Archive for September, 2009

We’re making some real progress now, all the way up to AA.

Let’s preface by giving the context talk again. While Palm Beach is a hitter’s graveyard, Springfield is an extremely hitter friendly park. The HR factor for Palm Beach is 80, for Springfield it is 122. What that means is if you can hit down in Florida, you will really like the move up to Missouri. Using Jeff Sackmann’s MLE calculator to illustrate this, last year Daryl Jones hit .326/.406/.476 for Palm Beach. Translating that to the Springfield environment, Jones would have hit .334/.413/.485. It’s no surprise then that Jones’ number improved upon moving up to Springfield last season. (Not so much this year, no thanks to injuries)

So this is why you don’t get overly excited when you see a .180 ISO from Tyler Henley. There’s nothing really in his scouting reports or past history to suggest he’s some sort of slugger or will likely ever be one. He might be a decent hitter and a nice player, but a power hitter he is probably not.

The league average line is .266/.340/.391 to give you a little more context. The average hitter is 24 years old.

I’m not saying it’s time to jump on the Jim Rapoport bandwagon, but those are some nice plate discipline numbers. His walk rate was 4% last year for Springfield, 13% this year. That’s quite a jump. He also has some nice range in CF.

What do we make of Dan Descalso? He tore the cover off the ball, put up great numbers, got good reviews from scoutts, but once he was moved up to Memphis he slowed considerably and played a lot of games at 1B or DH. Jarrett Hoffpauir is 26 doesn’t project as anything more than a utility player, but yet was hogging up all the games at 2B. Oh, and Hoffpauir is a lowsy defensive 2B. Maybe all the early season Descalso hype was a bit premature.

Hooray for Mark Hamilton, who also hit well for Memphis.

Brutal season for the Kozmanaut.

Hooray. We’re moving along to more meaningful stats. Well, sort of. As I mentioned before, Roger Dean is a hitter’s graveyard. Therefore, it makes pitchers look a little better than they actually are. Moving from Palm Beach to Springfield can be one of the toughest transitions for any pitcher; it separates the men from the boys.

Before we dive in, here’s the league averages: The pitcher’s average age is 23. League average ERA is 3.56 (!). Hits per nine is 8.6, HR/9 is .5, BB/9 3.2, K/9 – 7.3, SO/BB 2.31, WHIP is 1.3.

Gorgen, Kopp and Castillo probably would rate as the best starting pitching prospects on this  team. I wouldn’t say any of their performances really stood out this past season.

Blake King put the K in King, but was still way too wild. My personal man-cruch Adam Reifer proved to be more hittable than I thought he would be this past season, but he settled down a bit as the season went on.

Other than Sanchez, who pitched more innings in Springfield, I wouldn’t give any of these prospects better than a C, C+ grade.

In what is the most detailed article to date, Joe Strauss offers further insight into the ongoing saga of the Cardinals and Domincan prospect Wagner Mateo.  By and large this is an even-handed effort to publish some facts although Strauss is unable, as usual, to refrain from putting his own conotation into the article.  These subtle jabs often create a mischaracterization of the facts or at least color the perception of the reader.

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Around this time of year we always take a breather to recoup.  There may be some stray posts that pop up but, likely for the next 2-3 weeks, there will not be  a “regular” post.

The Arizona Fall League starts in 19 days (second week in October) and we’ll be back to follow the Cardinal prospects associated with that league.  Until then, enjoy the fruits of the farm system that are with the parent club and let’s get ready for some playoff baseball.

PJ Walters        Jeremy Hellickson

3.58 FIP            2.66 FIP

The AAA championship game will be on live on ESPN 2 at 7pm Eastern.

Live blog is over at Viva El Birdos here.

UPDATED: DFR for the game is after the jump!

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The Cardinals have voided the contract of Wagner Mateo over his vision issues.  The are voiding it over “pre-existing injuries and physical defects”.

Here is the info from Bernie’s Press box:

HOUSTON, TX, Sept. 22, 2009 – The St. Louis Cardinals announced today that they have terminated the contract of outfielder Wagner Mateo with whom they agreed to terms on July 2.

Mateo’s contract was contingent on a physical exam. Results of the physical exam discovered pre-existing injuries and physical defects that led to today’s decision by the club.

UPDATE: Makes you feel really bad for Wagner and re-emphasizes the risk involved in the Latin American market.  From Bernie’s twitter:

The kid Wagner Mateo apparently has a degenerative condition that will greatly impact his vision…pretty serious.

UPDATE 2: Here’s the update from Mateo’s side from Ben Badler’s twitter.  Truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Mateo’s camp says Mateo has 20/30 vision in his right eye but does not have a degenerative eye condition or nerve damage.

