Listen to Kevin Goldstein Talk About Cardinal Prospects for 40 minutes!
Posted on June 29th, 2011 by azruavatar in UncategorizedIt’s pretty awesome. Matt Adams, Zach Cox, Shelby Miller, Jordan Swagerty, Joe Kelly — you’ll hear about all of them. Kevin Goldstein from Baseball Prospectus makes an appearance with the guys from PitchersHitEighth.
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I’m listening to this right now, all Cards prospects fans should listen to this….. Great stuff!
Thanks for the post.
Agreed. It is very informative.
Goldstein said if a team gets an average position player, a pitcher of some sort, and a bench guy, then that’s a good draft. Isn’t it more accurate to say that, for a team that can sign free agents (like the Cards), a good draft is one where you get a star – a bad one is when you don’t.
I can see a team like the Rays needing to draft average players and create depth, but a team with a nine figure payroll can go buy anything they want except superstars. Shouldn’t that be the sole criteria when judging the Cards’ drafts?
I don’t think it’s fair to say that we, or any team, should draft a superstar each draft. When you’re not picking in the top 5, ever, it is extremely hard to get “superstar” talent in the draft. The simple truth is that there are not 20-30 superstar players in any draft. Maybe in 5 or 6 combined, but not one.
No. Its based on being realistic. The draft has a high failure rate. So if you can get just a littel bit of quality, its a good draft. The criteria never changes. Everybody wants a superstar.
Are you saying all the drafts are failures because there are no superstars?
By the star criteria we’ve had a number of successful drafts – 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2009 (maybe)… Seems to me this is like golf, par is fine, but occasionally you have to sink some birdies to win the tournament.
Thats probably fair comment, yeah. But we have a couple of potential stars in the system.
I think you could take the approach that a team like the Cards–middle upperish tier of the payroll spectrum–should draft the average position player etc and then use the relative payroll savings to sign superstars. Average free agents are expensive compared to cost effective ‘controlled’ players.
I’d say the other way round. When you can afford to acquire guys like Matt Holliday in free agency, being able to build a team of Allen Craigs and Daniel Descalsos is more important than taking a bunch of high-upside picks and having them all bomb out IMO (although I do espouse a mix of high-upside and high-floor guys, in general I think mid-market teams with good player development like the Cards are well-served going more heavily on the latter).
The problem with our team, year on year, is not paying Matt Holliday $17m or Albert Pujols $25m, it’s paying guys like Jake Westbrook, Jason Isringhausen and Kyle Lohse $8-10m. If you can develop swathes of those sort of role players, bullpen guys, and back end starters internally, it leaves you a lot of money to spend on 3 or 4 stars.
very good listen there..thanks for sharing.. did he really think matt adams is 280 though? seriously? hopefully he was being sarcastic because he’s just 230..crap, prince fielder isn’t even 280 or 285, he’s 275
Keep in mind Adams is 3-4 inches taller than Fielder.
Yes, also keep in mind that teams, programs, and websites lie lie lie about players’ weights and heights.
YES! Thank you for posting this as I was just about to before I saw your comment. Adams is 6’3 and 230 lbs. 280-285? Are you serious Goldstein? That’s not even bad.
Goldstein also said that he made Brett Wallace look small in comparison. As an FYI to anyone listening to the podcast, Wallace is 250 lbs and an inch shorter than Wallace.
I liked listening to Goldstein. He seems generally knowledgeable. But he is WAY off on Matt Adams. I’m glad he had nothing negative to say about Adams other than his weight (which as we just established, he was completely wrong on). I consider this a little more vindication for Adams.
I mean that 230 lbs for 6’3 isn’t even bad. You know who else is 6’3 and 230 lbs?
Albert Pujols
If Matt Adams is 230 I’m Barack Obama, he is 100% no doubt closer to 280 than he is 230!
Adams is noticably bigger than Wallace was when in AA. Wallace was somewhat pear shaped though. Adams is just a big-boned kid through and through. That said, I wouldn’t characterize Adams as unathletic. He moves pretty well for a guy his size. He’s not a future gold glover, but over the course of about 10 AA games he doesn’t appear to be a liability in the field.
Wish he would walk more, but frankly when you are able to hit like he has at a given level, it arguably doesn’t pay (at least in the mindset of a 22 year old) to be more patient. The great unknown is going to be his ability to adjust and become more patient when he is playing against players his equal (and better) at higher levels. The level of competition at AA doesn’t look like it is going to be enough of a challenge to facilitate that type of developmental growth.
I think this is a very even-handed summation. Good post.
No way is Adams 230. Goldstein is much closer to his real weight IMO than the “230″ quoted on official sources (which I’m guessing he might’ve been when drafted). And, having seen them both, I’d say Adams is definitely bigger than Wallace. Maybe he’s 260ish? I could believe 280 though. He’s a BIG guy, height and girth.
