The deadline has passed and the Cardinals were not involved in any trades, so the farm system remains the same as it was 24 hours ago. Bernie has an article about the Cardinals posture at the trading deadline. He uses a bit of a tortured metaphor in comparing prospects in the farm system to cheetah cubs and finishes the article with this:
If Mozeliak must pass up reasonable, non-crazy trades to protect the cheetah cubs that are tucked away in the thick brush, I just hope DeWitt and Luhnow are as smart as they think they are. I hope all of these STL prospects are as dynamic as advertised.
I don’t know what the standings will look like in 2011.
I don’t know if the Cardinals will have a chance to win in 2012.
But I can see the 2008 standings and I do know this: The Cardinals have a chance to win now.
This is the type of thinking that had me worried for the last couple of weeks. The Cardinals are set up far better to make a move next year than they are this year. Just because they’ve overachieved this season and are a fringe playoff contender doesn’t mean we should scrap the bigger picture plan.
Derrick Goold asks the “what-if” question about the untouch-ability of Colby Rasmus.
The system had another full slate (I was just about blogged out after putting together last night’s DFR with eight games) and finished 4-2. All the details are after the jump.
Memphis 6, Fresno 4 (UPDATED)
- David Freese hit his nineteenth homer of the year. He was 2-5 on the night and has put up a .296/.347/.530 line on the season.
- Josh Phelps’ homer streak continues – he was only 1-5, but the one hit went over the fence.
- Brian Barton also went deep and was 2-5 on the night.
- Jon Jay was 2-3 with a pair of walks.
- Tyler Greene was 1-4 with a double and a walk.
- John Wasdin started and gave up three runs over five innings on six hits and three walks. He struck out five.
- Matthew Scherer and Ron Flores each pitched a scoreless inning.
- Mark Worrell gave up a run on a pair of hits in two thirds of an inning and then Chris Perez came to the rescue and pitched the final 1.1 innings flawlessly, striking out a pair.
- Justin Fiske was absolutely dominant. He only gave up one hit and one walk over seven innings (no hitter through five) and he struck out nine.
- Luke Gregerson pitched the final two innings to preserve the combined shutout. He allowed three hits and struck out three.
- Isaias Garcia was 2-3 out of the DH spot.
- Brandon Yarbrough was 1-2 with a double and a walk.
- Andrew Brown was 1-4 with a double and a walk.
- James Rapoport tripled.
Palm Beach 4, Brevard County 5
- Daniel Descalso was 3-3 with a double, a stolen base and a walk.
- Brian Cartie was 1-4 with a double.
- Brandon Buckman was 2-3 with a walk.
- Matthew Arburr was 0-4 with a walk and four strikeouts. He has really struggled since being promoted to Palm Beach (and really, his numbers at Quad Cities weren’t that great).
- Mark Diapoules had a pretty solid start (except for a little wildness). He gave up one run on four hits and three walks over five innings while striking out five.
- Elvis hernandez pitched a scoreless inning.
- Wayne Daman struggled over two innings, giving up three runs on two hits and three walks.
- The Casey Mulligan experience hit a speed bump tonight. He pitched 1.1 innings, giving up the winning run in the tenth inning on a hit and three walks. He struck out three.
West Michigan 2, Quad Cities 3
- Lance Lynn made his first start at Quad Cities and it was a successful one. He went five innings, allowing five hits including a solo home run for the only run he allowed. He also walked one and struck out three.
- Lynn was followed by Matt Spade, who gave up a run on two hits in his inning of work.
- Eduardo Sanchez followed with two scoreless innings, giving up only one hit while striking out two.
- JD Stambaugh pitched a scoreless ninth and picked up the win.
- Pete Kozma was 1-3 with a two-run home run.
- Adron Chambers and Tommy Pham were each 2-4.
- D’Marcus Ingram was 1-3 with a walk.
- The offense came from the bottom of the order tonight, as the 6-7-8 hitters combined to go 6-11.
- Frederick Parejo was the #6 hitter and went 2-4 with a double.
- Charles Cutler was the #7 hitter and went 2-3 with a double and a walk.
- Xavier Scruggs was the #8 hitter and went 2-4 with a pair of doubles.
- Joshua Hester was the starting pitcher and has an odd looking line for the night: 4.2 innings pitched, five runs, four earned, seven hits, a walk and six strikeouts.
- Two of Hester’s runs were given up under Daniel Richardson‘s watch. He didn’t have any earned runs himself in his 1.1 innings, but he gave up a single and a walk in allowing two inherited runners to score.
- Hector Cardenas pitched two scoreless innings, allowing only two hits while striking out three.
