Archive for December, 2010

In the 2006 draft, the Cardinals were coming off their second 100 win season and being the best team in the regular season. Drafting in the last position, they selected a live arm with potential but unrefined secondary stuff. 6 picks later, the Marlins would take Chris Coghlan.

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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!

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Ok, so this is slightly out of the range of FR, but it involves some of our once and future “Future Redbirds”, so I thought it would be an appropriate venue.  And of course, you know you would like a break from the draft reviews.

Either way, today I will endeavor to prove that the Cardinals have improved their organization through the two trades they made this offseason.

Cardinals trade RHP Blake Hawksworth to LA for SS Ryan Theriot.

Cardinals trade SS Brendan Ryan to SEA for RHP Maikel Cleto.

I’m going to start out with an assumption, but based on how the Cardinals have gone about their business, this is obviously their decision.

1. Ryan Theriot > Brendan Ryan

Whether you agree with this or not (or whether I agree with this or not) is not the point.  The Cardinals believe this to be true, so we will use it as our assumption.

Some corollaries:

a. Fernando Salas > Blake Hawksworth

Over both of their short times in the majors, Salas has more strikeouts per nine innings and a better strikeout to walk ratio.  The same can be said for both players minor league careers as well.  And Salas is not even known to have overpowering stuff.

b. Eduardo Sanchez > Blake Hawksworth

The Cardinals have another up and coming right-handed bullpen arm in Eduardo Sanchez.  Over his minor league career, Sanchez has struck out almost 10 batters per 9 innings.  Although both Hawksworth and Sanchez have similar K/BB ratio, Sanchez’s higher strikeout rate seals the deal.

Obviously, strikeouts and walks do not show all that a pitcher can do, but it gives a quick look at a players control and ability to miss bats, both of which are crucial out of the bullpen on a major league ballclub.  Additionally, Hawksworth’s subtraction can be seen as an addition by subtraction because it makes room for both Salas and Sanchez in the major league bullpen in 2011.

2. Maikel Cleto > Blake Hawksworth

We have already made the points why the moves are for the best for the major league team, but now we can dig further and see why the moves have made the farm system stronger as well.  For evidence on this, we do not have to dig into the stats, just a quick tweet from Baseball Expert Joe Sheehan:

Cards got more for Ryan than they gave up for Theriot.

So, if we use that evidence from Mr. Sheehan, Cleto is a better prospect and better pitcher than Hawksworth.

QED

So, with all the evidence presented, I have now proved the Cardinals have made their franchise better with these two trades.  Obviously, I take the largest point of contention and put it as the assumption, but since this is Future Redbirds, we will leave those types of arguments to Viva El Birdos and other outlets that cover the major league club.  The Cardinals added Cleto into a position of strength, right handed relief, but they have also added to a position of weakness in the system: power arms.

So, have at me in the comments and math people can let me know how badly I butchered proofing.

We stay in the 2005 draft with our next set of picks as well. After selecting Mark McCormick with the 43rd pick and Tyler Herron with the 46th pick, the Cardinals went back for another right hander in the second round taking Josh Wilson with the 70th overall pick. Yunel Escobar would be selected by the Braves just 5 picks later.

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A couple of St. Louis related prospect lists came out recently. One from fangraphs and one from John Sickels. Feel free to discuss either.

For what it’s worth, I’ve already got our top 20 prospect lists. We (and by that I mean me) haven’t put them into a post yet but I solicited them early to avoid confirmation bias. I expect the Future Redbirds Top 20 to run at the turn of the new year.

Let’s cover the first retrospectively questionable decisions made in the 2005 draft: Mark McCormick over Jed Lowrie.

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The Cardinals picked up minor league RHP Maikel Cleto from Seattle.

Cleto was originally signed out of the Dominican Republic by the New York Mets.  By all reports he has a power arm.  He made appearances both as a starter and a reliever, but projects more as a reliever.  He pitched in the AZ Fall League this offseason.

Last season at high A High Desert, he struck out 7.3 per 9 and walked 3.9 per 9 innings.

Honestly, his stats do not overwhelm, but adding a power arm to the farm is always a good idea.

After the jump are a few videos of Cleto.

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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.

Rnd     Ovl      Player Name  Pos      Age     HL      Drafted From                        Bonus
1          28        Justin Pope      P          21        AAA   U of Central Florida   $900,000

After 2 solid seasons in the Penn and Midwest Leagues, Pope was traded in 2003 to the New York Yankees for a 3 month rental of Sterling Hitchcock.  Whenever he got to AAA, he faltered and was released by the Yankees after the 2007 season.  I guess he did his job for the Cardinals, but you would expect more from a college pitcher drafted in the 1^st round.  Additionally, I couldn’t find any glaring misses from the rest of the players in the 1^st round.

The entire (yes, entire!) rest of the 2001 draft after the jump!

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The Cardinals selected Jean Mijares from the Twins organization in the AAA portion of the Rule V draft.

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The Nationals grabbed up the lanky, groundball specialist Brian Broderick from the Cardinals in this year’s Rule V draft.

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