Archive for September, 2010

As the organization finishes another successful year – 1 championship team, 4 other teams in the playoffs – I just wanted to take a moment to thank all the readers this year.  I think I can speak for all of the FR contributors when I say that we write because we love the Cardinals organization and we love the interaction. This site boasts some of the best of both those items.

We’re still going through a bit of a transition that continues to be stymied by my day job [/shakes fist in cubicle] but we’re committed to continuing to have the best and brightest minor league coverage available and I think we’ve achieved that again this year without question. We’ll be taking the next couple weeks off but starting on October 4th, we’ll be back with daily posts. The Arizona Fall League starts on October 12th and we’ll be covering that as we have in the past.

Again, thanks for taking the time to stop by. I hope the minor leagues were a little more tangible as a result.

I have the unfortunate task of closing out the DFR schedule for summer baseball leagues…..don’t worry though, fall league baseball is right around the corner.

It was a great season for the minor league affiliates and it has been great sharing it with all who contribute with comments as well as the readers who prefer to “lurk”.  It is all of you who make this a great site to visit!

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No game today for Memphis in their Championship series so we’re gonna get an open thread.

Today’s topic: What’s your favorite “type” of ballplayer?

I’ll give an example after the jump.
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Mine is the peak Scott Rolen type player. A 3B who has an amazing glove in the field and power at the plate. On every groundball, he gets to show off his great hands and strong arm. He’s got pop in his bat to hit 30+ HRs, discipline enough to carry a high OBP and great baserunning skills to leg out 30+ doubles. When he does go deep, he puts his head down and and gets around the bases.

I’ll take that guy over a slick SS or CF or a tough as nails catcher.

Word is there is some shake-ups coming in the player development wing of the Cardinals organization. I’m sure there will be more on that in the coming days as the dust settles.

I’d argue that either a) the player development is absolutely lousy or b) the roster creation/management area of the organization is dreadful. If the best solutions the Cardinals can come up with include Aaron Miles, Jeff Suppan, Pedro Feliz and Jake Westbrook (in that order) while trading away talent because the manager can’t play nice with others, then either the minor league system is filled with players who aren’t better than REALLY below average MLB players (except you Jake) or someone is holding the roster management hostage.

They say in the NBA that it isn’t a ‘series’ until the home team loses. The good news for Memphis is that if they don’t lose a game at home the rest of this series, they win the Championship. The bad news? They lose any games the rest of this series and they win nothing.
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Memphis got their PCL championship series off on the wrong foot in the DFR playoff edition!

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In 2009, Scott Gorgen split 130 innings between High-A Palm Beach and AA Springfield. He began the year in Springfield again and threw 46 innings before being shut down with elbow issues.

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Springfield’s season ended tonight as they were doubled up by N by NW Arkansas.

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Springfield was the only team in action, again.  Unfortunately they lost a close one.  The series will head back to Arkansas for the final game.

The DFR nitty-gritty….

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Springfield played the only game of the night and they won!

On to the DFR…

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Memphis advances to the next round of the playoffs behind a dominant performance from Lance Lynn who set the single game strikeout record with 16. That makes for a clean sweep in the first round as Memphis tries to repeat as PCL champions.

Quad Cities season ends on a disappointing and rain-soaked loss.

Springfield goes into game three with the best of 5 series tied 1-1.

Batavia’s playoff season ended earlier in the week losing to the Tri-City ValleyCats in the playoffs.

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