Minor league second baseman Daniel Brito earns Gold Glove Award

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For the second consecutive season the Philadelphia Phillies organization has the best defensive second baseman in the minor leagues.

Daniel Brito, who split the season between the Low-A Lakewood BlueClaws and the High-A Clearwater Threshers, was named as a Gold Glover by Minor League Baseball and the Rawlings Sporting Goods Company, Inc. in honors announced on Monday.

The 20-year-old second baseman was signed by the Phillies back in 2014 as an amateur free agent out of his native Venezuela. He played 92 games with Lakewood this season, then was promoted to Clearwater where he appeared in another 27 contests.

In announcing the honor, Minor League Baseball stated that Brito “…recorded a .988 fielding percentage in 116 games, the highest mark among second basemen in Minor League Baseball. The 20-year-old handled 418 total chances in 92 games for Class A Lakewood, and 101 more in 24 games for Class A Advanced Clearwater, helping turn 78 double plays across the two levels.”

Brito is ranked as the #12 Phillies prospect by MLB.com at this time. In our Phillies Nation Top 20 Phillies Prospects rankings back in early August, he received mention in the “Also receiving votes” section.

A year ago it was Scott Kingery being honored as the minor league 2017 Gold Glove Award winner at second base. Kingery went on top play most of this 2018 season as the Phillies starting shortstop.

Brito is considered a glove-first player at present. He hit for just a .252/.307/.342 slash line with 16 stolen bases over 468 plate appearances across the two minor league levels this past season.

Originally published at Phillies Nation as "Daniel Brito earns minor league Gold Glove honors"

Sixto Sanchez pulled from Arizona Fall League by Phillies

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Play gets underway today in the Arizona Fall League, the annual fall showcase event for some of the top prospects from each organization in Major League Baseball.

The Philadelphia Phillies were scheduled to send eight players to participate in the AFL with the Scottsdale Scorpions squad: first baseman Darick Hall, third baseman Luke Williams, shortstop Arquimedes Gamboa, outfielder Austin Listi, and pitchers Luke Leftwich, Seth McGarry, Tyler Viza, and Sixto Sanchez.

However, just yesterday the Phillies announced that Sanchez, the club’s top prospect, was being pulled out of the league. The move appears to be largely cautionary in nature.

Sanchez turned 20-years-old at the end of July. He went 4-3 with a 2.51 ERA and 1.071 WHIP this past season with the High-A Clearwater Threshers. The right-hander allowed 39 hits over 46.2 innings across eight starts with a 45/11 K:BB ratio.

He was really beginning to heat up when the Phillies shut him down due to elbow discomfort following a start on June 3. In his previous four outings, Sanchez had gone 3-1 while allowing just 15 hits over 25.2 innings with a 29/4 K:BB ratio.

Sanchez would never return, and the AFL stint was going to give him a chance to get some more innings of work in before taking a break for the winter.

Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia described the circumstances of his removal from the Arizona Fall League as follows:

“Sanchez was firmly on the road to recovery and getting work in the Florida Instructional League when he recently came down with soreness in his right collarbone. Team medical officials are not alarmed by the issue and they are confident that Sanchez will be fully healthy and ready to go for spring training. However, the setback cut into Sanchez’s preparation time in Florida so the team has decided to err on the side of caution and hold him out of the AFL.”

The other seven Phillies prospects will open their Fall season tonight against the Mesa Solar Sox in Scottsdale, Arizona. The six teams of the AFL are divided into two divisions. Each is scheduled to play a 30-game schedule which ends on November 15, with a championship game scheduled between the two division leaders on November 17.

When healthy, Sanchez combines a 70-grade fastball with fantastic control and improving curveball and changeup offerings that have led to his being rated not only the Phillies top prospect, but also one of the most exciting arms in the entire sport.

He is currently ranked as the 21st overall prospect by MLB, and the #6 right-handed pitching prospect in the game. Assuming he is healthy in the spring, you should expect Sanchez to reach Double-A next season.

