It's easy to forget that it was not long ago that the Philadelphia Phillies' future was built around the promise of a young core of players such as Rhys Hoskins, Maikel Franco, Spencer Howard and Scott Kingery. Ultimately, it would only be Hoskins who would live up to his full potential in a Phillies uniform, while the other three quickly faded into obscurity, as evidenced by the transient baseball paths carved out by the trio of former Phillies prospects from that time period up to the present.
The term prospect is nothing more than that. A catchall term that describes the latent potential any organization and its scouts hope to unlock in its young talent pool. If history has taught dedicated baseball fans anything, the hype train doesn't always deliver on those lofty expectations and projections. Often times the players in question are what they are, and playing at the top level of the sport highlights that fact.
Former top prospect Scott Kingery blames changes to Phillies' hitting philosophy
But what happens when it's the organization that gets consumed by unrealistic expectations? When the Phillies signed Scott Kingery to a six-year, $24 million contract extension designed to buy out his arbitration years in March 2018, little did Phillies fans know that Kingery would become little more than an afterthought over the next seven years.
After the Phillies traded him to the Los Angeles Angels earlier in the offseason, Kingery spoke with The Athletic's Sam Blum about falling out of favor with the Phillies (subscription required) during the 2020 season.
“After [Gabe] Kapler was gone, some new guys came in,” said Kingery per Blum. “We didn’t quite agree on hitting philosophy and the way I went about my swing. I felt like I was put in a tough position to succeed the way I wanted to."
According to Kingery, his former hitting coach had added some loft to his swing while he was in the minor leagues. That added power potential certainly excited a Phillies front office in need of an impact bat on a team that was caught in a period of baseball irrelevancy.
Two years later, following a season in which he hit .258 with 19 home runs, a massive organizational shakeup called into question his entire hitting approach. A change of philosophy ultimately sealed Kingery's fate with the team and had long-lasting repercussions for the former top prospect.
While Kingery has a case to be made with all of the known tinkering that was done with his hitting approach, some of that falls back on Kingery himself according to his Triple-A manager Anthony Contreras.
“To an extent, he was very stubborn with what he wanted to do in the box,” said Contreras per Blum. “I know there was a few times throughout his career with me where I would try to suggest some things. … It was just figuring out ways to be a little more efficient.”
Kingery's numbers at Triple-A last season proved he has something left to contribute, but that was too little too late with the Phillies. Despite batting .268 with 25 home runs and 67 RBI playing for Lehigh Valley in 2024, it wasn't enough to convince the Phillies front office to give him another shot while the team faced a myriad of injuries last summer.
While Scott Kingery will have a more realistic chance to make an impact with the Angels this season, all of the blame for Kingery's lack of success in Philadelphia seems to be shared pretty evenly between player and team. With the team now focused on the development of cornerstone top prospects such as Aidan Miller and Justin Crawford, Phillies fans can only hope that the team learned some valuable lessons from the Scott Kingery debacle that played out over the last seven years.