Archive for June, 2009

First off, a quick apology.  I’ve been delinquent in my scouting reports over the last several weeks (after asking for suggestions nonetheless) but I’m hopeful that with my schedule settling down a bit, I’ll be able to get back to that.

Second, the system is, without a doubt, experiencing a real down spell right now.  The draft this year was a nice diversion but the boxscores have been painful to cover as of late with very few of the top prospects having consistent standout performances.  Does that mean we’ve overrated the prospects?  Maybe in some cases (I’m looking at you Bryan Anderson) but we’ve also seen some serious injuries (David Freese, Jaime Garcia) and some promotions (Chris Perez, Jason Motte, and that centerfield kid).

The combination of moving some of our highly rated players up to the bigs and a system wide slump has made the minor league season a bit of a drag thus far.  There’s still some bright spots out there (Daniel Descalso, Daryl Jones) and some interesting topics of discussion but I wanted to take a look back at the previous drafts and where they stand now.  We’ll start with, of course, Jeff Luhnow’s first and arguably best draft in 2005.

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Hi Everyone. I hope you all don’t have a case of the Mondays, because the farm system did tonight. It wasn’t smiles times for the Cards affiliates.

So let’s talk about some 16 year old kids in Latin America!

We all know about the Cards interest in OF Wagner Mateo, covered here and by dgoold. The Cardinals recently worked out (as covered by AZ) the bell of the ball SS Miguel Angel Sano, who is all over the internet as of late.
Here’s a few more names of players that are linked to the Cardinals, however tenuous of a link.

• LHP Victor Payano from the DR is 6′ 4″ at 15 years old, he throws 85-88 with standard slider and change. He’s strongly linked to Colorado and may cost more than $600k.

• LHP Edgar Ferrera from the DR who recently hit 94 mph and is angling for a greater than $600k bonus.

• 3B Chesler Cuthbert from Nicaragua is a big strong power hitting 3Bman who is looking for a bonus greater than $600k as well.

Keep it here for all your July 2nd International Signing Day coverage.

The organization went 2-3 with QC playin’ two.

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The Cardinals play on ESPN and get dominated by Cliff Lee. If you’ve come here for good news, go try the LOLcats site or something. The farm system decided to collectively crap the bed in conjunction with the big league team.

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Jeff Luhnow was on KTRS this morning and said that the Cardinals second round pick Robert Stock has signed. He will report to Johnson City, where he will be the team’s opening day catcher. Luhnow also stated the club has signed 20 of its other draft picks, but no other names have been released as of yet. Stock’s signability was a little bit of a question mark. He’s just 19 and could possibly have gone back to USC for his senior year in order to re-establish himself as a premier prospect.

I actually sort of like the idea of having him catch to start out with. At that end of the defensive spectrum, any team would welcome the extra depth, and not long ago Stock was drawing raves from scouts for his bat and defensive ability at catcher. While he struggled to hit at USC, youth is on his side. He can always go back to pitching.

According to Dejan Kovacevic (via MLBTradeRumors) the Cardinals have scheduled Sano for a workout.  He’s the big name in the Latin market right now as a 16 year old shortstop.  Some estimates of his eventual bonus have been as high as $4 M but I’d expect something more in the $2.5-$3M range, which still is first round of the draft type money.

While this is encouraging, I’d be completely shocked to see the Cardinals sign this kid.  Expect them to make plays for other highly talented Latin players but avoiding those with bonuses demands this high.

A couple links from Matt Baker at the Springfield News-Leader:

• A look at Pete Parise after his callup to Memphis. It started with P.J. Walters callup to be the 13th pitcher on the STL roster and tricked down to Sam Freeman’s callup to Springfield.
• Baker also takes a look at some players that might be attactive in trades. There’s some names on the list that didn’t register as top prospects prior to the season: Daniel Descalso, Tyler Norrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Descalso’s hitting has been a revelation. Norrick has thrived coming out of the pen with his fastball playing up. Sanchez is a youngster (20) out of Venezuala with a live arm.
• David Kopp hits the DL with shoulder stiffness. He had surgery to repair a frayed labrum last year.

A terrible night offensively for the organization. The pitching was largely solid but underwhelming. The box scores look like a lot of recent STL Cardinal games.

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So was there a draft this week or something? The draft means a lot around Future Redbirds for two reasons. 1) It’s easily our highest traffic day with 4 times as many hits as we see on an average day. 2) It means we’re getting closer to Johnson City (23rd) and Batavia (19th) starting up. If we have some long DFRs before those two clubs, the new (often not as well known) names and two extra games each night can be taxing. As always, we’ll continue to strive for the best coverage in Daily Farm Reports of the Cardinals minor league system as myself, Jeff and Hardcore Leg…. HL?

Hey, HL? Dang it. Jeff, did you leave the blog door open again? The Penguins were playing tonight. Odds are he’s streaking down the interstatewebs right now. Grab the taser, let’s go get him.

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Time wasting, away!

I’m being punished for my use of hockey in a baseball blog.  With Memphis back on the scene tonight, we had 5 games being contested in the system.

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Now we get to the organizational filler, but one or more of these guys could possibly distinguish themselves. In lieu of scouting reports, I’ll share what numbers I find relevant. But really, the numbers aren’t that relevant, because we know so little of the context. If they were high on tools, they probably wouldn’t have been drafted where they are, but you never know.

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You can share your thoughts on all things round 31-50 of the draft in the comments. I still can’t believe they found a way to drag this thing out this long. The draft starts at 10:30. BA has it’s list of the best remaining players on the board. I’ll be semi-around, I have some real life responsibilities to take care of today.

Last year the Cardinals drafted LHP Sam Freeman in the 32nd round, and Curt Smith in the 39th.  Both players I’d say are C prospects, but to find a C prospect this late in the draft means you as a team have done your homework. Freeman has a 2.94 FIP at Palm Beach and looks like an interesting left-handed arm out of the bullpen, and Smith has batted over .300 both at High A and now AA.