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Austin Listi won the 2018 Paul Owens Award
It happens every year at this time. Major League Baseball teams open spring training camps and there are a number of players on hand about whom many fans have never heard.
The Philadelphia Phillies are no exception. So when the club announced the starting lineup for Friday afternoon’s first game of the 2019 Grapefruit League schedule, it was really no surprise to find that it contained a trio of such names.
Listi was the 2018 Paul Owens Award winner as the Phillies top performing minor league position player. The 25-year-old Texas native was the club’s 17th round choice in the 2017 MLB Amateur Draft out of Dallas Baptist University.
Splitting last season almost evenly between High-A Clearwater and Double-A Reading, Listi slashed .312/.412/.502 with 18 home runs, 84 RBI and a .915 OPS. He appeared in 34 games at first base and 31 games as a corner outfielder combined at the two levels, and even saw three games at third base with Reading. Listi went on to play in the Arizona Fall League where he slashed just .250/.321/.303 with Scottsdale.
Romine is a 33-year-old who has managed to appear in parts of nine big-league seasons despite just a .235/.291/.301 career slash line across 1,323 plate appearances.
The brother of New York Yankees backup catcher Austin Romine, Andrew has built his career on defensive versatility. He has appeared at every position on the diamond in Major League Baseball, including one game behind the plate and seven appearances on the mound.
Robinson is a 34-year-old who, like Romine, also has seen action in nine big-league seasons despite poor offensive numbers. The Florida native has a career .221/.288/.292 slash line with 18 games of postseason experience coming off the bench for the Saint Louis Cardinals in 2012 and 2013.
Winner of the 2005 College Baseball National Player of the Year award at Florida State University, Robinson is known for his outfield defense. Baseball America rated him the top defensive outfielder in the Cardinals organization in both 2009 and 2010.
All three can be considered extreme longshots to actually break camp at the end of March and head north to Philadelphia. But two of them have already enjoyed long tastes of the big-league life, and Listi is hungry for his own first experience at first-class living. Their fight to stand out and earn a 2019 spot with the Phillies or some other team begins today.
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Sandberg was a 22-year-old prospect in January 1982
This latest installment of the “Phillies Hot Stove History” series was inspired by today’s 66th birthday celebration for Ivan DeJesus. While we may celebrate his birthday, few Phillies fans have ever celebrated the 1982 swap of shortstops that brought him to the team.
In short order this would prove to be one of the worst trades in franchise history. For younger fans who may have heard of the deal but not know how such a thing could happen, let’s take a quick look back at this key “hot stove” moment from the Phillies past.
As always, a little perspective is required to set the stage. At the time of the deal the Phillies were coming off a 1981 season in which they had been dethroned as world champions.
The veteran-laden 1980 Phillies had won the first World Series crown in franchise history. The following season was interrupted by a mid-season work stoppage, and the Phillies would return to the playoffs in 1981 thanks in part to a split-season format adopted by Major League Baseball.
In baseball’s first-ever Divisional Series, the Phillies were eliminated by the Montreal Expos in five games. Following that 3-2 series defeat, Owens looked over his roster and felt that an aging team that had won four of five NL East titles between 1976-80 needed more adjustments.
One key member of that 1970’s core group and 1980 championship team had already been dealt away when left fielder Greg Luzinski was sold to the Chicago White Sox at the end of spring training just prior to the 1981 season.
Owens decided that it was now time to turn the pages on the 36-year-old shortstop Larry Bowa, with whom he was having difficulty reaching agreement on a new contract.
THE GREEN FACTOR
Another pivotal factor in the trade was the man sitting in the General Manager’s seat on the Cubs side of the deal. Dallas Green had skippered the Phillies to that 1980 World Series title. Following the 1981 playoff defeat, Green was hired to become the new GM in Chicago.
Green skippered Phillies to a World Series crown and 1981 postseason, then became Cubs GM.
Green first raided the Phillies coaching staff, taking John Vukovich and Lee Elia with him. Then in one of this first deals, Green obtained young catcher Keith Moreland and reliever Dickie Noles from the Phillies in a December 1981 trade.
Just over a month later, Green and Owens were discussing another trade. There wasn’t much at the time to distinguish Bowa from Cubs shortstop Ivan DeJesus from one another as a player. Both were light hitters. Bowa had the far greater defensive pedigree. DeJesus was more than seven years younger.
