in 2004-07, phillies fans wrote:I tend to discount the "elite" prospects because of the presumed acquirer.

Utley, Howard, Ruiz, Victorino, Werth et al, are major league players, likely. Regulars, some of them. Is there a guy there that looks like an above-average ML starter, let alone a star?

Where will the stars come from?

td11 wrote:

in 2004-07, phillies fans wrote:I tend to discount the "elite" prospects because of the presumed acquirer.

Utley, Howard, Ruiz, Victorino, Werth et al, are major league players, likely. Regulars, some of them. Is there a guy there that looks like an above-average ML starter, let alone a star?

Where will the stars come from?

td11 wrote:FINE, shore, but why does your calculator say OPB

Shore wrote:

td11 wrote:

in 2004-07, phillies fans wrote:I tend to discount the "elite" prospects because of the presumed acquirer.

Utley, Howard, Ruiz, Victorino, Werth et al, are major league players, likely. Regulars, some of them. Is there a guy there that looks like an above-average ML starter, let alone a star?

Where will the stars come from?

Revisionist is just another type of history, I guess.

Aside from Ruiz, high draft picks who had success in the minors by age 23 or so. Utley and Howard should have been in the majors earlier than they were.

phatj wrote:I think Utley was considered to have star potential, he was a first-round pick after all. I want to say only Howard came out of nowhere (relatively speaking) among our recent home-grown stars.

phatj wrote:Did anybody seriously knock the Thome signing because it blocked Howard? That's before I joined pp.com so I really don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense though - Howard did well enough in 2002, an .828 OPS in a pitcher's park, but that was low-A. Only the most insane of prospect mavens would be concerned about blocking such a player.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

phatj wrote:Did anybody seriously knock the Thome signing because it blocked Howard? That's before I joined pp.com so I really don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense though - Howard did well enough in 2002, an .828 OPS in a pitcher's park, but that was low-A. Only the most insane of prospect mavens would be concerned about blocking such a player.

Yeah I screwed up the timeline, but there was definitely some lamenting over Thome blocking Howard at some point. I guess it wasn't at the time of the signing but rather after a couple of years of Thome being in town.

phatj wrote:I think Utley was considered to have star potential, he was a first-round pick after all. I want to say only Howard came out of nowhere (relatively speaking) among our recent home-grown stars.

joe table wrote:was Howard at lakewood any better of a prospect than Quinn is now? I know its tough to compare

I actually believe in the amateur scouting dept to find good talent, and especially good talent for reasonable dollars outside of the first few rounds. I think they've proven that they can locate guys for sub 1mm and turn them into assets

I know we've had a lot of talk about "when's the last time we've developed a position player" but Brown is a pretty emphatic hit there with development, and I think singleton, darnaud, gose, villar, santana etc all have chances to be good pros. none of those guys, save maybe darnaud, was a seven figure signing either

biddle, franco and quinn are all guys to be excited about as potential significant contributors imo (first two especially bc they are closer)

smitty wrote:We have Hamels and CLIFF LEE. The Phils will not lose 12 of 14 Hamels starts for much longer I don't think. Kendrick is one of the best 4th starters in baseball. Lannan is one of the best 5th starters (not a high bar).

Fixing Halladay's shoulder MIGHT work. I don't expect him to return to his previous dominance but he might be above average upon return. (And oh by the way, as recently as the beginning of last season, LEE, Hamels and Halladay were three of the top ten starters in MLB so the criticism of Amaro that he never had a plan sounds kinda silly to me).

We have a pretty good prospect in Biddle. Martin has shown some flashes. That Hoby guy has pitched well.

Bullpens are a funny game. We have a bunch of good arms that can still shake out into a good base for solid bullpen construction. We also have money to get veteran help. The minor league teams are lousy with young international arms, some of whom are doing quite well. You only need two or three to pan out to help you.

I like the idea of the Papelbon for Castellanos plus that has been rumored. Hell, maybe Leyland cries hard and the Tigers get desperate and we get Garcia too. Why not. Looking into the future allows for some pie in the sky stuff.

An outfield of Castlllanos, Revere and Brown looks like it can be young and good. Maybe even awesome. Why not? Revere, by the way was awful in April but has been playing like an all star since. And he isn't in decline. Mayberry is a good extra guy. Even a great one if used properly.

We have Dugan and Perkins raking in the FSL and possibly finishing the year strong in AA. AA is the launching point to the bigs. Altherrrrr was doing pretty good too down there (.867 OPS isn't bad is it?). That's decent outfield depth. Further down in the minors, Quinn is doing pretty well. Cozens and Green and guys like that have the potential. Ruf could be a Batt.

The tommy Joseph's concussion business pisses me off because he and Rupp looked like they might be a pretty good duo and not in the distant future either. Oh well. Maybe Chooch still has two good years in him.

The infield has potential as well. Hernandez, Galvis, Asche. The big gun Franco. Perkins at 1B some. Utley, Rollins and Howard aren't dead yet, and are actually feeling much better. We might need a holy hand grenade at times but all is not lost in the infield either.

The Braves got off to a blazing start but they actually stink. The Nats stink. We could win the division this year. And the future is far from gloom and doom.

That's the way I want to look at it. Why not?