Archive for January, 2011

Read the rest of this entry »

Same as last time.  I’ll run the results on Thursday night.  Assume Descalso spends the whole season in Memphis.

ABs,Hits,Doubles,Triples,HRs,BBs,Ks

Put on your optimistic hats!  Matt Carpenter had a banner year in 2010 at Springfield and the consensus, for all intents and purposes, expects him to repeat those results at Memphis in 2011. Numbers after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Cardinals Best Tools list came out this month on Baseball America and it was penned by St. Louis Post Dispatch’s own Derrick Goold. Goold, if you are not familiar is a “must read” whenever he pens an article for his insight into the Cardinal organization.  He leads Baseball America’s Cardinal coverage and the one name that stuck out in the “Best Tools” list was Reggie Williams, Jr as the Cardinals minor league’s “Fastest Baserunner”.

All the other names on the list are very familiar to Cardinal Prospect watchers, but who is Reggie Williams, Jr?  Williams was drafted in the 10th round of the 2010 MLB draft.  First, here’s the video of Williams hitting a home run before he was drafted. AZ called him a “Reggie Williams Jr. was an OF with some speed who doesn’t have good baseball instincts and lacks standout tools elsewhere.” in a sum up about the draft as a whole.

Williams had a Speed Score of 6.4 for his first season with Johnson City according to Fangraphs.  Another Cardinals farm hand, who I thought would be a shoo-in for the “Fastest” ranking was Adron Chambers who had a 7.3 Speed Score in his time in Springfield last season.  Speed score is not perfect, but attempts to put together an idea of how fast a player is based on triples, stolen bases and caught stealing.

Either way, Williams looks like a skinny and speedy outfielder who will take some time to grow into his skills and become an all around baseball player.  In his short season with Johnson City, he struck out an astonishing 41% of his plate appearances.  That has to come down (way down) if williams is going to turn his “Best Tools in 2010″ award into a major league career.

During the Winter Warm-Up, the Cardinals picked up another veteran middle infielder on a minor league deal with a spring training invite.  This time the player was Ramon Vasquez.  Not sure what the reasoning is for this acquisition, but that’s not what we are here for today.  Let’s analyze Vasquez’s stats and see where he fits in amongst the Cardinals’ Future Redbirds.

In 2010, he did not make it out of AAA and to the majors and 2008 was his best season of his career when he was with Texas.  His 2008 season was supported by a BABIP of .342, but he did hit a much higher percentage of line drives that season.  Despite that strong season, he could not replicate it with Pittsburgh in 2009.  His career OPS in the major leagues is .678.  So, maybe we should take a look at his defense?

His career UZR/150 at shortstop is 0.8, which puts him slightly above average.  His UZR at all other infield positions are negative.

Considering all these numbers, Vazquez is pretty close to the definition of a replacement player.  Considering the Cardinals middle infield options in the minors, I’m not sure why the Cardinals would add another replacement level middle infielder.  Tyler Greene is projected by ZiPS to have an OPS similar to Vasquez’s career numbers in 2011.  Daniel Descalso is projected to have a much higher OPS, although he is not a shortstop.  Will the Cardinals carry Vazquez and Punto north from Spring Training rather than Greene and Descalso? Will the Cardinals keep Vazquez in Memphis just in case of an injury to one of their middle infielders?

As a replacement player, I cannot see what Vazquez brings to the organization or to the Memphis Redbirds or St. Louis Cardinals.

A very late post tonight but I had an all day meeting and this is more than substantial enough to warrant it. Much was made about Lance Lynn’s second half surge. He had struggled with command early in the season and frankly just was underwhelming. As the season progressed, however, he achieved some impressive results including a 16 strikeout game.

With the release of the Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus lists came some unusual — and the first I’d heard mention of anywhere — reports that Lynn had gained some velocity on his fastball. John Vuch, Director of Minor League Operations, was kind enough to fill me in on some of the details of Lynn’s improved fastball. Read the rest of this entry »

Springfield scribe Kary Booher ran a piece on Matt Carpenter last week who is the pet prospect du jour of late.  I remain intrigued by Carpenter and while I’m likely shouting into the echo chamber here, I’d like to do a community projection for him.

In the comments, please leave the following statistics — in a comma delimitted format preferably — assuming Carpenter spends the full season in Memphis:

ABs,Hits,Doubles,Triples,HRs,BBs,Ks

I’ll compile any comments with these stats and come up and post the results on Friday.  Anything before Thursday at 6pm will get counted.

Kevin Goldstein comes out with his Cardinals top prospect list today.  Click away!

Allen Craig as long been a favorite in these parts.  Erik interviewed him. Roarke profiled him.  He’s looked and played the part of a post-Ryan Ludwick every year up until last year where bad luck and stiff MLB competition faltered his steps a bit.  What can we expect in 2011 and will it be enough?

Read the rest of this entry »

(Ed Note: You may have gotten a sneak preview of this yesterday, but it was supposed to run on Thursday all along.  Doh!)

Another minor league free agent with a non-roster invite to Spring Training in the form of Miguel Batista.  Batista fits the Dave Duncan profile:

Old: Check!

Ground ball tendencies: Check!

Abnormally low ERA last year: Check!

Batista is taking the “old” thing to a whole new extent as this next season will be his age 40 season.  There are too many seasons to digest on the whole career for Batista, but looking at the last few we can get a good enough idea of where he is coming from.

Batista is the opposite of Snell in that he has added 2 MPH on his fastball since 2004.  He has also developed a cutter and turned himself into a two-pitch pitcher.  Over 95% of the time, he throws either a fastball at 92 MPH or a cutter at 86 MPH.

Bill James thinks he will have a very similar season to last year with the Nationals, but without the abnormally low BABIP (.258 in 2009) that kept his ERA low.  So, beware the false ERA straw man.  Batista is one of the least exciting pitchers I can think of looking at the stats.  He doesn’t strike out a low of guys, he doesn’t have a lot of different pitches, he had an abnormally low ERA and did I mention he is 40?

I cannot see Batista accepting a demotion to Memphis, even though he accepted a minor league free agent deal, but odds are we will not see the 40 year old in the DFRs this Spring.  If someone is going to get a chance in the back of the bullpen, I’d much rather see Salas, Sanchez or even Augenstein than Batista.