Archive for December, 2010

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 2^nd 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.

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Yesterday we looked at the potential middle infielders that the Cardinals have drafted in the Jeff Luhnow era.  With neither of their first round shortstop picks (Tyler Greene and Pete Kozma) developing to the point that they project as more than a fringe bench players, it’s difficult to argue that the Cardinals have made an effort to target players to try and fill the gaping hole of the middle infield within the farm system.

What follows is an attempt to identify middle infield prospects that the Cardinals did not draft but were likely on their radar during the last 6 drafts. This is largely a subjective exercise and is not intended to be definitive. In hindsight, it will be easy to say that the Cardinals should have drafted Jed Lowrie rather than Mark McCormick.  I expect to revisit some of these picks more specifically in later posts.  For now, I’ve combed the first five rounds of the 2005-2009 drafts looking for players that have had success and project well in the middle infield. I will also list the Cardinals pick which occurred immediately prior to that player.

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The next two posts are inspired by this Lboros comment on the lengthy VEB post I penned yesterday:

completely agree, AZ. with Westbrook, Berkman, and Theriot, they’re adding $20 million in payroll without solving the team’s most pressing problem -- the infield. it’s still full of question marks and stands a good chance of requiring midseason intervention for the third year in a row

It’s not a secret that the middle infield was a huge problem for the Cardinals last year. Their two primary middle infielders — Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan — posted wOBAs that valued their offense at 7.5 and 23.8 runs below average respectively.  With the bat, these two cost the Cardinals 3 wins on paper. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

The issue, as Lboros saliently pointed out, is that they Cardinals continue to struggle with how to solve this problem. After Edgar Renteria’s departure in 2004, the team signed David Eckstein to shortstop on a three year deal.  Following Eckstein’s contract, Cesar Izturis was given a season at shortstop with disastrous results.  Brendan Ryan has been the primary if not everyday shortstop for two years running. The Cardinals have never gotten an average OPS (OPS+ = 100) from the position since Renteria’s departure.

Second base has been just as much of a conundrum. Schumaker managed to crack the average OPS barrier in 2009 (102 OPS+) but played atrocious defense his first year at the position and saw his offense plummet in 2010.  The Cardinals have cycled unceremoniously through stop gap second basemen since the good years of Fernando Vina (which, to be fair, were also followed by the bad years of Fernando Vina): Bo Hart, Tony Womack, Mark Grudzielanek, Aaron Miles and Adam Kennedy. Skip Schumaker was converted to second base to try and cover for the farm systems continued inability to produce a middle infielder.

So who have the Cardinals drafted in the middle infield in recent years. We’ll take a look after the jump at all the middle infielders the team has drafted in the Luhnow era (2005 – present).

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I’m almost fully recovered from my once a year virus.  I’m certain it was contracted from children during Thanksgiving.  I have no proof of this but I remain firmly committed to that opinion until it is falsified.

In any event, I was thinking about this MLBTR post regarding the Royals desire to not trade Zack Greinke within their division. I’ve never been able to understand the logic of that decision and it continues to elude me.  As far as I can tell, the only reason to not trade within the division is because you’re afraid you’d lose the trade.  But if that’s the premise, should you be making the trade with ANY team?

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I spent some time upgrading stuff in the background. Please leave a comment or send me an e-mail if you notice any wonky behavior.

-Az

On the surface, the Cardinals signing minor league free agent Raul Valdes looks like an immediate replacement for Evan Maclane, last seasons four-A left-hander at Memphis.  And in reality, that is probably what he ends up being, because similar to Maclane, he was a starter in the minors and a reliever at the major league level.  He was signed Nov. 19^th, so this is old news, but let’s take a quick look.

Valdes just turned 33 in November.  He’s a Cuban defector who left Cuba in 2003.  He first signed with the Cubs and then after a few years away from professional baseball in the US, he was a minor league free agent and signed with the Mets.  In New York is where he got his first taste of the major leagues before being granted free agency again this offseason.

At first glace, Valdes career numbers are not good.  He has a career (minors and majors) FIP of 4.31.  But, with a strikeout to walk ratio of 2/1 over his career, he has shown the ability to get strikeouts and limit walks, which has some value.

In his small sample size in the majors, he struck out left-handed hitters at a 11.57 Ks over 9 innings and walked 1.29 over 9 innings.  He suffered some bad luck with a BABIP of .437.  But, his xFIP of 2.78 against left-handers reflects that bad luck.  He’s not looking like a great candidate for a LOOGY role now that the Cardinals picked up Brian Tallet, even though he has shown the ability to get out left-handers in limited at-bats.

Here’s a good video from MLB.com that shows Raul Valdes against Philadelphia from May of this season. He looks a bit more like what someone would call a “junk-baller”, but he does feature good movement.

My initial feeling that Raul Valdes is the Cuban Evan Maclane for the Cardinals was not far off, however, with MLB experience and the ability to get out left-handers, Valdes might have slightly more value in depth than Maclane did.

Kary Booher of the Springfield News-Leader checked in with St. Louis Cardinals draft pick and current US Navy serviceman Mitch Harris this week.  His article had a lot of great information about the process of Harris transferring to the US Navy reserves and therefore being able to join the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system.  Hit the link and read the whole thing, but there are a lot of interesting new information in the article.  Booher cites three recent transfer requests for a pro football player and two minor league baseball players.

The Reserves have two options that would allow Harris to enter the minor leagues: Active reserve, in which he reports only one weekend a month and two weeks a year; or the Individual Ready Reserve, which doesn’t require either.
Harris, who applied for the transfer in November 2009, said he recently learned that his roughly 20-page request package had reached the Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy’s highest ranking officer. The CNO reports directly to the Secretary of the Navy.
Basically, it means Harris is two OKs away from entering the Cardinals’ system.
If green-lighted, Harris would enter spring training next March at age 25.
Harris will spend the next few months working out in anticipation that the Navy might grant the transfer and clear the way for his first spring training in March.

Age 25 is the slightest bit too old for a prospect and it is obvious from the start that Mitch Harris will not be your run of the mill prospect when he is able to join the Cardinals farm system.  He’ll be 25 this year or 28 when his full 5 year commitment runs out.  He has not played baseball in two years.  What kind of pitcher can the Cardinals expect to see when he arrives?  Kary Booher has a scouting report from Baseball America.

Baseball America’s 2008 scouting report noted that, “(Harris) consistently pitches in the low-90s. He has plus command of three pitches — fastball, slider and changeup — and all three have potential to be major league average.”

More scouting reports and more from Booher after the jump.

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