Archive for June, 2009

Tonight, I’m going to do something a little different. I won’t be doing the DFR on Friday and tomorrow, all 4 affiliates will be in action so I can’t do it then. What I’m going to do is, in honor of my Penguins being in a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals, I will award Three Stars to the players from each of the affiliates for tonight’s game.

Don’t worry, this is a one time thing. With all the draft information pouring in and with Memphis having the night off, I wanted to do something fun.

So, away we go….

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Quick announcement: I’ll be on UCB Radio tonight at 9:30 to talk all things draft.

Here’s some quick snap shots of who the Cardinals took on Day 2
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We’ll be here at 10:30am again to discuss all things draft. Also, be sure to follow me on twitter for updates as well.

9th round – RHP Nick McCulley, Coastal Carolina. Sinker-baller. 2.10 ERA, K’d 64 in 78 innings. Saved 8 games. Yet another reliever.

10th round – LHP Hector Hernandez, Puerto Rico Baseball Academy. Here’s your lefty. Finally. Projectable lefty, throws 88-90 MPH sinker now. Good curve, changeup. Jaime Garcia, part 2?

11th round – 1B Alan Ahmady, Fresno State.  Hit .326/.478/.520 this past season. Has 48 walks to 24 strikeouts. That sticks out right there.

Now the Cardinals are going the college-performer route. First they go with Brooks Conley, an OF out of the U. of Washington.  Seems like a one-dimensional slugger to me, but for the 7th round, that’s not bad. Conley hit .303/.401/.645 for Washington, and the Huskie’s home ballpark very much favors pitchers. I have his Gross Production Average (a variant of OPS, scaled to batting average) at a .365, adjusting for strength of schedule and park. So he has some pretty nice power.

Stidham is a middle infielder and like Conley put up some pretty prodigous numbers. He hit .363/.465/.650, good for a adjusted GPA of .363. Can’t find anything really on him, scouting-wise. He’s a left-handed hitter, and for a middle infielder the numbers are pretty outstanding.

Talk about bloodlines of a champion: Per BA.

Hill, a 35th-rounder last year (Athletics), is a 6-foot, 190-pounder who hit .462 with 10 homers and 27 stolen bases this spring. An exciting and aggressive player, he flashes a rare combination of speed and power. Hill is still a bit raw after missing a year in high school to run track and play football. He has tremendous athleticism and bloodlines, as both of his parents were Olympians. His mother Denean Howard-Hill won a silver medal in the 1988 Olympics in the 4×400 meter relay. His father Virgil Sr. also won a silver medal, as a boxer in the 1984 Olympics. He later won the WBA cruiserweight title.

Check out his dad’s website.

Says BA’s draft blog:

The Cardinals took injured Ole Miss righthander Scott Bittle, who has a tear (or strain) in his right shoulder capsule, depending on who you talk to. When healthy, though, Bittle is ridiculously good, with a premium mid-80s cutter.

Bittle struck out 16 per nine innings last season, 14 per nine this past season. He was drafted by the Yankees last year, in the 2nd round, but the Yankees didn’t sign him once they got the medicals on his shoulder. If he’s healthy, great, but I’m not real thrilled with this pick, as my off the cuff reaction. Yet another reliever.

Here’s Bryan Smith’s take:

Scott Bittle in the fourth round to the Cards is really interesting. The Rebels had to shut him down this year with an arm injury, but in the weeks prior, he was as dominant as anyone in the nation. He has a nasty cutter that makes him hell on right-handers, and he’s a senior: cheap sign. I like that pick, although I wonder if they could have got it off 1-2 rounds later.

Ryan Jackson is a premium glove with a horrid bat. He’s the NCAA’s answer to Adam Everett. He did hit .360 as a sophomore, so maybe it was just a bad year. BA ranked him their 80th best draft available player. Defense is often underrated, so I think this is an underrated pick.

Derrick Goold’s 10@10 is up and there’s a quote in there that’s worthy of being called out:

The Cardinals … well, the 2009 draft — at least Day 1 of it — puts the emphasis on two things: Their ability to sign Miller and their ability to develop obvious and (in the case of the next two picks) preceived latent talent. The onus will be on the coaches, not just the scouts. And that should have been part of the discussion all along. VP/Farm Director Jeff Luhnow said as much late Tuesday night at Busch Stadium.

“I feel like this was the year we could take some younger kids and some higher risks,” Luhnow said. “And let our system and our own people do what they do best — which is to take raw material that has a really high upside and turn it into a finished product.”

This was exactly my comment and concern with regards to the Miller pick.  It’s a great live arm but he’s still a raw player in two regards: 1) the development of a changeup and 2) inconsistent command.  We can debate the importance of a changeup (if his curveball is as good as reported, that can be an effective weapon against LH batters), but these are two areas that I would argue the development system has largely failed in the past.

Shelby Miller is a different kind of talent but guys like Adam Ottavino, Chris Lambert, Mark McCormick, etc. were take for their live fastballs and the belief that they could be coached from pitcher to thrower.  There command issues never subsided and their secondary pitches never materialized as reliable offerings.  We can place some of the blame on the pitchers but if the failing is systematic then you have to question the development process as well.  And when was the last time you heard them teach a pitcher a changeup?  I can’t think of one. (Anthony Reyes already had his in college.)

