The WBC rosters came out last night for the competition that kicks off in a month. The tournament sort of divides itself into the top teams and then the rest of the field. With an influx of MLB players to teams of distant ancestry, some of the middle of the pack teams are more interesting than past years, even if they don't have the firepower of the very top.

As part of writing the Top 50 I pull a bunch of data and start to dig in to get a deeper look at the players. I can't put all of the data into the writeups, so it is largely the overview that gets put into the list. When it came to Justin Crawford more extra information was generated than usual, and that information told a story more nuanced than much of the discussion around him.

Jump to Rankings When I sat down to the yearly exercise of putting together this list, I was under no delusion that I was writing up a strong farm system. The Phillies are a competitive team that has struggled with development while not having the depth to cycle out players for influxes of talent like the Dodgers have over the years.

When we talk about the shallowness of the Phillies system, that shouldn’t really extend into the very top of it. Painter’s regression and Crawford’s continued inconsistencies make it not an elite top of the system, but it is at least average. Miller is not one of the very top prospects in baseball, but for me he is a top 20 prospect and a future core piece, even if he isn’t a star.

There is a large gap at the top of the system from 5 to 6. Nori is the near consensus #6 prospect in the system due to his combination of position and hit tool. Rounding out this bottom half of the top 10, there are the two 2025 draftees who received 2nd round level bonuses, plus a former top 5 prospect whose arm blew out, and a major league ready hitter who might not project for a full time role.

If you want a microcosm of the Phillies system, this part of the list is probably it. It is pitching heavy, but that pitching comes in the form of future back end starters, relievers with command issues, and just drafted arms. Some of this is good, since it has been a while since the Phillies have developed a volume of relief arms, and they have really struggled outside of Orion Kerkering rocketing to the majors.

If the bottom of the system started (or starts, depending on the order you are reading this) to make you question what a prospect is, this part of the list gets into real prospects with MLB upside. That said, the shallowness of the system is clear, as is some of the work the Phillies have done to remedy that. To me there is a small tier break between #31 and #32, but really this group represents depth from the 2025 draft class and real actual major league relief depth.

When I sat down to the yearly exercise of putting together this list, I was under no delusion that I was writing up a strong farm system. The Phillies are a competitive team that has struggled with development while not having the depth to cycle out players for influxes of talent like the Dodgers have over the years. Years of shallow drafts and trading players for major league talent has left the system top heavy, with each tier smaller than you would like and some real dropoffs at times.

There is a repeated adage that teams are generally populated by smart people and when they make a puzzling move you should probably take a second look at it and see what the team saw and why they did it. When the Phillies acquired Jonathan Bowlan for Matt Strahm the general consensus was that it was a great move for the Royals and if you liked the deal it was more about Strahm being in decline and Bowlan being interesting in small sample.

In a flurry of work before everyone goes home for the holidays the Phillies remade the middle of the bullpen in a set of three moves that really should all be packaged together. In: RHP Brad Keller, RHP Jonathan Bowlan, LHP Kyle Backhus Out: LHP Matt Strahm, OF Avery Owusu-Asiedu The Phillies got about $5M more expensive in the set of transactions, did not really get less flexible, but did get younger with more team control.

Winter Leagues Australian Baseball League LHP Camron Hill - 11.2 IP 6.94 ERA 4 BB 15 K RHP Giussepe Velasquez - 11.2 6.17 ERA 5 BB 14 K RHP Danyony Pulido - 6 IP 4.50 ERA 4 BB 8 K CF Devin Saltiban - 71 AB 7 2B 3 HR 5 BB 15 K - .338/.400/.563 1B/C Alirio Ferrebus - 55 AB 2 2B 2 HR 0 BB 4 K - .273/.281/.418…

Not all projections come true in the Rule 5 draft, but it looked like the Phillies might lose Griff McGarry and were likely to select a RH reliever with their own pick. Both of those things came to pass. They also acquired a live armed potential reliever convert from the Rays in a trade after the draft. Major League Phase…

The Rule 5 draft typically ends the Winter Meetings, and in this case that will be Wednesday 2pm ET, and so we continue the series of offseason posts entirely related to the transactions around it. For the major league phase, the Phillies have not selected and kept a player in a number of years, but with 8 open 40 man roster spots they have the room to make a selection if they want to (in particular a reliever spot is probably open).