The big factor for Green was that he wanted Bowa’s strong glove, fiery personality, and leadership as the GM instituted his “Building a New Tradition” plan for a franchise that hadn’t been to the postseason since 1945.
On the Phillies side, Owens was looking for a long-term replacement, one where the talent level wouldn’t drop off much, to help keep the club winning. It appeared to be a clean, simple swap at the shortstop position.
However, because of that age difference between Bowa and DeJesus in the Phillies favor, Green insisted that Owens toss in a young infield prospect. With his intimate knowledge of the Phillies farm system, Green had always liked Ryne Sandberg, and insisted on him as the throw-in player as a possible future shortstop. Owens agreed, and the deal was done.
THE THROW-IN
Most in the Phillies scouting department regarded Sandberg, the club’s 20th round selection in the 1978 MLB Amateur Draft out of a Spokane, Washington high school, as a borderline prospect. He could play second base and shortstop, possibly even some third base.
Sandberg was a 20th round draft pick who most felt would become a reserve infielder.
After a less-than-spectacular first full pro campaign with A-level Spartanburg in 1979, Sandberg broke out at Double-A Reading in the Phillies 1980 championship season. That year he hit .310 with 44 extra-base hits, 79 RBI, 95 runs scored, and 32 stolen bases as a 20-year-old shortstop.
As the Phillies took part in that 1981 split-season, Sandberg was enjoying a solid season with Triple-A Oklahoma City. He hit .293 while swiping another 32 bags, earning a September promotion to the big-leagues.
With the Phillies during that month of September in 1981, Sandberg got into 13 games. Seven of those were as a pinch-runner. He also played in five as a shortstop, and another at second base.
Three of Sandberg’s appearances during that cup-of-coffee, including the final two on October 2nd and 3rd, came against the Cubs at Veteran’s Stadium. He also had played short during a game at Wrigley Field in the second game of a September 27 doubleheader.
THE SHORTSTOPS
On January 27, 1982 the deal was concluded. Bowa and Sandberg were shipped out to the North Side of the Windy City, while DeJesus became the new shortstop in red pinstripes. The rest is, unfortunately for the Phillies, baseball history.
Bowa was a 36-year-old, 12-year veteran at time of the deal.
DeJesus would play three seasons with the Phillies and help the club to win the 1983 National League pennant. That team would lose the World Series in five games to the Baltimore Orioles. Over those three years, DeJesus slashed just .249/.319/.319 with 153 runs scored and 37 total steals.
Bowa spent most of the next three seasons as the Cubs starting shortstop, slashing .247/.296/.308 with 169 runs scored and 30 stolen bases while helping the team to the 1984 NL East crown. Chicago would release him at age 39 in August of 1985, and he would finish out his career playing for a month with the New York Mets.
Seems like a wash at that point. But of course, that was not the whole story. There was the issue of that prospect tossed into the deal. Sandberg quickly proved to be far more than a throw-in.
THE HALL OF FAMER
During his rookie season of 1982, Sandberg became the Cubs starting third baseman. He hit .271 with 33 doubles, 103 runs scored, and 32 stolen bases, finishing sixth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting.
If the Phillies weren’t already realizing that they had made a grave mistake including him in the trade, Sandberg’s 1983 performance would drive home that point.
In that 1983 campaign, Sandberg scored 94 runs, stole 37 bases, and was honored with the NL Gold Glove at second base. If you thought that his development into a star was tilting the deal way over into the Cubs side at that point, you hadn’t seen anything yet.
The following season he would up his game once again as Sandberg became an NL all-star for the first time. In 1984 he slashed .314/.367/.520 with 19 home runs among 74 extra-base hits, leading all of baseball with 19 triples. He also produced 84 RBI, stole 32 bases, and led the NL with 114 runs scored.
For that performance, Sandberg captured the National League Most Valuable Player award. He also was honored with his second consecutive NL Gold Glove and was awarded the NL Silver Slugger at second base.
Sandberg became an NL MVP and perennial NL All-Star, Gold Glover, and Silver Slugger (Photo: Wjmummert)
Over 15 seasons with the Cubs, Sandberg would produce 2,385 hits and score 1,316 runs. He slammed 282 homers, the most by any second baseman in the history of the game at the time of his retirement. He also produced 403 doubles, and 76 triples while swiping 344 bags.
