An inside look at the Phillies top prospects.
(MLBPipeline lists the top 30 prospects on each team’s website. While biding time waiting for baseball to resume, Steve Potter will provide his views of these young players. A Clearwater resident, his passion is seeing and following these prospects in person. Normally, Spectrum Field and Carpenter Complex are his second homes. His 4th Annual Phillies Minor League Digest is on sale at www.amazon.com.)
C Deivy Grullon.
Phillies #24 prospect according to MLB.com … 24 years old … signed 6/20/13 as an international free agent from Bonao, Dominican Republic
Deivy is yet another of the very pleasant young men in the organization, he’s very approachable and interactive. We first started following his career closely when he first arrived at Lakewood in 2014, he spent part of that season and the following two years with the Blue Claws, two of them as a teenager. What was immediately noticeable during catching drills was his arm strength, he’s an exceptional thrower.
The extra time at Lakewood was dedicated to both offensive development and sharpening his receiving skills. Deivy works diligently on his defense and has honed his game to be a viable big league receiver. Offensively he started to blossom during the 2016 season at Lakewood ... that carried over to Clearwater the following year.
In the past two seasons at Reading and Lehigh Valley he’s hit 42 home runs (21 each year) and earned a promotion to the show last summer.
Projection : Deivy has power to all fields and has shown the ability to be a consistent hitter. I agree with the MLB site’s assessment that his defensive game is major league caliber, it’s not elite but he’s more than capable of playing in the show. I see him as a good back up receiver who given an opportunity could do a formidable job as a primary catcher as well.
