The farm collectively went 3-2, while Palm Beach enjoyed the night off. What’s the point in playing the day after a Carlos Martinez start?
- Matt Carpenter was the only Redbirds batter to record more than 1 hit, as he went 2-3 and walked once. He also stole his 4th base
- Adron Chambers led off and went 1-3 with a walk and his 17th stolen base
- Tyler Greene and Allen Craig hit 3rd and 4th and both went 1-3
- Brandon Dickson had a very good start after he gave up just 1 run off of 3 hits (1 homer), 1 walk, and 4 strikeouts. He had 10 groundouts compared to 5 flyouts
- Zack Cox had 2 singles in 4 at-bats and was the only Springfield batter with more than 1 hit. He committed his 14th error with Springfield
- Aaron Luna hit cleanup and went 1-3 with a walk
- James Rapoport walked once and stole a base, despite going hitless
- Daryl Jones went 1-3 with a walk but was caught stealing
- Matt Adams walked but went hitless in 4 at-bats
- Nick Additon didn’t give up a hit until the 4th inning (I don’t know why I just reported that) and finished with a line of 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R (0 ER), 2 BB, and 5 K. He also hit a batter
- Kolten Wong went 3-5 in the leadoff spot with a double. He has a respectable BB%, but you’d like to see it go up just a tad in the leadoff spot. He’s been showing a very good approach at the plate since being drafted by the Cardinals with a relatively low strikeout rate.
- Oscar Taveras went 1-5
- Jonathan Rodriguez was 2-4 with a double
- Colin Walsh contributed 3 hits, including a double, and stole his 6th base
- Ronny Gil hit 9th and went 2-3. He stole his 13th base
- Ryan Copeland had a very impressive start, as he pitched 7 innings and gave up 1 run (0 earned), walked none, and struck out 6. He gave up 7 hits, which were all singles, and had 8 groundouts to 4 flyouts.
- Justin Edwards picked up his first save for QC, as he pitched a perfect inning and struck out 1
- Virgil Hill was the only Batavia batter to record more than 1 hit, as he went 2-4 with a solo-HR in the 4th. I doubt many people know that his OPS is .792 since being sent down. Although his season has been nothing to brag about, he has been hitting much better since July.
- Nick Martini went 1-3 with a walk
- Romulo Ruiz had a double in 4 at-bats
- Patrick Daugherty gave up a total 5 runs off of 4 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 4 and didn’t allow an extra-base hit. All 9 of his outs that reached the field went for groundballs, so it’s likely that both the defense and luck contributed to his bad line.
Elizabethton 9, Johnson City 3
- Tyler Rahmatulla hit 2nd, played 2nd base, and went 2-4. I sense a theme here…..but he also committed his 5th error. Rahmatulla’s BB% is hovering around 14%, which is very good for a 2nd baseman at the age of 21. It’ll be interesting to see if he keeps that up when jumping to the next level.
- Ronard Castillo was the only other JC batter with more than 1 hit, as he went 2-4 with a double
- Roberto De La Cruz replaced Neal Pritchard in the 2nd inning and proceeded to go 1-3 with a double. He was also caught stealing. He’s showing the power that was touted when signed by the Cardinals, but he’s doing it with poor plate discipline. He’s still just 19-years old, so there’s no reason to worry about that yet.
- Gary Apelian went 1-4 with a double
- Jose Pasen got the start and gave up 2 runs in 6 innings off of 5 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 4 on the night and had a GO:FO ratio of 8:3
Entries (RSS)
Maybe us who wanted to see Adams walk more were wrong, since he started to walk he stopped hitting!
Hope you’re proud of yourself…. (wink)
Cox and Wong continue to hit. People seem to have soured on Cox this season and nobody was too excited about the Wong pick, but I sense we might be looking at 2 future staples of the Cardinals’ infield. Of the two I’m more excited about Wong. He appears to have a very mature approach with moderate power, a good walk rate and a healthy average (with a perfectly sustainable .300 BABIP), all while playing adequate defense at a position of need. Really the only blemish right now is 4 SB and 5 CS. Lets be honest though, if he ever plays for Tony LaRussa he won’t be running often.