Sandberg won nine consecutive Gold Glove Awards from 1983-91, as well as seven Silver Sluggers during that same period. He was an NL All-Star for 10 straight years from 1984-93.
Sandberg finished his career with a .989 fielding percentage, the highest for a second baseman in baseball history.
He produced 15 streaks of 30 or more consecutive errorless games, and at the time of his retirement after the 1997 season, he held the all-time record of 123 consecutive errorless games by a second baseman.
As a post-script to this story, Sandberg entered the coaching and managerial ranks following his retirement as a player. Starting as a spring training instructor with the Cubs, he was hired to manage within their minor league system with the goal of becoming the Cubs manager one day.
When that opportunity didn’t come about, Sandberg left to become manager of the Phillies Triple-A affiliates at Lehigh Valley where he became the 2011 Minor League Manager of the Year.
In 2013, Sandberg was back in the big-leagues as the Phillies third base coach. Then in mid-August he was named Manager of the Phillies following the firing of long-time skipper Charlie Manuel. Sandberg would compile a 119-159 record over parts of three seasons before rising the position in early June of 2015.
There have been many trades made during baseball’s “hot stove” months, that late-fall through mid-winter period when teams are positioning their team for the following season, where prospects have been included as supposed “throw-in” players.
Every once in a while a team will hit the jackpot with one of those young players. That was never more the case than with the Phillies-Cubs hot stove trade of Bowa and Sandberg for DeJesus in January 1982.
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Rose became the first big free agent signing by the Phillies in December 1978
The Philadelphia Phillies frustratingly lost out on free agent starting pitcher Patrick Corbin. They supposedly remain among the most active bidders for the big bats of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado as this off-season moves along.
It was forty years ago today that the Phillies made their first-ever free agent signing, and it was a big one. It turned out to have as positive an impact on the history of the organization as those who made the decision could have hoped.
There were a number of superstars who made up the core of the Cincinnati Reds legendary ‘Big Red Machine’ back-to-back World Series champions of 1975-76. But the man who provided the engine to that powerful train was Pete Rose.
Nicknamed ‘Charlie Hustle’ because of his highly competitive style of play, Rose was already 37-years-old when Phillies owner Ruly Carpenter gave his blessing to the four-year, $3.225 million contract negotiated by GM Paul Owens.
The Phillies had won three consecutive National East Division crowns from 1976-78. But each year they fell short in the League Championship Series. They were swept out by Rose and the Reds champions of 1976. In both 1977 and 1978, the Los Angeles Dodgers won an NLCS each year when the Phillies seemed poised to win for themselves.
Those Phillies teams were extremely talented. Led by future Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and filled with numerous Gold Glove Award winners and NL All-Stars, they had the talent to win. They just didn’t seem to quite know how to actually get the job done.
Rose knew how to win the big one. He was a key part, perhaps the most important part, of those Reds championship teams. Voted the Most Valuable Player of perhaps the greatest World Series in history, the Reds unforgettable seven-game 1975 victory.
Rose was the 1963 NL Rookie of the Year and a decade later was the 1973 National League Most Valuable Player. He had been runner-up for that NL MVP in 1968, and would finish among the top five in voting on three other occasions. Rose was a 12x NL All-Star, and won back-to-back NL Gold Glove Awards as an outfielder in 1969 and 1970.
This was the player whom the Phillies decided was, even at an advanced age for a baseball player, worth the largest contract in the history of the game. Carpenter and Owens brought Rose to Philadelphia for one reason alone, to put the team over the top. To finally win the first World Series title in franchise history.
During his first season with the Phillies, Rose helped drive the team back to the top of the division. They moved into first place on April 21 and would remain there for more than a month, building an early 3.5 game lead at one point. And then the wheels fell off.
They would finish 84-78, a disappointing fourth place, 14 games behind the division-winning “We Are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates team that would go on to win the World Series that year.
Rose himself could hardly have been considered a disappointment, however. He had 208 hits, including 40 doubles. He stole 20 bases and his .418 on-base percentage led the National League. Rose was selected to his 13th NL All-Star team that year.
