With several months still until the pitchers and catchers report, it’s probably a good time to see how the Cardinals got to where they are now in their farm system. And since their International operations have not yet born fruit for the big club, let’s take a look back at the MLB drafts. Obviously, the MLB draft is not as crucial for development of a team as the NFL draft is for NFL teams, but it is still informative to see what decisions the Cardinals made in the draft process. All stats are courtesy of Baseball Cube. HL stands for Highest Level reached.
The 2000 draft can claim only Yadier Molina amongst the players active in the Cardinals system right now. Players drafted in 2000 would be anywhere from 28 for players drafted at 18 out of high school to 32 being drafted at age 22 after 4 years of college.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
1 13 Shaun Boyd IF 18 AAA Vista (CA) $1,750,000
The Cardinals passed on Chase Utley who was drafted 2 picks later and given $30,000 more as a bonus. To say the Cardinals picked the wrong 2nd baseman would be an understatement. After 3 years, Boyd was switched to the OF and had one good year in A+ ball in his second year there and washed out of the Cardinals organization after the 2006 season having reached AAA.
The entire (yes, entire!) 2000 Cardinals draft after the jump.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
1 24 Blake Williams P 21 A+ Texas State Univ $1,375,000
Blake Williams’s Cardinals career was over after the 2003 season, he kicked around independent ball after that for 4 more years, but never got back to MLB. You know it is not a great sign when the Cards first two draft picks, who they gave $3 million to, both played in independent ball. Best player the Cardinals could have had at this spot: Adam Wainwright, but they ended up getting him anyway.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
2 53 Chris Narveson P 18 MLB Roberson(NC) $675,000
Chris Narveson made the majors, so this is a win in the 2nd round for the 2000 Cardinals drafting team. The rest of the 2nd round has Bryan Tallet, who the Cardinals now have anyway, Manny Delcarmen and Chad Qualls. No huge names and since Narveson made the majors as a high school pitcher, I cannot nit-pick this one.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
3 83 Chase Voshell IF 21 A+ Wake Forest $430,000
Not much about Chase to find, because he was out of the Cards system after the 2003 season. Another disturbing sign about 3 of the top 4 players the Cardinals drafted in 2000. After 1 year at shortstop in A ball, he was pulled off SS and put in the OF as a backup outfielder. He struck out a lot and didn’t have much power. Not a good combination.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
4 113 Yadier Molina C 17 MLB Maestro Ladi (PR) $325,000
Yadi comes to the rescue to save the draft. We all know all about Molina, so I would expound on him here. Great draft pick and great job developing him from 17 years old.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
5 143 Josh Axelson P 21 AA Michigan State $165,000
6 173 Justin Woodrow LF 18 A- Knoch (PA) $175,000
7 203 Shaun Stokes P 21 A William Paterson Uni $85,000
8 233 Dan Moylan C 21 AAA UNC $85,000
9 263 John Novinsky P 21 AAA Iona College $70,000
None of these players reached the majors, so I’ll lump them all together otherwise we will be at this all day. Axelson couldn’t strike out enough or walk few enough and was in Indy ball in 2006. Woodrow got a larger bonus, repeated rookie ball and was in Independent ball by 2003. Stokes’s last year was a terrible 2001 in A ball after a solid debut year. Moylan’s career was over after a solid year in Springfield in 2007 at age 27. Novinsky was traded to the Brewers for Mike DeJean, enough said.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
10 293 Carmen Cali P 21 MLB Florida Atlantic $40,000
11 323 John Gall 1B 22 MLB Stanford University
These two players turned out much better than the previous 5 above. Carmen Cali tempted us with his LOOGY-ness and was my first Cardinals player that I “friended” on MySpace. Back when MySpace was a thing. Cali last played for the LA Dodgers AAA team in 2009. John Gall will live on forever as a punch-line and for that I’m sure he is eternally grateful. Gall last played with the Houston AAA team in 2009 as well.
