Archive for May, 2009

Palm Beach has always seemed like the geographical ugly stepchild of the farm clubs to me.  I’ve never been down to see them in Florida but I can think of worse places to play baseball — despite being so far away from the big league club.

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So, we are about a month away from the MLB Draft. Live this year in prime time on MLB Network. Fewgoodcards has the college Monday wrap-up below.

That also means that we are less than 2 months away from the July 2nd international signing day in Latin America. One of the gems of this year’s class looks to be Miguel Angel Sano. He’s been seen in Cardinals gear, but he’s also been seen in a lot of different team’s gear. All that means is that the Cardinals brass have had contact with Sano. Sano is a 15 year old switch hitting man-child shortstop who should command around a $3 million contract.
Here’s a pretty limited and quick scouting report from an ESPN article on Sano. (fixed, thanks HL)

Miguel Angel Sano enjoys some downtime during a busy week. He has three workouts for pro scouts in three days, the next one in about an hour. Last night he pounded the ball out of Valerio Cabrera ballpark, a short drive from his home in San Pedro. Today he’ll do it again on the field next door.

The ubiquitous MLB Trade Rumors has a post on him today as well.

There’s a great short video on him at Global Post.   He’s seen in Cardinals gear in the beginning and a Cardinals shirt while moving into his new home. I’m not saying, I’m just sayin.

Enough dreaming, let’s get to the DFR as the organization went 2-2.

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Well here we are, just over a month away from the draft.  This is usually the month when everyone starts to really ramp up their draft coverage, so we should start seeing more in the way of scouting reports and rankings in the coming weeks.  Here at future redbirds we will start to pick up our coverage as well.  Leading up to the draft look for player profiles and rankings as well as mock drafts.  We will look at the candidates for the first round as well as try to identify some guys for the later rounds that fit the Cardinals’ profile.  For now though you will have to settle for the wrap.  Check it out after the break.

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Memphis and Springfield get postponed due to weather as I luck out with a short DFR.

For any of you that might care, and it’s probably not many, I’m tenatively planning to spend the weekend in Quad Cities May 23-25th for the Sat, Sun and Mon games. I’d be thrilled to spend the day watching prospects with other informed fans.

Another article on the Lance Lynn promotion. The Cardinals remain very aggressive with their prospects in promotions.  Personally, I think this had a negative impact on Mortensen’s development last year so I hope Lynn spends some time at AA.

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Jess Todd is a reliever now. Who knew?

‘I think that he may have a quicker opportunity to be a reliever at the next level,” Redbirds pitching coach Blaise Ilsley said. ”Plus, having Otto here kind of gave us six starters so it made more sense to make that move at that point.”

I love this part of the article because it’s such blatant crap. They’ve had starters called up and, after being down a few pitchers, Jess Todd is . . . still in the flipping bullpen. I don’t know if the reporter got this quote before the season began or if Ilsley is just a few screws loose but it’s obviously hooey. If that’s the decision, fine.  The logic being presented in the article is obviously fallacious.

Jess Todd is a reliever and the Cardinals have shown no inclination of moving him back. Maybe that’s what Todd wants (the article insiuates that though there’s no direct quote) but he’s not a starter and the Cardinals have even gone outside the organization to make sure it stays that way.

Tyler Norrick is a reliever now. Who knew?

“Am I a strikeout pitcher? I don’t know,” said Norrick, a sixth-round pick in 2006 out of Southern Illinois. “It looks like it right now.”

I don’t know either but his stuff sure seems to be playing up in the pen.

Matt Baker has more on Lance Lynn who, if you weren’t already reading the comments on this blog, has been promoted to Springfield. Elvis Hernandez heads to the DL with a strained oblique. Chuckie Fick gets the call from Palm Beach and Jonny Bravo heads to the QC as a result.

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Mitch Boggs, yes, our Mitch Boggs struck out 9 batters in 6 innings pitched the other night against the unflappable Natina!s. LaRussa called his outing “fantastic” and it looks like for the time being Boggs has cemented his role as the Cardinals’ 5th starter.

We all wondered where this “wipeout slider” of Boggs went last year, having read this scouting report from Baseball America:

Boggs still can reach the mid-90s with his four-seam fastball, but his low-90s two-seamer with sink and bore is his ticket to quicker innings. He has ditched his curveball and developed a wipeout slider that ranks as one of the best in the system. Few Cardinals pitching prospects have been as consistent or durable.