It would finally all come together the following year. Rose led the NL with 42 doubles and was again an NL All-Star. And finally, the Phillies were World Series champions.
It wasn’t an easy battle. The Phillies had to fight off the tough, young Montreal Expos over the final week of the regular season, winning their fourth NL East crown in five years on the final weekend of the season in Montreal. Next came a tremendous challenge, overcoming the tough Houston Astros and their dominating pitching staff led by Nolan Ryan.
The Phillies would win what still may be the greatest NLCS in history by 3-2. Each of the last four games were decided in extra innings. Rose famously steam-rolled Astros catcher Bruce Bochy to score the winning run of Game 4 as the Phillies tied the series. It was stereotypical Rose, and epitomized the very reason he was brought to the team.
In the World Series against the Kansas City Royals, Rose was largely absent at the plate. He hit just .261 with a double and two walks, and one RBI.
But even without his usual offensive impact, Rose would still leave a lasting positive impression. With one out in the top of the 9th inning of Game 6, Tug McGraw was on the mound and the Phillies were trying to nail down the title.
The Royals had base runners and were threatening a comeback when Frank White sent a foul pop towards the Phillies dugout. Catcher Bob Boone ran to snare it for the second out, but the ball popped out of his glove. It could have fallen to the ground, and the Royals could have been given another shot to extend their rally.
Rose would have none of it. Again typical of his ‘Charlie Hustle’ nickname, Rose sped towards Boone and the popup. When the ball bounced out of Boone’s glove, Rose shot his own out and snared the ball before it had a chance to drop.
The Phillies had the valuable second out. McGraw then struck out Willie Wilson, and the Phillies were world champions for the first time in their 97-year history.
That would be the lone championship during the four seasons that Rose would play in Phillies pinstripes. The 1981 team reached the postseason but were defeated in a tough five-game NLDS by the Expos. Rose hit .325 and led all of baseball with 140 hits during that strike-shortened campaign.
The 1982 Phillies were in first place once again as late as September 13, but a 4-9 stretch over the next two weeks doomed them. That team finished in second, three games behind a Saint Louis Cardinals team that would win the World Series. The four-year contract was up, but Rose and the Phillies agreed on a one-year deal for the 1983 season.
In his final Phillies season, Rose again helped lead the Phillies to a National League pennant. He was an NL All-Star for a 16th time in that 1983 season, his fourth straight all-star appearance as a member of the Phillies. Rose hit .375 in the NLCS victory over the Dodgers and then .313 in the World Series, but the Phillies lost in five games to the Baltimore Orioles.
Rose would sign as a free agent with the Expos, where he would play 95 games during the 1984 season. The Expos would then deal him back to where it all began in Cincinnati. Rose would finish out a 24-year big-league career with the Reds in 1986 at age 45.
Over his five seasons in Philadelphia, Rose hit .291 with a .365 on-base percentage from ages 38-42. He banged out 826 hits, including 139 doubles, and scored 390 runs. Perhaps most importantly, Rose pushed Schmidt from being an all-star to a Hall of Fame caliber player.
“Mike was the best player in the league three or four days a week when I got to the Phillies in 1979,” Rose told The Sporting News when Schmidt entered the Hall of Fame. “By the time I left, he had learned to be the best seven days a week.”
There were a number of controversies that would envelop Rose in his later years as a manager. Even more would pop up in recent years to derail his enshrinement into the Phillies Wall of Fame.
But on this date in 1979 the Philadelphia Phillies did what the 2018 Phillies can only hope to accomplish. The signed a controversial superstar free agent player who actually helped the team win a World Series championship, and helped them contend for the life of his contract.
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Bo Diaz slides home during Game Two of the 1983 World Series
The Philadelphia Phillies are expected to be big players during this current ‘Hot Stove’ season in Major League Baseball.
Through both free agent signings and trades, if there aren’t a half-dozen interesting players swapped on and off the roster by spring training, fans of the team will be extremely disappointed.
With that in mind, today I’ll begin a regular ‘Phillies Hot Stove History’ series. In it, we’ll take a look back at some of the big free agent signings, trades, and other transactions made by the club on this date in history.
It was on November 20, 1981, 37-years-ago today, that the Phillies finally decided to turn the page at their catching position by swinging a three-team trade.
