Sick of hearing about the latest A-Rod saga already? I know I am. Here’s a good distraction:
Click here for the color coded spreadsheet. These are just my guesses for who goes where on opening day. The color codes are for prospects, sleepers, fringe and fungible. Debate if you want how I’ve coded some of the players, or debate if you will the merits of a what makes someone fringe and fungible. Then you have players who have either a season of big league service or are 28 years old or older.
A couple of quick notes:
- If you don’t see someone, it’s probably because I think they are short season bound, or they are hurt. Let me know of a major oversight if you see one.
- Feel free to trade out DeJesus with Henley if you want. I put DeJesus in Springfield because he played the entire season, but Henley is obviously the better prospect. I just think Henley will start in PB since he missed so much time last year.
- I think Cruz/Hill will split catching duties for SPR.
- Where is Freese? The big leagues, of course.
- I have Allen Craig at 3B for Memphis, but I think he’ll see time at 1B and the corner outfield spots.
- I’m not even going to try and speculate on piggyback rotation possibilities for PB and QC, at least not for the moment.
- I’m expecting to see a lot of somewhat surprising cuts during spring training.
Entries (RSS)
I’d expect Hawksworth and McCormick to be candidates for “suprising cuts”
AAA
Boggs?
I don’t see anyway Gregerson is not in Memphis
With Freese in STL I expect to see Stavinoha at 1st (when Freese returns I expect it to be Craig). I’d then plug Marti inas DH.
AA
Luhnow has all but said that Garceau will start at Springfield. I’d move Norrick or Fiske to LH relief.
Mura doesn’t get raves for his stuff but he’s been succesful everywhere – you think he will be gone?
High A
You don’t want to speculte on the PB/QC piggybacks but i will.
Maybe:
Lynn
Castillo
Additon
Diapolous
Kopp
Eager
Fiske
Maj/Bird
Relief is tough since it is so crowded but I can’t see Mulligan not being there – what he did there last year as a 20 y.o. new to pitching was quite amazing. Parise was pretty good as well.
I think Arburr will be the DH over Gorsett.
I think Bolivar will be the Utility guy here.
I think it will be Ingram here rather Peterson (Peterson in QC).
A
Almost positive you’ll see a piggyback at QC.
Broderick
Hooker
Kulick
Neito
Rosales
McGregor
Cardanes
Mateo
Sanchez will most likely close if not in the rotation. Carpenter has to be at QC also.
Garcia might be the Utility guy here.
As you can see, I only left room for so many relief slots. I only really care about the first few guys, but obviously the teams will have more then three or four relievers. I don’t really care who fills out the remaining slots, they are just not relevant. Same with the piggy backers. Those extra three starters on each team usually are NP’s or close to it, so I really don’t care.
I don’t think Peterson goes to the QC, him being their 2nd rd. pick.
Not sure how in the world I missed Boggs. Thanks for catching that.
Did I miss Jim Rapoport? I would think he would be in the plans somewhere.
he was a toss up. sure he speed and defense, but the bottom line is his career slugging% and OB%–both .309–makes me think he could be a cut. or just a 5th OF for Springfield.
No love for solano? He’s a true middle infielder and one of the youngest players in his league. He could be a future utility guy.
and owner of a lifetime .290 wOBA, but his glove looks like his only ticket to the big leagues. i’m not trying to be facetious, but we need to realize there are some players who have so little chance of making the majors that they’re really not worth mentioning. not saying there isn’t room for surprises, but i’d be shocked if solano makes it.
let’s look it another way – this all comes per victor wang’s research:
10% of top ten hitting prospects bust
20% top 11-25 hitting prospects bust
35% 26-50 hitting prospects bust
45% 51-75
43% 76-100
for pitchers, anywhere from 1/3 to 45% of top 100 pitchers bust.
60% of B grade hitting prospects as graded by sickels bust (our Jones and Jay). 50% of B grade pitchers bust (Garcia and Todd)
3/4 of C grade pitchers bust. 85% of C grade hitters bust.
i’m not trying to be pessimistic, but my point is that the majority of these guys who we so enjoy following so much won’t make it. And the few that do will likely not be stars, let alone regulars. that’s just the nature of the beast.
thankfully this year we have more guys than usual with star and regular potential, leading to our high rankings by the prospect watchers.
it’s not to say there aren’t others in the picture, but I’d just rather not talk about guys who are really close to carrying the “NP” tag as much as I can.
I guess I can’t rec comments her. Something like this would make a great blog entry. Actually simply copying and pasting this about once a month would make a great blog entry.
