Another pre-season Prospect Ranking, this time coming from The Scouting Book.
A bit about ‘The Scouting Book’
We don’t discount old-school scouting reports, and we don’t discount modern sabermetric statistics: we bow out of that entire argument and try to deliver values that come from both the head and the gut at the same time.
Likewise, we don’t reject the opinions of others. In fact, they’re incorporated in our summaries. In addition to the obvious inputs from such places as Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, SI and ESPN, our contributors and sources include professional scouts, baseball writers, online fantasy baseball consultants, and more than a couple of hobbyist sabermetricians who spend too many days tramping around minor league ballparks.
More info here. Rankings after the jump:
Scouting Book’s Top Cardinals Prospects for 2010
Current Overall SB ranking for 2010 shown in parentheses. Click any player for a full report.
1. Jaime Garcia LHP (#48 overall)
2. Shelby Miller RHP (#54 overall)
3. Lance Lynn RHP (#96 overall)
4. David Freese 3B (#121 overall)
5. Daryl Jones LF (#129 overall)
6. Bryan Anderson C (#130 overall)
7. Eduardo Sanchez RHP (#173 overall)
8. Robert Stock C (#188 overall)
9. Allen Craig OF (#204 overall)
10. Blake Hawksworth RHP (#235 overall)
According to their sidebar, Robert Stock’s stock (see what I did there?) is on the rise.
Entries (RSS)
Reading the blurbs about each prospect makes me a little suspect. For instance, they describe Bryan Anderson a “the slugging catcher.” Not much in BA’s track record to suggest that he is a slugger.
Some other names of possible interest:
Boggs, Ottavino, Walters all around 320-340.
Peter the Shortstop Whose Name Must Not Be Named isn’t in the top 400.
Expats: Walrus 26 (ouch), Mortensen 183 (in Stock’s neighborhood, but his stock isn’t rising), Todd 266; Peterson and Worrell are not listed.
This strikes me as unexpectedly optimistic … IF these guys know what they’re talking about. And it also argues that apart from a certain Young Pitcher, and the unexpected Luke Gregerson, the deals made last year were probably more auspicious for the good guys than we thought they were at the time.
Well, B.A. did slug .513 as a rookie in ’05, and .525 in 80 AA ABs in Springfield, so he’s definitely shown glimpses. It does say “he’s slipped in the standings” so it sounds like there’s some adjustent for disappointment there. Too bad, I like that kid.
I’m liking the love for both Miller and Garcia there, only a couple of spots apart.
Otherwise looks pretty much the same as other lists.
“At least a few of these names will be nestled to Dave Duncan’s breast in the years to come.”
Who would write that?
“St. Louis is hungry for pitching, and good at developing it …”
The first half is true of every org. The second half is just bizarre. How do you support a statement like that?
With Wainwright, who was drafted and “developed” by Atlanta?
With Morris, who endured two major surgeries because of overuse?
With Haren, who didn’t become a star until he left Dave Duncan’s breast far behind?
It’s fun to see a system that ranks three of our prospects in the top 100, but it’s hard to take it seriously.
Lou-
I think they must be looking at the Cardinals’ stellar record for producing middle relievers.
That, said, you have to give them credit for either Haren or Wainwright. It’s logically inconsistent to say that Haren doesn’t count because he didn’t get major league success until he left the Cardinals (which is not even entirely true) and Wainwright doesn’t count because his earliest years were spent in Atlanta.
I don’t think it’s completely goofy to say that Waino was at least partially “developed” in the Cardinals’ system. He did spend two years at Memphis, after all. Morris was “developed” in the system and was a big-time prospect when he arrived in town; it wasn’t until he was a full-fledged Cardinal that he got used, overused, abused, broken. That other guy I can’t bring myself to name … well, you have a point.
There are actually a lot of ex-Cardinal farm hands who have pitched in the Show, although many of them have done so for other teams. Is the number unusually great? I don’t know, but it’ll be an interesting thing to look into.
I do not understand why everyone is giving Hawksworth a tongue bath. He’s been terrible for years, is a huge injury risk and had one mediocre effort at middle relief last year. The peripherals in 2009, not so good. I just don’t buy into Hawksworth being a major league player.
