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. Players with an ** before their name did not sign with the Cardinals after this draft.
The MLB Draft in 2002 is what is colloquially known as a “downer” as the Cardinals first and second round picks were sacrificed for free agent signings Jason Isringhausen and Tino Martinez to the Oakland As and New York Yankees respectively. So, with the Cardinals starting in the 3rd round, this draft was always going to be at a disadvantage. However, with the rest of the draft picks, the most successful player the Cardinals were able to draft was Kyle McClellan. When the best player of a draft is a middle reliever, you know the draft is not going to be good. Let’s take a look at who the Cardinals drafted.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
3 102 Calvin Hayes SS 18 A+ East Rowan (Salisbury,NC)
Mr. Hayes was signed as a high school SS and during an age 22 season at Quad Cities in which he had an OPS of .368 in 51 ABs, he retired from baseball. Since, the Cards had the last pick in all rounds in 2002 (contributing to the less than stellar haul), I will look in the following round for potential draft picks. The Cardinals could have taken Kevin Correia, who they drafted previously in 2000, Delwyn Young if they wanted a middle infielder or Josh Johnson if they wanted to go with upside high school pitching. Needless to say, a missed selection from the Cards.
The entire (yes, entire!) 2002 draft after the jump!
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
4 132 Kade Boyer SS College Dixie State College of Utah
It is a bad sign when Baseball Cube does not even have your 4th round draft picks’ age when he was drafted or that your 4th round draft picks’ highest level achieved is not even in professional ball? Not sure what happened to Kade, but this is a missed pick either way. Players picked in the 5th that the Cards could have had were Ben Francisco or Nick Hundley.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
5 162** Josh Bell C 17 A North Side (Jackson,TN)
6 192 Cody Haerther 3B 18 AAA Chaminade Prep (West Hills,CA)
Lumped these two together because Josh Bell did not sign and Haerther was a organizational player for the Cardinals before topping out in AAA, being released and resurfacing in the Toronto organization.. Instead of Bell, the Cardinals could have had college arm John Maine or HS arm Scott Olsen. Instead of Haether, the Cards could have had HS arm Matt Capps or OF Ryan Spilborghs. Haether was drafted as a 3B but played only 12 games there in rookie league, so Spilborghs would be a direct replacement.
Contrast what the Cards got rounds 3-4-5 with what the Florida Marlins got in rounds 4-5-6: Josh Johnson, Nick Hundley and Scott Olsen.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
7 222 Willie Williamson P 22 A- U of Massachusetts-Lowell
8 252 Tyler Parker C-1B 21 AA Georgia Tech
9 282 Travis Hanson SS 21 AAA University of Portland
Williamson was out of the system after 2 years of wild pitching at low A. Parker never OPS’ed about 781 and was out of the system after his age 25 year at Springfield and Palm Beach in 2006. Travis was the most successful of the 3, but that’s not saying much. He was moved to 3B and made it to Memphis in 2007, but that was as far as he made it after 2 years of sub 600 OPS. In the 10th round, Community College 2B Howie Kendrick and college arm Matt Lindstrom were drafted, but those two are the most interesting players in round 8-10 in 2002.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
10 312 Matt Lemanczyk OF 21 AA Sacred Heart University
11 342 David Brockman P 22 A- Grand Canyon University
12 372 Bob Runyon P 22 A- Fresno State University
Lemanczyk was out after OPSing 754 at Quad Cities as a 24 year old. Brockman only pitched in rookie ball in 2002 before disappearing off the face of the Earth. Runyon pitched at three different levels in 2003 before being let go and resurfacing in the Indy leagues. Cherry picking prospects in the following rounds, the Cardinals could have had Joel Zumaya, Jeff Clement and Micah Hoffpauir. No murders row, but all made the majors and the 3 players the Cardinals selected didn’t make it past AA.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
13 402 Reid Gorecki CF 21 MLB University of Delaware
14 432 Joe Van Gorder P 21 A- West Virginia University
15 462 Daylon Monette OF 20 A Oklahoma State University
Gorecki is obviously the “big” name here. He got 25 ABs with Atlanta in 2009 after being released by the Cardinals after the 2007 season. He had decent numbers in the minors and some staying power, so for the 13th round, this is finally not a bad pick for the Cardinals. Van Gorder was gone after 2003 having pitched in 27 games. Monette was also gone after the 2003 season with a minor league career OPS of .609.
