Josh Phegley fighting ITP syndrome

Rick Semmler @ WTHI-TV:

Josh Phegley’s baseball career is on hold right now. The Wabash Valley baseball great has been out of action for a week and it looks like he will miss another month.

The former Terre Haute North baseball star is being treated for I-T-P syndrome, it’s a virus that attacks platelets in your body…

This is very serious, but not life threatening for Josh. Right now his body can’t produce the correct amount of platelets and until it can, he can’t play baseball again..

He is on a steroid to try and stabilize the platelets and get his body back to normal…

God, that sounds awful for Josh. Hopefully the treatment works.

BTW, here’s Wikipedia’s ITP entry.

FutureSox’ Top 25 White Sox prospects

FutureSox:

Rank	Player	Points	Previous	Change
1	Dan Hudson	208	2	1
2	Tyler Flowers	203	1	-1
3	Jordan Danks	194	4	1
4	Dayan Viciedo	186	3	-1
5	Jared Mitchell	184	6	1
6	Brent Morel	178	7	1

…

MLB.com’s 2010 Sox prospects and organization preview

Top 10 prospects:

Clevelan Santeliz, RHP: A setup man extraordinaire at Birmingham last summer, the Venezuelan prospect was added to the 40-man roster after posting an 0.96 ERA in 40 games and striking out 52 batters in 56 1/3 innings. He moved to the closer role at the end of the season and collected 10 saves. Throwing a fastball in the mid-90s and a plus slider, he pitches with a lot of energy and is a ton of fun to watch.

organization preview:

LHP David Holmberg (2[nd round]) is a high school star out of Florida who has four solid pitches, with a fastball that touches 90 mph, a 12-6 curve, a changeup and a slider. He also has a good feel for the mound.

RHP Kyle Bellamy (5) out of Miami is a fast-track prospect who combined for a 1.23 ERA in 20 games in relief between Bristol and Kannapolis, walking just two while striking out 32 in 22 innings. He limited hitters to a .169 average and then moved on to the Arizona Fall League, where he had a 1.59 ERA in five games.

RHP Justin Collop (6) out of Toledo had a 2.72 ERA in 15 games for Great Falls, striking out 33 in 39 2/3 innings and limiting Pioneer League hitters to a .257 average.

RHP Ryan Buch (8) out of Monmouth had the best fastball in the Draft class, one that touched the high 90s, as well as a curveball with plus potential. In 16 games in relief, he had a 3.38 ERA and limited hitters to a .183 average at Great Falls.

Sox reassign three

whitesox.com:

Prior to today’s game at Oakland, the Chicago White Sox reassigned catchers Miguel Gonzalez and Josh Phegley and outfielder Jared Mitchell to minor-league camp.

With the moves, the White Sox have 52 players remaining in major-league camp: 27 pitchers, five catchers, 11 infielders and nine outfielders.

FutureSox’ 2010 Catchers preview

Santaromita:

The Sox have a deep crew of backstop prospects going into 2010, so what can we expect from them?

Best prospect
Tyler Flowers

2009 in review: Flowers came over in the Javier Vazquez trade and quickly showed why. He tore it up right out of the gate for AA Birmingham. He hit for average (.302), power (.548 slugging) and got on base (.445 OBP). Tyler was promoted to AAA Charlotte and performed well enough there to earn a September call-up to the big league club. …

THT ranks Sox farm system 29th out of 30

Hagen:

29. Chicago White Sox

With the question marks surrounding Flowers’ ability to stay at catcher, the lack of top-of-the-rotation arms beyond Hudson, and dearth of overall depth, White Sox fans don’t have much to look forward to.

1. Tyler Flowers C/1B / 2. Dan Hudson SP / 3. Brent Morel 3B / 4. John Ely SP / 5. Jared Mitchell OF / 6. Jordan Danks OF / 7. Dayan Viciedo 3B / 8. David Holmberg SP / 9. Josh Phegley C / 10. John Shelby OF

John Ely was traded to the Dodgers. No. 4 seems a bit high…

Chicago White Sox Top-15 Prospects of 2010, No’s 6-15

Alex Eisenberg posts the 6-15 part of his Sox prospect list. Here’s a sample from Dayan Viciedo’s scouting report:

Viciedo struggled to consistently center the ball, swinging through fastballs or fouling them off, but when he did connect, the contact was usually of the hard variety. Part of the problem was Viciedo swinging for the fences more often than not. He swings extremely hard and doesn’t adjust for the situation at hand, making it more difficult for him to center the ball.

*Credit to TriB81

Viciedo has tremendous raw strength and plenty of bat speed. In addition, he’s able to keep his swing relatively short in the process though he does wrap his bat behind his head, which adds to the length.

Viciedo also has to work on keeping his weight back as he gets too far out in front on his front foot at times. This happens often when he’s thrown an off-speed pitch and usually you’ll see him ground out meekly as a result.

It’s easy to forget that Viciedo is just 20 y/o and we have to ask ourselves how many other 20 y/o prospects would fare in Double-A in their first season of pro ball? I think most would say not well. …

Part 1: Chicago White Sox Top-15 Prospects of 2010, No’s 1 – 5.

Sox sign Daniel Cabrera

DH:

The Chicago White Sox have agreed to terms on minor-league contracts with right-handed pitchers Greg Aquino and Daniel Cabrera, left-handed pitcher Erick Threets, infielder Freddie Bynum and outfielder Jason Botts.

