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This is an overview of the Phillies farm system -- the tables below show the starters at each position and each level, and the pitchers with the most innings so far this year. It's meant as a high-level companion to Cormican's weekly and monthly prospect roundups. Also shown are some basic stats, and these are the links to each team's pages on baseball-reference.com for more details: Lehigh ValleyReadingClearwaterLakewood POSITION PLAYERS Highlights: Lehigh Valley- Darin Ruf has been up and down so far, and most recently, down.- Jermaine Mitchell is continuing to hit well and draw walks.- Cesar Hernandez is trying to show there is an alternative to re-signing Chase Utley. - Tommy Joseph is still out with a concussion, and hasn't done much with the bat, but he is still the 9th youngest player in all of AAA.- And not that this should come as a surprise, but Michael Martinez is really never going to hit. At all. Reading- The only other time Tyler Henson has hit like this was in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League last year (.842 OPS)- Three years after stumbling in Clearwater at age 24 (.679 OPS), Jim Murphy has finally gotten to Reading at 27, and is one of the bright spots at the plate for the Fightins.- Cameron Rupp is seeing less playing time now that Sebastian Valle has been demoted, but still a solid season so far. Clearwater- Maikel Franco has put together a .299/.351/.542 line to date, and is the 10th best hitter in the FSL, despite being one of the few 20-year olds in the league (of the 95 players with 100+ PAs, only 8 are in their age 20 season).In addition, three 22-year-old outfielders have been tearing it up:- Aaron Altherr, who wasn't on Sickels' top 20, but was ranked by Marc Hulet and Matt WInkelman, is riding a .444 BABIP, but also has very solid .226 power.- Cameron Perkins has an almost identical OPS (.926), but with a more sustainable BABIP (.379).- Kelly Dugan has cooled off some, but still having a solid year. Lakewood- As Cormican has reported, Roman Quinn is heating up after a slow start, hitting .308/.426/.462 in his last ten games.- Carlos Tocci has struggled, but as the youngest player anywhere above the rookie leagues, he's got plenty of time. PITCHERS About this list: if a pitcher has both starts and relief appearances, he's categorized based on whichever he has more of. Starters and relievers are then ranked by innings pitched this year at that level (which is why J.C. Ramirez, for example, is no both the LV and Reading lists). Lehigh Valley- Jake Diekman has struck out 20 and walked 21 in 19.1 innings. Wow. Reading- Jesse Biddle is the only Phils starter at any level with an FIP under 3.00, although Yoel Mecias is close.- Maurico Robles has struck out 33 (and walked 11) in 23.1 innings. Clearwater- Lefty Ethan Stewart has walked 33 in 28.1 innings.

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on some of the more interesting stories from around baseball, so Albert Pujols chased the money. I certainly don’t blame him for it, but he left behind the people of St. Louis, where he’d been the kind of heralded legend they’d not seen since Stan Musial, in favor of a touch more money in Anaheim. Hey, what’s $20 million between friends, right? It has not been a successful move so far for the 33-year-old, whose 2012 season was unrecognizable by Pujols standards, and whose 2013 season is downright bad (.241/.314/.418). Joe Posnanski writes that the story is much worse than the struggles. The story is the decline into irrelevance. Who talks about Pujols anymore? Who cares when he steps up to the plate? Isn’t it crazy to be able to say those things about Albert Pujols? I am trained to hate Pujols by virtue of the Cardinals thing, but even I find his swift descent into obscurity really sad. Also kind of sad: Josh Hamilton is hitting .216/.271/.351 in his first year with the Angels, who are expensive and flailing. They have become only the latest example of why buying up a bunch of free agents – even the best of the best available – can fail spectacularly. And the real problem is, when that approach fails, as it sometimes does, your organization will feel the pain for a long, long time. Barry Bonds says that Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in baseball (duh), but he’s no Barry Bonds (also duh, but … who says that kind of thing? Answer: Barry Bonds). My favorite paragraph in that Bob Nightengale piece is this one, which comes after Bonds says that Cabrera doesn’t have Bonds’ numbers: “Cabrera broke into the big leagues in 2003 when Bonds was winning his sixth MVP award. He’s still just 30 years old. He leads Bonds in every Triple Crown category at the same age, hitting .320 with 332 homers and 1,170 RBI. Bonds had a career .285 batting average with 259 homers and 760 RBI at the same age.” Right … but I have a suspicion that Cabrera won’t match the 1.262 OPS that Bonds somehow managed to put up from age 36 to 42. Rob Neyer digs into the ever-changing landscape of pitch counts. The predicate for his piece is Ron Washington’s recent decision to allow Yu Darvish to throw 130 pitches – a plateau almost never reached anymore – in a game against the Tigers that the Rangers were winning comfortably. I know that the science of pitch counts remains very much “science” rather than science, but I fall very, very far on the conservative spectrum when it comes to pitcher usage. Perhaps the 2000s era Cubs have burned me for good, that being a formative stage in my baseball-reading-and-covering development. There are times, and pitchers, where I would sanction letting a guy go well over 100 pitches. But when your team has a big lead, to me, there’s just no excuse. Is the incremental difference between that starter and the bullpen really worth any additional risk at all, however small? MLB hopes to have expanded instant replay in 2014 – which could include just about everything short of balls and strikes – but it’s a slow process of approvals and implementation. I feel like a bad baseball fan for not having a stronger opinion on instant replay, since it seems to really get some folks riled up. But I just don’t have it in me. When football expanded instant replay, I was totally in favor of it. Get the call right. Why can’t I summon that same feeling with respect to baseball? Even when the Cubs get screwed, I just accept that as part of the game. Maybe it’s the 162-game season? Maybe I feel like it’s more likely to even out in baseball than in football? Yeah, that’s probably it. Doesn’t mean I’m right, obviously. A fascinating article on the rapid increase of pronounced defensive shifts in baseball. There is

