The Phillies’ system is on the upswing with some really strong drafts under scouting director Brian Barber and strong international free agent signings from three continents, giving them some pitching and position-player depth to help keep the big-league club in contention a little longer.
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Top 100 MLB prospects 2024: Keith Law’s rankings, with Jackson Holliday at No. 1
Phillies 2024 top 20 prospects
(Note: Seasonal ages as of July 1, 2024. Scouting grades are on the traditional 20-80 or 2-8 scouting scale.)
1. Andrew Painter, RHP (2024 top 100 ranking: 34)
Bats: R | Throws: R | Height: 6-7 | Weight: 215 | Seasonal age in 2024: 21
I wrote last year that the only thing that could stop Painter’s march to the majors was his injury risk, which unfortunately turned out to be more true than I anticipated — I thought it was just a possibility given his age, how hard he throws, and some very minor mechanical issues, but he ended up missing the year with a torn UCL, undergoing Tommy John surgery in July that will probably keep him out until this fall. When healthy, Painter shows No. 1 starter stuff, bumping 99 mph and sitting 94-97 with a hammer to make Thor jealous in his curveball, along with an above-average changeup he hadn’t begun to use enough and a slider that’s probably an unnecessary fourth pitch right now. He comes from a high three-quarters arm slot that, combined with his 6-7 height, makes it a very uncomfortable look for hitters on both sides of the plate. He’d also shown better control in his time in A-ball than he had even as an amateur, along with the ability to separate those two breaking balls in the curve and slider and use them in different spots.
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There’s risk with TJ surgery, from the slight chance he loses some velocity to the somewhat greater chance that his curveball isn’t the same afterward (Lucas Giolito and Jay Groome had this happen). If all goes well with his rehab, perhaps he can throw in instructs or — and I admit to some self-interest here — the Arizona Fall League, which would set him up to start 2025 on something approaching a regular schedule. The ace upside is still there, just with more unknowns until we see him back on a mound and at full strength.
2. Justin Crawford, OF (2024 top 100 ranking: 43)
Bats: L | Throws: R | Height: 6-1 | Weight: 175 | Seasonal age in 2024: 20
Crawford was the Phillies’ first-round pick in 2022 out of a Las Vegas high school, and he’s the son of Carl Crawford and cousin of J.P. Crawford. He’s a long way from being a finished product, but his tools are so good that he can outplay a lot of his deficiencies. He’s a 70 runner who can really play center field, while at the plate he’s already posted high exit velocities and can show big power the other way in BP that’s starting to emerge in games, as well.
He spent most of last year with Low-A Clearwater and hit .344/.399/.478 in 69 games there with 40 steals before a late-season promotion to High A. He posted those solid numbers even with a lot of inconsistency in the swing that can cause him to get on top of the ball too often. He’s still got 10-15 pounds of room to fill out, which could make him a 20-homer, 50-steal guy who plays plus or better defense in center. He might be a level-a-year guy, though, as it takes time for him to fill out.
3. Aidan Miller, SS/3B (2024 top 100 ranking: 89)
Bats: R | Throws: R | Height: 6-2 | Weight: 205 | Seasonal age in 2024: 20
Miller had a chance to go in the top half of the first round in 2023, but a broken hamate bone took him out for almost the entire spring, so he had to make up some ground in pre-draft workouts and ended up going to the Phillies at pick No. 27. He has big power already even with a fairly simple swing, impressing multiple teams in those workouts with how the power played in big-league stadiums, although the sense is that the power tool may be ahead of the hit tool. He likes the ball middle-away so he can get his arms extended, and he had difficulty with pitches on the inner-third when he was playing in games the previous summer.
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He played shortstop in 18 games after the Phillies signed him, but he’s going to be a third baseman, as he doesn’t have close to the agility or range for short while his hands and arm and would play well at third. By spring training he’ll be a year off the hamate injury and should have his full strength back, at which point we’ll see if the Phillies got a steal — maybe an everyday third baseman with 25-30 homer power.
4. Mick Abel, RHP (Just missed)
Height: 6-5 | Weight: 190 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 22
I loved Abel when I first saw him as a high school underclassman at the Future Stars’ event in 2018 in Glendale, Ariz., and wasn’t surprised when he became the first high school pitcher taken in the 2020 draft. I am surprised, though, that he’s had so much trouble with walks as a professional, as he has always had a great delivery and repeats it well enough that he shouldn’t be walking 13.5 percent of the batters he faces.
