Freddy Galvis Wants To Wally Pipp Chase Utley

Look, if Chase Utley can’t play baseball, SOMEONE’S got to play second base, right?

And don’t look now, but Freddy Galvis’ spring slugging bonanza probably means that we’re looking at a 15-year career of fielding and hitting excellence from the 22-year-old.

Obviously, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. After all, Carlos Ruiz has an OPS of 1.213 so far this spring, so take Grapefruit League numbers with a grain of salt. Sixty-two at-bats does not a future portend.

Still, Galvis has shown remarkable maturity, and a quick aptitude, for learning Utley’s position, and has actually provided more pop with the bat than it was thought he was capable of. As of Monday’s games, Galvis is tied with Hunter Pence for most hits on the team (17), is tied for the lead in home runs (2) and leads the team in RBIs (12). And while he’s still not getting on-base at a very high clip (.294 OBP) his slugging percentage (.484) and OPS (.778) are much higher than one would have expected. He hasn’t walked much this year (just twice in 62 official at bats) but has also put the ball in play (just five strikeouts).

Until last year, Galvis had never posted an OPS over .600 for a full season. In 2011, his OPS was .716, but he still only had an OBP of .324. It was thought a full season at AAA would be the best place for Galvis to improve at the plate, and that probably is still the case.

However, with Utley on the shelf, Galvis becomes almost a shoo-in to make the club out of Clearwater. So, what should people realistically expect from Galvis in 2012?

Well, expecting him to post an OPS over .700 is highly unlikely. Anything over .650 would probably be the most anyone could ask of him. He’ll hit in the eight hole for sure, so what will be most important for Galvis is to play solid defense, learn to work the count better and improve his on base percentage, work some walks hitting ahead of the pitcher, and come up with the occasional timely hit.

And, if Galvis happens to pull a 1993 Kevin Stocker-type season out of his bag of tricks, well that would be just dandy.

In other prospect news, even though he’s the number one prospect in the Phillies organization, Trevor May still needs to find the time to do the little things.

Dude, doing laundry is the worst. And apartment hunting, it all depends where you’re looking. Unfortunately for Trevor, he’s looking in Reading, PA. I used to work in Reading, PA. My advice… SUBURBS!!! Then, there was this tweet from late last week…

Pro? Con? It’s a real hot button, that’s for sure. Perhaps Michael Moore and Bill O’Reilly would like to say a few words…

Jonathan Pettibone had a good week. For starters, he won a bet of some kind, and forced some poor soul to perform manual labor on his mode of conveyance…

Pettibone also knows about healthy eating, although, based on this next tweet, one could also assume he spends a lot of time on the can…

Seriously, when I get done eating a steak burrito from Chipotle, I have trouble walking for about an hour afterward. That was probably more information than you needed to know about me.

And finally, I’m really not quite sure what to do with this, so, I’ll let you all decide. I really don’t have the words…

I’m sorry fellas. There’s no way to spin this. If you are a man, and you have a functioning male reproductive organ, you CANNOT visit a place called Princess Nails and feel like it’s a manly activity. But maybe I’m cut from a different cloth. I’ll let you decide.