The Cabrera signing is new. Stats: Cabrera. Stats for others: Bynum, Botts, Aquino, Threets.

Those 5 were invited to Spring Training. Also, Jordan Danks, Jared Mitchell, Brent Morel, and C.J. Retherford highlight the 10 players within the Sox system that were invited to Spring Training. More organization invitees: Charlie Leesman, Josh Phegley.

UPDATE: The other 4 organization invitees are C Miguel Gonzalez, C Donny Lucy, OF Josh Kroegar, and RHP Ryan Braun. Pitchers and catchers report to camp on February 21, position players on February 26. Here’s FutureSox’ post.

January 8 links

- Sox Minor Leaguer suspended 50 games

- Jim has some minor-league notes from Phil Rogers’ Baseball America chat (Trayce Thompson, Daniel Hudson, Clevelan Santeliz, John Ely, Dan Remenowsky, Josh Phegley, Santos Rodriguez, Charles Leesman, Sergio Santos, Jose Martinez, Ryan Buch).

- Fangraphs adds CHONE projections.

- Jonah Keri on Tim Raines.

- Dan Shaughnessy get the FJM treatment from Patrick Sullivan.

- Graph of starts/innings in 2009. And broken down by league.

FutureSox compares Sox prospect rankings

Santaromita:

Today, Baseball America released their top ten prospect rankings for the White Sox. This means all of the major prospect publications have released their White Sox rankings. Let’s take a look at the differences from each and try to figure out what it all means.

We’ve gathered six White Sox top 10s from Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Fan Graphs, John Sickels’ Minor League Ball, Diamond Futures and our own postseason rankings. Fan Graphs does things a little differently, they don’t include 2009 rookies in their rankings due to a lack of sample size, so you have to take that into account. …

I’d go Hudson-Flowers-Mitchell for my Top 3.

John Sickels 2010 Top 20 Sox prospects

Sickels:

1) Dan Hudson, RHP, Grade B [changed to B+]
2) Jared Mitchell, OF, Grade B
3) Tyler Flowers, C, Grade B
4) Brent Morel, 3B, Grade B-
5) Jordan Danks, OF, Grade C+
6) Dayan Viciedo, 3B, Grade C+ …

Go to the link for descriptions and the entire list.

Buddy Bell on the 2009 Draft

Buddy explains things:

“That’s something we hadn’t done much in the past,” player development director Buddy Bell noted. “Before I got here, most of the players we took were more from the college level. But by design we wanted to get higher-ceiling guys out of high school who we could project.”

BTW, here’s the article’s secondary title: “Mitchell, Phegley, Thompson on fast track to Major Leagues”

Trayce Thompson is on the fast track?

Fangraphs reviews the last 4 Sox drafts

Hulet:

[Jared] Mitchell’s .417 on-base average was impressive in just 34 low-A ball games. However, his line of .296/.417/.435 was aided by a crazy-high .453 BABIP. His walk rate of 16.7% was offset by a nasty strikeout rate at 34.8%, which is obviously going to have to come down. With an ISO of .139, his power is undeveloped at this time, although he could develop into a 15-homer hitter. Despite good speed, Mitchell nabbed just five steals in eight attempts. …

Sox Top 10 prospects by THT Fantasy

Hagen:

1. Tyler Flowers
2. Dan Hudson
3. Brent Morel
4. John Ely
5. Jared Mitchell
6. Jordan Danks
7. Dayan Viciedo
8. David Holmberg
9. Josh Phegley
10. John Shelby

On David Holmberg:

Holmberg brings a great mix of pitches to the mound, including a curveball and change-up that have the makings of plus pitches. His fastball falls flat right now, but further velocity is expected as his frame fills out. He’s the most intriguing pitching project in Chicago’s system.

Sox Top 15 prospects by Kevin Goldstein [UPDATE]

Kevin Goldstein:

Four-Star Prospects
1. Daniel Hudson, RHP
2. Jared Mitchell, OF
3. Tyler Flowers, C
Three-Star Prospects
4. Jordan Danks, CF
5. Dayan Viciedo, 3B
6. Brent Morel, 3B
7. Clevelan Santeliz, RHP
8. Trayce Thompson, OF
Two-Star Prospects
9. Santos Rodriguez, LHP
10. David Holmberg, LHP
11. C.J. Retherford, 2B
Four More:
12. Jhonny Nunez, RHP
13. Josh Phegley, C
14. John Ely, RHP
15. Nathan Jones, RHP

from the Daniel Hudson section:

The Good: Hudson combines plus stuff with well above-average command. His 92-94 mph fastball can touch 96 and features good tailing action, and he throws strikes to both sides of the plate with it. His best secondary offering is a plus changeup that is a true swing-and-miss pitch, which lessens the concerns about his slingy, low three-quarters arm action.
The Bad: Hudson’s slider flashed average, but it is inconsistent. He’ll need to establish it more as a starter in the big leagues. He tends to work up in the zone and gives up fly balls. Despite the enormous leap forward, many scouts think he’s maxed out projection-wise.
Perfect World Projection: Even with Hudson’s tremendous growth in 2009, some scouts don’t see room for much more, seeing him as a good third starter at best. Others think he’d be even better as a late-inning reliever.

UPDATE: Here’s Goldstein chat. He believes in the improvement of Tyler Flowers’ defense at catcher.