Without digressing too much, it doesn’t help the development system if there’s a different message being preached from different members of the orgaization.  I’m not asking for a regimented creed in player development but there’s reason to think that the persistent schisms between Luhnow’s “crowd” and Jocketty “remenants” or TLR and DD are detrimental to developing players.  Very few, if any, individuals have enough knowledge of the inner workings to speak to whether that’s truly an issue . . . but the conversation would be incomplete without mentioning it in passing.

So the guantlet is thrown and the challenge is issued.  If these kids get signed, it’s on the player development program to produce the next core player for the Cardinals rather than someone who gets released from AA.

So far we have in $115, which will take care of the hosting costs for the next year. Thanks everyone for your generous support! That is above what we need, but I will put it towards next year’s hosting cost. Actually, if I re-up for two years, the cost is about $170.00. So feel free to continue to give. If you have a paypal account, my email address is eriknmanning@gmail.com. You can also click on the “Donate” button the right sidebar.

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Before I jump into things, I’d like to say thank you to the generous donors who gave towards the cost to cover our hosting costs. We’re a little over 50% 65% towards our $100 goal. If you are interested in making a donation, just comment and I’ll send you an email, or click on the donate button on the right sidebar. Hosting is up by early July. Normally it would be something I’d take care of myself, but I have some baby expenses coming up and recently paid about $600 fixing my car. /sob story

Recapping:

• Cardinals pull off a shocker and pick RHP Shelby Miller 19th overall. I’m still floored by this, but perhaps I shouldn’t, with rumors of interest in Matt Purke, who ended up being drafted by Texas. First, the pluses – He was the best player left available to draft. His ceiling is higher than any arm currently in the system. He has one of the best fastballs of any prep pitcher, if not the best. And it’s not just about velocity, but about life. Every pundit is very high on this pitcher. Good curveball. Mechanically sound. Scouting reports say he has good makeup. The bad – Normal high school pitcher risk, hefty price tag, it’s not certain they will sign him, inconsistent command, secondary offerings.  There’s already some posturing from Luhnow, and some eagerness shown by the young right-hander to sign. I seem to remember Kyle Russell saying positive things a few years ago, and we know how that turned out. Him not signing will ignite some anger towards ownership, but to me, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. They can simply reallocate that money in Latin America, like towards highly regarded OF Wagner Mateo. (I think I’d rather have Miller) This is a bold, gutsy move by Luhnow and I think it gives him some credibility to a fan base that has accused him in the past of taking high-floor, low-upside pitchers in the 1st round. I do hope they sign him. I like his attitude so far, we’ll see what happens. From the Commish: “Definitely, I’m going to sign a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. Ultimately, my goal is to play with the St. Louis Cardinals as soon as I possibly can.”
• Cardinals take C/RHP Robert Stock, USC, 67th overall. Didn’t see this coming either. We’ve been hearing about Stock since he won BA’s Youth Player of the Year award, an honor he took home as a 15 year old. Back then he was flashing brilliance on the hill and behind the plate. Scouts were split on him then, and are split on him now, although it’s hard not to like him as a pitcher more given his underwhelming performance offensively, and the fact that he was the ace of USC’s staff, showing three average to above average pitches — fastball, slider, changeup. It sounds like the Cardinals will give him a try at catcher first.  Stock graduated early so he could attend college, and is just 19 years old. He was rated the 5th best prospect in the Cape in 2007 as the youngest player to ever play in the league. Stock has plenty of tools and time to put it altogether. I’m not surprised to see him struggle at USC at such a young age. There’s some high-reward here, and his ability to pitch is a safety net.
• Joe Kelly was drafted out of UC Riverside 97th overall. Kelly hales from the same school that gave us Adam Reifer and is pretty similar. He profiles as closer, he brings the heat with sink, and throws a good slider. The results weren’t really there this year, but he has some upside. The Cardinals already have a several of these type of pitchers like this in their system in Reifer, Samuel, Sanchez. Sure, some of those guys have struggled, but I still say for the 3rd round, this isn’t a bad pick at all.

Overall, this strikes me as a pretty different draft then usual. The criticism that there’s not enough upside in the system gets squelched by signing these guys, at least I would think so, based on what I know of these players now.  Day 2 could get interesting and will tell us if the Cards are going to continue down this path. We’ve heard rumors of Brian Goodwin in the past, and he’s still on the board. There’s also Max Stassi, who I have no idea how he is still on the board. He could be a good backup plan should negotiations with Miller fall apart.

Here’s a full list of some of the top talent remaining. If they start things off with AJ Morris or Kent Matthes, it’ll be back to the normal script. Not saying that is bad, it is that script that has given us some interesting prospects, like Tyler Henley or Steve Hill, for example. I think OF Angelo Songco could be a nifty pick-up, I really like his power bat. LHP Chris Dwyer could be better than some of the other touted lefties taken earlier, but as a draft-eligible sophomore he could be a tough sign. Should be interesting.

We’ll be back at 11, liveblogging. Looking forward to it.