When the Phillies splurged on an 11-year contract to land Trea Turner, it bought a certain part of the organization time. The Phillies know nothing is guaranteed, although there is a reason eight spots in their lineup are locked into club control through at least 2025. There are no hitting prospects on the immediate horizon to contribute as everyday players. It’s an organizational weakness, and one the Phillies had been thinking about for the last year as they reimagined how they draft and develop hitters.
Advertisement
Time, in amateur scouting and player development, is a valuable asset. The Phillies’ best position-player prospect might be an 18-year-old outfielder (Justin Crawford) with 16 games of experience in professional ball. They like a 19-year-old Taiwanese infielder (Hao Yu Lee) who has yet to play above A-ball but makes contact and drives the ball. They will always be intrigued by the speed and defense of a 22-year-old Dominican center fielder (Johan Rojas) who has improvements to make as a hitter.
Within the industry, the Phillies are highly regarded for their young pitching. They have three legitimate rotation prospects — Andrew Painter, Mick Abel and Griff McGarry, all acquired since 2020 — who could appear in the majors sometime during 2023.
“Whether it’s lucky or whether it’s good, we’ve been bringing in some quality pitching,” said Brian Barber, the Phillies’ director of amateur scouting. “But that’s throughout professional baseball now. And that’s really permeated down to amateur baseball where guys’ stuff is just so much better. It’s just becoming harder and harder to hit, and to be able to identify those few guys that will have big success in the big leagues. It’s hard.”
It is harder, the Phillies decided, without greater collaboration between scouting and player development. As they distanced themselves from initiatives implemented by the previous front-office regime, there was a tacit acknowledgment that different departments hadn’t just failed to work together; sometimes, opposing forces prevented the Phillies from having a functional development pipeline.
They need time.
Earlier this month, the Phillies created a new position within the organization and hired Luke Murton as director of hitting. Murton replaces Jason Ochart, whom the Phillies hired from Driveline Baseball before the 2019 season but parted ways with in September. (Ochart has since accepted a similar role with the Boston Red Sox.) Murton’s job, however, is different than the typical minor-league hitting coordinator. The Phillies will have him scout potential draft picks while overseeing the farm system’s hitting program.
Advertisement
Other teams might have similar arrangements, Barber said, but perhaps not as defined as the Phillies envision this one. Murton will report to both Barber and Preston Mattingly, the club’s director of player development.
“I think understanding both sides and having those conversations, that’s one thing I’m excited about,” Murton said this week. “If we’re sitting here saying, ‘We’re going to take this guy in this round, and we feel like we can do this, this, and this over time.’ And, if we don’t, then it’s on me. … If you do have success doing that, you gain trust, and you can continue to improve the organization.”
The Phillies have attempted a more top-down approach as they shape organizational philosophies under president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. Brian Kaplan, hired as the club’s director of pitching development before the 2022 season, worked as a coach in the majors but influenced what the Phillies targeted in amateur pitchers and how they emphasized it with farmhands. Kevin Long, the veteran big-league hitting coach, played a large part in the process this offseason to chart an organizational hitting plan.
“We wanted to make sure we aligned with his beliefs and how we want to train hitters,” Mattingly said. “What we feel works as an organization.”
In 2021, only two teams devoted fewer plate appearances to players 26 or younger than the Phillies did. But, last season, the Phillies were near the league average in both plate appearances to those players and production (as measured by most advanced offensive metrics).
Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott, two former first-round picks, look like big-league regulars. The Phillies turned their breakout position-player prospect, catcher Logan O’Hoppe, into another young and controllable player (Brandon Marsh) with a better positional fit for the club (center field). They received meaningful contributions from homegrown role players such as Matt Vierling, Darick Hall and Nick Maton.
Advertisement
It was an improvement.
But the Phillies are aware that, as an organization, coherent hitting development has been elusive. It is not a recent shortcoming. This has afflicted the organization for more than a decade — at least. It has spanned numerous philosophies and personalities on the scouting and development sides. The Phillies have drafted for higher-ceiling tools and they have drafted “safer” hitting profiles. They have chased trends in hitting instruction.
