Let’s stretch things out a bit
Mick Abel was once the team’s most promising prospect.
Then he wasn’t.
Abel has been a low key favorite of mine. Maybe it was the fact that he was drafted in the first round of a draft where no one was playing sports at the time, but something about Abel made me think he was the next ace the team would employ in their rotation.
All he has done is steadily climb the ladder in the minors and subsequently fall down lists in prospect-dom.
With Abel, we all know the story – control. He simply cannot control was is still, by all accounts, very good stuff. And as we know, if you cannot control your stuff at any level of professional baseball, bad results follow.
Still, Abel has some things working in his favor. He’s still only 23 years old, so time is still on his side a bit. He only needs to get his control into a spot where it’s average and he’ll find a spot in the back of a rotation. His stuff is still good enough that if the control doesn’t follow, he can become something like a solid reliever.
Let’s be real however. Time is running out. While he is still young, the control hasn’t gotten to the point where one can squint and see it. He needs to improve, or else he might find himself in another organization trying to get to the final part of that minor league ladder.
With each new post, we’ll reveal who won the voting for that particular slot, then post new players for you to vote on, adding another one to the list each time until we get to our final tally of 20. Once we get to 20 top prospects, we’ll do an honorable mention post at the end. If a player gets traded to another team, we’ll just chuck him right on outta here and all the players will move up a spot. If a prospect gets acquired, we’ll ask where he should go on the list.
Probably the most important thing about this whole process – please vote. Give us a few minutes of your time, just click a button and then we can discuss other players and things in the comment section, but don’t forget – VOTE!
Here are seven* candidates for the team’s ninth best prospect along with scouting reports from Fangraphs (or Baseball Prospectus where indicated). (*It was suggested we go to more prospects at this point)
Gabriel Rincones, Jr., OF
23 years old, 2025 expected level: AA Reading, 2024 stats: .252/.347/.453, 11 HR, 32 RBI, 23 SB
Rincones has plus left-handed power, but he struggles too much with secondary stuff to consider him a lock to be a suitable 400 PA platoon guy. Rincones’ limited amateur baseball reps and his time missed due to injuries leave room for him to improve a bit into his mid-20s, enough to be a lesser option of this sort.
Dante Nori, OF
20 years old, 2025 expected level: A Clearwater, 2024 stats: .240/.424/.280, 0 HR, 9 RBI, 4 SB
Nori has some exciting catalytic qualities, namely his speed. He’s a flat 70 runner and makes some of the fastest little strides in pro baseball. Though his feel for center field is a little unpolished, Nori has the wheels to be an impact glove out there at maturity. His offense is probably going to be a little lighter than that of most everyday center fielders, who tend to have some power. Nori’s hitting hands work in such a way that it causes him to spray lots of oppo contact. He’s going to pepper the gaps and the left field line with liners, and produce extra-base hits more with his legs than his power.
Michael Mercado
25 years old, 2025 expected level: AAA Lehigh Valley, 2024 stats (AAA): 32 G (10 GS), 69 2⁄3 IP, 64:35 K:BB
Late in the season, Mercado’s seldom-used changeup took an enormous step forward. Once the calendar turned to August, it quickly became Mercado’s most-used secondary pitch, and it performed like a plus-plus offering during the last month of play. One in every three or four of Mercado’s changeups is really nasty, while the others aren’t in enticing locations. But he’s barely used it, so his command of it should improve, and I think it’ll be a consistently plus pitch soon. Given that his cutter and curveball are also pretty good, it’s plausible Mercado could revisit a starter role in the future now that he more clearly has the repertoire depth. But he was also routinely reaching back for 97 at the end of the year in single-inning bursts, has the tools to deal with hitters of either handedness, and seems likely to be a very successful reliever from the jump. There’s more upside here than that of just a generic middle reliever, be it via Mercado working four or more outs at a time or eventually stretching out as a starter again. He’s a sneaky candidate to be the Phils’ third or fourth best reliever this year.
Alex McFarlane
23 years old, 2025 expected level: A+ Jersey Shore, 2024 stats: did not pitch (Tommy John surgery)
Healthy 2025 McFarlane could enjoy a Kerkering-like rise through the minors, especially if the Phillies decide to ‘pen him. When he was totally healthy early in 2023, McFarlane was sitting 98-100 mph, then backed into the 94-97 range closer to when he was shut down. His monster arm strength helps make up for his fastball’s tailing shape, created by his nearly side-arm delivery. His gyro slider induced a plus-plus 21% swinging strike rate against A-ball hitters (an important caveat) in 2023, and McFarlane also has a rare changeup that he threw fewer than 50 times before he was shut down.
Seth Johnson
26 years old, 2025 expected level: AAA Lehigh Valley, 2024 stats w/ PHI (AAA): 5 GS, 23 IP, 19:14 K:BB
The Orioles were willing to use a 2023 40-man spot on a rehabbing Johnson, who returned to an affiliated mound barely a year after that. Now more than two years post-surgery, his control hasn’t gotten much better. He also doesn’t have a weapon to deal with lefties, as Johnson’s best secondaries remain his usual curveball and cutter. Especially now that he’s entering his last option year, Johnson is pretty likely to be a stock middle reliever.
Devin Saltiban
19 years old, 2025 expected level: A+ Jersey Shore, 2024 stats: .237/.346/.428, 17 HR, 53 RBI, 22 SB
Saltiban is built like a little running back and has an exciting power/speed combo, which allowed him to hit 17 bombs in Clearwater last year, a couple of which went out to the opposite field. He has a very authoritative top hand through contact and is capable of turning on fastballs up around his hands, but he struggles to recognize sliders. Saltiban is perhaps the highest variance prospect in this system. There’s a chance he doesn’t make enough contact to be anything at all, but there’s also a chance he’s a 20-homer center fielder in spite of a ton of strikeouts. Because his position is still totally up in the air, Saltiban remains more of a toolsy dev project than a true impact prospect, even though he has that kind of ceiling.
Bryan Rincon
21 years old, 2025 expected level: A+ Jersey Shore, 2024 stats: .198/.331/.322, 2 HR, 15 RBI, 8 SB
He was at or under the Mendoza Line all year when he was healthy enough to play. How much of this was rust, or related to discomfort and tightness that preceded the IL stint, and how much is related to Rincon’s talent? His underlying contact rates dipped from 88% in-zone and 81% overall in 2023 to 81% in-zone and 74% overall in 2024. Rincon looked better at shortstop the further away he got from his hamstring injury, and was good there in the AFL, but the same was not true of his hitting hands, which were still a little slow and stiff. A year ago, it looked like Rincon would have the skill set of a Geraldo Perdomo type of second division regular. Now he’s looking more like a lower-impact reserve whose best skill is his plate discipline.
So now, it’s your chance to vote. You’ve got 48 hours – go on and vote! If you have an option that isn’t listed here, let us know in the comments. If he gets enough recs to beat out of the other seven, he’ll be crowned as the next top prospect.