While personally I was rooting for the Rays, congrats to the Phils for their World Series championship, especially to Ryan Howard and Springfield Illi’s own Jayson Werth. Werth is a player I’ve always liked and thought was underrated, and his grandfather Dick Shofield once donned the birds on the bat.
Ross: Are there any surprise players in the system that might make the big league squad in 2009?
John Mozeliak: Don’t rule out Tyler Greene, he is having a strong Arizona Fall League.
They certainly are in need of some middle infield help, that is certain, but I’m still not sure Greene is the answer. He is however hitting .300/.417/.550 through 40 at bats but has done most of the damage against lefties, pounding them for a whopping 1.706 OPS against. All of this is tiny samples, I’m sure Mo is going off of more than stats, there must also be accompanying good reviews from Pop Warner and his coaches and scouts. I thought Greene might be poised to break out this year, it never fully materialized in the regular season, but perhaps now he turned the corner.
Mo also said in the chat that if Colby shows up to spring training in shape and plays well, he will break camp with the big club. That’s a rather strong statement, and of course, I gotta like it.
Goold elaborates on Greene and catches us up on all the fall and winter league players. (Little known fact about myself: When I was in high school, I was dubbed “Green Day” in gym class by some of the seniors. For some reason they thought I bore a striking resemblance to Billie Joe Armstrong. I don’t see it.)
Baseball America has their report card on the Cards draft. (subscriber content) They for the most part poo-poo, calling it a low-upside draft, few power arms. I tend to agree in some ways, especially about the pitching, but obviously, it is extremely early. I’m sure BA has glowing reviews of some drafts that will turn out to be more bust than bang and vice versa, it’s just the nature of the beast. I can see why they don’t like it, BA loves athletes and the best one they could find out of the “not selling jeans” draft was Sam Freeman. (Whither Devin Shepherd?) Freeman also has the distinction of having the best fastball of the draft and being its fastest player. Yep, fastest player. Maybe after back to back nights of pitching, they could use him as a pinch-runner…
Jonathan Mayo is doing in-depth looks at each farm system, and now has his Cardinal organizational review up.
Arizona Fall League
- Steve Hill went 2-5 with a walk and a homer, taking the Brian Matusz deep. He played catcher, allowing a stolen base.
- Brett Wallace went 2-4 with a double and a walk.
- Tyler Greene went 1-6 with 2 swinging strikeouts. Box
Hawaii Winter Baseball
- Tyler Herron threw four scoreless innings. He allowed five hits, struck out three and did not walk a batter.
- Playing C, Tony Cruz went 2-4 with a double.
- James Rapoport went 1-3. Box.
Dominican Winter League
- Amaury Marti went 0-4 with a sac fly RBI and two strikeouts. Box. The comic book series the Hulk is loosely based on the life story of Amaury Marti.
Venezuelan Winter League
- For Caribes, David Freese went down on strikes three times in four at bats, but he connected when it counted the most, hitting a grand slam. Box.
- For Margarita, Luke Gregerson pitched 2/3rds of an inning, allowing a hit and inducing a ground out and a fly out. Box.
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Regarding the AS Game, WS, and weather … has anyone heard what happens if AS game gets rained out? There aren’t really any dates that it could be made up, so it pretty much just gets cancelled … right? Who has home field advantage in the WS if that happens. Sorry that question isn’t on the topic of future redbirds, but was wondering if it had been brought up anywhere else that someone has read about.
I think this is the kind of thing MLB would not make a ruling on until it had to. I’m not aware of any current rule on the books for handling this situation. However, one possibility would be to continue the game on the Wednesday morning or afternoon after the game. I’m sure MLB would try to avoid a “suspended game” or a tie at all costs considering the weight given the outcome of this “exhibition” game since 2002.
Lets hope Mo’s comments really motivate Rasmus.
Maybe Tyler Greene gets a shot as the backup SS/2B next year if he has a nice spring as well? Spring could get really interesting this year
>>Maybe Tyler Greene gets a shot as the backup SS/2B next year if he has a nice spring as well? <<
The guys is crushing left handed pitching in Arizona. Platoon with Iz2 if they bring him back? Lord the Cards traditionally struggle against lefties. Would be nice to have a middle infielder who excels against them.
Joe my guess is Iz2 will not be back. My gut tells me Edgar Renteria (not surprising to most of us Cards fans) will be brought back. If Greene has a strong spring he could then be the backup for Renteria and platoon at 2B with non other than Adam Kennedy who although requested a trade I just don’t see it happening right now although hopefully I’m wrong.
I’m not sure how Greene has been rated defensively so he could potentially be a late inning defensive replacement for Edgar ( if he is brought back) or whoever else is in the MI
If Miles isn’t brought back then keeping AK and using Greene wouldn’t be horrible. Kennedy has shown flashes of being his old self but has not been able to sustain it, which is weird. But I don’t want 4 MIFs again.
To keep Tyler up on the big squad as a back-up would be ridiculous to me. Miles will be a back-up MI, no doubt in my mind. Having 4 MI’s on the roster with Freese back in the minors would be sheer stupidity IMO.
Hopefully TG gets a full-year at Memphis as the everyday SS, or maybe he and Jose Martinez can switch-off between 2B & SS there.
Brendan Ryan should be traded if possible, and I don’t know what the hell you do with Hoffpauir, have him platoon with Jose?
Another question is who plays 1B at Memphis this year? Another Bozied or Phelps type? My preference would be if Duncan is healthy, he should be the starting 1B at Memphis and hope he starts out like Ludwick did a couple years ago.
I think you’ll see Craig as the starting 1B at Memphis next year.
How good could Memphis be?
C: Anderson
1B: Craig
2B: Greene
SS: Barden
3B: Freese
LF: Barton
CF: Jay
RF: Jones
The pitching may not be very good though.
Mortensen-Todd-Boggs at the top of the rotation isn’t too bad, but the bullpen will probably take some lumps without Motte and Perez.
Given Boggs, Mortensen, Todd, and Walters should theoretically all improve in their 2nd AAA seasons i don’t understand how one thinks the pitching won’t be good. The bullpen will also still have Worrell and probably Jiminez and Scherer returning as well as adding Salas and Gregerson so I think it will be fine (it most likely will also have 1 of Kinney, Motte, or Perez if no one gets hurt in the Spring).
The posted lineup also fails to take into account Stavi (he may not hit well in the bigs but he killed AAA pitching) as well as Rasmus and think I Marti will also hit very well at AAA if given the chance. Hoff is still an OBP machine even if the power was an illusion so the infield depth will be there too.
Yes, I expect a very good year in Memphis this year. It is Springfield I think will struggle a little/
BA ranked our (Toronto’s) 2002 draft the best at the end of that season. Six years later, it has produced Russ Adams, Dave Bush, and three relievers with a total of less than 25 IP in the majors and all with ERAs of 8 or worse. I wouldn’t get any more worked up over BA’s pissing on the Cards’ draft this year as I would get overexcited about me praising it in June.