The Philadelphia Phillies’ system starts off with a couple of potential stars, then a couple of other guys with significant upside and then it tails off very quickly into “extra guy” territory — relievers, utility infielders, platoon bats, etc. They had a tough year on the injury front as well, and it wasn’t all injuries to elbows.
(Note: Tools are graded on a 20-80 scouting scale; ages as of July 1, 2026. EV = exit velocity.)
Height: 6-1 | Weight: 205 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age:Â 22
Miller is a power-hitting shortstop who’s improved in almost every aspect of the game over his two full seasons in the Phillies’ system, and he’s going to push the Phillies into making some hard decisions about their middle infield before this year is out. Miller started slowly in Double A last year and was hitting just .234/.354/.379 at the All-Star break with a 26 percent strikeout rate, as he wasn’t getting on plane nearly often enough. After the break, he decided to lower his hands at his setup and increase his leg kick, helping him square up the ball for more hard contact and in-game power. He posted a 15 percent line-drive rate before the break and a 24 percent rate from that point until his promotion to Triple A in September, with a .307/.443/.511 line across both levels in the second half. He’s at least a plus defender at shortstop now and has boosted his game speed to the point where that’s plus as well, leading to 59 steals last year in 74 attempts (80 percent).
Even when he was struggling, he didn’t come out of his approach, with strong swing decisions across the board that will probably lead to a high OBP this year when he’s in Triple A, where walk rates are higher anyway due to ABS. I don’t think he needs a full year at that level before he’s ready for the majors, just needing to refine some of his pitch recognition, and there’s a good chance that by July 1 he’ll be the best choice for shortstop at Citizens Bank Park.
Height: 6-7 | Weight: 215 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 23
Painter returned in 2025 after missing two full regular seasons due to an elbow injury that eventually required Tommy John surgery to fix. He pitched briefly in the AFL in 2024 (that league remains worth every penny MLB invests in it, with the controlled environment it provides for players who are coming back from injuries or need reps), and the comeback tour was … let’s call it a modest success. He made 26 starts, 22 of them in Triple A, and threw 118 innings without incident, still sitting 95-98 on the four-seamer and showing a hammer curveball. He posted a 5.40 ERA in Triple A, however, and it wasn’t a result of bad luck or bad defense — you can’t blame the defense for making you give up 18 homers — but poor command and some pitch selection issues. The Phillies want Painter to throw a slider and it was his primary breaking pitch last year. I think the slider is jumbled up with the curveball so that neither is as effective as it could be. (Painter throws a curveball and a slider, but Statcast splits his sliders into sliders and cutters; they look extremely similar in person and the pitch spray charts are almost identical.)
He does have a plus changeup, and if any one of the breaking pitches, whatever you call them, were plus, he’d be a potential top of the rotation starter — which is what I thought he might become after his tremendous 2022 season. He also needs to work in the strike zone more, but I’m inclined to forgive that for any pitcher just coming back from major surgery. His ceiling hasn’t really changed from where it was pre-TJ, but his probabilities have shifted, where he might need more time to hit that No. 1 ceiling, or is slightly less likely to get there at all.
Justin Crawford runs well, hits for average and plays well defensively, but he needs to get the ball in the air more to be an all-around player. (Kim Klement Neitzel/ Imagn Images)
Height: 6-2 | Weight: 188 | Bats: L |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age:Â 22
Crawford led Triple-A hitters in batting average last year, which isn’t as important as it seemed 25 years ago but is still something, especially when that batting average is .334 and comes with above-average walk and strikeout rates. He’s an 80 runner and a 70 defender in center with good instincts as well, perhaps ending up an 80 defender in time, while he has excellent bat speed and hits the ball much harder than you’d expect from his low ISOs, including a .118 figure last year that was his lowest yet in any full-season league. He puts the ball on the ground a stupid amount of the time, and I don’t use that adjective lightly: He has too much raw power to continue to hit like this, with a high-hands setup and a swing that is geared to get on top of the ball and hit it into the ground. He’s still a valuable regular as it is because he rarely whiffs (7.3 percent swinging strike rate last year), even with a tendency to chase pitches out of the zone, and while he hits the ball on the ground 60 percent of the time, enough of those ground balls are hit hard enough to get him on base. It’s long past time to rework his swing to get him to drive the ball, but if this is what he is, he’ll still be a 2+ WAR player just on speed, defense and contact.