Have you weighed Adams yourself, or are you basing this on his MiLB.com web page? If the latter, I would be skeptical. I don’t think KG was being sarcastic at all, rather, he was reflecting information he’d got by way of his network of informants. Those may or may not include someone who reads the clubhouse scales, but I’d bet they do include a scout or two who looked at Adams and said, “Crikey, he’s huge, weighs 280 if he weighs an ounce, don’t believe the PR.” That cannot be considered authoritative either, of course. Scouts do know a humongous body when they see one, however.
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20110629/SPORTS02/106290400/Big-time-prospect?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Sports
don’t know if Kary Booher weighed him or not but he has the same info as the milb.com page
“However, that interest is not simply based on his 6-foot-3, 230-pound physique and membership drive into baseball’s Big Bopper Club.”
Pretty sure that he’s being facetious. But I think 230 might be erring on the conservative side.
Agreed, I think there was some slight exaggeration there, but I think milb.com does the same. Adams is a big boy.
FWIW, Goldstein and his podcast partner at BP, Jason Parks, discussed Matt Adams some more on their own show, linked below:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14343
I was disappointed with the peripheral comments regarding Martinez…but blame that on the questioner. Too bad a more capable interviewer wasn’t firing away.
Sorry to disappoint you. As it were, we recorded with KG for about 45-50 minutes after he originally agreed to 20-30. I’ll be sure to squeeze in more Carlos Martinez next time we chat with Kevin.
If you have any suggestions for making me more capable, I’m glad to hear them.
Actually, I think you did great. I too was hoping to hear about C-Mart, but you can’t do everything in a 30-minute show, even one that goes an extra ten minutes. That was very well done.
Thanks for the kind words – didn’t mean to come off as fishing for compliments, I know that I (we) can improve the show. Very interested in doing so. Thanks for listening.
I think you did well too. It was a relaxed, chatty format and you didn’t have any obligation to cover any particular players. Hope you’ll share more of this stuff with us.
Albert is listed as 6’3 230, and they have Molina listed at 230 at 5’11
FWIW I think Albert’s is possibly a bit conservative too. I’m an inch shorter than him and about 180, and I think you could fit two of me into Albert.
Most large players have false measurements and that’s why people here have a hard time accepting Adams is well over 250. Just look at Todd Coffey who is listed at 6’4″ 240 but there is no chance in hell he is close to 240
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/00pu46p8biazR/x350.jpg
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RrfGqjI6HU
Thanks for the link, azru. We had a lot of fun chatting with Kevin, hope to have him back on later in the season after there has been a bit more movement in the system.
On matt adams, “I dont know what youre throwin but i’m swingin” hilarious
yes, it’s a fantasy website, but here is a little write up on Adams as well … http://nbl.baseball.cbssports.com/news/15272121
I’m not comparing skills, but circumstantially, Adams’ improbable rise as a prospect is starting to remind me of Albert. Both were marked down as bad-bodied guys. There also seems to be similar disbelief, like people who see them hit don’t want to believe they’re as good as they look.
I remember after AP’s first season in the minors, when he went from a half-season in the MWL all the way to MVP in the PCL championship series and then kept hitting in the Arizona Fall League, he was still rated in the 40s in BA’s top 100. Not only was he not rated the #1 prospect on the Cards (that was Bud Smith), he wasn’t even the #1 prospect in the MWL. That was Austin Kearns, IIRC.
But that’s where the comparisons end. Adams’ K:BB ratio is not improving by level. This year he’s at 40:15, vs. 78:33 last year. He also has a .373 BABIP, vs. 327 last year, despite hitting slightly more ground balls this year (47.8% vs. 40.3%).
Mashing is mashing. You can’t take that away. I’ve never seen him play, but the stats suggest an elite combination of hand-eye coordination, reaction time, and power.
One of the big things Goldstein talked about in his chat was how big a jump it is for prospects to go from any level to AA. Adams is a 22-year-old who skipped a level and continues to dominate in AA with (for now) better numbers than he put up in the MWL. This after playing DII college ball.
How does it remind you of AP? Adams was one of the best players in the MWL last year after a big SS debut and the scouts didn’t give him any love and hes also ad over 775 pro PA before this year while Albert went up the whole system in his first pro season at 20 years old.
Skipping Hi-A in our system is a help you go from one of the best pitching parks in the minors in a pitchers league to one of the better hitter parks in a hitters league, if you have over 500 PA you should make that jump with ease. All you need to do is look at the staggering amount of our guys who go to Springfield and breakout statistically, If Our Double-A team was still in the Southern League or Eastern League like in the post I could still buy that but not when its the Texas League.