Instead of Van Gorder, the Cards could have selected Kila Ka’aihue, the 1B slugger that was selected by the Royals or 1B Gaby Sanchez or college arm Dustin Nippert.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
16 492 Brad Thompson P 20 MLB Dixie State College of Utah
Puppy kicker is obviously the second biggest name in the 2002 Cardinals draft. We all know about his career, but in the 16th round, this is a valuable selection.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
17 522** Chad Clark P 21 A- USC
18 552 Scott Schweitzer P 22 A+ Kentucky Wesleyan College
19 582** Ryan Mulhern OF 21 AAA University of South Alabama
20 612 Hal Chafey P 22 Ind Francis Marion University
21 642 Gabe Veloz 2B 21 Ind New Mexico State University
22 672 Andrew Davidson P 22 A- Cal State Northridge
23 702 Rich Scalamandre P 21 AAA Dominican College
24 732 Kevin Coleman 23 A- University of Florida
Rich Scalamandre was the most successful of this bunch and reached AAA in 2006 with the Cardinals and was traded that summer for Jorge Sosa. Veloz and Chafey were one and done after their rookie season in Johnson City.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
25 762 Kyle McClellan P 18 MLB Hazelwood West (MO)
McClellan is the jewel of this draft as the Cardinals took a local high school pitcher, he has developed into a middle reliever in the majors. To get a bullpen pitcher who sticks around for multiple years in the 25th round is a big win.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
26 792 Mitch Maio P 23 Rookie University of Utah
27 822 Matt Elliott P 18 AA Basic (Henderson,NV)
28 852 Stewart Young 15 College Southern Arkansas
29 882 Wes Jaillet 22 A- Saint Louis University
30 912 Zachary Cates 1B 22 A+ Oklahoma State University
31 942 Garris Gonce OF 22 A- University of South Carolina
32 972 Sean Kasmar SS Las Vegas (Las Vegas,NV)
33 1002 Josh Bridges C 22 A- Martin Methodist College
34 1032 Mike McCoy SS 21 MLB University of San Diego
35 1062 Julian Williams CF 18 A Long Beach City College
36 1092 James Mondesir P 23 A+ Dominican College
37 1122 Tyler Durham 22 A Northwestern State University
38 1152** Matt Varner 20 A+ Angelina College
39 1182 Jeff Tolotti OF 22 A- University of Nevada
40 1212 Brian Flynn P 23 A- St. Thomas Aquinas College
41 1242 Jonathan Estes P 22 Rookie Freed-Hardeman University
42 1272 Kevin Estrada 21 AAA Pepperdine University
43 1301 Joey Van DeVer OF 22 A- University of Evansville
44 1329 Brock Jacobsen OF 22 A Dixie State College of Utah
45 1356 Sean Clark P 18 CollegeChaminade Prep (CA)
46 1382 Jay Galbraith P 21 A Concordia College
47 1408 Chris Gibson 1B-OF 18 A+ Bellevue East (Bellevue,NE)
48 1434 Philip Perry 21 CollegeGeorgia Tech
49 1458 David Dennis P Valhalla (El Cajon,CA)
50 1482** John Powell P 17 Rookie McGehee (Tillar,AR)
Not a lot here as is to be expected in the last 25 rounds of the MLB draft, but only three players in this bunch even made it as far as AA. That is not a good track record for drafting in any round. Contrast with the 2007 Cardinals draft that got the following: 26- Tony Cruz, 30- Nick Derba and 38-Adron Chambers. Or even look at 2006 with 28-Luke Gregerson and 35-Jim Rapoport.
Any way you slice it, the 2002 draft was not a good one for the St. Louis Cardinals. They didn’t have selections in rounds 1 or 2, so they started off at a disadvantage, but did not do much at all with the selections they had.
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Great article. Whoever was in charge of drafting for the Marlins in 2002…… can we hire him please?
Too bad we can’t run into another Bob Feller. Sign him for a $ and an autographed baseball. He spends 4 years in WW2 and still makes it to the Hall. Don’t mak’em like that anymore!!! God bless him and his family.
I think the greatest thing about Feller was that in his 90s he spent a lot of his time at the ballpark. He went to a lot of games. He just enjoyed the scene and the game. He was a true fan of the game. Musial is very similar. Feller, as with all great fans, will really be missed.
