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Phillies call up top catching prospect Alfaro

Tim Heitman / USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

For more than a decade, Carlos Ruiz was the man behind the plate for the Philadelphia Phillies. Now, the rebuilding club will get its first look at his highly touted heir.

With Ruiz being traded to Los Angeles on Thursday for A.J. Ellis, another veteran catcher, the Phillies called up Jorge Alfaro ahead of Friday's series opener against the New York Mets at Citi Field, the team announced.

Acquired as part of the eight-player blockbuster that sent Cole Hamels to Texas ahead of last year's trade deadline, Alfaro is widely considered among the game's elite catching prospects, lauded for his plus-plus arm and plus power. (Last month, Baseball Prospectus identified him as the game's best catching prospect, while Baseball America hailed Alfaro as the second-best, behind only Gary Sanchez, who has nine home runs in 18 games since being recalled by the New York Yankees on Aug. 3.)

Alfaro, who turned 23 in June, has spent the entire 2016 campaign with Double-A Reading, hitting .279/.321/.442 with 13 homers and 18 doubles in 90 games while throwing out 44 percent of potential base-stealers.

"He's a smart, intelligent guy," Dusty Wathan, Alfaro's manager in Double-A, told Jay Floyd of PhilliesNation in April. "He has a tremendous arm."

Alfaro's initial stay with the Phillies doesn't look like it will be a long one, though, as the team will send him back to Reading once Ellis reports on Saturday, according to Matt Breen of Philly.com.

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