Potential Cardinals infield in 2014: Pujols, Wong, Jackson, Cox/Freese. I can see these guys combining for 15 WAR. Neither Wong nor Cox really looks like a future All Star (maybe with Wong… we’ll know better in a year) but they could easily turn into solid 3-4 WAR guys in their prime, and you could do a hell of a lot worse with a 1st round pick (see Ottavino, Greene, Kozma etc.)
GTL-
I agree. What Cox has done in his first year in pro ball is fantastic! Double A is the big jump and, after a very slow start, he has tore it up. Wong has put together a great debut. Love the fact that these guys both hit and don’t K much.
I’m still hearing negative comments about Cox’ defense, unfortunately. I wonder: how does one “work on” that? Other than by lots of repetitions, which presumably he’s already doing? What’s the right minors level to optimize the learning experience on defense? At this point, that should probably trump moving him up for his hitting, if AA is the better place to do that work.
You work on approach, stance, throwing mechanics and transitions, pre-pitch and situational positioning. Defense takes a lot of work and practice, just like hitting.
Here’s one article about how Cox is learning.
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20110706/SPORTS02/107060388/Cox-working-OT-shore-up-defense?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
Rent a house in DeSoto, walk over to the Oquendo’s, and ask if Jose can come out and play.
Ah Greene. I still say, given a prolonged, uninterrupted shot, he could be a 3-4 WAR SS.
Speaking of SS developed by the Cards, I encourage folks to check out Brendan Ryan’s “infield triple”. It’s going to take something big at the major league level by Maikel Cleto for me to stomach that deal.
http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110802&content_id=22683814&vkey=news_sea&c_id=sea
I like Cleto too but I really think Ryan will continue to develop as a player.
Eh. i think he is what he is. Check out his season avgs compared to his career avg. I don’t think this season is pulling them up any. In fact, they have probably been pulling them down.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ryanbr01.shtml
2011 – .259/.316/.335/
career (5 yrs) – .259/.314/.342
I think we saw his best in 2009, at age 27.
You have to take into account the fact that, baseball-wide, offense has been massively down this year and last. A .259/.316/.335 line isn’t a million miles off being average this year, and is pretty reasonable for a glove-first shortstop.
I could stomach trading Ryan if we can get Furcal back on a cheap 1 year deal next year, and if Jackson can put up a similar line 2013 onwards, but really I think it was a bit of a short-sighted move predicated on a down year in 2010 from a team that, all of a sudden, doesn’t seem to value defense. The drop-off from Brendan Ryan to Ryan Theriot has been very significant this year; they’ve hit similarly, but the number of runs given up by Theriot over 4 months of appalling defense could well prove the deciding factor in the divisional race.
We’ve sold low on two guys LaRussa didn’t like, and ended up making the team worse in a year when we’re supposed to be in “win-now” mode. I suppose the only silver lining is that the farm system hasn’t taken a hit.
Any first hand descriptions of Cox’s errors on the season? It seems like he was in double digits with QC as well.
I understand why the GCL results are taken with a grain of salt but there are a few players I’d like to see highlighted from time to time in the DFR. Lance Jeffries has solid numbers and was a fairly high pick this year. 2B Ildemaro Vargas just turned 18 and continues to hit plenty of doubles while vying for the GCL batting title in his second year there (.352). Any chance that we’ll be seeing these two promoted in the last month of the minor league season?
Late season promotions depend a lot on which teams make the post season and what their needs might be. The organization will try to keep players together if they’re headed to the offseason but might add an arm or bat to beef up the roster. A lot of times that’s someone moving down though, not up.