Again, given health, by spring training of 2020 when he will still be just 21-years-old it is likely that he will push for a spot in the Phillies starting rotation.

Originally published at Phillies Nation as "Phillies pull top prospect Sixto Sanchez as Arizona Fall League gets underway"

Jose Pujols named as High-A Clearwater Threshers POY

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The Clearwater Threshers are the High-A minor league affiliates of the Phillies, and are located at the same place where Phillies fans travel every February and March to enjoy spring training. They have been affiliated with the Phillies since their very first season of existence all the way back in 1985.

For their first 29 seasons the club was known as the Clearwater Phillies and played their home games at old Jack Russell Stadium. With the opening of a new ballpark now known as Spectrum Field in 2004, the team name and identity was changed as well.

Clearwater, Florida is approximately 1,100 miles from the Philadelphia area. Driving it will take you roughly 17 hours, give or take depending on traffic conditions and how many stops you choose to make along the way. Most who make the drive travel most of the way down I-95.

Of course it’s far quicker and in many ways easier to simply hop a flight. Your plane from Philly International will land in Tampa. From there it’s about an hour drive or two hours by public transportation to Clearwater.

As with their counter-parts in Lakewood highlighted in yesterday’s piece, the 2018 season saw the Threshers finish in first place overall in the North Division of the Florida State League.

Their 77-60 mark was the second-best overall in a season that is split into halves. The first half saw Clearwater finish just 32-36 and in fourth place. However, the team rolled to a 45-24 mark over the second half.

The Threshers faced the first-half divisional winners, the Daytona Tortugas, in the FSL playoff semi-finals. Clearwater captured the opener by a 7-6 score, but then Daytona came from behind to capture the next two games by 6-5 and 5-3 and win the best-of-three series.

This year’s Clearwater Threshers Player of the Year is outfielder Jose Pujols. A 6-3, 175lb right fielder, he bats and fields right-handed. Pujols turned 23-years-old just last week and is a native of the Dominican Republic. He was originally signed by the Phillies as a 16-year-old back on July 2, 2012.

Power has generally been considered his calling card. Pujols demonstrated that again this year as his 18 home runs, 58 RBI, and 56 runs scored each led the ball club. He also put together a solid .301/.364/.523 slash line.

Phillies Minor Leaguers Receive All-Star Honors

The Philadelphia Phillies minor league system is greatly improved, and a number of the players have received invitations to All-Star games for their individual performances.

With the Major League Baseball All-Star Game just a couple of weeks away now, there has been some speculation as to who might represent the Phillies in the Mid-Summer Classic.

The way that things are currently unfolding for the team, it would appear that the two players with the best chance to represent the Phillies are center fielder Odubel Herrera and closer Jeanmar Gomez.

Whatever happens regarding the All-Star situation at the big league level, the improvement in both talent and competitiveness at the Phillies’ minor league level is now being rewarded with All-Star recognition for those players and prospects as well.

Pharm Report: High-A Clearwater Threshers

The Phillies ‘High-A’ level minor league club, the Clearwater Threshers, currently find themselves in first place in the Florida State (FSL) League standings in the North Division.

The Threshers are 26-16, which has them a half-game up on the Tampa Yankees at the top of the standings, though the club has lost their last two games.

Manager Greg Legg was drafted as a player by the Phillies in the 22nd round of the 1982 MLB Amateur Draft out of Oklahoma State University.

Legg made 22 plate appearances in the big leagues with the Phils across eight games as a utility infielder in the 1986 and 1987 seasons, so he is very familiar with the dreams of his young charges.

The Threshers recently got a bump in their lineup with the injury rehabilitation of Phillies' utility player veteran Cody Asche, who is working his way back from an oblique injury.

Asche has hit just .167 over his first 18 at-bats while playing exclusively in left field. Jordan Hall with CSNPhilly.com quoted Asche just this past Monday on his position switch last year from 3rd base to the outfield.