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.
This is the final installment, since AZ is covering the second guessing in the 2005 and previous drafts and I saved this for the holiday season because everyone is in a better mood. Now, that you are all in a good mood, on to the bad news. This 2004 draft was a pox on the concept of “drafting” and “developing”. The Cardinals did not go cheap in this draft, but instead went reasonably large and failed. The big problem is finding the highest profile or best draft pick in this draft by the Cardinals. It is a toss-up between Jarrett Hoffpauir, Mike Parisi or Mark Worrell. Yay, terrible choices! Without further adieu, your 2004 Cardinals draft.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
1 19 Chris Lambert P 21 MLB Boston College $1,525,000
Chris Lambert did so well in the minors he was infamously traded for Mike Maroth. He was moved to relief in Memphis in 2007 without much improvement in his numbers. He was drafted by the Cardinals after a strong performance in the Cape Cod League in 2003. If they wanted a college arm, they could have signed Huston Street as a cheaper option ($800k bonus) or if they wanted to go high upside starter like they thought they were getting with Lambert, they need to go to the high school ranks and select Phil Hughes ($1.4 mil bonus) or Yovanni Gallardo ($725k bonus) who was even cheaper. If they wanted to go another route, HS SS Reid Brignac was available. Lambert actually tasted the big leagues with Detroit and Baltimore, but in his MLB appearances he allowed almost 14 hits per 9 innings and struck out only 7 per 9. Lambert is the not too rare combination of a failed drafting AND development for the Cardinals. Plus, Lambert will continue to haunt DanUp’s nightmares.
The rest of the 2004 draft after the jump!
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
2 60 Mike Ferris 1B 21 AAA Miami University $600,000
Mike Ferris had one season in the minors where he OPS’ed over 700. He was out of the system and out of baseball after the 2007 season. Ferris’s college career was lead by great patience at the plate, low strikeout numbers and huge power. He showed none of that one he got into the Cards system. The Cardinals could have drafted Hunter Pence ($575k bonus) or Dustin Pedroia ($575k bonus) if they wanted a college hitter. In the 2004 season, the Cardinals were a juggernaut with a player by the name of Albert Pujols manning first base. Why did they need to go slugging 1B in the second round? Even Adam Lind would have been a better slugging college 1B option, he even played in the Cape Cod League.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
3 90 Eric Haberer P 21 AA Southern Illinois U $422,500
Haberer was out after the 2007 seaon in which he walked the same number that he struck out, while allowing more hits than innings in AA. Haberer was more reliever than starter with SIU and was only a starter with the Cardinals. JA Happ was another college arm the Cards could have selected instead of Haberer.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
4 120 Donnie Smith P 21 A+ Old Dominion U $235,000
5 150 Wes Swackhamer OF 21 A+ Tulane University $150,000
Smith was out of the system after some not-great pitching as a 24 year old reliever in Palm Beach. Swackhamer was out of baseball after a 564 OPS in Palm Beach to finish up the 2006 season. Not many names stick out as missed opportunities for the Cardinals in these two rounds
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
6 180 Jarrett Hoffpauir 2B 21 MLB U of S Mississippi $110,000
Hoffpauir was a decent minor league player for a while including his break out year in 2007. After a down year in 2008 in Memphis, he increased his power numbers in 2009 and earned a call up to St. Louis for 12 at-bats. He played his 2010 season in the Toronto system after being a minor league free agent. Hoffpauir was a solid minor league player, but has not yet made an impact in the majors. The terribleness of the previous 5 picks make this pick look not so bad in comparison and I guess that’s what I’ll have to call it “not so bad”, but not so great either. The Cards passed up Ben Zobrist to pick Hoffpauir.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