That wipeout slider seemed to go AWOL when he was called up previously, and we know aside from a game or two, Boggs was less than stellar in his debut. I compiled all of Boggs starts and came up with this movement graph —

(Forgive me if the legends don’t match, I made the other graph about a month ago).

The other night?

That is a good slider. The average slider moves 2.2 inches, horizontally and vertically. Unless Washington’s Pitch F/X cameras are totally wacky, Boggs’ slider is generating 5-11 inches of vertical movement at a given time. That is pretty fantastic. I’d have to investigate more if it is a case of a wonky camera in DC, but Boggs got 8 swinging strikes in 27 sliders thrown. (30%), so I’d like to think what we see is what we’re getting. Pitch f/x confused many of his sliders last year as a curveballs, but what we are seeing different from last year to this (at least for one start) is less downward break. The slider is less slurvy. Those other sliders you are seeing that have more “rise”  and less vertical movement on his first graph are misclassified as well. That would be his cutter.

Looking at this graph, we can also judge Boggs’ sinker. An average one has about 7.6 inches of horizontal break and 4.7 inches of vertical “rise”. Knowing that, we can differentiate his four-seamer from his two-seamer. The two-seamer is the red blobs more on the left and it has about average movement.

As for Boggs’ changeup, it’s definitely a “straight” change. Very little horizontal movement at all. Usually the pitch breaks in on a right-hander more. Considering how much he throws the sinker and how little movement he gets on his change, I wonder if the pitch isn’t easily picked up.

One more thing I found interesting is that Boggs’ throws his slider from a higher arm angle release point than the rest of his pitches.

I don’t know if the .5-1 inch difference would be detectable by hitters or not, but it is sort of interesting.

The season is very young, but Boggs has a strikeout rate of 9 per inning with a K/BB ratio of 3.75. Whodathunk? With an improved slider and a simplified repertoire, Boggs is looking better than ever. 90-95 MPH heat, decent sink, great slider and fringy change. Not a bad arsenal for a starter.  He’s always been a mystery as to how few bats he misses, but that is changing so far this year:

It’s also worth mentioning 4/5ths of his K’s have been swinging strikeouts. We’ll see if he can keep this up, but I’d say I’m more enthused about Boggs’ than ever before.

This here be May! I’m going to where sandals and shorts and close my eyes really tight until the weather matches my attire. I’m pretty sure it will work. . .

Not that there’s a lot to spoil, but the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie was at times great and really bad. There’s not much plot, which is fine by me for this type of movie, but someone needs to let them know that they don’t have to use special effects from the 90s. We’ve got new technology that makes things look . . . you know. . . plausibly real. Still worth a stop to the theater but it was much more on the caliber of X-Men III rather than I or II.

Joe Mather is patient:

It’s rare to find a day when Mather doesn’t have a smile on his face or is not in a talkative mood.

This is usually shortly after he’s ground some Englishman’s bones to make his bread.

“It’s something that comes with age and experience,” Mather said. “You’re going to struggle at some point, so you’ve got to go through it. You’ve got to learn what gets you out of that slump, whether it’s throwing a trash can, or taking a break and breathing for a second.

Punched any bullpen phones lately? Always worked for Taveraz.

“There’s a bunch of guys in the big leagues that are superstars that are hitting about .129 now, too,” Redbirds hitting coach Mark Budaska said. “So it happens to everybody.”

Dude, you’re in the Cardinals organization and you offer up this quote? The last time someone pissed of Albert he hit a homerun on the next pitch. Ask Daniel Cabrera if Pujols slumps. If Albert lets you live long enough to ask him, that is.

“It was a bummer being sent down,” he said. “It just kind of snowballed on me, I think. I only have myself to blame as far as that goes.”

Didn’t we string Colby up for that last year? Anybody got any left over rope?

Mather said he visualizes himself succeeding.

I visualize myself dating Olivia Munn. ZOMG, it worked. Forget this DFR, I’ve got business to attend to.

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With the first month nearly in the books, stats getting nearer to becoming meaningful, but certainly not quite yet. There are some players who are playing way above their heads right now, and you will soon here a “splat” sound when the come tumbling back to earth.

Let’s examine some of the hitters and pitchers who have had some fluky performances this past month.

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The Brendan Ryan hammy and Tyler Greene promotion continues it’s chain of events.  Bolivar will be replaced by Guillermo Toribio.

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