On the ninth anniversary of the UPA government Wednesday, its two key figures - Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi - praised each other.

In both 2011 and 2012, Andrew McCutchen got off to a bit of a slow start. In his first 25 games of 2011, he only hit .202/.318/.348. In 2012, he got off to a more rounded start, but he didn't hit a home run until his 28th game of the season. In both seasons, I pointed out encouraging signs from McCutchen's start and wrote a post that amounted to, "If he gets hot, he's going to be having an incredible season." In 2011, it was that his walk rate took a big jump forward. In 2012, I noted that his batting average was much higher than it had been in the past. One of the great things about a player like Andrew McCutchen is that you can predict he's about to get hot at just about any point and he'll make you look like a genius. This is the 2013 edition of that post. The Pirates are 26-17 and if you asked a fan to point to the players that have contributed the most offensively to the club's scorching quarter-season, I think that most people would point to Starling Marte and Russell Martin. This is not the wrong answer! Martin is hitting .269/.360/.504 including his awful start, and since April 15th (the day after Mike McKenry hit two home runs against the Reds and we all collectively decided that Russell Martin sucked) he's hitting .341/.426/.648. He's drawing walks and driving the ball into the gaps and hitting home runs and he's thus far generally looked like 24-year old Russell Martin again. It'd be foolish to count on this happening for a full season, but it'd also be flatly wrong to deny his huge contribution to this point in the season. Marte has cooled off a bit lately, but he's more or less been every Pirate fan's best case scenario for him to this point, blasting extra base hits all over the park and running the bases like an incredibly fast maniac and flashing home run power when it's needed. Most fans wouldn't give Andrew McCutchen as an answer right now. He went through one of the worst slumps of his career from April 21- April 29, hitting just .100 over those eight games with a measly three singles in 30 at-bats. He came out of that streak with a four-hit night against the Brewers on the 30th and since then he's had another four-hit game and a three-hit game and that huge walkoff homer against the Brewers, but he's been kind of spotty, too, despite his .347 average since breaking out of his slump. He's got a few 0-for-4s and an 0-for-5 all mixed in with those great performances and he doesn't quite seem to own left-handed pitching the way he did last year. With all of this said, it's might surprise you to know that McCutchen's now hitting .274/.341/.457 on the season, which is an OPS+ of 125, which is more or less in line with the first three years of his career. He hasn't really excelled at any point in this season and he's often looked a bit lost, and he's still hitting well above-average at the plate and on pace for a something like a 5-6 WAR season, which would put him in the upper-echelon of NL players for the third year in a row. Here's the thing though: suddenly, he's not striking out so much this year. If I had to pick out one thing about McCutchen's career to this point that hasn't gone perfectly (and please: this is me picking nits here and not me complaining about Andrew McCutchen), it's that his strikeout rate has slowly climbed upwards in each full season of his career. It's never gone over 20%, but 19.6% is starting to get up there. This matters because while 'Cutch has enough power and patience to be a good hitter even when he hits .259, he doesn't quite have enough of either to be able to disregard batting average entirely. This will obviously change throughout his career as he evolves as a hitter, but the way I see Andrew McCutchen right now is that he's an All-Star when he hits .270 and he's an MVP candidate when he hits .300 or better. It's not q