It’s tough to truly determine how good the farm can be becasue you have to throw out the historical stuff and just concentrate on the last 4-5 years with Lunhow.
I like the direction they are going. I have no problem with the pass on Porcello. Its never a good idea to give an 18 year old a major league contract and let him accumulate service time while developing them. It looks like it worked out this time, but its not worth it in my opinon.
Also people like to complain that the cards are too conservative. Fine, but if you look at this year’s teams (one of the best in baseball) 6 of 8 starters are home grown with a 7th minor league free agent. The bullpen has many organizational arms and at least 2 of the 5 starters comming through the system.
That is actually pretty impressive.
For the upcoming year, I hope they stay conservative to add quantity. Kind of like the couple of Lunhow’s early years when he rebuilt the system in to a top 10 cupbord. Then when they when they are a bit restocked, go for a few home run guys instead of swinging away every year like many of the fans want.
I don’t necessarily agree, Zuke. The question of “how good the farm can be” isn’t just a matter of drafting; it’s also about the way a kid develops once he shows up on the farm. Much of the rearrangement going into the 2010 system seems to be of the “same monkeys, different trees” variety. How long have those guys with new teams been in the organization? I honestly don’t know, and would like to know before assessing how good the current or recent staffs are/have been at developing arms and bats.
Gruntosaurus:
Not sure of what you mean by same monkeys, differnt trees. I think we are saying the same thing, but I am not sure.
I agree about developing. In fact, “prospect rankings” is the worst way to judge a farm system. The only real way to judge “system” is simply by how many major league players they produce. Just becasue I have 4 guys that can throw 100 MPH, it means nothing unless I can turn them into healthy major leaguers. Which, even though it has started good, I think it is still to early to judge the cardinals current system.
I know it sounds like I am being nitpicky, but there is more than subtle difference with the two. I think the term “organizational ranking and farm system” is misleading becasue they are almost always used in referenct to prospects rankings. If you want to know who has the best prospects and the most potentail players, prospect rankings is the way to go. however, if you want to know ho has the best farm systems, a 1 year prospect ranking is not the best way to deterimine.
Has the name, Lance Lynn, and the term, “innings eater” ever not appeared in the same paragraph anywhere? This isn’t totally a tongue in cheek question. When I envision the typical “innings eater” I see a pitcher who, in a good year for a good team, manages an E.R.A. in the high 4′s and maybe a .500 record. In a lesser year he goes 8-19 with an E.R.A. in the 5′s but pitches 200 plus miserable innings to live up to his “innings eater” rep.
What I’m getting at is that it may be way too early to decide that Lynn’s ceiling is limited to this dubious description. There is a difference between consistent winning pitchers who pitch a lot of innings and guys whose performances, other than the number of innings pitched, vary wildly enough to question whether they’re truly valuable at all.
Both of these kind of pitchers may have some things in common, a variety of pitches, stamina, ability to avoid injuries etc. but the difference between them, it seems, comes down to just how effectively they use what they’ve got. That in turn comes down, for the most part, to control, the spotting and mixing of pitches and their intelligence in sizing up hitters and pitching to their weak spots.
Lynn appears to have the size, stamina and four pitch repertoire and has performed well for his age at the levels he’s pitched. Everyone seems to think he’s a major leaguer. It seems to me that it’s too early to relegate him to a role where his main contribution would be to save the rest of the staff from being overexposed.
Zuke, I was referring to the rotations of managers, coaches, etc., not to what’s going on with the players — stuff like Derek Lilliquist moving from extended spring training the last two years to Memphis for this year. Or like the recent announcement that Mitchell Page will be with the system again. Or Dennis Martinez moving to Springfield to be Pop Warner’s pitching coach. That’s where the “same monkeys, different trees” comment comes from.
Truthfully, I don’t know if any of these “monkeys” have been with the system long enough for us to know how effective they are at “developing” pitchers. Obviously they had nothing to do with guys like Morris, but how about Todd, Gregerson, Perez, etc.? What part of their progress toward the Show was tied to coaches still in the system? Have any been around long enough to have contributed to the gross misread that Jocketty was guilty of in connection with that Hairy Dannen guy, or whatever he’s called.