That deal involving the Cleveland Indians and Saint Louis Cardinals would ultimately have ramifications that reached up to Chicago and out to California as well.
Bob Boone, a future Phillies Wall of Famer, had turned 34 years old just a day earlier. Boone had been the club’s sixth round pick all the way back in the 1969 MLB Amateur Draft out of Stanford.
Boone made his big-league debut in 1972 and became the Phillies starting catcher the following year. For his outstanding play that first season, Boone finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting.
He would remain the starter right on through the 1980 World Series-winning campaign, capturing a pair of NL Gold Glove Awards and being named as a National League All-Star three times.
It was a combination of age, decreased production, and a younger player coming up through the system that finally began edging Boone out during the 1981 season.
That younger player was Keith Moreland, the Phillies seventh round pick in the 1975 MLB Amateur Draft out of the University of Texas. Moreland first broke into the big-leagues for a cup of coffee in 1978 and 1979.
In the 1980 World Series campaign, Moreland grew to become a key piece of manager Dallas Green‘s bench. He appeared in 62 games, 39 of those as Boone’s catching backup.
The Phillies captured their first-ever World Series championship against the Kansas City Royals that October. During that Fall Classic, Moreland started three of the six games behind the plate.
During the following strike-shortened 1981 season, the 33-year-old Boone caught in 75 games and a 27-year-old Moreland in 50. The writing was on the wall.
Boone would end up being sold to the California Angels on December 6, 1981. Two days later, Moreland was dealt away along with reliever Dickie Noles and pitching prospect Don Larsen to the Chicago Cubs. The Phillies received veteran righty starting pitcher Mike Krukow in return.
It was the trade two weeks earlier to bring in Diaz that allowed the Phillies to make those two moves. Baudilio Jose ‘Bo’ Diaz was born in Venezuela on March 23, 1953, apparently with a baseball in his hand.
At age 14, Diaz played with Venezuela’s Little League national championship team. The team was unable to travel to the United States for the finals due to a July earthquake which devastated the city of Caracas.
Diaz was good enough that he would be signed by the Boston Red Sox at age 17 in December 1970. That began a long, slow climb through the Boston farm system. He finally got a cup of coffee with the Bosox in 1977.
During spring training for the 1978 season, Diaz was included in a big trade between Boston and the Cleveland Indians. That deal was highlighted by the exchange of a pair of pitchers, with Rick Wise headed to Cleveland and future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley going to Boston.
Diaz would spend the next three seasons as a backup catcher in Cleveland, the first two seasons to Gary Alexander and then one year to Ron Hassey.
During that 1981 work stoppage campaign, the righty-hitting Diaz split the role in an even platoon with the left-handed batting Hassey. Diaz started red-hot, hitting .356 with 25 RBI in June. That start earned him a berth on the American League All-Star team.
Phillies general manager Paul Owens was trying to keep the veteran Phillies, winners of the NL East in four of five seasons between 1976-80 and a playoff team during the strike-shortened split 1981 season, as a contending ball club.
Owens believed that Boone was aging past his prime as a catcher. He knew that Moreland was an attractive piece who could possibly bring back the veteran pitcher in trade that the GM believed the Phillies still needed. And he liked what he saw both at and behind the plate from the 28-year-old Diaz during that 1981 campaign.
The big trade came down on Friday, November 20. In the deal, the Phillies would obtain Diaz from the Indians and send 26-year-old outfielder Lonnie Smith to the Cardinals. The Cards then sent pitchers Larry Sorensen and Silvio Martinezto Cleveland.
As a final part of the deal, the Phillies would send pitching prospect Scott Munninghoff to Cleveland on December 9 as a player to be named later.
Diaz would excel as the Phillies starting catcher for the 1982 season. He played in a career-high 144 games, starting 135 of those. At the plate he hit .288 with 18 homers, 29 doubles, and 85 RBI. Diaz finished second that year only to Montreal Expos all-star Gary Carter as a combined offense and defensive catcher in new computer rankings.
Unfortunately, the Phillies fell short of their team goal. The club held the lead in the NL East as late as September 13, but losses in 11 of their next 16 games left them three games behind Smith and the Cardinals in the final standings.
