Missing Hoskins

The Phillies knew what they had all along

Welcome to Warning Track Power, a weekly newsletter of baseball stories and analysis grounded in front office and scouting experiences and the personalities encountered along the way.

On my first day scouting for Tampa Bay, Rhys Hoskins was on the field for the Lakewood BlueClaws. In terms of low-level minor leaguers I watched in 2015, Hoskins was among the best.

The only problem was that I had no idea.

In weather much colder than we all had left behind in the Grapefruit League, Hoskins took 29 at bats during the first week of the season. Here’s what I reported:

Slower-twitch first baseman w/body built for power. Lacks bat speed and athleticism. Organizational 1B/DH with limited hit tool.

Did I see him hitting four home runs in the five-game 2022 NLCS? Ha!

I never saw him hitting a single homer at the big league level.

Instead, I saw him missing fastballs in fastball counts against South Atlantic League pitching. (To clarify, “organizational” connotes a career exclusive to the minor leagues, with value lying in predictability over excellence.)

There was power there, sure. But all I saw was a defensive liability with limited athleticism, too much swing and miss, and nowhere on the field to hide.

I filed that report with confidence.

In June, I saw Lakewood play twice more. Hoskins had another eight at bats. While I got a glimpse of opposite field power that a scout could dream on, I still wasn’t sold.

During that look, a scout with the Phillies asked me what I thought of the team’s fifth-round pick from the 2014 Draft. I told him the truth.

He challenged my evaluation. In response, I doubled down on poor defense and heavy feet. I asked what he saw that inspired projection.

“Look at Lucas Duda,” the scout said to me, referring to the Mets streaky first baseman. “You don’t think he could become Lucas Duda?”

At the time, Duda was in the midst of a three-year peak during which he’d hit 87 home runs. His excellent on-base skills more than negated 130+ strikeouts per season. The totality of his offensive output was enough to tolerate if not ignore his defensive limitations.

That Philadelphia scout nailed it. Absolutely pinpointed his A-ball first baseman who hadn’t cracked Baseball America’s top 30 for the Phillies organization entering the season.

All teams talk about the importance of getting your own guys right. That is, knowing your own players’ abilities and potential better than anyone else in the game.

While the Phillies celebrated their NLCS triumph at Citizens Bank Park, I thought about the only homegrown player in the top five of the lineup. I had put a ‘2’ on him — organizational value only. The Phillies knew better.

Those Phillies, of course, encompass at least three front office regimes.

Hoskins was drafted in 2014. Ruben Amaro Jr. was the team’s general manager then; Marti Wolever was the scouting director.

When it comes to the fifth round of that year’s draft, the Phillies ran away with it. Hoskins’ contributions at the big league level exceed those of the rest of that round’s players combined.

The franchise is now two GMs and two amateur scouting directors removed. These pennant-winning Phillies have enough fingerprints on them to find their way into an episode of SVU.

It turns out the real crime was my butchered my evaluation of Rhys Hoskins. This is my confession.

Okay, readers: I’m glad I didn’t take your NLCS predictions to the bank. Let’s do better right now.

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