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What to expect from Phillies’ Alfaro in bigs
- Updated: September 12, 2016
The Reading Fightin Phils got knocked out of the Double-A Eastern League playoffs on Saturday. While that might be a disappointing end to a Minor League season, it did mean the big league club could call up some reinforcements, most notably catcher Jorge Alfaro and outfielder Roman Quinn.
Alfaro, ranked No. 61 overall on MLBPipeline.com’s Top 100 Prospects list and No. 4 on the Phillies’ Top 30, is technically making his second trip to the big leagues. The 23-year-old backstop was called up in late August as the Phillies were waiting for A.J. Ellis to arrive from the Dodgers, but he didn’t appear in a game. Now would be a good opportunity to see just how close to big-league ready he is.
The two big tools Alfaro brings to the Phillies are his power bat and his power arm: He gets a 60 grade for his pop at the plate (on the 20-80 scouting scale) and a 70 for his arm strength. He hit 15 homers and slugged .458 in 404 regular-season at-bats with Reading this year. He hit two more homers in the playoffs. The big question remaining is whether he’ll be able to consistently tap into that power …