Compounding the Phillies frustrations, that Cardinals team would go on to win the World Series with Smith playing a key role. He finished as a close runner-up to Dale Murphy in the NL MVP voting and was a National League All-Star after hitting .307 with 51 extra-base hits, 68 steals, and a league-leading 120 runs scored.
Smith had finished third in NL Rookie of the Year voting with the 1980 champion Phillies. But many around the team believed that he was simply a speedy outfielder who would never fully harness his talents.
In the end, they were wrong. Smith would enjoy a 17-year career in Major League Baseball, one that would see him win a third World Series in 1985 with the Kansas City Royals. He produced a career .288/.371/420 slash line with nearly 1,500 career hits 909 runs scored, and 370 stolen bases. He received NL MVP votes as late as 1989 with the Atlanta Braves.
Diaz and the Phillies would gain a measure of revenge during the following 1983 campaign. Dubbed the “Wheeze Kids” due to the age of most of their key players and as a nod to the youthful 1950 NL champion ‘Whiz Kids’, those 1983 Phillies would pull away down the stretch to reclaim the NL East crown.
Diaz caught 136 games that season with 15 homers and 64 RBI. On April 13, slammed one of only 11 “ultimate grand slams” in MLB history. With the Phillies trailing the New York Mets by 9-6 with two outs in the 9th inning and the bases loaded at The Vet, Diaz ripped a walk-off grand slam to win the game.
As the Phillies were pulling away down the stretch, Diaz had yet another memorable game. On September 28 at Wrigley Field he produced a five-hit game that included a pair of home runs as the Phillies romped the host Cubs by 13-6 to clinch the division title.
In Game Four of the NLCS, Diaz delivered two hits as the Phillies romped the Los Angeles Dodgers by 7-2 at Veteran’s Stadium to take the pennant and advance to the World Series.
The Phillies would capture the first game of that Fall Classic against Baltimore only to see the Orioles charge back to win the World Series in five games. Diaz would prove one of the few solid hitters for the team during the series, batting .333 with a pair of multi-hit games.
Diaz would open the 1984 season as the Phillies starting catcher, but it would prove to be a lost season for the 31-year-old in a year that would ultimately see his time in Philadelphia come to an end.
A pair of knee injuries kept him to just 27 games, nearly half of those coming over the season’s first few weeks. In his absence, 27-year-old Ozzie Virgil Jr took over behind the plate and produced 18 homers and 68 RBI.
Virgil would rip 19 home runs the following year and become a 1985 National League All-Star for the first of two times in his career. Diaz would be gone during that 1985 season, dealt to the Cincinnati Reds in early August as part of a mostly nondescript five-player trade.
Diaz’ story and life would ultimately have a tragic ending. On November 23, 1990 – 28 years ago this Friday – he was killed in an accident in Caracas. While adjusting a satellite dish on the roof of his home, the dish fell on him, crushing his head and neck. Diaz was just 37-years-old and left behind a wife and two sons. He was inducted to the Venezuela Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.
So, it was 37 years ago on this very date that the Phillies swung a fascinating trade, one that brought them a new starting catcher who would help lead them to an NL pennant. But that deal also sent away a talented young outfielder who would enjoy a long, championship-winning career.
As a bit of a post-script to this particular trade, Boone would prove to be far from finished. He would enjoy seven full seasons with the Angels as their starting catcher. He would then play two more in Kansas City, the first of those as the Royals starter behind the plate.
Boone would win five more Gold Glove Awards during that time, four of those in a row from 1986-89 during his ages 38-41 campaigns. During the 1983 season when Diaz was helping the Phillies to the NL pennant, Boone was himself an American League All-Star catcher.
Diaz undeniably made contributions to a Phillies pennant winner. But would the franchise have ultimately been better off keeping Smith and Boone instead of making that trade with Cleveland and Saint Louis?
It’s often easy to judge these things with the 20/20 hindsight of history. However, that history can also serve as a warning. It remains one of the oldest but most wise of sayings: those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are destined to repeat them.
These are the deals from the Phillies past that we will examine as we move forward during this ‘Hot Stove’ series. The hope is that as we look back on the nostalgia of the past, the present Phillies management will be making wise moves which end up helping to improve the current and future versions of the team.
