Archive for November, 2009

Surprise 8, Peo Javelinas 6

Surprise: 11-15, last

• Daniel Descalso was 1-for-3.
• Gary Daley recorded 7 outs and managed to escape trouble despite allowing 3 hits and a walk.  He struck out 1.

Surprise 8, Mesa 9

Surprise: 10-15, last

• Daryl Jones was 1-for-3 with a walk.
• Tyler Henley was 1-for-4.

Surprise 4, Mesa 6

Surprise: 10-14, last

• Daniel Descalso was 2-for-3 with a double and a pair of walks.
• Daryl Jones was 0-for-3 with a walk.
• Bryan Anderson was 1-for-4.
• Mike Parisi lasted just 3.1 innings allowing 6 runs (5 earned) on 7 hits and 2 walks.  He struck out 3.
• Scott Gorgen walked 1 and struck out 1 hitter over 2 innings.
• Adam Reifer K’d one in a perfect frame.

Surprise 2, Peo Saguaros 5

Surprise: 10-13, 3rd (last)

• Daniel Descalso was 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts.
• Daryl Jones was 0-for-4 with a strikeout.
• Bryan Anderson was 1-for-3.
• Gary Daley struck out 2 in a perfect inning.

I finished this series before the AFL season ended. Success!

• Is PJ Walters our own version of Yusmeiro Petit?
• Given the options, I really, really hope Jaime Garcia seizes the 5th starter job.
• Can we have a mulligan on that Mark DeRosa trade again? With bland and blander throwing out of our bullpen, it would be nice to have Perez and Todd back. Don’t even look at Perez’s Cleveland numbers, they will make you cry.
• I didn’t see the re-emergence of Hawksworth coming. Move over, Wonderbrad.
• I can see the organizational intrigue for Pete Parise. 58% groundball rate for any pitcher is interesting.  I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see him in some sort of low-leverage role next season.

Surprise 1, Mesa 11

Surprise: 10-12, 2nd-tied

• Tyler Henley was 2-for-4.
• Scott Gorgen struck out 1 but allowed 3 hits and a run in his inning of work.
• Adam Reifer walked 1 in a scoreless frame.

AFL East 7, AFL West 8 (The Surprise were part of the West conference)

• Daryl Jones was 1-for-2 with a double.

Surprise 7, Scottsdale 8

Surprise: 10-11, 2nd-tied

• Daniel Descalso was 1-for-5.
• Daryl Jones was 1-for-4 with a double.

St. Louis Cardinals Winter League Players

• Jon Jay continues to scuffle with a .708 OPS in the Venezualan League.  Strength of competition and run environment gets talked about a lot but I would imagine that it’s difficult to play in a league when a majority of your teammates are non-English speaking.
• Mark Hamilton has a .568 OPS in the Dominican League.
• Richard Castillo has a 4.71 ERA in 27 innings.  More troubling is the 11 strikeouts against 7 walks.
• Evan MacLane has 19 strikeouts and 4 walks in 23 innings.  The lefty is running a 1.96 ERA in the Dominican League.

Surprise 10, Scottsdale 5

Surprise: 10-10, 2nd-tied

• Tyler Henley had a big day: 3-for-4 with a double and a HR.
• Bryan Anderson was 2-for-4.
• Mike Parisi pitched 4 innings allowing 7 hits, 2 walks and 2 strikeouts on the way to 3 runs.
• Adam Reifer allowed 2 hits and 2 Ks in a scoreless frame.

Surprise 6, Phoenix 5

Surprise: 9-10, 2nd-tied

• Daniel Descalso was 0-for-4 with a walk.
• Daryl Jones was 1-for-5 with 3 strikeouts.
• Gary Daley picked a good day to step it up.  With Luhnow in attendance, he retired 5 batters (2 by strikeout) allowing just 1 hit.

Derrick Goold has the low down on some let-gos.  These are all good signs for the team.  Matt Scherer’s addition to the 40-man roster was a mistake from the start leaving Luis Perdomo exposed.  We saw plenty of Joe Thurston last year and, apparently, the team did too.  The Cardinals have better upside plays (particularly in the pen) rather than stick with high floor low ceiling guys like this pair.  The release of Brad Thompson strikes me as the most surprising but again, a good sign that the team realizes his function as “long reliever” wasn’t worth more than league minimum.  I can’t see a lot to dislike in these moves.

Per the Blue Jays official Twitter feed.

Hoffpauir had a nice little rebound season for Memphis, hitting .299/.367/.496 in 375 at-bats.  The equivalent is a .713 OPS. The problem is he was repeating triple-A, was 26 years old, and at least according to Total Zone (a respected defensive metric), Hoff had a glove o’lead. Over his past two seasons, he was minus 25 runs over 229 games.

Now Memphis manager Chris Maloney has no excuse to take away precious development time for Dan Descalso at second base. I like the Hoff, and we’ll always have 2007 when we thought he might be a late-bloomer, but the bottom line is Hoffpauir is about as fungible as they come.