4 Phillies Make It Onto MLB’s Top 100 Prospects List

Since 2014, only a single player who came up through the team's system has made an All-Star game. But things may be starting to turn around. Dave Dombrowski has slowly started to restock the cupboards. And to start out 2024, they have 4 prospects in MLB Pipeline's Top 100 Prospects. Andrew Painter, Mick Abel, Aidan Miller, and Justin Crawford all remained on the list, after finishing the season on it to close out last season.

Andrew Painter remains their highest-rated prospect. He opens the year at 27, after closing out the year at 28 last season. He has reached as high as 8th overall in the rankings. But after missing all of last season, and undergoing Tommy John Surgery, he fell a bit to 28 and now 27. Painter is expected to miss all of 2024, with the goal being for him to make his debut in 2025. But people around the league are still very excited about his potential. MLB Execs recently voted him as the 2nd best pitching prospect in the minor leagues.

Abel has been on MLB Pipeline's list dating back to 2021 when they ranked him 76. Now Abel has climbed up to 49. Abel's ERA has rarely dipped below 4.0 in his 3 seasons. But there is a good reason the Phillies drafted him 15th overall and a reason scouts still love him. Scouts have long loved Abel's stuff, it is just a matter of him putting it together. We could see him as early as this season. At some point, the Phillies will need to replace at least one of their starting pitchers due to injury. And Abel would be one of the prime candidates to get a call-up.

The big surprise is the rise of Aidan Miller. Despite playing in just 20 games, he already finds himself rated as the 61st-ranked prospect and the 9th-best 3B prospect. Up from 90 at the end of last season. At one point, people expected him to be one of the top draft picks last year. Especially after being named MVP at the All-American Game, and winning the HR Derby. But a broken hamate bone caused him to fall in the draft, and the Phillies scooped him up. Scouts think he can have plus power at the Major League level. We got a small glimpse of that last season.

Having just been drafted, he is obviously the furthest away from playing in the Majors. It will be 2026 at the earliest. With 2027 being a more realistic goal. But he could one day force the Phillies into a tough decision between him and Alec Bohm.

Justin Crawford stays at 77, where he finished the season last year. His first full season in the Phillies system was a huge success with him hitting .332 and stealing 47 bases across two levels. They will bring him up to AA this season and will hope to see him develop more power and hit fewer ground balls. His ground ball rate of around 70% was perhaps the lone concerning trend in his game. But with his elite speed, great glove, and his natural ability, scouts expect big things from him going forward. If all goes well, and he continues to play like he did last year, we could see him as early as 2025.

None of the Phillies' other prospects have cracked the top 100, yet. But there are a few more worth keeping an eye on. Phillies fans are already familiar with Orion Kerkering. It did not go too well for him in the playoffs last season. To be fair, it is hard to expect anyone who has thrown just 3 innings in the Majors to step up and look great in the playoffs. He is expected to have a large role in the Phillies pen next season, and a pool of MLB execs recently voted him as one of the best future closers in baseball.

There is also Griff McGarry. He was fantastic in 13 games at AA last season. A 3.13 ERA, a BAA of .163, and 74 Ks across 54.2 innings. His 3 starts at AAA may have killed all of that goodwill though. His BAA ballooned up to .400, and his ERA up to 41.54. But if he can get off to a good start this season, he could get called up in the case of an injury to one of the Phillies starters.

For years, going back further than almost anyone else on the Phillies, Rhys Hoskins has been a mainstay with the Phillies. He came up in August of 2017, and was a regular in the Phillies lineup for every following season, apart from last year where he was out all year with an injury.

But that time has come to an end. Back in November, Dave Dombrowski confirmed that Bryce Harper will be the Phillies First Basemen going forward, leaving nowhere for Rhys to play. Last night, we learned that Rhys was heading to Milwaukee to play for the Brewers.

Hoskins and Aaron Nola were the only Phillies left standing from the 2017 team. Now only Nola remains. When Hoksins made his debut, the Phillies lineup included guys like Maikel Franco, Cesar Hernandez, Freddy Galvis, and Odubel Herrera.

In his 6 seasons, he hit 148 Hrs, had 405 RBIs, and an OPS of .846. His bat was a bit hot and cold. But when it was hot, he looked like the most dangerous hitter in the league. There were also issues with his glove. Rhys was not a good first baseman.

He was even worse the one year they put him in the outfield. Rhys should have been a DH. But for most of his career here there was no universal DH. And in 2022 Harper needed to DH because of his injury.

Now it is all over. But while we say goodbye, let's look back at some of our fondest memories. From his scorching hot start as a rookie, to giving us something to watch in the dark ages of no playoffs, to his playoff heroics in 2022, and more. Rhys Hoskins did a lot of good for the city of Philadelphia, and his bat will be missed.

The start of Rhy's career here was as great as it gets. 18 Hrs in his first 50 games. He was hitting HRs nearly every night and became the fastest player to hit multiple milestones to start his career. But his first HR came in San Deigo against the Padres.

A couple of years after Rhys made his debut, things started to get a bit better for the Phillies. Notably, they signed Bryce Harper, traded for JT Realmuto, among other moves. And that era started with a bang. There were lots of HRs, but Rhys hit the biggest one when they walked Harper to load the bases ahead of him. Rhys took that personally and put the Phillies up 10-3 with one swing of the bat.

Dont make Rhys Hoskins angry. The night before this HR, Mets Pitcher Jacob Rhames had thrown two pitches up near Hoskin's head. It led to the benches clearing. The following night, Hoskins got his revenge. He hit a 2 run shot off Rhames and then took his time rounding the bases. Rhys took 34.23 seconds to be exact. For context, Bartolo Colon got around the bases 4 seconds faster. Creating beef with the Mets is a sure way to win the hearts of Phillies fans. And this was a great moment of showing up the Mets.

It does not get much better than walk-offs. And Rhys had a great one in June of 2022. It was actually the second walk-off of that series vs the Marlins.

And then, of course, there is the moment everyone will remember him for the most. The Bat Spike. Not just because how how big it was in the moment, but because of what led up to it. Rhys had been a mess in the field. His mistake in the field cost them game 2 vs the Braves. He was getting booed by fans leading up to the moment. Then, with one swing, he won the fans back over.

Rhys was amazing vs the Padres in the NLCS. Especially in game 4. First, he came up in the first inning and helped close the deficit after the Padres took a quick 4-0 lead. Schwarber led off the inning with a single, and then Hoskins cut the lead in half with a 2 run blast. But he was not done. Because in the bottom of the 5th, with the Phillies down 6-4, he did it again. He tied the game up, Harper gave them the lead two at-bats later, and the team never looked back.

Were it not for Harpers' game-winning HR in this same game, Hoskins easily could have been the NLCS MVP. Because earlier in the game, Hoskins hit a 2 run shot of his own. With Schwarber on base, Hoskins took Yu Darvish yard to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. The Phillies eventually blew that lead, but it was huge in the moment considering Zack Wheeler was on the mound.

Game 3 felt like it was a turning point for the Phillies. It was  HR Derby. 5 HRs on the way to a 7-0 win. And Rhys was the 5th to go yard off of Lance McCullers. It turns out the Phillies never won another game in that series. It also turns out this was his last HR in a Phillies Jersey.