Phillies: Prospects other than Bohm, Howard to watch in spring training
There are more than just the two main names to watch for in Phillies spring training.
Phillies prospects Alec Bohm and Spencer Howard have been anointed as the Phillies next saviors, the same way Dom Brown, Maikel Franco, and J.P. Crawford were when they were rising through the ranks.
While the hope for Bohm and Howard are at an all-time high and they have roster spots set aside for later in the season, the Phillies can’t rest all of their hope on these two players.
While Bohm and Howard are important and they’ll be closely watched during spring training, the Phillies have more than 60 players reporting to camp, mostly young prospects and non-roster invitees.
Here are some of the prospects with less name recognition Phillies fans need to watch during spring training.
Mauricio Llovera
Ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Phillies 15th best prospect, Mauricio Llovera could find a spot in the big league bullpen with a strong start in either Reading or Lehigh Valley. He’s been used as a starter and reliever since joining the organization’s rookie ball team in 2015, but projects more as a reliever.
In 89 career appearances Llovera has a 3.45 ERA, but had a career-worst 4.55 ERA last season in Reading. He pitched in about half the innings he had the year before, but his walks were still relatively high.
While undersized, Llovera has a good fastball/slider combination and has some other pitches he’s continuing to develop.
MLB Pipeline actually compared Llovera’s potential role to Bud Norris, who is in Phillies camp as a non-roster invitee fighting for a bullpen job. Fans should, at the very least, keep an eye on Llovera in spring training with the likely chance he makes his big league debut at some point in 2020.
Darick Hall
The next big power hitter to come out of Reading will be in Phillies spring training as a non-roster invitee. Darick Hall joins the likes of Rhys Hoskins and Dylan Cozens who both benefitted from the friendly confines out in Reading, seeing their home run numbers surge and their profiles grow among fans and analysts.
Hall hit 20 home runs for Reading last year and 35 in 212 career games as a Fightin’ Phil. He’s already had seasons with 29 and 26 home runs apiece, so it’s not just Reading that’s giving him a bump in the power numbers.
The issues Hall is going to have are the same Hoskins and Cozens ran into: he’s limited to one big league position and he doesn’t hit for average. Hall has played all 3,004 of his minor league innings at first base and has hit .239 over his last two seasons.
Unless Hall can bring that average up or learn a corner outfield position, his value as a big league hitter will be the same as Cozens, who was exiled last season.
Austin Listi
If we’re talking about power-hitting first basemen, we gotta talk about Austin Listi.
Like the aforementioned players, Listi has raw power but where he differs is that he can hit for average and most around the diamond.
Last year Listi hit .252, similar to the other three comparable players, but the year before he hit .312 between Clearwater and Reading. Once he reached Lehigh Valley last year Listi actually hit better than he did in Reading, picking up a .278 batting average in 71 games.
The Phillies have moved Listi around the diamond, giving him opportunities to get comfortable at third, left, and right field. He’s listed as a first baseman, but if he can at least carry an outfield glove, his value for the organization is exponentially larger than Hall’s.
Let’s see how Joe Girardi plays Listi in spring training and whether Listi can get some eye-popping home runs into the tiki bar.
Adonis Medina
Phillies fans have heard the name Adonis Medina for years as one of the organization’s top pitching prospects. He’s been right behind former Phillies prospect Sixto Sanchez and the current star of the farm system Spencer Howard as the number two starting pitcher, and this could be the year Medina breaks into the big leagues.
Just turning 23-years-old Medina recently fell off some of the top-100 rankings after being a consensus top-60 prospect for years. After four seasons with a 2.57 ERA between rookie ball and Advanced-A, Medina saw his ERA skyrocket over the last two years. In fact, since he had a 2.92 ERA in 2016 his ERA has gone up every year.
Medina’s strikeout numbers have also dropped over the last three seasons, and his walks went up in Reading, going from 2.9 BB/9 in each of his last two years to 3.5 in 2019.
We’ll see where the organization starts Medina in 2020, but he’ll likely get some spring training starts and possibly some airtime. If Medina can be a middle of the rotation starter, he would be a much-needed addition to the starting rotation beyond 2020.
Garrett Cleavinger
Acquired from the Orioles for Jeremy Hellickson in 2017, Garrett Cleavinger is coming off a career-year for Reading with 83 strikeouts in 51.2 innings. As Baseball America notes (subscription required) Cleavinger’s velocity jumped from the low-90s to averaging 95 MPH and even hitting 99 MPH.
Cleavinger’s 3.66 ERA last year was his best since 2016 after three seasons sitting at 6.00 or above. He’s healthy after missing all but 13 innings last year due to an ACL injury and he earned a spot on the Phillies 40-man roster this offseason.
Cleavinger will have to prove he’s not just a flash in the pan and that getting healthy and finding something midway through last season is the turning point he needed in his career. He’ll get some looks in spring training games and with a 40-man roster spot already in hand he has a chance at breaking into the big leagues this season.
Mickey Moniak
Few prospects have aggravated Phillies fans like Mickey Moniak, the number one overall pick in 2016.
The Phillies may not have planned to have the number one pick when they entered a rebuild. Unfortunately, the time they landed in that position was the draft when there was no superstar on the cusp of being a big league player. No Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg-type players where the draft card could be filled out months in advance.
Philadelphia Phillies
With no clear number one player the Phillies went with a high-ceiling high school player in Moniak. They thought he could hit at every level and be the next Christian Yelich (this was before Yelich’s power surge with Milwaukee), hitting around 300 with 30 doubles and maybe finding 15-20 home runs when the weather was favorable.
Time has not been friendly for Moniak with fans yearning to see the return on the front office’s investment. He’s still just 21-years-old, turning 22 in May, after being drafted just a couple months after his 18th birthday and before his high school graduation.
The pressure of being the top pick definitely got to Moniak and hit bat struggled dearly. He hit just .236 in his first full professional season and has hit .261 in his last two seasons with Clearwater and Reading. Some of that pressure came off in 2018 when a visit from his high school friends got him back in the game and Harper took him under his wing last year after Moniak made big league camp.
Moniak enters his second big league camp with an uncertain future in Philadelphia. He could start at either Reading or Lehigh Valley, but he’s not on the 40-man roster, mostly due to Rule 5 Draft considerations.
Right now Adam Haseley, Philadelphia’s 2017 first round pick, projects to be the opening day center fielder. Philadelphia has options for left field if Andrew McCutchen needs more time coming off an ACL injury, but could (someday) be the heir to McCutchen in left field. That would be the best-case scenario for Philadelphia.
Keep an eye on Moniak in camp to see how his body has developed and if his bat finds the grove that helped make him the first overall pick.