Archive for April, 2011

Read the rest of this entry »

Memphis v. Round Rock, 3:05pm: Brandon Dickson

Springfield v. Tulsa, 6:07pm: Scott Schneider

Palm Beach v. Bradenton, 6:35pm: Eric Fornataro

Quad Cities v. Cedar Rapids, 7:00pm: Anthony Ferrara

I’ll be in Springfield next weekend to pick up a pair of games. Hopefully the weather holds out.  The farm system takes some tough losses and Matt Adams records his first professional triple of his career.

Read the rest of this entry »

Beyond the Boxscore has been running some pieces on team drafts fin 2000 and beyond and trying to assemble current teams only from the players that team drafted. Their intro with rules:

Building through the draft is something that every team thrives to do. Some do better than others, obviously. But I’ve been curious to see exactly what kind of team you could throw together for each franchise using just the draft. So over the next couple weeks, I’m going to throw together lineups and rotations for every organization using only players drafted and signed by that team. We’re not looking at projection here, though; this is about finding the best present-day players among draftees of the club.

And to throw a bit of a twist into things, we’re only going to look at drafts since 2000, to get a better idea of what teams have been doing lately. We’re going to start today with the A’s, and move alphabetically from there. And just remember that if a team drafted him but didn’t sign him, that player doesn’t count. You don’t get bonus points for being smart enough to draft a player, but not smart enough to pay him.

They recently ran the Cardinals draft squad, which looks like a so-so team though I’m here to make some changes to it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Memphis vs. Round Rock, 7:05pm: P.J. Walters

Springfield vs. Tulsa, 7:07pm: Michael Blazek

Palm Beach vs. Fort Myers, 5:35pm: Joe Kelly

Quad Cities vs. Cedar Rapids, 7:00pm: Seth Blair

DFR’d

To it….
Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone’s darling from short season ball last year, Nick Longmire is off to a slow start to 2011.  Let’s take a look at both 2010 and 2011 season and see what is going on.  Sorry about the lateness of this post, I was tied up with the NFL actually deciding to have some football related activities this offseason in the person of the NFL draft.  But, back to Longmire after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Memphis vs. Round Rock, 7:05pm: Adam Ottavino

Springfield vs. NW Arkansas 7:07pm: Deryk Hooker (Springfield’s pitching staff seems to be working with a quasi-six man rotation which was unexpected – Blazek, Hooker, Schneider, Castillo, Additon & Thomas)

Palm Beach vs. Fort Myers, 9:35am: Maikel Cleto

Quad Cities vs. Cedar Rapids, 7:00pm: Jordan Swagerty

Sorry for the delayed start. Was a bit under the weather and was a gametime decision. All is good now, so….

On to the DFR!
Read the rest of this entry »

The Cardinals drafted Castellanos in the 10th round in the 2008 draft out of Belmont Abbey College as a draft-eligible sophomore.  Castellanos put up some good numbers across Johnson City and Batavia with a .884 OPS.  However, a trend in his batting was started that has continued the next three years.  Across those two leagues, Castellanos struck out 52 times and walked 10.

In 2009, he was moved up to full season Quad Cities and had a solid if unspectacular year in which he sported a 12% line drive rate, but was putting more balls in play as fly balls (35%) than average and continuing to strike out in bunches.  He had 89 Ks to 20 walks in ~350 PAs. But, with 21 doubles, 4 triples and 5 home runs, when he does get a hold of the ball, something good happens.  That got Castellanos a late promotion to Palm Beach where he struggled in ~50 PAs.

In 2010, his full season in A+ at Palm Beach put him on the map with prospect watchers.  His .370 wOBA, .802 OPS and improved 16% line drive rate helped him to 33 doubles, 7 triples and 13 HRs in a pitcher’s league.  With all these triples, Castellanos’s speed in apparent and in his 4 seasons in the minor leagues, he has 62 stolen bases and only 18 times caught.  That sort of success puts his Fangraphs Speed Score up with the major league leaders in the category.

However, in Palm Beach in 2010, he did strike out 109 times and only walk 38.

Castellanos is off to a huge start in 2011, but at this point it looks slightly unsustainable because he has hit home runs on 16.1% of his balls hit in the air.  (Around 6.5% is average.)

Looking at the stats, it is pretty clear what type of player Castellanos is so far in his career.  He will swing for the fences and is happy to go down swinging while trying.  He will not try to work a walk and his OBP will not be much more than his AVG. But when he hits the ball it will go very far and he has the ability to stretch a single into a double and double into a triple which helps his slugging numbers.  Once on base, he also has dangerous speed to steal bases at will.  Castellanos is an intriguing prospect based on his power and speed numbers, but will need to cut down on the strikeouts and add some walks to really push his prospect status to the next level.