OAK took Benjamin Fritz with our pick in the 1st round. NYY took Brandon Weeden with our pick in the 2nd round. Votto was taken with the 42nd pick (3rd pick of round 2). There wasn’t really anything too special other than that between the OAK pick and our first actual pick.
I think some of these drafts highlight the down side of Jocketty and what ultimatly led to his dissmissal. On the other hand, I really don’t blame Jocketty for not wanting to change.
ugh, I had successfully suppressed Tino from my memory until reading that.
Minor correction: the 4th-round pick was Kyle Boyer. He had a decent debut in the NY-P: .292/.357/.382, with 20 SB and only 4 CS.
The next year he OPSed .475 in the MWL. He split time between the NY-P and MWL in 2005, and I believe that was it for him, unless he played indy ball or caught on with a different org.
Like Zuke said, these drafts in the early ’00s show a serious problem with Jocketty’s leadership and priorities. When he ran out of prospects he could trade for vets in salary-dump deals, that was that, and he left the Cards with a roster full of aging vets and unwieldy contracts.
That’s not a complete rip on Jock: He built the team to win in ’04-’05, and to everyone’s surprise they won in ’06, when the wheels were starting to come off. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in Cincy after he fills that team with aging players on bad contracts, and he runs out of money to spend on Cuban lefties who throw a million miles an hour.
Also as part of that, Jocketty was never interested in the Latin development, but the ownership was. That was when they built the baseball facility that never got used.
Jock’s model is unsustainable for a small to medium market team. He’s got a core together now that he can ride for a few years but then trouble. However, haven’t the Cardinals reverted to the same old Jockian strategy? Can there be a greater symptom of this than acquiring an aging and declining Berkman on an $8 mill contract with the intention of playing him at a position he hasn’t played in years (outfield)? Perhaps Jock would have went three years on Berkman. I used to defend JMo on the message boards but I’m done. He’s Jocketty lite.
I’m not sure what he is yet. I like about half of his moves and dislike or am indifferent to the other half. The Cards are in suspended animation until they resolve the Pujols situation one way or another, but I don’t know who’s responsible for the delay. DeWitt? Pujols? Mo? The ghost of Augie Busch?
Until Albert is extended or leaves as a FA, Mo can only play small ball: keep TLR happy by signing vets with mature clubhouse demeanor, take small-downside risks on guys like Berkman, and reshuffle the player-development staff to keep Dave Duncan’s head from exploding.
We’ll see how creative he is or isn’t soon enough.
Berkman’s deal is only 1 year, so if he sucks it doesn’t impact long term. I will wait and see to determine if he can’t play of.
jjray, what do you suspect JMo should do then? I agree that it appears that the Cardinals are starting to revert back to the old ways of Jocketty, but he really doesn’t have much to work with IMO. I like Jay and Craig, but I wasn’t to big on the idea of them getting a starting gig handed to them. I like the idea of competition. It would be different if either of them were considered “can’t miss” or an impact-type, but I don’t feel that way about either and am pretty confident that most evaluators would say the same.
It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to revert to this method, but Luhnow and Co have supplied the big club with depth, not impact types (excluding Colby and Jaime). I hope that I’m wrong; Craig, Jay, Greene, Descalso, Ottavino, etc will probably enjoy solid careers in the bigs. But to just hand them spots, based on their overall skill sets, seems pretty premature to me. I think that MO’s methods recently have been a bit “Jocketty lite”, but more out of necessity than choice. Again, just my opinions.
Can anyone here honestly say that Luhnow’s drafts have blown them away. A few good picks here and there and depth, but little impact types (or even potential impact types). Too many low-ceiling, safe picks.
You can’t draft what isn’t there to be drafted. One price to be paid (an acceptable one, for sure) for the team’s success in the last ten years is that the Strasburgs, Prices, etc., simply haven’t been available when Luhnow’s turn came. What “impact types” has he passed on, other than possibly Porcello (and the consensus seems to be that he’s less likely to be an “impact type” than previously thought)?
2010: You could make a case that Stetson Allie qualifies, but they did sign Tyrell Jenkins, who has similar “impact potential” and was going to be easier to sign. I don’t see any other “impact types” missed in this one.
2009: I certainly don’t see any players with more “potential impact” than Shelby Miller who were still available when Shelby was picked.