Height: 5-10 | Weight: 180 |Â Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 21
Escobar spent 2024 in the Florida Complex League, hitting .338/.495/.481 in 24 games and spending the rest of the year on the IL with shin splints. He was healthy in 2025 and showed what he can really do, hitting well enough to finish the year in Double A at age 20. Escobar is a hitter, not in the hackneyed “he’s a professional hitter” sense, but in the sense that his calling card is his ability to put the ball in play and hit for average, with some sneaky power that you really don’t expect from his frame or from most of his swings. His plan is to make contact, but he looks for pitches he can pull as well, with all but one of his homers going out to the pull side, with a peak EV of 110.8. He hits like someone who thinks he can hit everything, which isn’t far from the truth, but some cracks in the approach emerged last year — he will expand the zone, especially with two strikes, and right-on-right sliders gave him trouble. As for his defense, he’s a second baseman, and of all of the second base prospects in the minors, he’s one of them. I don’t think he’ll have to move off the position, and I don’t think he’ll be more than average, at which point the bat should make him a strong regular with a chance to be an occasional All-Star thanks to 15-20 homer power.
5. Gage Wood, RHPHeight: 6-0 | Weight: 205 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age:Â 22
Wood missed time last spring with a shoulder impingement, then came back to throw a 19-strikeout no-hitter in the College World Series for Arkansas. The Phillies’ 2025 first-round pick is up to 98 with huge life on the fastball, while his 12-6 curveball is easily plus, and he might have a third plus pitch in the slider if he continues to develop it. He doesn’t have a weapon for left-handed batters, allowing a slugging percentage over .500 to them last year at Arkansas, and he has a history of arm trouble, both of which point to a more likely future in relief than the rotation.
I wrote at the time of the pick that I thought the Phillies might try to move him quickly to bolster their big-league bullpen; they did have him throw once in the minors before the season was out, but it sounds like they’ll at least start him in the rotation this year. It’s not impossible that he could start if the Phillies help him find a third pitch — maybe a splitter of some sort, since everything he throws is hard and a changeup may not suit his style — to handle lefties.
6. Dante Nori, OFHeight: 5-9 | Weight: 190 | Bats: L | Throws: L |Â Age: 21
In early June, it looked like Nori, the Phillies’ first-rounder in 2024, was going to be a bust, as he came out of the gate hitting .224/.293/.320 with no impact as a 20-year-old in Low A. The Phillies worked with him on his positioning and movements within the batter’s box to try to get him to harder contact, and it worked, as he hit .324/.427/.490 from June 1 through his promotion to High A until they bumped him up to Double A for the final week of the season. His exit velocities averaged 84.8 mph before June 1, with a max EV of 104.9; after that date, he averaged 87 mph and his max was 109.2. He’s a 60 runner and plus defender in center field, and if he’s even hitting 10 homers a year with enough hard contact to keep his average up, he’s going to be a very good regular, probably the kind of leadoff hitter the Phillies have lacked for years.
7. Gabriel Rincones, Jr. OFHeight: 6-3 | Weight: 225 | Bats: L | Throws:Â R |Â Age: 25
Rincones is a platoon corner outfielder right now, period. He hit .107/.215/.107 off lefties in Triple A, which is dismal, but he mashed against righties, with a .261/.392/.480 line that included a 17 percent walk rate. It’s loud and consistent hard contact, and he could hit 20 homers if he played every day against righties, while also providing 55 defense in right. Just pair him with a right-handed hitter who hits lefties — which, unfortunately, does not appear to be the guy the Phillies actually signed, Adolis GarcĂa — and you might have a two-headed monster that produces like an All-Star.