Lost in all of this: The Phillies have failed to find a sweet spot — identifying what they are good at developing and matching that with amateur players who fit the mold. It’s a process that requires some overlap between player development and scouting.
So, they will try this new arrangement.
“The organization’s vision of getting everyone on the same page and collaborating amongst departments is very important,” Mattingly said. “This role helps us kind of solidify that on the offensive side.”
Murton, 36, spent the last four years working as a Padres scouting advisor to baseball operations. He played five seasons of minor-league ball with the Yankees (2009-13). He coached at Samford University, then in the Red Sox system. He was an area scout with the Giants.
Barber, the scouting director, said there was not a week in the last calendar year when he did not talk to Mattingly, the farm director. Barber, who just finished his 22nd year in scouting, said that type of communication across departments isn’t typical. Murton, now, will become a trusted voice on both sides.
“You can talk about the old adage: The hardest thing to do in sports is to hit major-league pitching,” Barber said. “As a scout, I believe the second-hardest thing is to try to identify players that will end up hitting. … (But) there are things that lead you to believe in a player’s (hitting) ability.
Advertisement
“Before, it was just, you hand it over to player development. And then they develop him from there, regardless of what you thought on the scouting end. I don’t believe those two things are mutually exclusive or independent of each other. They have to work together.”
Barber, since assuming control of the club’s drafts, has valued bigger tools and players with higher upside (and higher risk) than the previous regime. The Phillies have a philosophy for what they value in hitters, but Barber admitted, “I don’t know that it’s been fully implemented yet.” For now, they will lean on the standard buzzwords.
“We want guys to make consistent contact and hit the ball hard,” Murton said. “That is going to be the main thing. But it’s more, like, how do we get there? I think that’s where with Barber leading the draft, then me overseeing the development side of it, putting guys in positions to do that. Having them buy into what you’re trying to get them to do will hopefully get you to where you want to go.”
Contact will be a point of emphasis — not that it wasn’t before.
“You look at prospects throughout the game that end up not making it, I feel like a lot of times from a hitting perspective, they don’t make it because they don’t make enough contact,” Murton said. “Their physical ability is definitely present. But they just don’t have enough ability to find the bat on the ball.”
With Murton filling a larger role than the typical minor-league hitting leader, the Phillies will rearrange the assignments under him. They will have an upper-level hitting coordinator, Kevin Mahala, who focuses on Triple A, Double A and High A. Jake Elmore will be the lower-level hitting coordinator who focuses on Low A and the complex players. The Phillies will extend more latitude to the affiliate hitting coaches — Joe Thurston and Tyler Henson are back at Triple A and Double A, and Chris Heintz will move from an assistant coordinator position to be the Low-A Clearwater hitting coach. He’ll be responsible for some of the more highly regarded hitters drafted by Barber: Crawford, Jordan Viars, Gabriel Rincones Jr., and others.
The Phillies hired Edwar González, who was an assistant hitting coach in the majors with the Miami Marlins, to oversee hitting at the club’s academy in the Dominican Republic. He’ll also work with the international scouting department to identify potential signees who fit the organization’s player-development mold.
Advertisement
“We have to create an environment that allows our players to be free and succeed — and also our staff,” Mattingly said. “Luke and the hitting leadership can help create that environment that we’re looking for.”
There is immense pressure to win now in the majors, and the Phillies have operated as such. They’ll need more contributions from homegrown hitters in the future, but the roster is structured to lessen that immediate need. It means Barber and Mattingly have time to grow a different vision for the organization’s hitting program.
“I think we needed a lot of everything when I came in here, and that’s just reality,” said Barber, who was hired before the 2020 season. “We’ve had some really good players move up through the system, but the minor leagues was not where we wanted (it to be). And it still isn’t. We realize that. Even as good as we think some of these pitchers are in the minors, we need more of them. And the position players, we definitely need more of them.”
GO DEEPER
Phillies scouts share insights on 7 of team's 2022 draft picks
(Top photo of Justin Crawford: Mike Janes / Four Seam Images via Associated Press)