7 210** Buck Cody P 22 A University of Texas
8 240 Matt Shepherd SS 21 A+ U of S Mississippi $65,000
Buck Cody was unsigned and got drafted 9 rounds later the next year. Matt Shepherd had one good college baseball season and parlayed that into an 8th round selection. Unfortunately, he never reached his “bad” college numbers in the minors and was out after the 2006 season.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
9 270 Mike Parisi P 21 MLB Manhattan College $60,000
10 300 Brady Toops C 22 A+ U of Arkansas $50,000
11 330 Simon Williams OF 22 A+ University of Maine
12 360 Mark Worrell P 21 MLB Florida International University
13 390 Daniel Nelson SS 20 AAA Los Angeles Pierce College
Mike Parisi and Mark Worrell are the biggest names in this grouping. Parisi went to the Cubs after being claimed off waivers. He was always a soft-tossing righty who functioned more with control than power. Worrell was one of the 2 players to go to San Diego for Khalil Greene and turned out to be the less important right-handed relief pitcher. Toops took his $50,000 and hit terribly, even for a catcher before going out after the 2006 season. Williams has a positive first two years, but then fell off the wagon and was in Independent ball in 2006. Nelson stayed around longer, departing to the Florida system somehow in the mid-2008 season.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
14 420 Jake Mullinax 2B 22 A University of Nebraska
15 450 Jeremy Zick P 21 A+ University of Mississippi
16 480 Matt Scherer P 21 AAA Le Moyne College
17 510 Chris Noonan P 23 Rookie Seton Hall University
18 540** Cameron Blair SS 21 A+ Texas Tech University
19 570 Das Jesson 3B 23 Ind Cal State Los Angeles
20 600 Chad Gabriel OF 20 A- Santa Ana College
Matt Scherer is the biggest name here as he has stuck around as an organizational arm in the minors for the Cards. His name was hinted around as someone the Cards brass “had an eye on”. He’s still sticking around after his age 27 season as a middle reliever in Memphis. Mullinax was out after the 2005 season. Zick, despite and awesome name was out during the 2006 season. Noonan didn’t pitch past his first year in rookie ball and the same thing for Jesson. Gabriel was decent in his first two years, but was out after 2006 and into indy ball.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
21 630 Mike Sillman P 22 AAA University of Nebraska
22 660 Billy Becher 1B 22 Ind New Mexico State University
23 690 Phillip Andersen P 20 A Chandler-Gilbert CC
24 720 Jose Delgado 2B 20 A Texas Tech University
25 750 Mike Miller OF 21 Rookie Cal State Los Angeles
26 780 Steven Sherman OF 22 A U of North Carolina-Asheville
27 810 Christian Reyes C 26 A+ Jose M. Pestrana (PR)
28 840 Chris Della Rocco P 22 A- Monmouth University
29 870 Cory Taillon C 22 A- Cal Poly
30 900 Brandon Marcelli C 23 A+ Fresno State University
31 930 Dan Baysinger P 22 A- Cornell College
32 960 Austin Tubb P 22 A- U of Southern Mississippi
33 990 Michael Gross P 22 A University of North Carolina
34 1020 Brett Cooley 1B 23 Ind University of Houston
35 1050 Brian Parish P 22 Rookie Iona College
36 1080 Chris Bova P 22 A- Ohio University
37 1110 Chris Patrick SS 22 A+ Fresno State University
38 1140 Adam Burton C 22 Ind U of Arkansas-Monticello
39 1170 Sam Herbert OF 22 A Cal Poly
40 1200 Sean Dobson OF 21 A University of Toledo
41 1230 Mark Broome 3B 22 Rookie Delta State University
42 1259 Joe Rigoli 1B 18 - Parsippany (NJ)
43 1288 Jessen Grant P 22 A- Columbia University
44 1317 Quinton Robertson P A University of Nebraska
45 1346 Gregg Pleeter P 22 Ind Fairleigh Dickinson University
46 1375 Matt Johnson P - Eupora (Eupora,MS)
47 1404 Nicholas Dinapoli OF 18 - Buena (Ventura,CA)
Mike Sillman is the only name that registers here. He piled up a lot of strikeouts as a relief pitcher and eventually hit his ceiling in 2007 in Memphis. That is the only selection out of the bottom 27 that can be considered any sort of value. There are lots of players and only Sillman made it to AA. That is certainly not a good sign and there are a lot of players in this bottom part of the draft that Baseball Cube does not even know who the heck they are. That’s another bad sign in a very bad draft.
