Season End Hardware
Posted on September 10th, 2008 by erik in minor league pitcher of the year, minor league player of the yearThe regular minor league season is in the books, and I would reckon now is the time when the organization starts to think about who is their minor league player and pitcher of the year. Before the Cardinals name theirs, we as a community we could vote for ours. This is not about who is the best prospect, we are talking about performance on the field this past season. The 2008 draft class does not qualify given the fact they were unable to play a full season, so no votes for the Walrus please, deserving as some of you may feel that he is.
For kicks, here’s our predictions going into the season. I’m pretty happy that I nailed David Freese having a good season and Jon Jay’s comeback. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky with my pitcher of the year prediction. Oy.
The “Player of the Year” Candidates:
- David Freese – AAA – 464 AB – 26 HR – 91 RBI – .306/361/.550 – 91 runs created – 7.11 runs created per game.
- Daryl Jones – Advanced A -307 AB – 7 HR – 35 RBI – .326/.403/.476 – 63 RC – 7.62 RC/G; AA – 124 AB – 6 HR – 14 RBI – .290/.404/.500 - 29 RC – 8.45 RC/G.
- Jon Jay – AA – 372 AB – 11 HR – 47 RBI – .306/.373/.457 – 66 RC – 6.25 RC/G; AAA – 58 AB – 1 HR – 10 RBI – .345/.406/.500 – 12 RC – 8.15 RC/G.
- Allen Craig - AA – 506 AB – 22 HR – 85 RBI – .304/.373/.494 – 92 RC – 6.54 RC/G.
The “Pitcher of the Year” Candidates:
- Jess Todd - Advanced A – 27.1 IP – 1.65 ERA – 35 K – 7 BB – 1.52 FIP – 12 Runs Above Replacement; AA – 103 IP – 2.97 ERA – 81 K – 24 BB – 4.37 FIP – 29 RAR; AAA – 22.2 IP – 3.97 ERA – 20 K – 11 BB – 5.63 FIP – 4 RAR.
- Nick Additon – A – 119 IP – 2.50 ERA – 108 K – 35 BB – 3.81 FIP – 29 RAR; Advanced A – 18 IP – 0.50 ERA – 13 K – 5 BB – 6 RAR.
- Jason Motte – AAA -66.2 IP – 3.24 ERA – 110 K – 26 BB – 2.59 FIP – 20 RAR – 9 saves – 15 holds.
- Mitchell Boggs – AAA – 125.1 IP – 3.45 ERA – 81 K – 46 BB – 4.51 FIP – 34 RAR.
Entries (RSS)
Jones, Todd and Jay for Player, Pitcher and Comeback would be my choices
Don’t know if there is much debate on any of those, but I could be wrong.
freese, todd, and jay
freese over jones because he did it at a higher level(i think jones is the more valuable prospect though)
I can see Freese, but I don’t think you can use the “higher” level argument when referring to a 25 yr old at AAA vs a 21 yr old at AA, both are at their correct level of competition so Jones doing what he did at AA is more impressive to me.
Freese jumping AA ball completely and coming into a new organization and excelling in AAA would get my vote. On the pitching front, Jess Todd will still destroy us all.
the higher level argument took into consideration the skipping of AA…that is an incredibly impressive line to have skipped an entire level
Jones and Todd
Just looking at performance, wouldn’t Josh Phelps at least be in the discussion?
Jones & Todd for me as well.
Man, Erik, why’d you have to link to our predictions? I’m embarrassed. I think the commenters are on it, though: it’s got to be either Freese or Jones and Todd. I’m going to take Freese, but just barely. Jon Jay has to be the “comeback” player, right?
Jones and Motte
Freese and Todd.
I say the player is a toss up Freese or DJ…I’ll take Jones just because of the turnaround…Todd had an amazing run I think it’ll be hard to beat him, and Jay was an animal all year, let’s hope he stays healthy from now on
I will go with Motte for the Pitcher of the year…Striking out close to two an inning is just nuts. I don’t care what you secondary pitches are-that is the effin definition of effective.
DJ for hitter of the year..
Jones and Todd as well…..
Craig Player of the year, Todd pitcher of the year.
I’ll go with Jones and Todd as well.
I know that this is the STL Cardinals organization but why in the world would you not call D. Freese up if Glaus is really hurt? I don’t know about you all but I could tell by the way he looked after swinging that he had a shoulder/right arm issue…it was just hanging at his side.
Jones and Motte
How can Jones not be the comeback player of the year? I say this for two reasons. One is that I checked our pre season predictions and I had Darryl as the comeback player. The other is that he had been removed from the Cards top thirty list before the season started. My infallible scientific method also had Jose Martinez as player of the year, even making the prediction that he’d be lined up to start at 2b for the Cards in ’09. Sheesh.
For this year I think Freese deserves the player and Todd the pitcher.
Freese and Todd
Jones and Todd. Jay for “comebacker”.
Our ML 3Bs certainly like those shoulder injuries … that said, put freese on the 40 man and bring him up, all they’d have to do is move Duncan to the 60 day for now. Or hopefully drop Kelvin Jimenez off, have Freese take his spot on the 40 man and bring up Worrell to replace Jimenez in the pen.
Have there been any updates on Jay’s shoulder injury?
Freese, Todd, and Daryl Jones
BGT-
A fan writing into the Post-Dispatch made a great point about this. Once you put a Freese on the 40 man roster, you lose flexibilty during the winter to maybe protect certain guys from the rule-5 draft OR not be able to pick up, say, a Barton because you don’t have the open spot on the roster. Once Freese is on the 40 man, you can’t take him off without making him eligable for that draft. I wanted to see Freese or Colby too until I realized these implications. Makes sense to me.
Casey
What? If Freese isn’t eligible for the Rule 5 draft then him being on then off the 40 man won’t make him eligible from my understanding of it. The only problem we have right now is making room for Johnson at the end of the season.
Going over the current 40 man and 60 day DL here is who I see coming off after the season:
Flores, Hawksworth (Just like Narveson, I think his run is over), Lohse, Looper, Mulder, Springer, Villone, Johnson, LaRue, Izturis, Miles, Phelps, Encarnacion
Unless I messed something up, that is all the people who are FAs at the end of this season (Lopez I beleive is still under club control), along with the people I beleive will be cut (which is only Hawksworth).