Daily Farm Report 4/17/08
Posted on April 17th, 2008 by roarke in Clayton Mortensen, Daily Farm ReportsKary Booher has a nice article in the Springfield News-Leader about Clayton Mortensen. Mortensen talks about staying away from websites that discuss minor league prospects (I guess that means he doesn’t read us) so that he won’t get caught up in the hype for himself, or the guys he is about to face. There is a pretty interesting quote from a Cubs scout in the article (it is sort of a non-sequitor in the middle of the article), where the scout discusses what he looks for in a prospect:
“I judge hitters on how they play against the No. 1 and No. 2 pitchers,” Jim Crawford, Chicago Cubs veteran scout, said. “That gives you an idea of what you’ve got. In college ball, after Friday night, some hitters make their living on Saturdays and Sundays.”
And pitchers?
“I look for guys who have fastball command, if they can go in and out, change eye levels with their fastballs,” Crawford said. “Fastball command means they are throwing strikes. With college guys, after a couple of years in pro ball, you have to adapt to throwing inside. You’ve got live on the inner half (of the plate).”
Obviously Crawford isn’t giving away any secrets of the trade here, but it is still interesting to hear a high level description of what scouts look for in players.
We had three games this evening, with Quad Cities getting the night off. The system went 1-2 on the day, with an outrageous boxscore from Springfield and a punchless attack on both sides in Palm Beach. All the details after the jump.
- I was really looking forward to talking about how Mitchell Boggs has had such a great start to the season, and for the first couple of innings it looked like I would get to do just that. But alas, it was not meant to be. Boggs went 6 innings and struck out four, but he gave up five earned runs on six hits and two walks. He is still 2-1 on the season with a 2.84 ERA, so it is still safe to say that he’s had a nice start to his season.
- Mark Worrell followed Boggs with 1.1 innings and three strikeouts against a hit and a walk.
- Chris Perez finished the game with a perfect inning, striking out one.
- All of the Redbirds’ scoring came in the first inning on a Nick Stavinoha two-rbi double. He finished 1-4.
- Colby Rasmus didn’t exactly break out of his slump, but he did get a hit, going 1-4 and scoring a run.
- Jarrett Hoffpauir went 2-4 with the other run scored.
- Otherwise, there wasn’t much offense: Amauri Marti and Mark Johnson each went 1-3 and Cody Haerther hit a double in his only at bat.
- John Gall victimized us again, going 2-4 with a homerun and three rbi.
We’ve been waiting for the Springfield offense to break out, well here it is. That is not a typo: they put up 20 runs tonight, including a 10 spot in the second inning. Sit back and enjoy, this might take a few words to describe.
- Brendan Ryan continued his successful rehab stint by going 4-6 with a homerun, two doubles (that’s nine total bases, if you are counting at home), four runs scored, three rbi and a stolen base. Let’s get him to the big club while he’s hot.
- Bryan Anderson also went 4-6 with a homerun and two doubles, but he ‘only’ drove in two and scored twice. He did, however, have his first passed ball of the season.
- Allen Craig went 2-4 with three rbi, three runs scored, a walk and a sacrifice fly. He also committed an error in the field (his second on the season).
- Mark Hamilton went 2-5 with a homerun, three rbi, two runs scored and a walk.
- Jose Martinez also went 2-5 with a homerun, three rbi and two runs scored (no walk, though).
- Shane Robinson went 4-5 with a double, three rbi and two runs scored.
- And finally, Mark Shorey went 1-4 with an rbi, a walk and a run scored.
The team scored twenty runs on nineteen hits, including four homers and five doubles, and three walks. I need to take a break now to rest my fingers…… ok, I’m back.
- The pitching was outstanding as well, except for Kris Honel who did not record an out and gave up five earned runs on two hits, a walk and two HBP.
- But Clayton Mortensen was outstanding. He went six scoreless innings, giving up only three hits and striking out five. Of the remaining 13 outs he recorded, twelve were on ground balls.
- Nick Webber pitched a perfect inning, Cory Rauschenberger gave up two hits and struck out one in his scoreless inning, and Fernando Salas cleaned up the ninth inning, giving up only a walk and striking out a pair.
- This game, on the other hand, was a pitching duel. The Cardinals only managed two hits, singles by Daniel Descalso and Donovan Solano, and two walks, by James Rapoport and Nathan Southard.
- The pitching was phenomenal, led by starter Brandon Dickson, who threw five no-hit innings, walking one and striking out a pair.
- Dickson was relieved by Tyler Herron, who was also fantastic. He went three innings, giving up two hits and a walk while striking out a pair.
- Kenny Maiques struggled with his command and gave up the only run on the night – without surrendering a hit! He gave up four walks and threw two wild pitching in his 1.1 innings.
- Jon Mikrut got the last two outs for the Cardinals, striking out one.
Entries (RSS)
What the heck has gotten into Maiques lately? He can’t get the ball across the plate.
Love the power from Anderson — that’s a good sign.
Maiques with 15 walks is crazy, he had 20 all of last year! But when he does find the plate they aren’t hitting him with a .091 BAA in his 7 and a third innings of work.
That’s some performance by the S-Cards. Nice to see Mortenson show signs of adjusting to the new league.
I was following the Palm beach game. Dickson actually faced the minimum, as he induced a double-play the batter after his lone walk. That’s a heck of a start—I’m sure he’s got few kind words to say about the tandem system being used at PB this season.
