Phillies prospect update: Power-hitting catcher Eduardo Tait and slick-fielding shortstop Bryan Rincon

As the Phillies open a camp for their prospects, we kick off a weekly report on two of the young players the organization is excited about and what’s in store for them in 2024.

If shortstop Bryan Rincon had been a second-round pick "he’d be on everybody’s list" says Preston Mattingly, Phillies assistant general manager, player development.Read moreCourtesy Clearwater Threshers / Courtesy Clearwater Threshers

by Alex Coffey

Published Jan. 9, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

Aside from the signing of Aaron Nola, this has been a quiet winter for the Phillies. There is not a big to-do list. Adding a reliever, some starting pitching depth, and a backup outfielder is about all it entails.

But at their minor league complex in Clearwater, Fla., things are about to get quite busy. On Monday, the Phillies began a high-performance camp for 60 of their prospects. It will run through Feb. 9.

It seems as good a time as any to provide an update on those prospects. So, while fans eagerly wait for the Phillies to make a transaction, we will provide a weekly report on two prospects the organization is excited about. This series will run through January.

This week, we’ll start with two who have caught the attention of multiple teams: shortstop Bryan Rincon and catcher Eduardo Tait. At least three teams have approached the Phillies about packaging Tait and Rincon in trades, but the Phillies haven’t budged. Here is why they are so high on them:

Bryan Rincon

Rincon, who turns 20 next month, was born in New York but moved to Venezuela at a young age, and returned to the U.S. to attend high school in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t a prospect, per se — the Phillies took him in the 14th round of the 2022 draft — but he has quickly turned heads. Rincon didn’t crack MLB.com’s top 30 Phillies prospects list in 2022. In 2023, he sat at No. 28. FanGraphs ranked him No. 5 on its 2024 list of Top 26 Phillies prospects.

“He should be on every list,” said Preston Mattingly, the Phillies’ assistant general manager for player development. “If he was a second-round pick, he’d be on everybody’s list. Everybody is a little bit late on him, but I mean, we know what we have internally.”

Rincon’s two biggest draws are his plate discipline and defense. He was a gifted defender to begin with, with good hands and footwork, but he’s elevated that skill to a new level. Rincon has been putting in extra work with minor league infield coordinator Adam Everett to make his movements more efficient. The work has paid off.

Mattingly said Rincon is positioning himself to get to balls he wouldn’t have in the past.

“You can always improve little things, whether it’s angles, whether it’s footwork, but he’s well ahead of most kids his age,” Mattingly said. “I think he’s one of the better shortstop defenders in the minors. Honestly, he’s one of the top two or three.”

Rincon, a switch-hitter, hits for contact. His walk rate and strikeout rate are almost identical. He had 59 walks in 81 games at low-A Clearwater in 2023 and only 63 strikeouts while batting .228. After he was promoted to high-A Jersey Shore, he batted .258 with nine walks and 13 strikeouts in 18 games.

He isn’t known for hitting for power (eight home runs last season), but the Phillies believe that will come. Rincon has steadily been building strength, and thanks to some work on timing at the plate, has been more consistent with his barrel lately. This led to harder contact in 2023. His hard-hit rate jumped from 16% in 2022 to 25% in 2023 , which suggests he’s trending in the right direction. He likely will start his 2024 season with Jersey Shore.

Eduardo Tait

Tait, 17, is a left-handed-hitting catcher out of Panama. He was signed to a minor league contract last January and immediately made a strong impression in the Dominican Summer League. Tait hit .333/.400/.517 with a .917 OPS and three homers through 44 games. He’ll likely be playing in the United States in 2024.

Finding a power-hitting catcher isn’t easy, so Tait has quickly landed atop the Phillies’ prospect leaderboards. He sits at No. 23 on MLB.com’s 2023 list, and No. 6 on FanGraph’s 2024 list.

The next stop in his development will be learning some plate discipline. He had 31 strikeouts in 147 at-bats in 2023, with 12 walks. The Phillies would like him to work on chasing less.

They’ve been proactive in making that happen. For all of last year, Tait worked with Edwar González, the Phillies’ Latin American hitting coordinator, to make better swing decisions. González has been encouraged by the results.

“Because he’s so talented and so young, he’s going to move fast,” González said. “So, we’re just trying to avoid any challenges when he gets to high A, double A, where he’s seeing higher-caliber pitching. So it’s speeding up the process for him, because these are things that take at-bats.

“We’ve been teaching him about pitch movement, what the ball is going to do, where the ball has to start to be a strike. Eliminating zones to get more pitches in the zone. He’s very smart and very committed to getting better. To me, that’s what makes him special.”

Tait has also been working hard on improving his defense behind the plate. González said he’s been working on blocking, throwing, and receiving drills, as well as improving his overall game management.

“He takes a lot of pride in his catching as well,” González said. “So that’s huge for a kid who is 17 years old with that much offensive ability. The fact that he values that, that he wants to be a really good catcher, too, that’s huge. Because he’s going to be special if he does both of those things.”