I’ve made my views pretty clear on the international market. As difficult as it can be for fans to get good information on stateside prospects, it’s orders of magnitude more difficult to sort through the specious International prospects. I’m also a strong advocate of the wait and see approach with these types of prospects and thus far none of our international signings have made me reconsider that (despite the Carlos Matias watch).
Ben Badler at Baseball America is the premier source for international prospects though and he’s ranked the top 33 this year with video (free) and full scouting reports (subscription — but seriously you should subscribe to BA). I do not expect the Cardinals to sign anymore big name players and certainly not hand out any additional 7 figure bonuses to international prospects but it’s fun to speculate.
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I actually really like the international market for a reason. Most players in the states have played on competitive teams their whole life. When you draft someone you have a good idea about what your going to get. Most players drafted 30-50 round will never even recieve a legit shot at the big leagues. With the international market teams have a chance to find very talented guys who don’t have much instruction and who can still be shaped and molded. It’s the ultimate judge of an organizations capacity to develop players. There are major problems with steroid in the DR and Venezulan and obviously regarding age and identity issues but the untapped talent reservoir is well worth it. For example the Cubs have a pipeline to Korea and they have some very good Korean prospects in their minor league system.
Due to the fact that the “International Prospects” are signed at such young ages, before you can really see how their physical structure and tools will develop, I would prefer that the Cards sign 10 such players for $100000 each rather than one for $1million. The odds of two of the 10 developing into something useful or better seem higher than the one million dollar reaching the expectations of a million dollar signing.
I can see a number of the players already in the system being helpful players, e.g. Salas, Sanchez, Solano, Parejo, albeit unlikey to be stars.
@Indiana Cardinal: If Donovan Solano ever seens an MLB roster, something calamitous will have to have happened to the team because he cannot hit his way out of a paper bag.
I’m interested in their projections for the NL Central teams. I should get a BA subscription…
@azruavatar: AZ, as Solano goes 2 for 4 with a HR at AAA last night, I respectully disagree. He hit .317 at AAA last year and .281 for the 2008 season. I think he hits enough and is versitile enough to be a MLB utility infielder at some point. We will see. Good, not great, but also not paper (garbage) bag quality.
I think he would be playing more and doing better this year if the system was not so clogged with similar bench quality prospects. I will predict that the Cards do some thinning out before the trade deadline.
@Indiana Cardinal: Donovan Solano has a career slugging of .301 and a career oba of .310. He is not a major league caliber by any stretch of the imagination.
@erik: I guess the site founders know it all?! Not the same players clearly, but there were not many people touting Placido Polanco at a similar stage in his career and he turned out alright. Ozzie’s bat wasn’t that great at 22 either (again he was an amazing fielder by all accounts then, but the utility of his bat pre-28 was non-existant, No)?
Nobody is saying Solano is a “hot” prospet. But “not major league caliber by any stretch of the imagination” and “cannot hit his way out of a paper bag” seems to be taking it a bit far for a young fella in AAA. Time will tell, and you are probably right, but more discussion and less snipe seems to be a fair request from the folks running the site.
@lawless: Donovan Solano’s OPS by year
2005: .636 (Short season)
2006: .637 (Short season)
2007: .549 (A & A+)
2008: .691 (A+ & AA)
2009: .604 (AA & AAA)
2010: .522 (AAA)
What the heck are we supposed to say about a player whose minor league line is .255/.311/.303/.614? Seriously? That’s what he hits in the minors! I’m not going to sugar coat numbers that reflect a player who does not have a major league caliber bat. He hasn’t even shown signs of having a major league potential. Not every player in the system is a prospect. They just aren’t. That’s not snipe; it’s honesty.
I doubt Solano ever is a starting SS in the majors but I will not be surprised if he plays some there. I dont believe guys (Solano, Parise) stick around 3-4 weeks in major league camp as non roster invitees unless TPTB see something in them that makes them think the guy could contribute under the right circumstances.
An interesting note on Solano is that he has shown decent power the last couple of years while being one of the leading hitters in the Colombian Winter League each year. It’s a long way from Colombia to STL but I believe he has more there than his stats show or he would never have been in major league camp let alone stuck around.
The writers of the site are going to give their opinions. Our opinions are going to be strong at times, and we are not setting ourselves up as experts, but we’re going to call them as we see them. If we’re wrong, well, that’s just part of blogging. We have been doing this for a while so I’d like to think we know a few things by now. We’re not going to give you some pie-in-the sky analysis that says every minor leaguer is a prospect and that the farm system is going to churn out dozens and dozens of big leaugers. That is not reality. Placido Polanco’s are the exception to the rule. Very seldom are you going to see some non-hitting infielder develop into some everyday player with occasional all-star seasons.
Write your own blog or go somewhere else if you don’t like it. I’m sorry but I am so sick of seeing people getting bent out of shape because of something some of the writers say that rubs them the wrong way in the slightest bit. It’s become a prevalent thing here lately and it’s getting really tiresome. REALLY tiresome and I can tell you from experience that it can suck the joy out of writing.
Speaking of international prospects, Carlos Matias was dominant again tonight: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K
On another note I looked up Wagner Mateo……also doing well in everything but BA. Can’t wait till Matias gets to face Mateo or Sano or other elite in the DSL.
The Polanco comparison is interesting. I got to see PP a couple times early in his MLB career, and I remember being impressed by how solidly he squared up on pitches. But even with a solid swing, his line drives barely cleared the infield.
I give the guy a lot of credit for the time he spent in the weight room. He got a lot stronger in his mid 20s, and he’s maintained that strength into his mid 30s. I think that’s why his peak as a hitter came in his age-31 season. (He didn’t go above 100 in OPS+ until his age-26 season.)
I don’t know if he just started late with the weights, or if it took that long for the weights to have an effect.
Solano is listed at 5’10″, same as Polanco, but when I saw him in a couple of ST games, he didn’t remind me of Polanco in terms of his build. Not that it matters; really, the only comparison is that they’re both utility infielders and contact hitters w/o a lot of power. Maybe he could follow the same path as PP, but first he has to get the opportunity. If that opportunity arose — the Cards gave up on Ryan, say, and installed Greene at SS — I hope the Cards would fill the utility slot with someone like Gotay, who’d have a better chance to help us now.
@erik: Erik – I have literally been reading this site since day 1. I understand that having an opinion is whole lot more interesting than blindly supporting every player in the system. I respect the job you two have done from the beginning.
To the punchline though, “write your own blog or go somewhere else if you don’t like it” is a pretty juvenile reaction, No? I guess the questions boils down to whether your reactions/comments would be the same if Luhnow said the things Indiana was saying? My guess is that they wouldn’t, and that the manner i which you disagreed would be more respectful. Take care fellas.
Juvenile or not, this is Erik’s site. I’ve had comments removed because I like to use words a little stronger than “darn” once in a while. I completely understand because it’s Erik’s site!
Telling someone “write your own blog or go somewhere else if you don’t like it” is the perfect response.
Right way to criticize comments: Make a comparison to Placido Polanco.
Wrong way to criticize comments: Sarcastically snipe at writers.
I don’t particularly like making comparisons to players who are relatively unique. How many players went from sub-.700 OPS in the minors to the majors? Not many. Solano has been someone that they’ve used at multiple locations but I’ve never seen his glove as being more than adequate at 3B. The odds are still very much against him and I don’t think any projection system would look kindly upon his performance to date.