I’ve said it before; I see a little bit of Francisco Rodriguez in Maiques. The relatively small size, the all out delivery style, the slider that actually most resembles an incredibly hard curveball- a lot of similarities. Unfortunately, the parallels seem to extend also to stretches in which Maiques has absolutely no clue where the ball is going. I wonder if he’s fighting his mechanics or something; I only hope these control problems aren’t a harbinger of impending elbow issues again.
Love the power from Anderson; show us some more of it, kid. Still wish he were walking more, though. He’s hitting .341 but has only a .364 OBP. What kind of prospect is he, I wonder, if he puts up an OPS in the .800-.820 range? That’s awfully impressive territory for a catcher. Here’s to Bryan avoiding the late season doldrums that victimized him last year.
That’s a beautiful line for Mortensen. I have nothing else to say about it.
Maiques is my biggest dissapointment. I am really high on him, the last thing I was thinking would hold him back was his control. This is totally mental…
So much for worrying about Maiques passing Perez on the “closer of the future” depth chart.
At what point do we need to “take notice” of what Sugar Shane Robinson is doing in AA? He has been one of the steadying forces on the team this year. I know we’ve only seen 50 ABs and his BABIP is unsustainable, but an impressive start for a guy who isn’t on anyone’s prospect list….
Is Ryan going to be called up this weekend? I could see him being here tonight.
Is Anderson going to be in Memphis by May?
I also feel sorry for the Tulsa pitchers, they must have felt helpless.
It was nice to see Dickson and Herron have nice nights, since both have struggled a little bit early on this season.
As impressive as the Springfield offense was, I think I am more impressed with Mortensen’s outing, especially since he was bouncing back from a bad start his last time out.
Yeah, I prematurely thought he wasn’t ready for AA. Should’ve looked at his situational independents, K% BB%, GB%.
mortensen has been dominant for all but one inning in AA. he threw 5 shutout innings in his first start then was rolling through 3 before running into trouble in the 4th inning in his last start where he gave up all 5 of his runs.
Everyone needs to give the young pitchers the benefit of the doubt. First many of them are moving up a level, so there is an adjustment period. Second many of them have only been through a professional spring training experience one or twice, they are just learning to prepare themselves for the start of the season. Many of them just are not quite in shape yet.
I am a little worried about Maiques though because the line is totally out of wack from his previous performance. I think something is up mechanically…
In addition to the walks and wild pitches,Maiques also hit two batters last night, I believe. Perhaps the problem is mechanical, but perhaps he has come down with the dreaded Steve Blass–or should I say Rick Ankiel?–disease. Whatever the problem, it may be contagious in the Cardinal system these days. Degerman and Blake King seem to be similarly afflicted.
Mike:
The box score only shows one HBP by Maiques (Herron hit someone, too)- but good catch, I missed that.
Tyler Henley wears the collar. OPS now falls under 1.000.
This power surge from Anderson suprises me…I must admit, I was not on the bandwagon. Sure hope he keeps it up!
Where is Jon Edwards these days? Will he be back in Batavia?
I went to the Memphis game last night. Due to class getting out late, I missed the first three innings, and thus Colby’s hit. I did see his last two at bats. And, just as I had hoped for, I caught a foul ball off of his bat. This is my first foul ball and for it to come off of his bat is a harbinger of good things in my superstitious opinions. In his third as bat, he roped a ball to the centerfielder; if it had found the gap, it would have been a stand up double. His final at bat, he looked completely overmatched, though i will say the second called strike was a ball. He seemed to have lost confidence in that at bat after the bad call.
Does Chris Perez throw a changeup? His strikeout came on an 85 mph pitch, but it didn’t look like a breaking pitch from the angle i was sitting. I actually wonder if the gun was right. Perez was sitting at 91-92 and topped out at 94. I was kinda expecting a little more heat(though he was very effective).
Maiques´problems are almost strictly against lefthanders where he has 14 of his 15 walks in 2.1 IP.
I´ll start noticing Robinson when he learns to take a walk. Though if he were to continue his +.200 slugging (doubtful) I´d take notice w/o the walks.
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet, but the Birdhouse is reporting that Josh Dew has been promoted to AA Springfield.
The corresponding move was a demotion to Palm Beach for John Mikrut.
I don’t think they could be moving Dew along any faster than what they are right now.
vols, i have never seen perez throw a change, but his slider is about at that velocity.
just watched the archive on milb.tv, and it was definitely a slider.
ok…must have been at a bad angle
thanks for the info
VolsnCards5 said “I actually wonder if the gun was right. Perez was sitting at 91-92 and topped out at 94. I was kinda expecting a little more heat(though he was very effective).” From what I’ve heard the Memphis gun is 2-3 mph slow – So if you add 2-3 mph to the readings that puts Perez about 93-94 topping out 96-97. By the way, does anyone know what most minor league parks use for a stadium gun – Stalker, Jugs, other – I assume Springfield and Memphis use different guns?
i have heard that springfield tends to run a little hot while memphis is a little slow, but i have never been to either stadium so i have no idea if that is accurate.
well the gun being slow makes boggs first five innings last nite even more encouraging…most of the time he was around 89-90 but he hit 92 at least once, so add the 2-3 mph and he was throwing 94-95 even into the 5th/6th innings
Josh Dew left for Springfield the other evening.
Agreed on Jon Edwards – I thought he was going to break with a full season squad last year. VERY surprising he didn’t break with a full season squad this year…… hmmmmmmmmmm