- Adam Reifer got the save for pitching a perfect ninth with two strikeouts.
- Non-Cardinal Note: 1st overall pick, Tim Beckham went 4-5 with 2 doubles tonight.
- Travis Mitchell and Osvaldo Morales hit home runs for Johnson City. Mitchell went 2-4 and Morales was 1-4.
- Alex Castellanos and Jack Cawley were each 2-4, Castellanos also doubled and stole two bases.
- Brett Lilley was 3-5, but was caught attempting to steal.
- Edgar Lara was 1-3 with a walk and a stolen base.
- Matthew North got the start and gave up three runs on five hits and two walks over four innings.
- Joel Pichardo relived North and was worse, giving up three runs in only an inning.
- Brett Zawacki followed and, although he struck out five batters in 3.2 innings, he was as bad as the earlier pitchers, giving up four runs on four hits.
- Jose Mateo recorded the final out without allowing a run.
[Note: This DFR was authored in the comfort of my brand new Future Redbirds "The Walrus" long sleeved t-shirt]
Entries (RSS)
Just a little FYI on Casey Mulligan Experience. The only reason PB got to the 10th was Mulligan struck out 3 in the 9th, KC! 2 of the walks in the 10th were intentional.
it’s so nice to see Mitchell finally start to heat up. It’s about time!
D’Marcus Ingram also “drove in” the winning run in the Quad Cities by being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
Castellanos is on fire right now. Over his last 10 games, he is hitting .447 (17-38) with 2 HR and 10 SB.
Castellanos seems like a pretty exciting prospect. Speed + Power at the keystone?
You’ve got time to talk about another team’s prospect but you fail to mention how charitable Niko was tonight, allowing the very awful Princeton pitchers the honor of striking him out 3 times?
And you say you support the farm system! HA!
As far as Bernie’s take, he’s somewhat right. The Cardinals stayed in a ‘holding pattern’ at the deadline. That’s as much as saying ‘ALL IN!’. If they are going to keep guys like Skippy, Looper and Lohse around for the rest of the season, then patch the problems in the bullpen and vs LHP. Hell, after tonight it appears the Cardinals need another starting pitcher too…which isn’t going to be easy to come by if they plan on using both Wainwright and Garcia in the pen.
They should have been sellers or they should have been buyers. Being anything else is a waste of time.
I wonder what the Cardinals saw in Fiske to make them think he could start. I don’t know enough about him but the need for a LH reliever seems so significant at the bigs that I thought they might fast track him.
Morales swings for the fences every at bat. He’s going to have to refine his approach at the plate if he ever wants to get close to the big leagues.
I’m all kinds of happy to see Travis Mitchell beginning to have a few more good games here and there. He seems to me a little bit like the 2006 version of Daryl Jones. Same top of the line speed, nice power potential, and same front foot, drifting swing that will need a fair amount of tightening if he’s going to continue to progress. Excited to watch him move up though.
Yay Dan Descalso for hitting and Pete Kozma for the power!
I’ve been watching the Marti tracker, is he in the plan for next seasons major league team? He had a decent spring last year and he is tearing the cover off of the ball now. Could he get a call up in September?
Pineiro has sucked, hasn’t won a game in like 14 starts or something. Give his spot to Boggs/Garcia hell even Parisi.
Roarke-
Just curious because my shirt hasn’t arrived yet. How did they turn out?
BJM
Right now Marti’s team is the the Mexican League playoffs. I don’t think it would be completely out of the question for him to be a September call-up, or at least I sure hope so.
Is Marti really 34 years old? Not knowing anything about him but why would the Cardinals bring him up as a September call up? What kind of future can he have?
BJM:
It is really nice. It isn’t the cheapo thin fabric that crappy t-shirts are made out of and the lettering and logos all came out perfectly. You guys did a nice job of putting them together.
Reverse Motte
Quite a bit has been made of Casey Mulligan following Jason Motte in moving from catcher to pitcher. Well, yesterday I was cleaning out some papers in my always messy office and ran across the 2006 Cardinals draft list. There is was, in stark black and while: “Casey Mulligan, RHP”. Casey was drafted as a pitcher! Apparently the reverse Motte attempt didn’t work.
Cool, I was a little worried about the FR logo on the front. Good to hear they look good.
David Brito is still dealing in VSL, he has only given up 1 run in 30.1 innings for a 0.30 era.
Batavia is only 1 game out of first now.
how about the month kozma just put up? .324/.373/.486. that isn’t quite as good as his month of april, but it is still impressive for a shortstop. he now has his season slugging percentage up to .400, and if it wasn’t for an awful month of may his numbers would be looking really good. still its hard to complain about a guy that gets on base and is starting to show some pop.
