Dayn Perry calls the Cardinals winners at the non-waiver trade deadline for their non-move.
The Cards have an improving farm system, and they wisely resisted dipping into it at the deadline. They’re very much in contention, but they recognized that the recent return of Chris Carpenter and the forthcoming return of Adam Wainwright will do more for their playoff hopes than any deal they could’ve made. Well played by John Mozeliak and company.
I concur with Dayn. I think the Cardinals probably needed an upgrade, especially in the bullpen, but there’s no need to sell the farm for a rent-a-loogy. According to Strauss, the Rox asked for a top pitching prospect (presumably Garcia or Mortensen) + Anderson for Fuentes. That’s bananas.
Correspondingly, the Cards looked from within to find their left-handed reliever and called up Jaime Garcia. Garcia had some odd reverse platoon splits-a cumulative 5.15 FIP versus southpaws; 3.18 versus righties. His groundball rate versus lefties was 39.7%; against righties- 61.6%. I have no idea why that is, but I’m not sure it’s worth reading too much into. Garcia is a nice upgrade over Randy Flores and I would think he won’t be used exclusively as a LOOGY. I’d also consider myself to be a proponent of the whole “bullpen apprenticeship” idea.
Springfield’s talented beat writer Kary Booher has headed off to greener pastures. He’ll now be writing for Baseball America. We’ll miss his stuff here at FR, but his replacement Michael Stacey picks up where he left off, with a look at new S-Card Daryl Jones.
Speaking of BA, Pete Kozma comes in at the #11 spot on this week’s Hot Sheet. They point out how Kozma has benefited since having Brett Wallace hitting behind him. Since the Walrus has joined the QC, Kozma’s hitting .337/.396/.505. Josh Phelps also is mentioned on the Hot Sheet as their “Blast from the Past” after his recent homer binge, and there’s a Freese question in the following Q and A.
Great night for the organization last night. Wins all around, from top to bottom.
- Jon Jay hit a game tying RBI triple in the 9th, and then scored what ended up being the winning run on an error. He also had a single, going 2-for-4. To top it off, he threw out a runner at home. Jay is now 7-for-15 in a Memphis uniform.
- Tyler Greene went 2-for-4 with a sac bunt.
- David Freese went 2-for-5 with a double. .879 OPS in AAA, pretty swell.
- Brian Barton homered and struck out twice in 5 ab.
- Clayton Mortensen had a decent outing. 6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K. He threw 2 wild pitches and has 12 on the season for Memphis, seems like a bit of inordinate # but perhaps can be seen as a testament to how much movement he gets on his pitches.
- Jason Motte walked the first batter he faced, and then struck out the next three.
- Daryl “just call me tools” Jones homered and walked twice. Be still, my heart.
- Allen Craig 3-for-4, 2B. Nice way to break that off-a-month, on-a-month streak he had going.
- Isa Garcia 4-for-4, 2B. He’s making an argument for some playing time.
- James Rapoport with a rare flash of power hits a HR.
- Andrew Brown homered for his one hit in 4 AB.
- Brandon Dickson was shelled in his first AA start-5.1 IP, 8 H, 4 Er, 2 BB, 3 K, 2 HR.
- Josh Dew 1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K.
- Luis Perdomo allowed 2 runs, 1 earned over 1 inning with 1 K. Checking in on Anthony Reyes…pretty mediocre outing on the 29th in AAA.
- Fernando Salas 1 IP, 1 H, 2 K.
Palm Beach 6, Brevard County 4 (10 innings)
- Tyler Henley 3-for-6, 2B, SB.
- Daniel Descalso 4-for-6, 2B. Both Henley and Descalso are hitting above .300 the last 10 games.
- Charlie Kingrey 2-for-5.
- Shaun of the Dead Garceau walked 7 batters over 4.1 innings. He allowed 3 ER on 3 hits and had 5 K’s. He’s been quite the Houdini lately, with 12 walks over his last 9.1 innings pitched, yet only 3 earned runs.
- Eddie Degerman 2.2 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 1 K. I still can’t help but to root for this guy, but he’s been quite mediocre for a 24-year old in A ball.
- Elvis Hernandez 2 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR. He blew the save but earned the W.