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:’SwNPWVrMSSti1HanbikDJg’,sig:’xxePZzetMgcEim28z2cAeZEQR3EExCUruCgfovvVGx0=’,w:’396px’,h:’594px’,items:’684292316′,caption: true ,tld:’com’,is360: false })});//embed-cdn.gettyimages.com/widgets.js (Parkinson was a Phillies 2017 draftee out of Ol’ Miss) The writers at MLB Pipeline serve as the primary online resource for minor league prospect information and evaluation as presented by Major League Baseball. In voting by their staff, outfielder Adam Haseley has been chosen as the Phillies Hitting Prospect of the Year and southpaw David Parkinson as the organizational Pitcher of the Year. The 22-year-old Haseley is a lefty bat who was the Phillies first round pick at eighth overall in the 2017 MLB Amateur Draft out of the University of Virginia. Haseley slashed .305/.361/.433 with 11 homers, 55 RBI and 77 runs over 512 plate appearances split between High-A Clearwater and Double-A Reading this season. Parkinson will turn 23-years-old in mid-December and was the Phillies 12th round pick in that same 2017 MLB Amateur Draft out of the University of Mississippi. The left-hander went 11-1 with a 1.45 ERA and 1.013 WHIP in 22 appearances, 21 of them starts, during the 2018 season. He allowed just 91 hits over 124.1 innings with a 141/35 K:BB ratio. 17 of his outings came with Low-A Lakewood and another five at High-A Clearwater. The key for Parkinson was learning to more effectively utilize his curve. Jim Salisbury in Baseball America quoted Lakewood pitching coach Brad Bergesen:
“He learned to use it in and out of the strike zone, backdoor to a righty, back foot to a righty. He started to understand how to sequence it better. He’d use an elevated fastball off his curveball, and vice versa…David is very analytic and intelligent. He is advanced in game-planning and sequencing. His preparation is excellent. He has deception in his delivery. He knows his strengths and how they play against a hitter’s weakness. He’s never complacent and is always dedicated to finding a way to get better. The sky is the limit.”
The Phillies had previously honored Parkinson as one of their Paul Owens Award winners, which go to the top hitting and pitching prospects in the organization each year. Austin Listi captured the honors among position players.
Congrats to 2018 BlueClaw David Parkinson and 2017 BlueClaw Austin Listi, named winners of the Paul Owens Award for top performers in the Phillies Minor League system. https://atmilb.com/2NzBve0
In his reporting on the Pipeline honors, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com stated that he believes Haseley could work his way into the Phillies outfield mix as soon as the 2019 campaign.
“…as general manager Matt Klentak contemplates any roster moves this winter…Haseley will be in the back of his mind. He could join the big league roster sometime next season.”
In our own Phillies Top 20 Prospects rankings released back in early August, the Phillies Nation staff had Haseley at #3 and Parkinson as our #18-rated prospect in the organization.
In our rankings, two of our three staffers made 2018 top draftee Alec Bohm their #2 Phillies prospect. I was the lone evaluator to put Haseley ahead of Bohm. Here was my writeup:
“I’ll admit it, I’m the one guy who ranked Haseley ahead of Bohm. That was for two reasons. First, Bohm has just 73 professional plate appearances. Second, Haseley has really stepped up his game in his own first full season in pro ball. The Phillies first round pick at eighth overall a year ago out of the University of Virginia, Haseley doesn’t possess Bohm’s power. But he does have some developing pop, and is just as strong an offensive player in every other facet. A more pure defender out there, Haseley could end up at any of the three outfield spots. Already at Double-A Reading, Haseley has hit for a .307/.362/.432 slash with 30 extra-base hits and 68 runs scored over 448 plate appearances combined across two minor league levels this season. Whitaker believes that Haseley “does a little bit of everything on the field and could have an impact on the big club by Opening Day 2019.” While that might be a tad optimistic, it would not be unreasonable at all to think we could see Haseley debut at Citizens Bank Park at some point next season.”
Haseley is clearly on the rise. He will get an invitation to spring training when the Phillies return to Clearwater in February. Though he is likely to start the season at Reading, he should make it to Triple-A Lehigh Valley before the summer months, putting himself in line for a big-league promotion.
Though Parkinson is not as highly considered, he has two things going for him. He produced this season at a high level, and he is left-handed. With lefties always in demand, if he follows up this outstanding 2018 performance with another in 2019 you just might see Parkinson shoot up the evaluators prospect lists next season.