8. Cade Obermueller, LHPHeight: 6-0 | Weight: 170 | Bats: L | Throws: L |Â Age:Â 22
Obermueller sat 92-94 and touched 98 last spring for Iowa with an above-average slider, working from a low three-quarters slot that adds some deception but does make his approach very east-west. The Phillies need to develop his changeup or give him something else for righties, as otherwise he’s probably a reliever. The good news is he made some adjustments from 2024 to 2025 that helped him get in the zone more often, so he should have some further growth ahead of him. The 2025 second-round pick is athletic and moves well on the mound, although he’s not very physical, which also raised some concerns that he’d end up in relief. He should go to High A as a starter as he works on finding a third pitch.
9. Moisés Chace, RHPHeight: 6-1 | Weight: 213 | Bats: R | Throws: R | Age: 23
Chace didn’t look right at the start of the 2025 season and ended up having Tommy John surgery at the end of May, putting him out at least into this summer. He finished 2024 so strongly, too, attacking hitters much more in the zone after the Phillies acquired him from the Orioles in the Gregory Soto trade, with his 94-95 invisiball his best offering and enough of an arsenal to see a future starter once he demonstrated he could throw enough strikes. We’ll see if the stuff returns this year, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see the real Chace again until 2027.
Matthew Fisher was a two-sport star in high school. (MaCabe Brown / Courier & Press / USA Today Network)
10. Matthew Fisher, RHPHeight: 6-3 | Weight: 200 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 20
Fisher was the Phillies’ seventh-round pick last season but signed for $1.25 million, well over slot for the round, as one of the best high school prospects in the class. He was a two-sport guy in high school who brings that athleticism to the mound, working with a high-spin four-seamer and good extension out front while flashing a future-plus curveball. He sat in the low to mid 90s last spring, with projection remaining, and he has a delivery that should let him throw strikes. I had him as a high second-round talent, close to the top of all high school arms in the class, and loved the pick for the massive upside.
11. Devin Saltiban, OF/2BHeight: 5-9 | Weight: 180 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 21
Saltiban got off to a rough start at the plate that only got worse when he fouled a ball off his … well, where you least want to foul a ball off. He missed over two months — seriously, take all the time you need, here’s an entire year with full pay — and wasn’t the same when he returned. One small positive is that the Phillies moved him to center after he came back and that’s going to be his best position going forward. He can run and make hard contact; it was just a lost year, and he has my deepest sympathies.
12. Jean Cabrera, RHPHeight: 6-0 | Weight: 145 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 24
Cabrera will show 94-96 early in outings with a solid-average changeup and a 45ish slider that he uses too often, but he can’t hold the velocity deep enough into starts and hitters get much more comfortable the second and third times they face him. He’s quite small, I’m guessing more like 5-foot-10 and still slender, and I think he’s a definite reliever.
13. Alex McFarlane, RHPHeight: 6-3 | Weight: 215 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 25
McFarlane returned from Tommy John surgery to sit 95-97 again, getting up to 100, with a plus slider that dominates right-handers, using an arm-heavy delivery and lacking anything for lefties, who didn’t do much damage off him last year but managed a .392 OBP. He actually walked more left-handed batters than he struck out, which is about as clear an indication that someone needs to move to relief as you’ll get.
14. Gabe Craig, RHPHeight: 6-5 | Weight: 209 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 24
Craig will be a great story if he makes the majors: He went undrafted five times before the Phillies selected him in 2025, taking the 24-year-old Baylor graduate student in the fifth round. He was up to 97 for Baylor and walked three in 32 innings with a plus slider. He could be another Orion Kerkering as a two-pitch reliever who zips to the majors, and given Craig’s age and experience, I’d start him no lower than Double A.
15. Keaton Anthony, 1BHeight: 6-2 | Weight: 211 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 25
Anthony is first base-only and doesn’t have the power to profile as a regular there, but the guy has hit everywhere, with batting averages over .300 at all four full-season levels, including .313/.374/.433 in 33 games in Triple A to finish his 2025 season. It’s fringy power and he doesn’t walk much, as he chases quite a few pitches out of the zone (31 percent overall last year, 35 percent in Triple A) and hits enough of them to keep his strikeout rates reasonable. I don’t see this formula producing a high enough batting average in the majors to make him more than an up-and-down guy or someone a 100-loss team acquires to play first for a couple of years at no cost.
