Archive for March, 2010

Everyone on the Robert Stock bandwagon! Per Goold -

Robert Stock, first 2009 pick w/ Grapefruit debut, gets a base hit on first pitch he sees. Color me perplexed by college average.

Allow me to explain his low batting averages. One fact we all know about, that he left school early and started his college baseball career at the tender age of 17. It was expected that there would be a learning curve for Stock.

Two, his up and down luck when it comes to his batting averages of balls on play:

• Freshman, ’07 – .248 batting average, .260 BABIP.
• Sophomore, ’08 – A much healthier .295 BA, not surprisingly he had a .302 BABIP.
• Junior, ’09 – .219 batting average, .224 BABIP. Ouch.
• Pro debut, ’09 – .289 BA, .331 BABIP.

Over this time he averaged 159 at-bats per season. There’s a lot of randomness that can happen over the course of 159 at-bats. Felipe Lopez hit .385 in 156 at bats in his last stint as a Cardinal. Hanley Ramirez once hit .230 over a span of 174 at-bats.

Is Stock a good hitter or a bad hitter? In time we’ll find out. In the meantime, I’d go more by what the scouting reports say than handfuls of at-bats per season at the Division 1 level and rookie ball level while he was teenager. By making any judgments calls now (good or bad) based on his stats apart from what trained eyes say, you’re going to come up with some fuzzy assumptions.

Here’s the list.  Shelby Miller, the only Cardinals prospect, comes in at 38.

The Baseball America staffers did something I think is kind of neat, a prospect dream draft. If a player was in this year’s handbook, they were available to draft. The Cardinals had only 8 players drafted, tied with the Yankees and Nationals for the 2nd lowest amount of players drafted. The Astros just had four. Snarketty, snark snark.

• 5th round, 47th overall  Shelby Miller
• 11th round, 120th Jaime Garcia
• 19th round, 200th Eduardo Sanchez
• 19th round, 204th Lance Lynn
• 23th round, 247th David Freese
• 24th round, 260th Allen Craig
• 25th round, 274th Francisco Samuel
• 28th round, 300th Robert Stock

Notably absent: Daryl Jones.

Compare this draft to BA’s prospect rankings for the organization:

1. Shelby Miller, rhp
2. Jaime Garcia, lhp
3. Lance Lynn, rhp
4. Daryl Jones, of
5. David Freese, 3b/1b
6. Eduardo Sanchez, rhp
7. Allen Craig, of/1b/3b
8. Blake Hawksworth, rhp
9. Daniel Descalso, 2b
10. Robert Stock, c

Drafted but not in top ten: Francisco Samuel.

Lesson: Fastball velocity is a lot more appealing than a low-ceiling, high-floor player like Descalso. Stock was also taken over Descalso.

I’m still not sure why no DJ Tools. I am starting to think we’re the only ones excited about him, which in turn makes me less excited about him, I think.

A lamentable outcome for the lefthander to be sure. Hopefully he has a speedy and full recovery from the surgery.

In practical terms for the teams depth, this isn’t of huge import. Freeman was in the mix but there are several left handers in the high minors right now: Evan MacLane, Jaime Garcia, Tyler Norrick.

I’ve said on numerous occasions that I’m predisposed against most Latin prospects when it comes to making some kind of a “top prospect” list.  I won’t argue that the Cardinals have made great strides in their presence in that area over the last few years.  They nearly even netted a huge prize in Wagner Mateo before health concerns arose. (As an aside, anyone who was railing against the Cardinals at the time of voiding that contract should be eating a heaping pile of crow right now. The concerns about his eyes were not limited to the Cardinals and Mateo remains unsigned by the other 29 teams.)

Those caveats and improvements admitted, I’m still not certain that the Cardinals have demonstrated a consistent or even pronounced ability to find/develop Latin American players. It’s telling that in a very down year for the system as a whole, Baseball America still shows just 5 prospects among their top 30 coming out of that region.  The Cardinals rank above a measly 6 teams in top 30 Latin prospects.

This is a big part of why I’m very skeptical of “names” the Cardinals have signed in that area.  Eventually, this point of view is going to become outdated assuming the Cardinals find a way to improve their talent acquisition from the area but, right now, there should still be valid concerns about the Cardinals’ Latin American prospect pipeline.