If you make a clock with the FR logo that is on the stein or the handbag, i might buy it.
BJM:
What was the worry about the logo on the front? I didn’t notice anything off about it.
HL is not dirty,
I’ve got to disagree. Things aren’t that simple.
First of all, selling is not an option. I don’t care how unlikely the success you have had, or the continuation of that success is….you are tied for the wild card. You have a chance, you don’t sell off key pieces. That was never even an option.
Secondly, they tried to add to this team but the deals laid out to them didn’t make sense. TLR himself said so, and he is probably gone in two years so preserving the farm system probably isn’t his highest priority.
You’d love to add to this team, but you aren’t going to vastly overpay to do so. In this case, standing pat was the right move. Besides, they still have until Aug 31st to make a move.
r
I was just worried because that logo is more detailed than the rest of the drawings. It has a lot of things over lapping and that makes it harder to read if it isn’t drawn right for the type of printing you are doing. Just by hearing you say that you didn’t notice anything wrong tells me that it came out as we wanted.
Pete Kozma lands on BA’s Prospect Hot Sheet. In the piece, it is mentioned that Kozma is having a ‘solid season in a tough hitter environment.” Just further proof the the criticism of Kozma’s performance this year is unfair and brought on largely by people looking to justify their blasting of the pick last year. He has, for the most part, acquitted himself quite well.
I agree with backwater, just because some theorem says we should have such and such a record doesn’t mean we discount what our ACTUAL record really is. Should the Cubs start selling if their theoretical record is lower than their actual record even if they are in first.
I wouldn’t mind picking up a package like the Pirates got for Bay for Lohse but it wasn’t going to happen and it was the right move not to sell.
I would have liked to add a solid lefty but no such luck, seems like Mo had his eggs all in the Fuentes basket.
Like I said earlier in the year–the diference in season length between high school and the minor leagues is a huge obstical for a player to overcome. I think Pete hit a bit of a wall with the length of the season and he has gotten through it. I think the big thing to look at when a player slumps is if he is still showing the ability to get on base.
Absoultely. The sheer number of games played is a huge factor. Also, what other kids one year out of high school are completely written off for not having any power? More so, when that player is A) a shortstop and B) has already shown the ability to hit for doubles power. Pete will probably never be a 20 HR a year guy, but I think Edgar Renteria type power production is quite reasonable if things go his way.
Friday afternoon discussion fodder: looking at the pre-season prospect lists, who has moved up the most and down the most?
Mine:
Risers – Kozma, Todd, Jay
Fallers – Ottavino, Herron
Risers–Todd, Daryl Jones, Robinson
Fallers–Ottavino, Walters
Yeah, I’d say the biggest risers and fallers are Todd/Jones (risers) and Ott/Walters (fallers).
Others would know better than me, but is it safe to say that the bubble surrounding the idea of Walters as a Moyer-esque big league starter has popped? I just don’t see him overcoming his struggles in AAA to become a league average or better ML starter.
I’m not quite ready to dump on Walters yet. He has gotten hit quite a bit at AAA, but he has also missed some bats, striking out 86 batters in 87 innings. That’s not bad, especially for a soft tosser.
His biggest problem at Memphis, as far as I can see is that his walk rate has jumped to 10.2%. That’s unacceptable for a control artist. If he regains his control then he still has a shot of put up back-of-the-rotation type numbers.
Risers- Todd, Jones, McClellan
Fallers- Maiques, Hamilton, Martinez
Roarke,
Maybe I’m placing too much emphasis on his last three starts (15 RA in 15 IP, 9 BB). His k’s are impressive and encouraging, I’ll admit, and he’s had some great starts at AAA (6-18 vs. Albequerque, 7-11 vs. Omaha).
I guess I just feel like the Walters we’re seeing now (5.09 FIP at AAA) is closer to what we can expect of him in the majors than what we’ve seen of him in the lower levels. Take, for example, his time in AA in 2007 (arguably when his stock has risen the sharpest in the minors): BABIP of .264, way off the median for any other year/level (about .310 or so). Prior to that season, he had never had a BABIP below .300. It just looks too flukey.
If that’s the period people point to when talking about his ability/upside, it strikes me as more than a bit too optimistic.
Should the Cubs start selling if their theoretical record is lower than their actual record even if they are in first.
No, because their theoretical record is still better than any other team in the NL. And they made moves to actually improve their team. The Cardinals did not.
Risers: Stavinoha, Andrew Brown, Diapoules, Richard Castillo
Fallers: Hoffpauir, Jose Martinez, Buckman, Mark Hamilton