Comments on: Five 2010 New Year Hopes for the Farm System

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:43:20 +0000

Has anyone heard anything on Joe Mather lately? Specifically, if his wrist is better now than it was last season, and if they will experiment with him at 3B again?

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:53:45 +0000

Erik & Co — Pleeeeeaaasse post something new so those of us who actually care about baseball (and not the politics of PEDs) have something to post about!

By: Easy

Easy — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:09:39 +0000

It was also my understanding that Hernandez was signed for his defensive talents. The errors don’t bother me as he is 17 and is probably not playing on the best infields in the DSL. I liked his offensive stats too but two caveats. One is that he fell off after a great start. The other is that there were a lot of players who had great offensive stats in the DSL last year. Then there is the usual warning that DSL stats “can’t be taken too seriously” though I’m not sure what that means. These are prospects, some in their 20′s, who are being paid something for playing baseball so I’ve got to think that the competition would be better than high school and maybe small college ball. A 17 year old who gets some praise from scouts and puts up numbers should interest us. Finally, our system was so disappointing last year that I’m putting him in my top twenty somewhere.

By: Bob P

Bob P — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:39:17 +0000

Since things are kind of slow around here lately, I just have a few questions and thoughts regarding the Dominican signings. What are your thoughts on Gabriel Hernandez. He was a Dominican signing last year and in the “July 2nd Bonus Babies” section it says he is a ++ defender, switch hitter, and singles hitter. I looked at his stats from the DSL, and they looked pretty good. .308 avg, 26 SBs, 4 CS, and then I saw one stat that really stuck out; 32 Errors. Is this a typo by MiLB.com or did he really have 32 errors in 67 games? I’d have to rethink the ++ defender thing if that is correct. Also Javier Avendano has put up good numbers in the GCL and VSL. I’m trying to find some hidden talent in our system which appears to have very little. Also, what do you think will become of the million dollar man, Roberto De La Cruz? He’s not looking good so far. And also, did we sign anyone from the Dominican this year or did we just give up after Mateo was supposed to be signed?

By: njnick

njnick — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:51:45 +0000

Great point, cariocacardinal. I fear that as well. In facilitating a Pujols signing and with Holiday’s contract the Cards strategy may be to draft low upside players who project to graduate to the majors quickly. This would be a mistake IMO but could be an approach nonetheless.

By: kelley

kelley — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:29:18 +0000

Cutler is a catcher…not an outfielder. He was player of the year in 2009 at Quad Cities and had a.99% fielding percentage. He was promoted to Florida to help improve the hitting problems in Jupiter, and he hit for a 317 average in 2009. I followed every game in Florida and he stood out most of the time.

I also feel like players that are signed by the Cardinals, either as pitchers or position players have natural talent, but they must work harder than the competition to improve and fine tune their skills. Control can be improved for pitchers with hard work and good pointers from the instructors that work with the players. The same holds true for fielding and hitting. The cardinals have a good group of young pitchers and several of them will advance to the Majors barring injury.

By: Kahzakhstanny Danny

Kahzakhstanny Danny — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:13:45 +0000

Instead of the Cardinals have an inability to teach command to young pitchers, could the real problem be, that good to great command is something that a pitcher is most likely born with, and the Cardinals simply don’t know how to draft pitchers?

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:08:18 +0000

Will the need to fill holes cheaply around Holliday and Pujols result in the Cards drafting lower upside but closer to the majors players? — as if they don’t do that enough already!

By: Easy

Easy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:29:04 +0000

Number five should be a given with the Holliday signing. It’s more of a crap shoot than paying established players but, if they’re going to stay competitive and it seems they intend to, spending on the farm system is the only way to do it without spending way more on salaries.
As far as what we get out of what we’ve got I’ll predict that most of our “pearls” will be surprises. Two wild hare predictions: 1. John Jay will be a better major league hitter than he’s shown and will become a valuable reserve this year. 2. Adam Ottavino will be the Cardinals’ closer by August. I know, too many fond memories of Todd Worrell but I wanted to get this out there just in case it happens.

By: Forsch31

Forsch31 — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:19:19 +0000

Sorta related question…how do other farm systems match up with the Cardinals in terms of solving control problems? Is it really a organizational problem, or is it simply one of those things that keeps a vast majority of draft picks (given the amount taken by teams each year) from ever making the majors?