We’ve got ourselves a manatee! Er… matinée! The Jays play an oddly– read: spectacularly– timed businessman’s special today, in a getaway-ish game for the Rays beginning at 4:37 PM ET. As someone with an office downtown, uh… moar please. The Rays send Jeremy Hellickson to the hill, facing Mark Buehrle and a lineup led-off by Anthony Gose, who will give Melky Cabrera a rest and take over in left field. It’s… another game in 2013. I don’t even know anymore… Hey maybe an actual series win though, huh? Scuttlebutt It’s all Brendan Kennedy, all the time, in today’s scuttlebutt, as the Toronto Star reporter tweets that John Gibbons has been reluctant to announce Chad Jenkins as the starter for his club on Friday. The pitcher is preparing to start, but is available out of the bullpen tonight as well, and Richard Griffin notes that with Sean Nolin set to start for New Hampshire on Thursday, and Marcus Stroman on Friday, either could be possibilities instead. Gibbons, according to another Kennedy tweet, says that “as it stands” Ramon Ortiz is still slated for Sunday. We’re also given word that Melky Cabrera is available as a pinch hitter today. Gibbons “had no problem with JPA swinging at Rodney’s first pitch yesterday with the bases loaded,” Kennedy tells us, “saying when closers get ahead they tend to put you away.” Lastly, Kennedy also says that, while nothing is official yet, it appears as though the Dome will be closed for this afternoon/evening’s tilt. Ugh. TV: Sportsnet And now the lineups, by way of the live box score at theScore.com. And for those of you who’ll be out and about, be sure to follow all the action on your phone with theScore app… Toronto Blue Jays LF Anthony Gose (L) RF Jose Bautista (R) 1B Edwin Encarnacion (R) DH Adam Lind (L) C J.P. Arencibia (R) 3B Brett Lawrie (R) CF Colby Rasmus (L) 2B Maier Izturis (S) SS Munenori Kawasaki (L) Mark Buehrle LHP Tampa Bay Rays CF Desmond Jennings (R) 3B Ryan Roberts (R) 2B Ben Zobrist (S) DH Evan Longoria (R) 1B James Loney (L) RF Sean Rodriguez (R) LF Kelly Johnson (L) C Jose Molina (R) SS Yunel Escobar (R) Jeremy Hellickson RHP

If you have difficulty trying to get work done on hotel rooftops, then we have two pieces of advice for you: one, stop trying to get work done on hotel rooftops, and two, definitely don't visit the new rooftop pool at the Revere Hotel, where attractive female employees will be prancing around all summer long in matching swimwear outfits designed by Pret-a-Surf. The checkered hot pants, striped bikini tops, and nautical-themed jerseys that you see above are the new staff uniforms up at Rooftop @ Revere, which debuted last week. As hotel uniforms go, we like the breezy, New England look—certainly racier indeed than the silk embroidered robes we saw in Bangkok, yet tamer than

A rooftop yoga class is making waves in New York, and it's taking place at none other than The James Hotel. Led by a local NYC yoga teacher, the class was launched last year and has been slowly gaining momentum, no thanks to the jaw-dropping views seen from the top of the hotel. Another reason the class stands out? It's women-only. Twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings at 8am, ladies gather up on arguably the most scenic rooftop in the city and breathe and stretch and go 'ohm' in the company of other ladies. As in, all the mamas without the papas. As in, girls not guys. As in, the rooftop is called Jimmy, but

Remember the old days where hotel art usually consisted of a bland landscape painting that was reproduced a hundred times over and hung in the same spot in every guest room? Thankfully, over the past few years, hotels have been paying close attention to the artworks they hang in their rooms and public spaces--choosing original art instead and even better, works from local artists instead of some mass-produced Van Gogh imitation. But in the past month or so, we've noticed some hotels that are stepping it up even further when it comes to the art on display. Giant murals, entire galleries, and even live-in artists are among the trends we've begun to see. For us,

One of the questions we get asked the most (after "Can you get me a free hotel room?") is, "What hotel booking site do you use?" Our answer often varies depending on the city, the time of year and whether the trip is business or pleasure, but we've definitely got a few sites that we trust more than others.* So allow us to round them up for you here: 5 Hotel Booking Sites You Should Know About and Use *Sorry, these won't help lower the rates for NYC in mid-June but at least you'll be getting the best rate you can.

It’s midnight when we return to the Fairmont Pacific Rim after a night out on the town in Vancouver. When we walk into the Lobby Lounge, the place is overflowing with well-dressed lookers--locals, guests and residents of the hotel. And we know why. Yes, it’s partly because of the atmosphere – West Coast cool with loads of glass, some woody features and a clean white background overall – but mostly, ladies and gentlemen, it's because the cocktails are to die for. We took it upon ourselves to try a few of the bevvies on order but we kept coming back to the seriously tasty Absolut Beta Martini. This cocktail was created by the oh-so-charming head bartender