Every year, Baseball America does their annual “Top 10 Prospects” reports for each team. Included in that article is a projected starting lineup and starting rotation for three years down the road. It’s really interesting when you look back on old organizational reports. For example, all but two of the Phillies top 10 prospects have been traded. In their projections, Baseball America thought that Jason Donald would be the third baseman of the future. Lou Marson would be the starting catcher, not Carlos Ruiz. Shane Victorino would be flanked by Domonic Brown and Michael Taylor. Cole Hamels would be the staff ace, but would be followed by Carlos Carrasco and Kyle Drabek.

Since then, all the players Sans, Collier and Brown have been traded. They’ve netted Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt. Not a bad haul for a bunch of guys who are now fringe players. The only player with a good amount of upside off this list is Travis d’Arnaud.

Heading into 2012, that list was obviously a lot different. 2013 may be even more drastic of a change, but not because of trading away players, but because of prospects being added via internal and external resources. It also marks the potential changing of the guard in Phillies baseball. We’ve been told that a lot of the talent the Phillies posess were all at the lower levels of the organization, but we are finally getting to a point where that talent is reaching the upper levels.

While the Phillies have four starting pitchers locked up for 2013, Roy Halladay’s 2014 option will most likely not reach its vesting points. Now, if Halladay pitches like he did in 2010, its pretty likely that the Phillies will pick up that option, but if he continues to breakdown with age, he may be finishing his career with a different team. For the sake of argument, I’ll speculate that the Phillies brain trust picks up that option year. So that leaves one potential spot open for one of Trevor May, Tyler Cloyd, Adam Morgan, Jon Pettibone, and Jesse Biddle.

As currently constituted, only Jonathan Papelbon has a guaranteed roster spot in 2014, which possible leaves as many as five open bullpen positions. I say five because I belive Kyle Kendrick may not be resigned after 2013, but Ruben Amaro may look to sign a veteran reliever this offseason. So if there are five open spots, that means that Antonio Bastardo, Michael Stutes, Phillipe Aumont, Jake Diekman, Michael Schwimer, Jeremy Horst, Justin De Fratus, and Justin Friend are all fighting for spots.

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Tags: Adam Morgan, Antonio Bastardo, Cesar Hernandez, Cody Asche, D'arby Myers, Darin Ruf, Freddy Galvis, Jake Diekman, Jeremy Horst, Jesse Biddle, Jiwan James, Johnathan Pettibone, justin de fratus, Justin Friend, Leandro Castro, michael schwimer, Michael Stutes, Phillipe Aumont, prospects, Trevor May, Tyson Gillies