Link Saturday! Turns out when your minor league prospects collectively go belly up, there’s not that much written about them. Who knew?
The Memphis Commercial Appeal writes up Ottavino’s losses.
Twelve starts. No wins. Eight losses. A 5.67 ERA. Forty-one walks in 54 innings.
Those troubles have come from a season-long inability to gain command of his fastball. Ironically, command of all of three of his pitches is what landed Ottavino a spot in the Redbirds rotation out of spring training, allowing the Cardinals to move Jess Todd into a relievers role.
As Ottavino himself says, it’s the walks this season that are so alarming. For me, it’s alarming in two parts: 1) no command makes him a non-entity as a prospect and 2) I’m hoping he’s not injured.
Baseball America taps into my brain about who might be the Cardinals top prospect.
There are several other situations where a talented first-rounder just doesn’t figure to beat out a talented minor leaguer. These include Rangers lefthander Matthew Purke (No. 14) vs. first baseman Justin Smoak, Indians righthander Alex White (No. 15) vs. catcher Carlos Santana and Cardinals righty Shelby Miller (No. 19) vs. third baseman Brett Wallace.
I’m not sure that I disagree with BA here with regards to Shelby Miller. I’m also not sure I agree with them about Wallace. Although the alternative, Daryl Jones, hasn’t been lighting the scouting world on fire apparently.
Batavia gets postponed. Palm Beach has the night off. Double dose of QC tonight though. And away we go.
- Shane Peterson was 2-for-5.
- Adam Reifer recorded 2 outs.
- Scott (edit: Not our)Gorgen allowed a walk in his 1 inning of work.
- Jon Jay and Nick Stavinoha both went 2-for-4.
- Jarrett Hoffpauir walked 3 times.
- Brett Wallace went 1-for-3 with a walk. He’s been better over the last few games. Keep it up BDubs.
- The Cardinals were shut down by Jeff Samardzijia. He allowed 6 hits, walked 4 and struck out 6 over 8 innings.
- Evan McLane allowed 10 hits over 6 innings and 4 ER.
- Charlie Manning pitched 2 scoreless innings walking 2 and striking out 2.
- Kozmanaut went 2-for-4 with a triple and a walk in the leadoff position. Rick Porcello didn’t pitch today.
- Steve Hill was 2-for-5.
- Mark Hamilton was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.
- Nick Derba was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.
- Brandon Dickson got the start allowing 3 ER in 5 IP. He allowed 8 hits and struck out 2 walking none.
- Eduardo Sanchez struck out 1 in 2 perfect frames.
Quad Cities 0, Beloit 6 (Game 1: 7 innings)
- Brett Lilley had a double.
- Osvaldo Morales had 2 hits.
- QC amassed 4 hits and 0 walks.
- Hector Cardenas was awful allowing 5 ER in 3 innings. He allowed a HR among 5 hits and 1 walk.
- Andres Rosales struck out 3 batters while recording 4 outs.
Quad Cities 6, Beloit 1 (Game 2: 7 innings)
- Jose Garcia was 2-for-3 with a triple.
- Paul Cruz was 0-for-2 with 2 walks.
- Brett Zawacki allowed 2 hits and 1 walk while striking out 5. The sinker was working as 11 out of 13 outs were groundouts.
- Joel Pichardo struck out 1 in his inning of work.
Entries (RSS)
Az, that was actually Matt Gorgen that pitched in the FSL All-Star Game. I’m not really sure how Scott wasn’t an All-Star too.
Great outing by Zawacki. Hopefully he can build on it.
dangit — mental lapse.
Yet another great game from the KOZ. Its looks like hes has began stringing to gether more hits this month. He’s hitting .277 this month.
the .277 is ok, but he is slugging .508! who said he doesn’t have any power?
“No better than a no. 4 OF”? Do they realize the Cards PLAY four OF?!!!!
Eric, will you name names, or will these contrarian scouts remain in anonymity?
ask Matt Baker, I don’t talk to any scouts.
Zawacki and Hooker are still just 19 and 20 aren’t they? I guess both still have plenty of time to live up to their potential. I still think the Tim Hudson comps for Zawacki are apt. Though every time I get my hopes up about a pitcher in the Cardinals system, they face plant.
AZ mentioned Twitter, yes I know it’s trendy and there are stupid things on there like Lance Armstrong mentioning he ate a denver omelet for breakfast, but i get a lot of info i wouldn’t get otherwise. derrick goold, matt baker, keith law, ben badler, matthew leach, kevin goldstein, will carroll and a lot of others are on there. FR bloggers azruavatar, jeff and whiteyball are on there as well. heck, even blake hawksworth and new draftee cj beatty are on there. here’s a tidbit of some of the things you’re missing out on:
Jorge Arangure (senior writer for ESPN the mag, follows Latin American baseball) He and Kiley McDaniel, writer for BP who is following the LA prospects as well said so far who they’ve predicted to sign where is working out, yada, so I asked him who they saw coming to the Lou.
“Erik, i’d say it’s 90 percent they sign Wagner Mateo for around $3 million.”
“My only issue with Mateo is that he won’t likely stay in CF and i’m not sure he has enough power to be a great corner OF”
“I like him and think he’s a good player, but those scouts who knock him dismiss him as a batting practice player”
sign up for twitter folks. follow @Erik_Manning for my updates, i try and you know, actually say relevant stuff about the farm system, the game of baseball and not mention stuff you don’t care about, like whether i just flossed my teeth or what i think about kobe bryant.
On Jones…You can see what they are talking about, not that I agree after watching him. He will play left in the show and hasn’t shown enough power for that position. I would personally counter–He is still extremely young and he is flashing a couple plus skills in OBP and speed.
jones hasn’t been playing 100% healthy all year. his knee has apparently really been bothering him. matt says a lot of scouts are turned off by his speed and defense, but that could all be his knee. his defense was just fine last year, and we know he’s normally a pretty good runner. i’m not letting what a few nameless scouts say affect my opinion of jones.
I love the Kozma/Porcello nonsense. I wonder if every other team’s fans do the same—compare that year’s draft choice to the guy they passed on.
+1
If Jones is gutting out an .800 OPS with a bad knee that is pretty impressive. With Henley finally being healthy this season and breaking through, I am wondering if he projects higher than DJ now (although two years older). I have heard that DJ’s arm limits him to left but that Henley can play CF or RF. Does one have more power than the other?
Henley’s the better fielder but DJ is faster. I’d call it a tie in the power department. Maybe DJ grows into it but that’s not something that I see.
The thing about Jones is that he has no arm. I think some scouts put a lot of weight into that.
Hoffpauir has been a guy I follow irrationally for a while now. It is nice to see him hitting well as of late. Sadly his timing has not been the best….adjusting to advancements takes him a long time – long enough to wonder whether he has enough to make another jump. Still, it would not surprise me to see him surface with a pretty poor team in the next couple years and squeeze out a few respectable seasons.
Not to be a spoilsport, but someone ought to point out that Kozma made two more errors last night and already has 12 in his relatively brief time at Springfield.
I’m not really concerned with errors. Does he get to balls that the average SS can’t/doesn’t get to? That’s what I care about.
I’ll probably repeat this in the DFR tonight if it’s not noted, but Alan Ahmady, taken as a first baseman in the 11th round this year, went 0-4 for Batavia today. But more importantly, he played second base. If he can play second, his bat should make him a decent prospect for an 11th rounder.
Ahmady? Wasn’t he accidentally listed as a catcher in the roster? A lot of positional confusion for him.
Didn’t matt baker quote luhnow as saying that kozma’s d was just like tyler’s a couple years ago?
So Erik, what DO you think about Kobe?