Meghan Montemurro

The News Journal

PHILADELPHIA – Their names hung above lockers in the clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park, an early glimpse of what they hope will someday be their future home ballpark.

Nine of the Phillies' top prospects have been in Philadelphia this week, brought in by the organization to attend their annual Prospect Education Program. It allows the prospects – Mark Appel, Alec Asher, Jimmy Cordero, Tyler Goeddel, Andrew Knapp, Ricardo Pinto, Edubray Ramos, Jake Thompson and Nick Williams were invited to attend the program – to meet Phillies front office members, a few for the first time, as well as receive media training and get to know some of the clubhouse staff.

Six of those prospects weren't in the Phillies' organization at the beginning of July, one of the many signs of the overhaul the franchise has endured the last six months.

The plethora of talent that has been infused into the organization was particularly on display at Double-A Reading last season, a team that reach the Eastern League championship series.

"To be completely honest, I thought I was playing for an All-Star team," said Williams, who joined Reading after getting traded in July as part of the Cole Hamels deal.

Williams was one of five Top 10 Phillies prospects to play for Reading in 2015, including shortstop and top prospect J.P. Crawford, who is 100 percent recovered from his thumb injury that cut short his time in the Arizona Fall League. An intriguing core of young talent featuring Crawford, Williams, right-handers Jake Thompson and Zach Eflin and catcher Andrew Knapp had the chance to build chemistry and get used to playing together at Double-A.

It's creating an interesting scenario for the Phillies' front office to consider as spring training looms.

Should the Phillies make a concerted effort to keep that core group together as they move through the system until (the organization hopes) they all reach the majors, or is it more important to only look at each player's individual progression and disregard promoting them together?

Joe Jordan, the Phillies' director of player personnel, conceded it's crossed his mind to try and keep them together.

"I think we're in a better position now to do stuff like that where we can move a group of players that really formed a cohesive unit and had success winning," Jordan said Thursday. " ... I'd like to be able to do that. On the surface, it's a great plan. Some of them will change that. Some of them will prove more ready than others. Some of them will need a little more time."

Jordan said most of the Phillies' projected minor league rosters have been set, though there are still a few question marks.

"Most of them involve good prospects that it's do they need a little bit more time at this level or are they ready to go?" Jordan said. "For me, I think you have most of those decisions in your mind made, but you have to be open-minded in spring training because some of them are going to tell you [with their performance] ... and we need to adjust."

Crawford, Eflin, Thompson, Williams, Knapp and Mark Appel will have a chance to impress Jordan and the rest of the Phillies' staff after receiving invitations to big-league camp. Williams and Crawford have already talked about being part of the next wave of Phillies players to help bring a title to Philadelphia. While their conversations, according to Williams, tended to be more joking in nature as to not jinx it, Williams said the young players are in a great situation and have brought out the best in each other by pushing one another to improve.

Knapp believes a nucleus formed at Reading where players learned how to win together and grew as a family. While Knapp is one of many from the Double-A team who hasn't played in Triple-A yet, he wants to play well enough during camp to make it tough for the Phillies to leave him off the major-league roster at the end of spring training.

Although it's unlikely all of these young players who are becoming part of the Phillies' core in the minors will pan out in the majors, they're determined to prove there's good reason to feel hopeful about the franchise's future.

"We're all in it together," Knapp said. "Everyone's in it for the right reasons. We're all working hard, getting ready and we see an opportunity to go out and grab some spots high in the organization so for us we're all working together to get each other there too. I don't think anybody is expecting anything to be handed to us."

Contact Meghan Montemurro at mmontemurro@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @M_Montemurro.