Sunday brought the Phillies minor league season to a close. Lehigh Valley was the only team left playing this past week as the Triple-A season goes a week longer than the Double-A season, which goes a week longer than the High-A and Low-A seasons. Clearwater did extend their season by two games by reaching the Florida State League Division Series against the Tampa Tarpons (NY Yankees), but lost the first two games of a best-of-three series to finish things off.

Lehigh Valley IronPigs

Player of the Year – Justin Crawford

Even though he missed the final 15 games of the season after a collision with Otto Kemp that not only gave Crawford a concussion, but took out a couple of his teeth, Crawford was by far the cream of the crop offensively for Lehigh Valley. With a line of: 7-47-.334/.411/.452 in 112 games, Crawford won the International League batting title with Nick Solak of the Indianapolis Indians (Pittsburgh Pirates) finishing second at .332 on the year.

Pitcher of the Year – Mick Abel

This one raised a few eyebrows. Ideally, you would like to think that the Pitcher of the Year would still be a part of the organization, but the Phillies dealt Abel to the Minnesota Twins in the trade that brought Jhoan Duran to Philadelphia. Abel has struggled in the majors for both the Phillies (5.04 ERA/6 GS) and Twins (14.63 in 3 G / 1 GS), he was impressive with the IronPigs: 7-2, 2.31, 13 GS, 74 IP, 32 BB, 81 K, 1.16 WHIP and went on to make five more starts at Triple-A St. Paul where he had a 1.85 ERA in five more starts. Between the two stops, Abel went 7-2, 2.20, 98.1 IP, 40 BB, 114 K, 1.11 WHIP.

I had a vote with the IronPigs selection and voted for both players. There were other good players but these two were simply the best.

Lehigh Valley blew a five-game lead down the stretch in the first half that would have given them the first half championship and put all three games of the best of five International League championship series in the Lehigh Valley. Blame the Phillies. The collapse happened right around the time that players like Otto Kemp, Weston Wilson, Mick Abel, and others were called up. They made a run in the second half, but fell short. They did finish with the third best overall record in the IL and the most wins (87) in franchise history.

Reading Fightin Phils

MVP / Player of the Year – Felix Reyes

After spending time working with Phillies coordinator Manny Amador last winter, Reyes had a breakout season with Reading and his .335 average led all Eastern League hitters in 2025. Reyes also set a career-high with 16 home runs and went from a high of six stolen bases in a season to 13 this season. The offseason plan for Reyes is to again play winter ball and likely put in more work with Amador in the Dominican. In six Triple-A games at the end of the season and batted .262 with a home run and a pair of RBI. He also played well defensively in left field this season and can also play right field and at first base. In a pinch, he could fill in at third base, as well.

Pitcher of the Year – Jean Cabrera

This is one of those guys who it feels like he has been in the Phillies organization forever, but he is still about a month shy of his 24th birthday. The Phillies signed Cabrera as an international free agent out of Venezuela in 2019. After a season in the DSL, the Phillies had Cabrera at Clearwater in 2022 and 2023 after command issues and a 5.24 ERA in ’22 made him a candidate to repeat the year with the Threshers. The Phillies started him at Jersey Shore in 2024 and after 14 starts were convinced that the command issues had been fixed and bumped him up to Reading where he made five more starts. Needing more work at that level, he was back with the Fightins in 2025 and had somewhat of a breakout season with 26 starts and a 3.81 ERA. The command issues are still a bit of a concern with 4.01 walks per nine innings this year, but overall it was a good campaign. It’s a little surprising that the Phillies decided to promote Mitch Neunborn – 3-5, 5.12 with Reading – to Lehigh Valley ahead of Cabrera. Neunborn was shelled at Triple-A and Cabrera could have used the experience. Look for Jean Cabrera to be on the IronPigs break camp roster next spring.

Jersey Shore BlueClaws

The ‘Claws hit just .216 as a team this season and belted just 86 home runs in 127 games, leaving a lot to be desired from the offense. Somehow, they did manage to score almost 4.5 runs per game and were 62-65 overall. The only player who showed up on any leader boards for the South Atlantic League was Bryan Rincon, who was ninth in the league in stolen bases (40) and 10th in runs (58), which is interesting since he hit just .181 in 84 games with a .304 on-base percentage. Among players who played in at least 50 games for the ‘Claws, Raylin Heredia led the team in hitting with a .285 average in 50 games. Carson DeMartini (53 games) was next at .284 on the season. Zach Arnold led the team with nine home runs and Kehden Hettiger led Jersey Shore in RBI with 50.

On the mound, Mavis Graves led Jersey Shore pitchers with six wins and was also the team’s leader and 10th in the SAL with 103 strikeouts. Saul Teran recorded 11 saves, which tied with Phil Fox of the Winston-Salem Dash for tops in the SAL. Among pitchers who made at least 20 relief appearances, Teran was also tops in ERA at 1.38. Starters who started at least 10 games were led in ERA by Braydon Tucker with a 3.19 mark for the season.

Clearwater Threshers

Raider Tello led Clearwater in hitting with a .277 average, which was good enough for third in the Florida State League just ahead of Dante Nori, who was seventh in the league with a .262 average. Tello was also fourth in the FSL with a .498 slugging percentage, fifth in hits with 98, sixth in the league with a OPS, and eighth in the league with 141 total bases. Nori also put up big numbers in Clearwater prior to promotions first to Jersey Shore and then to Reading. Nori was second in the FSL with 11 triples, third in the FSL with 111 hits and third in total bases with 161, sixth with 63 runs scored, seventh in on-base percentage (.363), OPS (.744), stolen bases (37), and walks (66), and placed ninth in slugging (.381) and extra base hits (31).

Threshers pitchers who showed up among league leaders included Ryan Dromboski, who was fourth in the FSL in wins with seven and reliever Titan Kennedy-Hayes tied for fifth in the league with seven saves. Team leaders included Jose Pena, who among relievers with 20 or more appearances, posted a 0.71 ERA. Among starters with 10 or more starts, Luke Gabrysh won the ERA race at 3.08. Dromboski had a 2.63 ERA, but made just nine starts. Sam Highfill, who had been promoted to Jersey Shore and was named the SAL Pitcher of the Week for the final week of the season, led Clearwater with 74 strikeouts.