On Tuesday MLB teams will need to add players eligible for the Rule 5 draft to their 40 man rosters in order to protect them from the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft on December 10 (they also need to set their AAA roster for the minor league phase, but that is not publicized). You can find the full list of eligible Phillies…

Today was minor league roster cleanup day. All players needed to be activated from the injured lists and all players who had achieved at least 7 minor league seasons became free agents. The Phillies had the opportunity to add any of these players to their 40 man roster to prevent this, but did not opt to keep anyone in this way.

The offseason has not officially begun for baseball, but it is effectively here for the Phillies as the front office will begin to have to make some quick decisions on minor league free agents and Rule 5 protection. Here are the players with important roster status milestones heading into the offseason. Major League Free Agents C J.T. Realmuto DH Kyle Schwarber…

Minor League Awards All of these awards are made up. Unless otherwise stated they are not about prospect ranking and evaluation, but are about how a player actually performed. Hitter of the Year - Felix Reyes 101 G - 343 PA - 34 2B - 4 3B - 16 HR - 13 SB - .331/.362/.562 Reyes is far from the top prospect in the Phillies system, in fact there will be healthy debate as to whether he is a prospect at all due to defensive limitations and an overly aggressive approach at the plate.

I am back from my hiatus, and so there is 4+ weeks to recap, so a bunch of surface thoughts to follow. Also Lehigh Valley's season is continuing, but barring some crazy occurrence this will be the last "weekly" update and then there will just be a season update. Hitter Spotlight SS Aidan Miller Since I last wrote about the minor leagues Miller went and hit .333/.507/.490 with 17 walks to 12 strikeouts in 15 games.

This week was late due to personal commitments and this will be the last weekly recap for a little bit. I am taking a break and a vacation. When I return I will return to recap the weeks that passed in that time and then will move into season wrap ups. Hitter Spotlight C Caleb Ricketts 6 G 10-25 2 HR 7 RBI 3 BB 2 K .400/.464/.640…

I said I needed something to write about, but wanted to write and @norseofbroad.bsky.social asked the question that is on many fans' minds. The answer is very firmly a maybe, which is entirely a coward's answer and not worthy of writing, but also I have been just short of actually writing about Crawford for a while, so why not. Over the last 6 weeks (let's call that since the start of July), Crawford is hitting .319/.423/.422 for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.

This Week's Schedule Lehigh Valley (65-48) @ Buffalo (43-67) Reading (43-63) vs Akron (62-45) Jersey Shore (49-55) @ Wilmington (47-60) Clearwater (59-47) vs Lakeland (65-40) DSL Phillies Red (24-26) DSL Phillies White (13-36) Hitter Spotlight OF Devin Saltiban 10-23 3 2B 2 3B 1 HR 4 RBI 3 BB 4 K 3 SB .435/.519/.870 Saltiban has exclusively played center field since the beginning of July, and unsurprisingly has looked fine at the position.

Rest of Season Things to Watch I just did a midseason ranking before the trade deadline that you can read for how I would rank the top prospects in the system, so doing a stock watch where I write the same information felt sort of silly. I also am taking a vacation at the start of September so there probably won't be one of these for August, so rather than look at individual players I wanted to talk about some storylines and things I am watching over the last two months of the season.

This Week's Schedule Lehigh Valley (62-44) vs Scranton Wilkes-Barre (63-41) Reading (38-62) @ New Hampshire (44-57) Jersey Shore (44-54) vs Hub City (52-49) Clearwater (54-47) @ Fort Myers (45-55) DSL Phillies Red (20-25) DSL Phillies White (13-31) Hitter Spotlight OF TJayy Walton 7 G 8-25 1 2B 1 3B 3 RBI 2 SB 5 BB 7 K .320/.433/.440 Walton has struggled to stay healthy and has struggled on the field when healthy.

I want to skip to the Midseason reports The Phillies entered the deadline with a need in the bullpen for an impact arm (which they acquired on Wednesday in Jhoan Duran from the Twins) and just a competent outfielder. It would have been nice had they gotten a big name or remade their roster, but mostly what moved today were marginal starters and high leverage relievers.

I want to skip to the Midseason reports The Phillies, and really every team, has been desperate for impact relievers the whole deadline. The tea leaves heading into the deadline was that they had made catcher Eduardo Tait available as a big piece, and ever since his resurgence it was clear that RHP Mick Abel was a bit of an extra arm going forward.