I really like the update with color coding!
I like the chart, and this exercise is one of the fun parts of baseball pre-Spring Training. Question: You have Aaron Luna listed at 2B for Palm Beach. How much 2B did Luna play last season? I cannot find anything suggesting that he played anywhere but OF or DH as a pro last season. Is there something specific causing you to believe that the Cardinals envision him as a second baseman?
I’m also of the belief that Henley will be in Springfield this season. He’s a decent prospect, is going to be 24 in June and has 329 Ab’s in the FSL (more than Daryl Jones had). No reason to return to that league, and I can’t see DeJesus standing in his way. DeJesus also had fewer AB’s in the FSL (255) despite playing the whole season.
Good question. Luna played some 2b @ Rice and most importantly Luhnow said he was moving to 2b.
i like the chart. colors r nice and its nice to see everything right there on one page. couple comments/questions.
1)is ryan not listed because u have him making the big club? he would be a good backup mi for say the phillies but the kennedy/greene/ryan trio does not get me excted. that has to be the worst 3 in baseball.
2)i dont see wallace starting in anything less than aaa unless there is some funny rule about fa years. i am betting he hits like a big leaguer in st. keeping him in aaa is one thing but to start him off in aa seems rough. of course if he bats .222 with no power in st aa looks right.
3) i was wondering how many of those pitchers listed on the list r lefthanded and who. i have really been wanting to know if we have some young lefthanded pitchers and i know nothing.
1. Yes. I say give Ray Durham an NRI.
2. I’ve heard from Luhnow on an interview w/ Bernie AA was the target to start, but a promotion could come soon.
3. Good idea, I’ll put an asterisk on the LHP.
i think marmol will play second over luna… way to much speed!
I think Marmol is one of those cuts, actually. Dude has a sub .600 OPS, I don’t care if he can outrun superman.
Great sheet – really helpful. My only comments are that I have a hard time viewing Stavinoha as a prospect and all I know about Solano was that in one of Luhnow’s interviews he called him a sleeper and said they were very high on him.
I have a hard time ranking Stavi as a prospect as well, but he did make BA’s top 30 so I let him slide in. Same goes for Additon.
Andrew Brown was promoted two or three times last year; I don’t see Mark Hamilton beating him out. Or if you’ve got Brown in the OF, then I think Buckman will be playing 1B at Springfield ahead of Hamilton.
probably, but hamilton was a 2nd round pick and signed for a fair amt. of $, so they need to see if he has anything to offer before they give up on him.
erik –
you have barden at 1b in AAA — is that a placeholder of sorts to show he’s an infielder and will probably compete with hoffpauir and greene for time in the MIF? because 1b seems like a curious place to put him.
it is. honestly, i didn’t know where to stick him. i think i like thurston better than barden, so when freese goes down craig moves to 1b and freese to 3b. but then what happens what wallace gets promoted. it’s all fluid, and again, they are just guesses. feel free to copy the spreadsheet and play around with it yourself, it can get tricky, to be sure.
on a related note, how long does hoffpauir have? is this year a make or break year for him? if he doesn’t move up to the majors, does he get released or traded? or could he still be on the AAA roster in 2010?
If Thurston batted right-handed, I’d agree with you on preferring him to make the 25-man over Barden. Thurston’s already on a minor league contract and Barden’s out of options, so I expect Ryan or Thurston or any other MIF candidate would have to really sizzle to make the team over Barden.
I like Barden more than most, though, and think he can put it back together.
Jameson Maj struck out 54 batters against 8 walks last season… Do you expect him to be one of the surprising cuts or is he on your list of full-season pitchers outside of the top 32?
I expect he’ll be at QC in the rotation and am looking forward to driving over to Peoria to watch the team’s visit in May.
He’ll be piggybacking in QC, I imagine. I like the early returns, we’ll see if he can keep it.
ill ask again, what pitchers r lefthanded and who? is there a magic word to get a question answered or is it just politics? i hate politics.
sorry, please don’t be offended, i’m a busy guy and i tend to skip around. i answered your question.
i think it’s probably time for a another live chat sometime, didn’t expect this much of a response.
You’ll have to move Stavinoha to catcher. How sweet would it be if that move actually works?
Hill catches everyday somewhere, no? Perhaps PB? His max value is as a catcher. Either that or he is backup C and back up 3B at Springfield, in addition to DH. He’s gotta get some defensive reps. Understood that Cruz and Wallace are ahead of him on the depth chart.