With a downright awful 2010, Daryl Jones continues to be one of the more frustrating prospects in St. Louis’ system. What at times has been seen as a toolsy, athletic, above-average corner outfielder, is starting to look like an average fourth who doesn’t have the outfield instincts to stay at center, the arm for right, or the power for left.

Jones, an extremely athletic three-sport athlete in high school, was selected in the third round of the 2005 draft. After struggling to translate his tools to results in his first full two years of pro ball, Jones broke out in 2008, posting a .316/.407/.483 line with Palm Beach, and Springfield.

While he did hold on to a steady 21.5 LD% in 2009, his first full attempt at AA was hampered by a quad strain, and he’s never been the same since. While Jones has never been expected to hit for plus-power with his linear swing, he hasn’t even been capable of posting average power numbers lately, topping a .400 SLG in just one of his past nine months of ball. In ’10, his LD% trailed off to 19.7%. With a .292 BABIP, Jones posted a park-adjusted line of .241/.332/.345.

I had previously thought that if Jones could carry his success from ’08, and the first half of ’09, he could have a legitimate shot at earning a spot with the big league club in the 2011 Spring Training. That appears to be a long-shot now. And while Jones is still just 23-years-old, this stunt in progression is startling, and something to note, in my opinion.

What say you, readers? Is the injury still hampering him? Is it too early to give up on a 23-year-old? Has your projection of his upside been changed considerably with his awful ’10 season?

Minor League baseball in September. It just feels funny. Although, the nice thing (or awful thing) is that the farm system won more games in 1 night than the Cardinals have won in the last two weeks.

/sad trombone

On one of my last two full DFRs for the year.
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When I saw Aaron Luna in August, I wrote:

Same kind of scenario as Brown. Good speed, weak outfield arm.  If I questioned Brown’s bat, Luna’s seems even less likely to play at the majors as a corner outfielder. There’s just not enough power or secondary skills there

Looking through some statistics recently, I am continually caught off guard by his numbers and how good they are. There’s a reason for that though.

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Arizona Fall League Rosters came out today and the Cardinals are sending 5 players so far with 3 more Cardinals to be announced (probably after the minor league playoffs).

All the Cardinals are on the Surprise Rafters.
Pete Kozma (SS), Tony Cruz (C), Adron Chambers (OF), Blake King (RP) and Brian Broderick (SP) are going to be playing in the AFL this fall.

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Obviously, the Major League Baseball draft differs heavily from other sports amateur drafts as far as seeing results immediately. Most teams don’ determine their decisions in the draft by what their highest level club needs, so often fans will have to wait three or four years before they can start to see the fruits of their clubs front office’s labor. However, thanks to some folks much smarter than I, we  have data available to estimate the average Wins-Above-Replacement levels of picks based upon where they are selected, what position they play, and what level of play they are advancing from. Using Alex Pedicini’s post over at HardballTimes, we can apply this study to the Cardinals top picks of the ’10 draft .

If you don’t feel like checking out Pedicini’s post, here are the WAR/year averages of each player selected in the first, second and third rounds from the 1992-1999  drafts…

First Round

College hitters– 1.336 WAR/year
High School hitters– 1.204 WAR/year
College pitchers– .649 WAR/year
High School pitchers– .878 WAR/year

Second Round

College hitters– .773 WAR/year
High School hitters– .672 WAR/year
College pitchers– .087 WAR/year
High School pitchers– .084 WAR/year

Third Round

College hitters– .115 WAR/year
High School hitters– .424 WAR/year
College pitchers– (.023) WAR/year
High School pitchers– .058 WAR/year

With St. Louis having five picks in the first three rounds, their total would be something around 1.9 WAR, but that would be counting Tyrell Jenkins as second round talent. Jenkins, a player who would have surely been selected in the first round had signability not been an issue, adds nearly a full win if he is grouped into first round talent-average.

Let’s see how St. Louis faired against the rest of the National League Central. Since we gave Jenkins the first round value treatment, we will do the same for the rest of the division if they selected a player outside of the first round that  qualifies in the first thirty of Keith Law’s most recent Top 100. I’m giving teams Scouting/Player-Development departments the benefit of the doubt for questionable selections outside of the first round. Though, maybe I shouldn’t, considering Ed Wade is in play here…

St. Louis– 2.73 WAR/year (5 picks)
Houston– 2.56 WAR/year (5 picks)
Reds– 2.22 WAR/year (3 picks)
Pittsburgh– 1.87 WAR/year (3 picks)
Chicago– 1.67 WAR/year (3 picks)
Milwaukee– .107 WAR/year * (2 picks)

* Milwaukee failed to sign their first round selection.

This is not an indicator for how the Cardinals did in the draft as a whole. If I had more time, resources, and brainpower, I might be able to pull something off like that. Looking at the picks on a piece of paper, they did well, in my opinion, but we cannot forget the importance of player procurement that can turn late round picks into legitimate prospects, but hopefully this gives you a picture of how the Cardinals appear to have done at the top of their draft, based on historical studies.

Johnson City spoils a perfect night for the minor leagues, but there was a Tyrell Jenkins and Roberto De La Cruz sightings!

Onwards and downwards on the screen!

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After having seen Matt Carpenter in Springfield a couple weeks ago, I found myself questioning what the Cardinals have created for themselves in the selection of Zack Cox overall. I think they’ll have created a situation that is much to their advantage.

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Five games on the docket tonight as Palm Beach was suspended before completing four. The system went 3-2 otherwise.

On to the DFR….

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It is a really good thing that I love minor league baseball. The big club is hard to watch right now. It would follow that we had a good night in the minors just to even things out. 5-1 and BOOM goes the dynamite!!

Here we go with the DFR…

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On Friday night, the system went 3-4 as Palm Beach needed two games to satisfy the itch.

Happy DFR people……

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