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 Rodolfo Duran
Phillies #19 prospect according to MLB.com … 22 years old … signed 6/22/15 - from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Rodolfo suffered a season ending knee injury on July 25th of last summer while playing for the Clearwater Threshers ... the next time I saw him was at the Complex on crutches after having surgery. This spring he was continuing to work with the rehab group but had progressed to running drills around the perimeter of the infield and some sprint work ... he’s continued to work during the social distancing period and should be relatively close to returning to game action ... if there are games to appear in 🤔
He’s very good defensively - excellent arm and release - has thrown out 40 percent of would be base stealers in his career, very good blocking skills, good hands and baseball smarts in pitch calling. Rodolfo also has some pop in his bat as reflected by 27 doubles and 24 home runs in his last 154 games played.
Projection : His build, demeanor and skill set compare favorably to Carlos Ruiz - similar to Carlos he had his breakout year offensively in his fourth pro season. He was on track to begin this season at Reading before the knee injury ... as it stands he’ll likely start at Clearwater once play resumes - has all the tools to be a major leaguer - if he stays on track developmentally will be there in a year or two.