- Francisco Samuel 1 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 0 K. Crummy control or not, all 150 pounds of Samuel has 70 K’s in 44.2 IP and I’ve heard he can dial it up to 99. 99…from a 150 pounder.
- Today it was announced that 8 Dayton players were suspended and fined due to last week’s infamous fracas with Peoria. The Bandits decided to punish them a little more before their suspensions kick in, I guess.
- Aaron Luna went 2-for-5 with 2 HR and 5 RBI.
- Brett Wallace went 2-for-5 with a double.
- Blake Murphy homered in his 2nd game as a River Bandit. He went 2-for-4 with a walk.
- Adron Chambers turned in a great performance; he went 4-for-5 with a double, homer and a walk.
- Pete Kozma doubled and walked.
- D’Marcus Ingram went 2-for-6 with a double.
- On the pitching side, Richard Castillo was brilliant-7 IP, 5 H, 0 BB, 7 K.
- Kenny Maiques made his first second appearance since being demoted 1 IP, 1 H, 1 K. I really feel for this guy. I really wish I knew the story on what’s been going wrong, because seeing him a few times pitch last year he looked great-94 MPH fastball, great slider. He’s been a huge “faller” this year.
- Shane Peterson went 2-for-4 with a double and a walk. I like what Peterson is doing at the plate but my main concern is his .400 OBP is higher than his slugging %. Still seems kinda tweenerish for my tastes.
- Jermaine Curtis 1-for-3, 2 BB. Curtis has been a little more impressive with the stick than Peterson. He’s shown a better batter’s eye, better contact rate, better power and while he’s playing 3B now, he profiles more as a 2B. He’s definitely outperformed my expecatations of him based on his rough last season at UCLA.
- Jon Edwards 2-for-3, 3 RBI, 1 BB.
- Domnit Bolivar 2-for-4, 2B. 2 errors.
- Jose Garcia 2-for-5.
- Colt Sedbrook 2-for-4, 2B.
- Zach Pitts 3 IP, 2 H, 4 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. Pitts was sabotaged by a 4 error 8th inning.
- Arquimedes Nieto 4.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 cool name.
- Kevin Thomas was brilliant again, throwing 5 innings of 1 hit ball. He had no walks, 7 K’s. He now has 17 K’s to 5 BB in 20 IP, with a 3.3 ground-out to fly-out ratio and an ERA of 0.90.
- Reynier Gonzalez threw 2.2 IP-5 K, 3 BB, and only 1 hit.
- Nico Vasquez went 2-for-3 with a double. I’m sure Nico’s personal assistant and bodyguard Hardcore Legend can tell us what other interesting happenings happened to Nico throughout the day in the comments.
- Jairo Martinez was 1-for-4 with a HR.
- Alex Castellanos was hitless, but stole his 12th base.
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Jon Jay owns AAA pitching. Just came through with a clutch triple in the top of the 9th to tie the game.
That link threw me for a loop. It took me to the A. Reyes win for Buffalo….strange ;)
Not sure why Fresno replaced an outfielder who had drove in two runs, but I am sure glad they did!!! I hope Motte gets a look before the rosters expand, as he shuts em down with three straight swinging strikeouts…nice, very nice
It is my dream (and I’m sure many others) to one day see Daryl Jones and Colby Rasmus playing in the same outfield at St. Louis. Jones still has a ways to go, but I thought after last year’s fiasco that it was going to be a long while before he reached Springfield.
I’m with you on that one, Ryan. A potential Wallace/Kozma/Vasquez/Pujols infield sounds pretty good too.
Princeton 3B Burt Reynolds went 5-12 in the series against Johnson City. Isn’t he a little old for Rookie ball?
Some of you will be happy to hear that Duncan is out for the season…possibly his career according to the post dispatch. Kinda sad. He came up to STL with such a bang and was exceptional for a year. Makes you wonder how all the injuries (staph infection in knee, sports hernia, ruptured disc) effected his play. Hopefully the guy will get healthy and get a chance to prove himself again next season.
it took motte all of 13 pitches to strike out the side for the save. he did however walk the leadoff man.
