The Cards have added 5 players to their 40-man roster which protects them from the Rule 5 draft this offseason.
They added Eduardo Sanchez, Adam Reifer, David Kopp, Adron Chambers and Mr. Peter Kozma.
Notables left unprotected are Tony Cruz, Blake King and Brian Broderick.
Discuss.
Entries (RSS)
Kinda sucks about Tony Cruz, I hope he has another year in the organization.
Even after the moves, we have only 38 players on 40-man roster. You can still add Tony Cruz and have one empty spot for the rule V pick. I don’t get why they leave Cruz unprotected.
I’d rather remove DJ Tools from 40-man roster, leave Kozma unprotected and add Tony Cruz, Tommy Pham, and Brandon Dickson. I don’t think anybody would draft DJ and put him on 25-man roster for the entire season.
I doubt Pham would be selected, so I think it’s fine that he wasn’t placed on the 40 man roster. I do agree that Cruz should have been protected and Jones and Kozma could have been left off the 40 man roster. I just don’t get all the poor roster management moves we’ve seen over the past year.
To remove Jones, he has to pass through waivers. A claiming team only has to keep him on their 40 man roster not all year on the 25 man roster.
We still need to add a LOOGY, a backup catcher, and a backup infielder to the roster. You can argue they could have protected Cruz over someone else but adding another player to the roster at this point would just cause problems down the road.
We don’t “need” to add a backup catcher and infielder. Agree on the need for a loogy. I would have lifted DJ off the 40 man before leaving Cruz unprotected. Adron has passed DJ on the depth chart and I have little faith DJ will turn the ship around in 2011.
Strauss thinks they will sign a vet FA catcher to back up Yadi. I don’t really see it, but if he’s right, that means Anderson and Hill are your catchers at Memphis and Cruz is in no-man’s land.
I think Hill will move off catcher. They put him and Cruz back there last year to see how each would develop. Cruz did, Hill didn’t. Time for Hill to start looking (again) for another position.
Why did we add Kozma? Or is this a “we have to justify our faith in him” move?
Kopp is the addition I dont understand. He’s not going anywhere in STL right now. There are 4-5 starters and 4-5 relievers ahead of him and no real spots in STL for any of these guys. It is highly doubtful he sees STL this year so we’ve basically wasted an option.
On top of that, Why would a team select him. His GB rate is declining every year. His K rate is high. For a non strikeout pitcher his K:BB rate is terrible (less than 2:1). I don’t think he would adapt well to relieving as the last man in the pen. ( I think he pitches better with regular work)
Kopp may be a successful major leaguer in the future but I doubt it would be this year .
Matt Scherer redux?
http://www.futureredbirds.net/2008/11/20/prospect-profile-matt-scherer/
JMo has some splain’in to do on this one.
I agree that putting Kopp on the 40 man looks like a mistake and I assume that the only reason they are placing Kozma on the 40 man is to protect their investment to date, coupled with the hope that he is a very late “bloomer”. I guess that they are taking calculated risks on the un-protected players that other teams won’t take them in the Rule 5 draft. I think there is a “log jam” at many positions in the cardinal farm system, so it might be a blessing to some players to be traded or taken in the Rule 5 draft. Am I looking at this right?
I really don’t understand the Cruz non-move. He’s tearing up the AFL, we need a backup to Yadi, and TLR doesn’t have faith in Anderson. When Pagnozzi was dfa’d I thought for sure that meant Cruz was impressing this fall with a chance to be the backup. Mo wants a backup that can hit. Mo, meet Mr. Cruz!This is really puzzling to me.
I can’t believe there are people wanting to leave Kozma off the 40 man. He’s 22 years old and won’t turn 23 until just after the season starts. Way early to be giving up on him, especially when he’s been one of the younger players in his league throughout his pro career.
It’s not that we’re giving up on him, it’s the fact that no one would claim him as his abilities are too far from major league quality that makes it a waste of a roster spot, IMO. Cruz is a guy who has a much better chance of being selected, so I’d rather Cruz get the roster spot than Kozma.
As regards Cruz, the guys at Baseball Prospectus pointed out some time ago that while many catchers get selected in the Rule 5, almost none of them stick with their new teams. Even if he’s picked, the risk of losing him would be low, according to that analysis, particularly since he doesn’t look as MLB-ready as Anderson or Hill (who after all have been there).
Presumably the risk of “losing” Koz is greater, although I don’t see that the “loss” would be so all-fired great. As for Kopp, you could fill a pretty good bullpen with guys the Cardinals have allowed to get away in the last few years …
But not in the Rule 5 draft. Perdoma is the only one and he didn’t even see the majors last year I dont think. Neither did Parisi (though he was offered back to us).
Perdomo had one game in the majors last year. His AAA performance would have been good enough to make most bullpens, but of course San Diego’s pen was loaded, so he was kind of a “break glass in emergency” guy, and they didn’t need to break the glass. Parisi didn’t appear in the bigs, and kinda stank things up during a brief AAA stint. I don’t know what happened to him from there, but he recently signed a minor-league contract with the Cubs.
Yes, trades have been the main offender rather than Rule 5. My point is just that I think the team has undervalued young bullpen arms for a while. If keeping Kopp does lead to Cruz being lost, one might argue that they’ve gone too far in the opposite direction, but I really don’t think they’ll lose Cruz.
Catchers like Bryan Anderson don’t stick after being Rule V selections, but Cruz is more of a C/3B/1B guy which might be easier to keep around.
Cruz would have to make it as a 3rd catcher / corner infielder. I think you make a good point that it’s easier for a team to stash a guy with that profile than a straight up catcher with hardly any experience above AA.