Also, the GCL results aren’t featured mainly because writing reports on the 6 clubs is already a time consuming endeavor. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
I’m having a really hard time not being too over the top on Tyler Rahmatulla. He’s hitting like a beast. I keep looking at Nick Longmire’s stat page from last year to try and remind myself that players can dominate JC and then flop badly in fullseason ball but I’m just really impressed with what Tyler has done. I’ve liked him since the time of the draft really.
Yes. From the draft, I was intrigued by both Rahmatulla and Apelian and their respective college numbers. They both seem like intersting players to keep an eye on.
I agree you always have to be careful in getting too hyped up when a college guy is performing well in ss ball, but think its also fair to point out that Longmire and Rahmatulla also are different types of hitters too. Longmire was brought in for his upside and had never quite fully reached that potential in college and also has a long swing that was exposed in full season ball. Rahmatulla imo has a more polished swing and plate discipline at this point than Longmire so maybe has a better chance of not slumping as terribly as Longmire has this year. Again, not saying it will happen this way, just pointing out they seem to each have a different amount of polish in their swings at this point.
I like your point about college players in short-season ball. Last year I was surprised to see Stanley and Greg Garcia start off at JC instead of Batavia, and thought that Longmire, by virtue of starting in the tougher league, must be the better prospect. But now Garcia is succeeding at PB, while Stanley has a .325 OBP at QC and Longmire is at .291.
Rahmatulla so far is putting up better numbers than any of those guys did in SS ball in 2010. If he’s playing well in PB a year from now, we’ll know we got a steal in the 34th round.
Also, there’s a big difference positionally – if Rahmatulla can convince as a 2B, he’s got a massive advantage over Longmire, who’s ceiling defensively is Ryan Ludwick is RF AFAIK.
I disagree. I’ve seen Longmire a couple times, and I think he could definitely stay in center long-term. I don’t believe he’ll ever hit without some fairly major renovations to his swing, but I think defensively he could handle center pretty well.
I’m trying to restrain my excitement over him too, but it’s tough.
The one thing to remember in his favour is that absent the celebration injury and a bout of academic difficulties, Rahmatulla would likely have been picked closer to where Wong went than where Tyler was actually picked.
I think I could take a flier on him as a top-20 prospect this year. Certainly, below about 15 or 16, our system seems a bit dry, and you’ve got to imagine a guy like Rahmatulla has more chance of making an impact down the line than an Andrew Brown or Nick Additon.
Absolutely. It’s all predicated on how he performs the rest of the season, of course, but if Rahmatulla hits anywhere near this pace the rest of the season I could easily see him as a 15-20 range prospect.
Will Kolten Wong be a candidate for the Arizona Fall League this year (ala Cox last year), or was Cox playing there last year because of the nature of his contract and the 40 man roster stipulation??
Seems like Wong would benefit from it, by possibly shortening the amount of time it’ll take to get him to St Louis. Just wondering.
Like the fact that Cox has adjusted fairly quickly to AA. I believe that was one of the pluses on him coming out of college that he was able to make the adjustment to hit with more power as a sophomore. In order to be a player we can really get excited about he needs to hit with more power. Otherwise he looks like a very similar player to Carpenter. It will be interesting to see what the Cardinals do with these two next year.
Agreed. I think he is adjusting and think he’ll continue to improve. Getting dumped in Double AA in your first year is a challenge. He also was a college sophmore when drafted, not a 3yr JR. like most college picks.
In any event, since the AA all-star break (about 30 games), Cox’s line is .375/.440/.533/.974 with 12BB/17SO.
I agree, Oliver, that Ildemaro Vargas is worth keeping an eye on—but he just turned 20, rather than 18, a huge difference when you’re talking about a guy repeating the Gulf Coast League.
Hope Taveras can keep that average at .380+, as no one in the MWL has done that since the 1950′s….
Thanks, Bob
I see a middle infielder hitting over .350 and my math goes haywire.
Love the season Taveras is having too. With the time he missed, will Taveras have the PA to qualify to break that record? He doesn’t show up on the Milb leader board despite hitting in Altuve territory.