It’s big-boy stuff; he’ll sit 92-95 mph as a starter and was 97-99 in a one-inning stint at the Futures Game, with a changeup at 91-92 that was easily plus. He’ll show four pitches and the changeup can be plus when he’s starting, just at a slightly lower velocity. He doesn’t have great feel to spin the ball and he can’t land the slider for strikes, while his fastball is out of the zone way too often and doesn’t have huge induced vertical or other characteristics to miss a ton of bats within the zone. I still see him starting, but the results and the specific details of his arsenal point toward a back-end role.
5. Orion Kerkering, RHP
Height: 6-2 | Weight: 204 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 23
You saw it, and it’s real, but — not to throw cold water on anything — throwing 85 percent sliders is probably not a sustainable pitching plan for the long term. It might be all of an 80 slider, with an average spin rate just shy of 3,000 rpm and above-average break in both directions, and major-league hitters didn’t hit it hard when they hit it at all. It’s often out of the zone, however, and hitters are going to start to lay off it. That said, he’s got big velocity and even without great movement on the fastball it should be enough to keep hitters guessing. I think he can be a 2+ WAR reliever for several seasons, starting now.
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6. Gabriel Rincones Jr., OF
Height: 6-3 | Weight: 225 | Bats: L | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 23
Rincones started the year in Low-A Clearwater after experiencing some shoulder discomfort late in 2022, but the Phillies’ 2022 third-round pick did what he was supposed to do there and moved up to High A in June, where his performance was underwhelming. He does make very hard contact, peaking in the 110 mphs last year, and can hit a fastball, but breaking stuff gave him some trouble at High A and he hit just .238/.326/.416 at the higher level. He’s better than that, I think, and so do some scouts — it’s plus raw power, he’s a 70 baserunner despite just fringy speed, he has good instincts on defense, and he doesn’t chase that much out of the zone. He does have to make an adjustment at the plate, but I don’t think it’s a massive one. If he goes to homer-friendly Double-A Reading this year, he should hit 25-30 homers, although his strikeouts (and pitch data) will tell us whether he’s really taken that step forward.
7. Emaarion Boyd, OF
Height: 5-11 | Weight: 177 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 20
Boyd was the team’s 2022 11th-round pick out of a Mississippi high school, and he’s shown a way more advanced approach at the plate than expected when he was still an amateur. He was playing with a fractured wrist when he first signed and really needed to put some good weight on, which he’s done, adding about 30 pounds in about 18 months. He’s a plus-plus runner who stole 56 bags in 73 attempts last year, and only struck out 15 percent of the time. His ball/strike recognition is ahead of his pitch recognition, and he had some issues with secondary stuff, particularly changeups, although even that was far ahead of what anyone anticipated. It’s about 30-35 power right now, though, and whether he can dial that up to 45 or so will determine whether he becomes a fourth outfielder or a regular.
8. Bryan Rincon, SS
Height: 5-10 | Weight: 185 | Bats: B | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 20
Rincon is an elite defensive shortstop whom the Phillies got in the 2022 14th round out of a Pittsburgh-area high school. He spent most of 2023 in Clearwater, making a ton of contact from both sides, rarely chasing or swinging and missing. It’s below-average power right now and he only hit .225/.360/.350 on the season, in part because he just doesn’t hit the ball hard enough yet. The defense is enough to carry him to the majors if he can just keep the bat above water, with everyday ceiling if he becomes more of a hitter for average.
9. Wen Hui Pan, RHP
Height: 6-3 | Weight: 220 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 21
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Pan signed for $350,000 in January 2023 as an international free agent and debuted in Low A last year at age 20. The Taiwanese righty throws very hard, up to 100 mph and averaging around 95-97, with a plus splitter and a fringy breaking ball. The splitter has so little spin (below 900 rpm) that it’s like a dead fish that just flops as it approaches the plate, and if you’re geared up for upper 90s, well, best of luck. He doesn’t have great feel to spin the ball and his slider is fringy at best, although the Phillies have gotten it from the upper 70s to the low 80s. The odds are heavily towards him ending up a two-pitch reliever, but the Phillies can and will develop him as a starter to see how the slider comes along and force him to work on command when he can’t just blow it by better hitters.
10. Devin Saltiban, SS/OF
Height: 5-10 | Weight: 180 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 19
The Phillies took Saltiban in the third round last year out of Hilo HS in Hawai’i, where he’d played center field, but they moved him to shortstop … and it might be working? He played extremely well on defense in a limited stint in the Florida Complex League and showed a good right-handed swing with above-average power already. He’s an outstanding overall athlete and showed 55-60 running times as well. Between 11 games in the MLB Draft League and 10 in the FCL, he made a lot of contact for a high school kid from a small area (18 percent strikeout rate), in a tiny sample. He might have been a steal for the Phillies.