Since the draft was 47 rounds long, I’m dumping the rest as a text table (I formatted the text for size, hopefully it doesn’t look crazy). Any player with a ** before his name was not signed by the Cardinals after this draft.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
13 383 Matt Galante 2B 21 A+ St. John’s University
14 413 Dee Haynes LF 22 AAA Delta State University
15 443 Chris Morris CF 20 AA The Citadel
16 473 Jutt Hileman OF 18 A+ Palmyra (Palmyra,PA)
17 503** Kaulana Kuhaulua IF AA Los Angeles CC
18 533** Marc LaMacchia P AA East Lake (FL)
19 563 Chet Medlock P 21 A+ McNeese State University
20 593 Landon Brandes 3B 21 A+ University of Missouri
21 623 Bryan Schultz P 22 A University of Nevada
22 653 Billy Schmitt 1B 17 A- Green Valley (Henderson,NV)
23 683 Mike Meyer P 22 A+ University of Arizona
24 713 John Lockhart P 21 Rookie Centenary College
25 743 Ryan Hamill C 21 A+ UCLA
26 773 Matt Dogero C 19 A Santa Barbara City College
27 803** Derek Roper P 19 A Hutchinson CC
28 833 Bryan Grassing P 22 A+ Saint Leo University
29 863 David Lindsey P 21 Rookie Loyola College Prep (LA)
30 893** Mailon Kent OF 21 A+ Auburn University
31 923 Dan Firlit SS 21 AA Missouri State University
32 953 Dallas Pallaro 2B Dixie State College of Utah
33 983 Richie Burgess P 20 A+ San Bernardino Valley
34 1013 Tyler Johnson P 19 MLB Moorpark College
35 1043 John Santor 1B 18 A+ Highland (Palmdale,CA)
36 1073 Troy Grimmer P Rex Putnam (Milwaukie,OR)
37 1103 Matt Vriesenga P 22 A Western Michigan University
38 1133 Bruce Nelson C 21 A- Rockhurst University
39 1163 Preston Harriman 3B 20 Ind North Arkansas College
40 1193 Nathaniel Meza P 22 A- Palomar College
41 1222 Brian Fatur CF 21 A+ Moorpark College
42 1251 Ty Soto College Centennial (Bakersfield,CA)
43 1280 Adam Pritchard 18 College Griffin (Griffin,GA)
44 1307 Chad Cummings College Saddleback College
45 1333 Kelly Johnson p 20 A Yavapai College
46 1357** Matt Pender P 19 A+ Middle Georgia College
47 1381 Felipe Tetelboin 18 College Grant (Van Nuys,CA)
Tyler Johnson is obviously the biggest win for the system here. 2006 was Johnson’s best year in MLB and he got a ring for his work. He was last with the Seattle’s AAA team.
Entries (RSS)
Best. Post. Ever.
No offense Erik.
Random question, Oscar Tavares is becoming one of my favorite prospects, does anyone know exactly when we signed him and what kind of a bonus he got?
Don’t know about the bonus for Taveras (correct spelling), but he played a full DOSL season in 2009 as a 17-year-old.
This draft was somewhat worse than average for the Cardinals in terms of eventual MLB players. The team has averaged roughly seven guys per year, over the first two thirds of the decade, who are drafted and eventually make it to the Show, if only for a cup of coffee. That’s a smidge better than average, IIRC — I compiled statistics on this once but have discarded them. Five guys from this class made it, so it wasn’t one of the better years.
The Voshell choice is the one that will live in infamy in certain regards, because of the alternatives. The main alternative was one of those polished, soft-tossing college LHPs who figured to be a possible LOOGY but wasn’t going to set the game on fire. If the team had drafted him in the third round, we’d probably have been upset about an overly conservative choice. No matter, he turned out to be a bum anyway, right? Some guy named Lee, IIRC. Cliff Lee.
In fairness, they also turned down a shot at Todd Wellemeyer.
He was signed as an international free agent November 25, 2008 as a 16 year old out of the Dominican.
I couldn’t find info on exactly how much he signed for, only that it was a “low six figure” bonus.
Crazy to think that the Cardinals could have taken Utley and Wainwright in the first round of that year.
Also, it’s fun to look back at other teams in the draft and see their misses.
Like how would the Cubs look with Utley at second? Or had the Royals taken Baldelli? Heck, the Angels could have walked away from the first round with Utley and Wainwright as well instead of Joe Torres and Chris Bootcheck.
Kind of interesting to look back and see that the Cardinals could have left that draft with Chase Utley, Adam Wainwright, Cliff Lee, Taylor Buchholz, Dontrelle Willis, Brandon Webb, Clint Barmes, Brad Hawpe, and Freddy Sanchez, to name a few.
Seriously, think how good our team would be if we had Wainwright.
Wait…
Anyone who questions why DeWitt took responsibility for player acquisition and development away from Jocketty should look at this draft, particularly the amount of money spent and the horrible return on the highest-bonused players.
True, Yadi was a great pick in the 3rd round (even if the Cards didn’t know how to spell his name; he was listed as “Yedeal”), and Narveson had a great start before he got hurt. He’s one of those guys who never got back his dominant stuff after TJ surgery. But he was also one of 3-4 Cards prospects who all got hurt right around the same time. There was something terribly wrong in the way the Cards picked, developed, and worked their young pitchers. Just about every promising pitcher in the early ’00s, with the exception of Dan Haren, got hurt. And they traded him for a guy who’d gotten injured in another organization.
Tyler Johnson was also an astute draft-and-follow guy, but with a long and strange path to the majors and a quick exit.
Was the injury rate really any higher in this system than in most? I don’t know, and I’d love to see some data on that. As I noted earlier, the Cardinals have been graduating guys to the Show (if only for a brief stay) at just about the major-league average rate, probably a bit higher. Taking into account that they’ve never been able to draft early in the first round and pick up one of the maybe 4 or 5 real “sure things” available each year, that doesn’t sound like their attrition rate has been unusually high. But you’re right, it certainly FEELS as if a lot of pitchers got terminally injured in the minors. Well, you know what they say, TINSTAAPP…
Injuries occur in every organization. I do think that one thing that seperates the cards from most is a more conservative approach. Surgery is usually not the first choice, where many teams take a more invasive approach.
Great post. Thanks for the look back.
Very nice post – always fun and scary to look back at these old drafts
for sure