The Phillies are making 17 more picks today. I am going to run down the reports and other things you need to know so you don’t have to. For everything to do with Day 1, check below:
Round 4 – Sean Youngerman – P – Oklahoma State
The Phillies start the day with another college pitcher (since I wrote this, they selected 2 more). Youngerman just turned 21 and is built solid, 6’3″ 230. That’s a pitching frame right there. After starting in NAIA, he made it to OKState last year and thrived. Whether out of the bullpen or as a starter, he pitched to a 2.08 ERA and struck out a ton more than he walked, 59:8, while only surrendering 3 HRs in his 52 innings. He comes with a mid 90s fastball that plays up as a reliever like you would expect.
It is a shame that the Cubs didn’t draft him as Eddie Vedder probably would have written the third in his trilogy of MAN songs: Better-, Nothing-, and now Youngerman. The jokes will not get better as the day goes on folks.
Round 5 – Gabe Craig – P – Baylor
You want to see a stat line? As a 23-year-old Senior at Baylor, Craig put up absolutely bonkers numbers:
| ERA | ER | Walks | SO | HR/A | IP | SO:W | WHIP |
| .56 | 2 | 3 | 51 | 0 | 32 | 17 | .500 |
Sweet mercy. Craig is a 6’5″ righty with an absurd slider that MLB has graded at 70 (20-80 scale) which means it’s as awesome as Gage Wood’s fastball. That will play. It might play immediately too. A lot was made yesterday of the Phillies taking guys who could fit in the bullpen right now, and while they probably could, they are starters. Craig is naturally a relief pitcher and could theoretically step right in due to his age and experience. I have to think they are considering it depending on what happens at the trade deadline.
Round 6 – James Tallon – P – Duke
Tallon is not ranked among MLB’s Top 250, but he is also a relief pitcher, so that isn’t surprising. He is a junior lefty who had a solid season with a mid 90s fastball. The interesting thing about him is that his freshman year was by far his best. In 33 innings that year he had a 1.64 ERA and a 54:11 K/BB ratio. He is down across the board this year. His velocity is way up since then though, so who knows what to make of that.
Round 7 – Matthew Fisher – P – Memorial HS
WE HAVE A NON-COLLEGE PITCHER!!! It was bound to happen eventually, but the Phillies finally went a slightly different way. MLB has Fisher as the #46 prospect on their board, and he was projected as a possible first rounder. Why wasn’t he picked yet? Because he has a commitment to Indiana where he is the top of their recruiting class. Maybe teams thought it cost too much to sign him? The hope is that the Phillies saved enough money in the earlier rounds to offer Fisher significantly over his slot value of $257,700.
If they can convince him to turn pro, Fisher is a very nice projectable prospect. He is 6’3″ and around 200 pounds with a mid-90s fastball at only 19 years old. 19 is slightly older than the average HS prospect, but so was Aiden Miller. He throws 4 pitches and I would have to assume that he would immediately vault to #3 in terms of Phillies pitching prospects behind Painter and Wood.
As interesting note is that he went to Memorial High School in Indiana. Why should you care about that? Well, so did Don Mattingly. Why should you care about that? Well, Don happens to be the father of Preston Mattingly who happens to be the GM of the Phillies. Preston went to high school about 6 miles away from Fisher and considering we are talking about Evansville Indiana here, I am damn near positive the families know each other. The Phillies have to believe they can sign this kid, and probably know a ton about him.
Round 8 – Brian Walters – P – University of Miami
Walters was drafted by the Mariners last season in the 19th round but chose to go back to school. Granted he was drafted higher by the Phillies, but I am not sure there is too much shine left on the reliever. He started the season in the rotation and even had some nice early season results, but things gradually fell off from there. He went back to the bullpen where had some success the previous season and assumed the closer role, but that didn’t go very well either.
Brian throws mid-90s and has a Tommy John Surgery in his past. His older brother Andrew Walters also went the U and is currently in the Guardians organization where he has had a tough go around this season. The brothers both sport some flashy red hair that makes you wonder how they last 3 years each in Coral Gables.
Round 9 – Matthew Ferrara – SS – Toms River East HS
The Phillies FINALLY selected a position player with the NJ local Ferrara. It isn’t often that you see a high school player drafted who is not nationally ranked. Not to say Ferrara isn’t good. He is the 3rd ranked player in the state and is committed to Pittsburgh. You have to believe the Phillies have some sort of deal already in place with the kid. If a player is picked in the first 10 rounds, that pick has to be signed or the slot money is deducted from the total. This is not the place to go drafting on a whim.
Ferrara hit .405 this season with 10 walks in 85 at bats. That’s someone who has pretty solid awareness of the strike zone. He only hit 3 home runs this season, but two of those came in championship games. All the local articles about him take pride in referencing this, he’s a gamer.
Round 10 – Cole Gilley – P – Indiana
Through 10 rounds, the Phillies have either selected a college pitcher or a High Schooler named Matthew.
As for Gilley, he had a cool story in that he always wanted to play for the Hoosiers. He grew up nearby, was recruited there, and committed there. Then they changed their whole staff and he withdrew his commitment. He only faced one batter as a freshman for Indiana State instead, then he tore his UCL between his freshman and sophomore seasons. He fought back to eventually be good enough in the bullpen to make it back to the rotation and to get re-recruited by Indiana (!) where he finished out his senior season this past year.1
Gilley has a low 90’s fastball and a high 80’s cutter. He is a little over 6′ and 200 pounds and will probably be a well under slot signing for the Phillies. I’m sure his love of all things Indiana will not go unnoticed by current Indiana favorite Kyle Schwarber.