The 2004 draft was a draft to forget, the Cardinals spent a good amount of money and got nothing for their return. They made some surprising choices when looking back at the draft with my (unfair) 20/20 goggles, but the lack of return shows the mistakes the Cardinals made in this draft. First and foremost, the first problem was giving Chris Lambert a $1.5 million bonus. Despite that, the Cardinals mistakes in the 2nd through 5th rounds were also big mistakes considering the money given out to those bonuses as well.
Entries (RSS)
Wow, after reading these the last few weeks, this is by far and away our worst draft ever. Out of all of those guys, how the heck did one of them at least turn into something…. That makes me feel like our developing at that time was more of the problem than the actual drafting??
That is just a remarkably painful thing to read. For all of our complaints about recent drafting strategies we have come a long way since ’04.
This draft was terrible, no two ways about it, but at the same time, it has to be viewed in context. 2004 was a LOUSY draft class. Several other teams have received negative WAR from their draftees so far, and only Oakland (with Street, Suzuki, Braden — 11 members of this class reached the majors!) has really obtained value in depth, rather than from one isolated success (Verlander, Pedroia, Gallardo, none of whom are really superstars yet, although they might get there). A similar bombout in 2005, when there was a great deal more talent available to be drafted, would have been unforgivable. Here it was just a below-average selection of a below-average pool.
Good point, Grunt. The same was said of the 2000 draft.
Still, the Cards got the worst of both bad drafts, with nothing to show for ’04 and only Yadi to show for ’00. 2001 yielded Haren (who was then punted away to Oakland) and ’02 was another disaster. 2003 wasn’t a disaster, but wasn’t great by any means.
So as an organization, we had only one all-star — Yadi — to show for all the drafts from 2000-2004. We traded away Haren, the best player from those drafts, and Barton, the third-best player. Ryan might be the fourth-best player, but at least we got some value out of him before sending him off.
And now we complain about the ’06 draft for not producing any above-average talent despite the extra picks. But 8 of those guys have already appeared in the majors, and a couple others still have a shot. A complete reversal of this wretched run.
This was a transitional draft class. The Cardinals were in the middle of a complete reorganization of scouting. They had barely scouted most of these players, and didn’t yet have a statistical analysis method in place.
Ferris, in particular, was an incredible miss. One Cards official — maybe Mo — was quoted after the draft as saying that Ferris was the equivalent of a first-rounder.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see what the problem was. I flagged it almost immediately. Here are the opening sentences of his write-up in the 2005 BA Prospect Handbook:
“Ferris wasn’t drafted coming out of high school in Cincinnati, and he hit .226 at Kentucky as a freshman before transferring to Miami (Ohio). He hit .360 with 5 homers as a sophomore, THEN ADDED 20 POUNDS OF MUSCLE and batted .361-21-62 to earn first-team All-America honors as a junior last spring.”
For further comic effect, his swing was compared to Rafael Palmeiro’s.
After some unexpected delays in taking his physical (for retrospectively obvious reasons), Ferris signed and played 41 games in the NY-P, where he hit .199 with matching .295 OBP and SLG. His vaunted batting eye was good for 19 BB and 44 K in 41 games. His “raw power” produced 5 doubles, 3 HR, and 14 RBI.
Lou, you view baseball through an obsession about steroids. If Ferris were hopped up on steroids to hit well in spring 2004 for Miami of Ohio, he did not lose his strength just a couple of months later. You can’t have it both ways.
Ferris only excelled his 3rd season, in a mediocre college conference. Its very hard to hit well enough to become a ML 1B. Ferris was not good enough.
Beau, over the years we’ve sparred on message boards, you’ve viewed baseball through more obsessions — and more screen aliases — than I could or would want to recall.
I hope you had a nice Christmas and that you and yours enjoy a happy and prosperous New Year.
[...] related prospect note, Future Redbirds is doing some cool draft retrospective stuff. Check is out. Here is an [...]