2008: You could argue that Ike Davis has more “impact” potential than Walrus, but he sure wasn’t gonna make that impact playing first base for the Cardinals…
2007: Koz, I’ll give you; he was a whiff (although he could still reach the Show, IMO) when not just Porcello but also J. P. Arencibia, Jordan Zimmermann and Mike Stanton (but see Davis caveat) were available. Still, are any of those clear “impact types”? Zimmermann will be if he ever recovers from injury, but that’s a big if.
2006: Chris Coghlan, maybe, but his second year looked merely “adequate” rather than “impact” to me.
The simple fact is that when you’re drafting in the 20th slot or below, “impact types” are few and far between, having gone in the first ten selections 99% of the time.
2009: Trout … that’s it.
Your point is valid Grunt, it is tough to find potential “impact” types when you’re drafting in the latter stage of the rounds for the most part.
My issue is this: It has gotten stale IMO and apparently now the front office’s opinion that all the low ceiling drafts from ’06-’08 have produced little more than depth-types. Ok, the Cardinals depth has stunk for pretty much the whole decade. There were some great guys produced by the system (Molina, Pujols, Waino (although originally an ATL pick), now Rasmus and Garcia). But that’s basically been it, besides depth-types. You could throw in Schu, Ryan, maybe Freese, some of the bullpen guys. But there was virtually no drafting of high ceiling types, at least in the ’06-’08 drafts.
By the way, I will respectfully disagree with the notion that there were not any impact types past our picks in any of those drafts.
’09: No prob with the Shelby pick. I have always been under the impression that when the organization decided they were going to put invest more into player development, a Miller-type was the type of pick we would be striving for.
’08: C’mon, can anyone honestly say that they were in 100% belief that Wallace would be our long-term 3B solution? How about Christian Friedrich, Daniel Schlereth, Lonnie Chisenhall, Casey Kelly, Mike Montgomery, Aaron Hicks, Ethan Martin, Craig Kimbrel, Tim Melville….etc, etc. I’ll grant you that none of these guys have done much or anything yet in the bigs, but neither has Wallace. I am on board that he got Holliday, but couldn’t we have gone after maybe higher ceiling type in say the 2cnd or 3rd round? Case in point, was anybody very excited when we drafted Shane Peterson with our 3rd round pick?
’07: I was shocked about picking Kozma. Luhnow’s biggest bone-headed pick IMO. Still on the board was Todd Frazier, Julio Borbon, Brett Cecil, J. Zimmerman, Arencibia, Mike Stanton, and some guy named Porcello.
’06: Ottavino. How about Joba Chamberlain, Chris Tillman, Brett Anderson. A lefty like Anderson, who was considered a pretty safe bet to reach the bigs out of high school, would look pretty darn good in the rotation right now.
I think we’re in agreement about the 2007 draft.
As for the others, Ottavino was very much a “high-ceiling type” just based on the get-go in his arm. Not every high-ceiling type reaches the ceiling, or comes close. I would be rather pressed to say that any of the Walrus alternatives you name for 2008 are really “high-ceiling types,” although most have the potential to contribute as more than replacement-level major leaguers. So, however, does Walrus. He was definitely not a risk-averse selection. In both of these cases, our view of the draft may be colored by the fact that the guys the Cardinals drafted have not panned out. That doesn’t necessarily mean the approach was risk-averse — quite the contrary — or that drafting them was wrong. The Kozma choice was qualitatively different, in that it was clear that his ceiling was not high. He still hasn’t reached it.
I repeat: I simply do not see the problem here that you and others perceive. The “problem” is lack of the clear high-impact talent in the pool by the time it’s been the Cardinals’ turn to draft. I’ll take that “problem” any day.
Berkman’s on a 1-year deal, with two young players (Jay and Craig) behind him. Neither player is an elite prospect, but they’ve shown signs that they’re capable of playing in the majors in some capacity. The Cardinals have a coaching staff that prefers to ease young players in rather than handing them a job, and that’s how I view the Berkman signing.
Was Lemanczyk related to the former Tigers / Jays pitcher?
Father and son, according to B-R.
A lot of these names in 2002 were no-hopers even on draft day. Many were college seniors and there had to have been enough information about many to think they had very low ceiling. Jocketty may not have had enough budget to invest in more interesting amateurs.
I’m very glad that we got Holliday because of Wallace. That said Aaron Hicks just 2 picks later would have been a great pick for the Cardinals. In 06 the Cardinals drafted a college southpaw who has since been released thinking he had a better future than Brett Anderson a few picks later. That was a REALLY bad decision.
What kind of h***hole must Dixie State College of Utah be?