Archive for September, 2009

This is part of the reason I have such a hard time evaluating Latin American prospects.  It’s why I wasn’t high on Roberto de la Cruz last year as well.  These players simply aren’t vetted as well and the records in Latin America are not on the same plane as those for North American players.

Wagner Mateo — the 16-year-old outfielder who signed a $3.1 million bonus, the most ever given to an amateur Latin American position player — is having vision problems that may affect his contract status with the St. Louis Cardinals, according to several Latin American baseball sources.

I can’t get worked up on this one way or the other and we should let the Cardinals vet the situation because, frankly, we don’t know what’s going on.

(H/T: MLB Trade Rumors)

erik update: Per Jorge Aranguare of ESPN.com, Wagner’s agent says it’s a just a problem he had with some contacts. The Cardinals suspect it’s a degenerative condition that could greatly hinder his playing ability and are awaiting test results. More will be unfolding, I’m sure. The Cardinals can recoup the bonus if it is a pre-existing condition.

We’re out of small season stat-land, but there still plenty of caveats that apply. The average aged Midwest League hurler is 21.7. The league average ERA is 3.96 and the normal K/9, BB/9, H/9 and HR/9 rates are 7.8, 3.4, 8.6 and 0.6.  So while a player Arquimedes Nieto got a little bit of hype (from people like me), he was pretty darn average.

Someone who was a whole lot better than average was Casey Mulligan. His 0.50 FIP is pretty ridiculous by any standards, even if it was just 20 innings and usually an inning at  a time. Mulligan’s peripherals took a step or two back with each level jump, but his overall season was pretty good.

Memphis takes a commanding 2-0 lead in the series with a 3-2 win over Brett Wallace and the Sacramento RiverCats.

• Adam Ottavino was spectacular striking out 9 over 6 innings.  He allowed 2 runs over 6 innings walking 3.  At 94 pitches, he was relatively efficient in retiring hitters.
• The Redbirds revived on the same relievers as the previous evening (minus Josh Kinney) with Royce Ring pitching the 7th, Fernando Salas pitching the 8th and Pete Parise picking up the save in the 9th.
• Jon Jay was 1-for-2 with a pair of walks.
• Allen Craig was 1-for-3 with a walk.
• Mark Hamilton was 2-for-4 with a solo HR to take the lead in the 6th.
• The Redbirds collected 8 hits and 4 walks but only Hamilton’s HR was for extra bases.  Death by 1000 papercuts.

The remaining three games of this five game series will be held in Sacramento beginning on Friday.  Hopefully Friday is the last game!  Go Redbirds!

Do-stats, do-stats, do-do-stat stat stats.

The parallels between Stock and Vasquez’s 2008 and 2009 are sort of alarming, which makes me a little gun-shy about jumping full force onto the Robert Stock bandwagon. Stock will still probably rank pretty high on my list, but only because the system has thinned out so much because of trades.

I can’t believe it took Charlie Cutler 278 plate appearances to get promoted. Not much really much else to see here, in my opinion.

Context check: The Midwest League is a pitcher’s league. Average batting line is .256/.329/.373 and the ballpark formerly known as JOD is a pitcher friendly park. Neutral when it comes to home-runs, but it also cuts down doubles.

Jaime Garcia            Chris Gissell

2-0 3.86 ERA            0-1 3.52 ERA

Here’s my effort at a Viva El Birdos-like open thread.

Memphis is facing off against Sacramento in the PCL World Series.

The game will start at about 8:15pm after a rain delay.

Here’s the gameday link and the game will be broadcast live on milb.tv if you are a subscriber.

Go Redbirds!

UPDATE: The DFR boxscore is after the jump!

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Sample Size Stats! Get your sample size stats here!

Bullet-pointy thoughts:

• Justin Smith took his K’ing ways from Johnson City up to Batavia. Short season caveats aside, he’s intriguing to me.
• Color me intrigued with Scott Schneider as well, who was July’s organizational pitcher of the month. Schneider carried his success to the Quad Cities as well. He’s mostly a sinker-slider guy
• Daniel Calhoun is one of Liam’s personal cheeseballs. Low walk rate from college carried over to his pro debut. Light on stuff, but a ‘crafty lefty’.
• Eric Fornataro doesn’t miss many bats for someone with a 92-95 MPH fastball.
• The best prospect on this squad is 3rd round pick Joe Kelly. The former college closer’s stuff has yet to catch up with results; he was rather hittable and didn’t really dominate as I would have hoped. That might be expected, as the Cardinals tried him out as a starter for a few games.
• After serving his 50 game suspension, Deryk Hooker’s performance was rather bland.

League averages: 7.9 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 0.4 HR/9, 1.30 WHIP, 3.50 ERA. WHIP and ERA are pretty useless, but whatev.

Lookin’ at a whole lot of ‘meh’. Kyle Conley posted some video game numbers, putting himself on the prospect map. Maybe not a whole lot to hyperventilate over after that. Matt Adams carried over his brilliance from Johnson City. Decent performance by Ryde Rodriguez, but he was demoted from the QC and his BB/K rate is rather troubling. Ryan Jackson was more of an all-glove, no-hit shortstop than I would have hoped for.

Niko Vasquez…sigh.

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