11. Eduardo Tait, C
Height: 6-0 | Weight: 175 | Bats: L | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 17
Tait signed last January for a $90,000 bonus and didn’t turn 17 until August, so he played at 16 in the Dominican Summer League and raked, hitting .333/.400/.517, swinging at everything but also kind of hitting everything, too. He’s a definite catcher with good hands and a plus arm, yet another strong catching prospect out of Panama. There’s a good chance for power here, as he’s got very strong hands and takes a big swing, chasing too much out of the zone but so far making enough contact on those pitches to get away with it. You can dream on a 25-homer, everyday catcher upside here, although we’ll see if his over-aggressiveness as a hitter holds him back.
12. Griff McGarry, RHP
Height: 6-2 | Weight: 190 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 25
McGarry completely lost the strike zone last year, struggling through Double A and ending the year with 11 walks in 1 2/3 innings in two Triple-A outings. His arm action started to get longer and he had more and more trouble repeating it, so while he’d flash the 2023 version — he had a seven-inning, no-walk, 10-strikeout outing in July — he never got right before the season ended. He had control issues at Virginia and worked out of the Cavs’ bullpen in his draft year, so a move to relief has always been likely, but this was a surprising step back. He’s still 94-97 mph with a plus slider and four-pitch mix; out of the bullpen he will probably hit 100 and he could lean on the slider more for chases.
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13. Starlyn Caba, SS
Height: 5-10 | Weight: 160 | Bats: B | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 18
Bryan Rincon might have some competition for best defensive shortstop in the system, as Caba, who signed in January 2023 for $3 million, is also an elite glove at the position, with outstanding range and instincts for someone so young. He’s very athletic with plus speed and his body, while on the smaller side, offers some projection, so he might start to impact the ball a little more to at least hit for average and some more doubles. He hit .301/.423/.346 in the DSL last summer with just 16 strikeouts in 164 PA, so the contact skill is there, and you can see the potential for an everyday player or more depending on how much stronger he gets.
14. Samuel Aldegheri, LHP
Height: 6-1 | Weight: 180 | Bats: L | Throws: L | Seasonal age in 2024: 22
I’m so torn — should Aldegheri’s nickname be Dante, or perhaps Romeo since he’s from Verona? Regardless, Aldegheri is the best Italian-born prospect in the minors right now, and he’s interesting because he’s a pitchability guy, as — and I feel comfortable saying this as someone of significant Italian descent — the caliber of baseball in Italy is not such that we see players from there with an advanced feel for the game. He works with four pitches, all around average with the slider a 55; throws a ton of strikes and mixes them effectively, walking just under 10 percent of batters last year with no platoon split at all and can field his position well. The slider might have a chance to develop into an out pitch of sorts, as he did get a lot of misses on it and it has some bite around 85-86 mph. It’s a back-end starter ceiling, maybe more likely a bulk guy or swingman, but I’m rooting for him as a fellow paesano. He could become the eighth-ever MLB player born in Italy and only the second to grow up there, after Alex Liddi.
15. Símon Muzziotti, OF
Height: 6-0 | Weight: 175 | Bats: L | Throws: L | Seasonal age in 2024: 25
Muzziotti had his first full, healthy year since before the pandemic, made his major-league debut, and then lost his 40-man spot this winter. He has excellent hand-eye coordination, so even though he swings a lot, he rarely whiffs, with just a 15 percent strikeout rate in Triple A last year. He’s a plus runner who can play center field well enough to hold down the job, at least; when I’ve seen him healthy he’s shown excellent range, thanks to his speed. And he hits the ball pretty hard, getting up to 110 mph in Triple A, although as you might infer from the .404 slugging percentage in Triple A (.368 career in the minors), he hits the ball on the ground a lot. It’s high contact with speed and defense and enough oomph to get to major-league fastballs, which looks at least like a good fourth outfielder and maybe a soft regular. The Phillies designated Muzziotti for assignment the day before I wrote this and he surprisingly cleared waivers and will be in Phillies’ camp as a non-roster player.
