Prospects to Watch: Phillies and Red Sox

Bullpen Banter finished up our NL and AL East Previews with the Phillies and Red Sox.  Here is the Prospect to Watch excerpt from these articles:

Phillies:

Al Skorupa: OF Domingo Santana certainly profiles as someone who could explode in 2010. Love the tools and the midly humorous name. Also, C Sebastian Valle isn't getting enough attention in my opinion. I'm not certain his future lies behind the plate, but if it does he could be a pretty good player there.

Michael Herrick: You could probably pick any of 5 or 6 toolsy OF types to watch, but I tend to prefer watching for young pitchers. With that in mind, I’m going to say keep an eye on Brody Colvin. Drafted in the 7th round he got $900K to sign and has a good low 90’s FB and power curve. Didn’t pitch enough in 2009 to worry about, but could post very good numbers starting in 2010.

JD Sussman: Fine, I will pick a toolsy OF! There has been a lot of talk about Jiwan James move to the outfield this off season. You have to use your imagination to see James in a big league uniform, but all of his tools can be rated as plus. The question is, will he develop them into skills? So far its early, but it looks like the 6'4" outfielder might be a fun guy to dream on.

Red Sox: 

Michael Herrick: Stolmy Pimentel. The 20 year old control artist pitched well in A ball in 2009, profiles as a #3 right now, but I think there is potential for more if he can refine his curve as he moves up to A+ in 2010.

Al Skorupa: I'm going to dig a little deeper and say RHP Roman Mendez. Live arm who took some big steps forward in 2009. Scout turned FanHouse writer Frankie Piliere talked about him in an interesting article.

JD Sussman: A high floor is your thing Mike and that why I’m going with Jose Iglesias. He is a high floor moderate ceiling shortstop out of Cuba. Being conservative with WAR, Iglesias could project to be -10 runs with his bat, and plus 40 runs for being on the field and at short stop. Not so shabby.

Stephen Kuperman: Geez, deciding on just one guy out of this system is not easy, as the depth is pretty awesome. I'm going to pull out the name of 2B Derrik Gibson. Very young but with pretty good polish at the plate, a nice glove and impressive tools. All we're waiting on here is for the kid to get a little older and a little stronger, and I expect him to get a lot more notice this year as he moves into full season ball. I buy into Gibson much more than I do Iglesias, who really might not have much bat at all.