SC, it is true that the injuries could’ve played a role, but it is much more likely that Chris just wasn’t that good. He was never a highly regarded prospect and we’ve seen those guys string together a few good months or a year frequently, but seemingly always fade out. Unfortunately, fans in St. Louis believe everything they see (ala Bo Hart) even when logic and a player’s history and tool set suggest they shouldn’t.
Is this the first time this season that the entire system (JC and above; I’m a traditionalist) won on the same day?
Jared- It’s certainly possible that Duncan just wasn’t much of a hitter, but I don’t really buy that myself. Sure, he’s not Ryan Howard, which is what he looked like after the ’06 season, but even last year, right before getting significantly hurt for the first time, he was on pace to hit 30 HR and drive in 100, with a .927 OPS before the All-Star break. You can point to guys like Bo Hart, but it’s a lot easier to be a Bo Hart than it is to hit balls out of the ballpark with the ease that CDunc did when he came up. He’ll never be that calibur of player, never a superstar, and maybe not even .900 OPS-capable anymore, but somewhere in there is an everyday player(granted, maybe for another team).
Matt — Certainly I respect everybody’s opinion. However, I would contend that if Chris Duncan is an everyday player for a given team, then that team is not very good.
Well then perhaps he needs to be traded to a team like the Royals or Orioles. For all his minor league mediocrity, he was a first-round draft pick(maybe a 3-5 rounder for teams without bloodlines, still decent) and spent his childhood around McGwire and Canseco. I still have hope for him.
Erik, That was Maiques 2nd outing for the River Bandits and I think I read Dayton had 3 players missing from last night’s game….because they had started their suspensions.
I’m going to the Bandits game tonight and I am looking forward to seeing Nick Addition pitch.
Regarding Chris Duncan. I have always thought that his defensive shortcomings in the outfield outweighed his offensive contributions. Having said that though he was actually one of my favorite players to watch. Remember that he was forced to learn the outfield when he came to the majors and considering that, his size and his limited speed he really did as well as we could expect. His at bats could be beautiful things to watch as he always battled, never got cheated and looked like 100% ball player. I don’t think he has a future with the Cards considering the wealth of young outfielders in the organization and the big road block at first, but I hope C. Dunc. makes it back and has a good career with some other organization. When healthy he’s a good ball player and a joy to watch.
Erik,
I believe Murphy’s home for QC was a grand slam. Not bad for a 42nd round pick…
Chris Duncan may very well be our version of Chris Shelton.
I would trade that 99 draft for anything, b/c it produced Albert Pujols.
But man the Cards made some choices I would love to have back, like any draft that happens..but these seemed to really hurt when you consider they took Caple, Stocks and Duncan instead.
Cards had 3 of the top 46 choices..they passed on Brian Roberts, Carl Crawford, John Lackey, Brandon Phillips and Justin Morneu
I agree with Az on the Chris Shelton comp. I don’t really know what you could have done with Duncan, he had value for such a short period of time that by the time you had the assets to make him expendable he was worthless. Old player skillz…
i won’t say a bad word about that ’99 draft. that may have been the best draft in cardinals history. you got pujols, coco crisp, duncan, bo hart was a great late round pick, josh pearce and jimmy journell both reached the bigs, ben johnson was a pretty good pick, and mike crudale was a huge factor in the pen for one year. 8 big leaguers, 1 hall of famer, 1 solid regular, and a bunch of useful parts. sure, they blew the top of the draft, but they made some great late round picks.
Last night, 18-year-old Richard Castillo threw 7 shutout innings (7 K’s, no walks) for Quad Cities. Wowza. Considering he’s already had some success in the FSL, could we see Castillo start next season in AA?
Castillo!
If Chris D. can recover from surgery OK, I still think he can be a very useful *platoon* LF, or better still DH. Versus RHP only, I could see a few more years of .900 OPS hittin’.
Good Luck, Chris.
I think Duncan would be a nice player in the AL. 1B and DH are his natural positions, and used in that role he could be very successful.
Castillo should get a serious get look at winning a AA job, he is quickly becoming a legit top ten prospect in this organization.
Maybe it’s time for an interview with Maiques so WE can gain some insight as to why things are going the way they have lately….you were “high” on him last year, let’s not forget nor neglect to reiterate his talent!