16. Carlos De La Cruz, OF/1B
Height: 6-8 | Weight: 210 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 24
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De La Cruz hits the ball extremely hard by any measure, and for a big man he’s a surprisingly fluid athlete, running well thanks to very long strides and playing above-average defense in the corner outfield. The issue is that he’s 6-8, his strike zone is absolutely enormous and he has not shown the kind of aptitude as a hitter that he’ll need to compensate; I’m actually amazed he only struck out 27.5 percent of the time in Double A last year. I don’t believe it’s going to work out — I think he’ll see the majors without ever making enough contact to stick — but there is some small chance that he keeps his strikeout rate under 30 percent or so and then the power plays and he gets some extended big-league time as a bench guy or a regular on a bad team.
17. TJayy Walton, OF
Height: 6-3 | Weight: 225 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 19
The Phillies’ 2023 fourth-round pick out of IMG Academy, Walton looks like a linebacker but hits like a kicker, with a swing that’s more geared to contact than to driving the ball. He showed good feel to hit against strong competition at IMG and he’s a 55 or better runner, projecting to above-average defense in either outfield corner. He’s too big not to hit for power and the Phillies have to find a way to get him to get the ball in the air more and to look to do more damage when he swings. His athleticism and history of hitting point to an average or better upside if the power starts to come.
18. Alex McFarlane, RHP
Height: 6-3 | Weight: 215 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 23
McFarlane was cruising early in the year through early June or so when his forearm started barking, and he didn’t look right after taking about six weeks off to rest it, so he ended up having Tommy John surgery after the season. He was up to 100 mph on his two-seamer with a better breaking ball and a split-change that still grades out as plus but hasn’t helped him control left-handed batters yet. He’ll be back in 2025.
19. Christian McGowan, RHP
Height: 6-0 | Weight: 205 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 24
McGowan returned from 2022 Tommy John surgery and showed two 55s in a mid-90s fastball and hard slider at 86-88, with a very stiff delivery that has his arm late relative to his front leg. He needs some kind of changeup or splitter, although in the end it’s a reliever’s arm action and he probably will end up in the bullpen as a sinker/slider guy who might hit 100.
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20. Caleb Ricketts, C
Height: 6-3 | Weight: 225 | Bats: L | Throws: R | Seasonal age in 2024: 24
Ricketts started in Low A at age 23, crushed it for 100 PA, then got hurt 44 games into his stint in High A after a rough start there. He’s a 55 receiver with a solid-average arm, big and strong but not too much so for the position, and looks like he’ll hit for some power if he makes enough contact. He was really too old for High A, so there’s some pressure on him to produce quickly and get to Double A since this is his age-24 season.
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MLB 2024 farm system rankings: Keith Law ranks all 30 teams, Orioles are new No. 1
Others of note
• Raylin Heredia signed for $300,000 in January 2021 but played in just two games that summer so he didn’t make his U.S. debut until last year at age 19. He’s a toolshed, with the potential for plus power, speed, and arm strength as well as 55 defense in right field. He can hit a decent fastball, but right now he’s way too vulnerable to breaking stuff, chasing them out of the zone at an alarming rate after a promotion to Low-A Clearwater late last summer. He could be a star with these tools, just with a very high risk he doesn’t hit enough to get past Double A.
• William Bergolla gets some attention because he never strikes out — 7.4 percent of the time in Low A last year — but the rest of the package is lacking; he doesn’t have the arm for short or third, he’s a fringy athlete without speed, and he has no power at all, slugging .287 with four extra-base hits in 55 games. I had him on the Phillies’ top 20 last year but scouts who saw him in Low A were unenthused.
• Ethan Wilson rediscovered his power in Double-A Reading as the Phillies helped him make some adjustments to put the ball in the air more often, resulting in a gain of 107 points of slugging from 2022 to 2023, although now he’s got to do better than a .307 OBP to be more than a 4A guy.
2024 impact
Kerkering could be one of the top relievers in the NL this year and should have a high-leverage role for the Phillies from Opening Day. Abel might be in line for a call-up when they need a starter this summer.
The fallen
Jhailyn Ortiz signed with the Phillies for a $4 million bonus way back in July 2015, with the Phillies betting on a big power bat with a good swing. He’s posted huge exit velocities, hitting 117 mph last summer, but outside of about a half-season in High A in 2021, he’s never produced anywhere in full-season ball — a huge problem for a guy who might be a DH or at best a first baseman. The Phillies outrighted him in April and at this writing, he’s a free agent.
Sleeper
The Phillies are so deep at shortstop, but Saltiban is the most enticing of those prospects as a hitter, with some real power upside at a position where that can make you a star.
(Top photo of Andrew Painter: Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)