Round 11 – Will Vierling – C – Murray State
I know your first question, and unfortunately no, Will Vierling is not related to former Phillie Matt Vierling.[UPDATE: he’s Matt’s cousin!] He is tangentially related to the now 11th newest Phillie Gage Wood though since he was in the Murray State lineup that was not hit by Gage in the CWS. I wonder if that will come up at some point?
Vierling is a good hitting catcher though and will add depth to a farm system that is in desperate need. After not playing much, Vierling broke out big as a junior, filling up the stat sheet with a .312 average, more walks than strikeouts, and a .945 OPS. His 10 HRs, 51 RBI, and 17 doubles in 60 games seems pretty solid for a catcher.
Round 12 – Tyler Bowen – P – Lander University
According to the internet, Tyler Bowen is the offensive line coach at Ohio State. I then refined my search some and see that I am bad at this. The Tyler Bown that was drafted is a relief pitcher who just transferred to Oregon after several years at small Lander University. He is now 2 years removed from internal brace surgery that nearly derailed his pitching career. He is now back up to pitching with some serious velocity, getting up to 99. If you want the whole Tyler Bowen story, his home newspaper summed him up nicely.
Round 13 – Jack Barker – OF – College of Southern Idaho
I had to do some digging, but Barker plays all 3 outfield spots and hit .456 this past season for the Golden Eagles in the Scenic West Athletic Conference. He also walked 33 times and stole 19 bags in 57 games.
The college of Southern Idaho is located right between Boise and Salt Lake City on I-84 in case you were wondering. They have rodeo teams.
Round 14 – Jonathan Gonzalez – P – Stetson
Gonzalez is a Miami local from famous Christopher Columbus High School. At age 22 this past season, the lefty put up fantastic numbers as a starter, pitching to an ERA of 2.11 in 93 innings while only giving up a single home run and a 5:1 K/BB ratio. He made the preseason Pitcher of the Year watch list and didn’t disappoint.
Round 15 – Jacob Pruitt – P – Mississippi State
Pruitt just transferred to Missouri after a pretty bad year at Mississippi State. After a solid sophomore year at Indiana State, Pruitt moved to the SEC where he got lit “TF” up to the tune of a 7.23 ERA and a walk and a hit per inning. It looks bad. The Phillies must see the 57 strikeouts in 41 innings the year before and hope that he can recover his form.
Round 16 – Logan Dawson – SS – Eastern HS
Another local boy, this one from Vorhees, but this one is less in a position to sign with the Phillies. I couldn’t find anything on Dawson other than him being 19, a Boston College recruit, and the 3rd ranked SS in NJ.
Round 17 – Richie Cortese – P – Lander University
Ok, now I have to find out where exactly Lander University is considering I had never heard of it before and now that’s twice in the last 2 hours. Oh, well then, it has been around for 150 years in South Carolina. I feel like an ass. In my searching I also found out that he was at a place called Dickinson State before that. This isn’t the Fairleigh type of Dickinson that you are familiar with because DSU is in North Dakota. Wow, North Dakota to South Carolina? That’s crazy. Crazier still, he is from Montana. So that’s 320 miles from Billings to DSU, then another 1776 miles (I took some …liberty… with the exact number)2 to Lander University. What am I doing? I’ll move on.
Cortese is enormous. At 6’6″, 240 pounds, he is easily the biggest guy in the Phillies’ draft class. He used to be a big-average-but-strangely-low-power-for-his-size first baseman at DSU, but he gave that up for bullpen duty in SC. His numbers are a little silly: about a hit, a walk, and 2 strikeouts each inning. I couldn’t find anything on him, but he has to basically be Rick Vaughn.
One last thing. How is it possible that there is a seemingly unrelated Richie Cortese also in Greenville, SC (same as Lander) who just died in February at 83 years old. The baseball playing Cortese is not listed in the obituary. I am getting a little too into this whole late round draftee thing.
Round 18 – Matthew Potok – P – Coastal Carolina
Potok pitched mostly out of the bullpen this season. He struck out a batter per inning with a reasonably low WHIP. He seems pretty much like an organizational filler guy, except…he went to JAckson Memorial HS in NJ and grew up in Brick. Interestingly enough, he commited to Coastal Carolina as a sophmore in HS. Apparently it was his dream school.3
Round 19 – Robert Phelps – P – Reinhardt University
Phelps is from Pittsburgh and was committed to West Virginia this season. That didn’t work out. Instead, he spent his 3rd straight season at a different junior college, this time a school in Georgia called Reinhardt. At Reinhardt he hit .350 and walked about double what he struck out and added 11 homers. He seems to have pretty solid speed.
I wonder if he knows that he shares a name with a semi famous mathematician who wrote his dissertation on subreflexive Banach spaces?
Round 20 – Landon Schaefer – SS – Fayetteville HS
With their final pick, the Phillies selected the Arkansas recruit. This seems like a fallback pick in that if anything goes wrong with another signing or there is money left over, they will try to throw it at Schaefer. Unlike the two NJ guys earlier, he is a legit prospect on the national radar, coming in ranked #125 by MLB.
Overview
That will do it for the draft. Odds are most of these guys won’t make it to the Big Leagues, but it is still fun to think about it and learn a little something about guys all over the country just hoping to make it to the majors. That goes especially for our boys from NJ, the kid from Idaho, and the big dude from Montana. Rooting for you guys.
Philly Front Office 
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