a trade for a CF and resign Clutch for a year to play LF.
Find someone to take Didi at the TD.
They are trying to trade Didi.
Phillies want an upgrade on Cluth,
CF Laureano is probably a better fit than Kiermaier.
Spread the money around.
Don’t spent it all in once place.