The 39th overall pick in 2008, Lance Lynn followed in the steps of the previous seasons supplemental pick and rapidly ascended through the system.  Weighing in at a hefty 250lbs and a tall 6’5″ frame, Lynn got a taste of Memphis on the 4th of September.  What follows are my impressions of both Lynn and his start that night.

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Behold! Numbers for your perusal, sorted by the best on-base percentage to last.

• Context! Florida State League hit .252/.329/.363 and scored only just 3.9 runs per game. Minor league park factor for Roger Dean is pretty rough. It’s a 93, meaning it cuts runs down 7% on average.  HR factor is 80, meaning a lot of balls that normally would go out die on the warning track. This makes Aaron Luna’s slugging % look pretty impressive.
• I wonder what Pete Kozma would have done a full season at Palm Beach.
• Cutler hit .351 in the Midwest League, thanks in part to a .380 BABIP. He didn’t have the same luck in the FSL, but gotta like that plate discipline and walk rate.
• Tommy Pham hit a respectable .256/.353/.450 in the 2nd half. Hopefully that’s some sort of precursor to the breakout we’ve all been waiting for.
• 16 triples and 21 steals and a .370 on-base percentage for Adron Chambers. I think we’ve been sleeping on Chambers a bit. I hear he’s a nice fielder, too.

The Memphis Redbirds completed their straight run through the playoffs crushing Brett Wallace and the Sacramento River Cats 6-0 behind lefty Evan MacLane.

• Jon Jay was 3-for-5.
• Jarrett Hoffpauir was 3-for-5 with a double.
• Mark Hamilton was 1-for-3 with a pair of walks.
• Mark Shorey was 2-for-4 with a double.
• Evan MacLane is the story here striking out 8 River Cats over 8.1 innings.  He allowed 9 hits (just 2 for extra bases) shutting down the Sacramento offense.
• Josh Kinney came in to record the last two outs of the game.

MiLB.com’s wrap-up of the game.  Memphis Commercial Appeal’s wrap up. On Tuesday, the Redbirds will play the International League Champion in a one game Triple-A Championship match. (The game will be on ESPN2.)

Good Luck Redbirds!

Well, this has been an eventful day. I meant to get this up much sooner, thankfully I didn’t. Wagner Mateo would have been my #4 prospect on this list, but who knows what is going on now.

A caveat here — I still like waiting for fall leagues to get over with before I come up with an “official” ranking, but in the name of collaboration and blogging, here’s my ranking. This system has greatly thinned and now looks a bit thinner without Mateo, who’s ceiling as a hitter I had at least believed to be higher than others. I’m starting to sour a bit on the whole international signing scene, there’s just too much shady dealings going on. I’m not saying the Cardinals should abandon it. It’s just not always the bonus babies that rise to the top of prospect lists, as evidenced by my #6 rated prospect.

1. Shelby Miller – No brainer here, even though he hasn’t thrown more than 10 professional innings. You all know the scouting report. Miller’s a potential 1-2 starter. The road from here to there is long, and there’s a lot of ditches along side that road, but it’s exciting to have a pitcher with Miller’s ceiling in the system.
2. Jaime Garcia – Jaime is back from Tommy John, which was the only knock on him the previous season. He’s burning worms and missing bats, just like before. Ceiling is #3 starter, which is why he is here.
3. Daryl Jones – 2009 was better than his bad seasons but worse than his terrific year last year, no thanks to injury issues that dogged him all season long. Scouts remarked as to Jones looked more like a 4th OF due to his lack of speed and power, but the speed part was because of knee issues. Carl Crawford lite is the lofty comparison. I think he can be an average LF because his range will make up a little bat for a lack of thump. My semi-realistic but maybe overly optimistic hope for DJ Tools: .280/.355/.445, +5 defense, double-digits in steals.
4. Lance Lynn – The big hoss does nothing super spectacular, but avoids ugly innings, misses an average number of bats and gets a little better than average ground ball outs.
5. Allen Craig – Met with a big dose of skepticism from the scouting community despite mashing year after year. He got off to a slow start and still managed to have his finest season to date. I know he’s a little older at 25, but after this season in Triple-A I believe Craig can help the club now, whether that be at the hot corner or in the OF.
6. Eduardo Sanchez – The breakout prospect of the year. He’s about on par with Reifer and Samuel in terms of stuff, only the big difference about Sanchez is he can command it more often than not. Look for him at some point in 2010.
7. Robert Stock – People seem to forget he’s only 19. He mashed in the Appy, not sure if that amounts to much, but after suffering through the slumps he suffered through at USC it was nice to see him hit. The back-up plan of pitching has to be on the shelf for now. I do hear some concerns about Stock’s swing mechanics. I’m not fully on the bandwagon yet, but he was formerly mentioned as a possible first rounder and he has a nice ceiling. I just don’t get too thrilled after good Appy stats, call it the Niko Vazquez shakes.