16. Felix Reyes, OF/1BHeight: 6-4 | Weight: 195 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 25
Reyes hit .331/.362/.562 last year as a 24-year-old, mostly in Double A, rarely walking (4.8 percent) or striking out (15.7 percent) because he swings at everything and can also kind of hit everything. He does have plus power and is capable in the outfield corners, so while he’s probably not going to maintain the high batting averages, he could end up a bench or platoon bat for somebody. I’d love to see what he and Gabriel Rincones could do as a right-field tandem.
17. Matthew Ferrara, 2BHeight: 6-0 | Weight: 183 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 19
The Phillies took Ferrara out of Toms River High in New Jersey in the ninth round last season and sent him out to Low-A Clearwater to get him some game reps, even though he’d only turned 18 in June. He struggled, as you’d expect given that magnitude of jump, striking out in 13 of his first 26 PA, after which the Phillies made some quick adjustments and he started making more contact in the zone and even cut his strikeout rate to 10 Ks in his final 38 PA. He’s a plus runner who should develop into at least an above-average defender at second. The hit tool is obviously still TBD, but the fact that he could make an immediate adjustment and start putting more good pitches in play is a positive sign.
18. Alirio Ferrebus, CHeight: 6-2 | Weight: 174 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 20
Ferrebus is an offensive catcher who hit well as a 19-year-old in the Florida Complex League before struggling in 44 games in Low A because he started to swing at absolutely everything. He does flash above-average power and does enough to potentially stay behind the plate, although the Phillies had him split time there with a 21-year-old non-prospect in the FCL. If he moves to first base, I’m not sure the bat will support it.
19. Ramon Marquez, RHPHeight: 6-2 | Weight: 182 | Bats: R |Â Throws:Â R |Â Age: 20
Marquez signed very late for an international amateur free agent, getting $10,000 last January as a 19-year-old, and reached Low A in his first pro season with success at two stops. He’s a sinker/changeup guy who’s been up to 96, with a below-average slider that led to a reverse platoon split in his debut season. Hitters chased his stuff out of the zone 43 percent of the time last year, leading to a ton of swinging strikes and somewhat artificially reducing his walk rate as he’s not actually in the zone that much. It’s a violent delivery with a head-whack at release; with that, the slider and what I think is more like 40-45 command, he’s probably a reliever, but with some upside because of the changeup.
Bryan Rincon hasn’t hit well the past two seasons and has also been hampered by injuries. (Norm Hall / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
20. Bryan Rincon, SSHeight: 5-11 | Weight: 185 | Bats: B | Throws:Â R |Â Age: 22
Rincon remains an elite defender at shortstop who will flash some hard contact and the makings of power at the plate, but he hasn’t hit at all the last two years when he’s been able to avoid the IL. His injuries included a hamstring that cost him about four months of the 2024 season. He was running well again last year, stealing 40 bases in 45 attempts, but didn’t hit a lick in High A. He’s way too passive at the plate, as he doesn’t chase but also doesn’t swing often enough at strikes, even when he’s in two-strike counts. He’ll turn 22 later this month, and I’m assuming he’ll just go to Double A after playing 100+ games in High A, but if he doesn’t hit this year, I’d say he’s probably done as anything but an emergency call-up.
2026 impact
Crawford could win the Opening Day center field job, although I think his impact with the bat will be limited unless and until he changes his swing. Painter could have a more significant impact, although right now he’s on the outside of the roster looking in. One of the relief candidates could zip to the majors and have some impact in August or September, such as Craig.
The fallen
The Phillies released their 2021 second-round pick, outfielder Jordan Viars, after he failed to get out of High A again, hitting .138/.190/.202 in 31 games after doing nothing there at the end of 2024.
Sleeper
Nori’s trending towards top 100 status already, and if the Phillies are appropriately aggressive with him, he’ll be firmly on the list next January.