Minor league stories you may have missed:
- March 5th – Cody Stanley – Q&A by Derrick Goold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- March 12th – Sam Freeman – Q&A by Derrick Goold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Mark Appel Scouting Report by Wes Yee, Project Prospect — You’ll hear Appel’s name more often as we approach June. He’s potentially the number 1 overall draft for 2012.
- Tyrell Jenkins writeup by Thomas Belmont, Baseball Instinct
- Ask BA by Jim Callis, Baseball America – Lookout for Oscar Taveras, Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez
- MLB Suspends Erick Hurtado by Ben Badler, Baseball America – The Cardinals voided their contract after this suspension.
- Organizational Farm Rankings by Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus – The Cardinals rank #3 and with as many top 100 picks they have in 2012, it would be a shame to see them slip in next year’s rankings.
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His trainer was a man named Lucas.
One point in this nice summary that I somewhat dispute is the claim that “with as many top 100 picks they have in 2012, it would be a shame to see them slip in next year’s rankings.” It would be a shame to see a rankings drop for any reason other than lots of guys making it to the Show this year and being standouts, but I don’t see the 2012 draft as strongly correlated with how the system looks in 2013. A good (or bad) draft in year X doesn’t usually start to impact a system until about year X+2, because relatively few noteworthy draftees get much playing time in the year when they sign. Kolten Wong was an exception, and one who contributes to the current robust state of the system, but most aren’t like that. Accordingly the draftees from 2011 will have an impact on the way the systems looks a year from now, but most from 2012 won’t.
Caveat: this analysis may be subject to change based on the terms of the new CBA, slotting, etc. It’s conceivable that there will be more high draftees now who do sign early enough to affect the view of a system immediately following the year when they sign. Experience to date, however, is that most don’t.
not only will they be less likely to hold out because the difference they would be holding out for would be small but they are required to sing by july 15th now ( a month earlier). So yes, we should have a much better read than in the past on the new draftees. (particularly non- pitchers, some pitchers may need rest so wont pitch much more than they would have if signed late).
that said, I can see a scenario where one, if not both of our first round draft picks doesn’t make the organizational top 10. That would show some amazing depth if that happened. (or terrible drafting :) )
Yeah, that was what I had in mind with the caveat. However, we don’t know yet how that will work in practice. Presumably the top two or three guys who sign (I loved “sing,” but I don’t think it’s what you meant…) by the deadline will wind up with initial assignments high enough to rapidly provide some sense of what they can do. But farm-team rosters will be set enough by then that most newcomers, even ones from fairly high rounds, will wind up on the GCL team, and you can’t tell quite as much about a player there. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to watch.
I don’t think this is correct. Something like 17(!) first-round draft picks from last year made BA’s Top 100 for 2012, and that’s just the guys who made the top 100. Many of those guys didn’t play at all and they still had an impact on their team’s system. And that’s just the top 100, many other draftees impacted their particular system’s quality. If you don’t think a draft pick can impact a team’s system until he actually plays, you’re thinking about this far differently than prospectniks like BA, BP, Sickels, Law, etc., do.
There is a difference between impacting the system and impacting the ranking lists. Yes, draftees can appear on top-100 lists practically the moment they’re drafted. But until they actually get out there and play, they’re still pigs in a poke. It is instructive to consider the differences between Tyrell Jenkins and Seth Blair. Both contributed to the perception (which proved correct) that the Cardinals’ 2010 draft was a strong one. But when push came to shove, one has contributed to the actual system, and the other … not so much.
Well, az’s comment to which you responded and to which you said that you “disputed” was specifically talking about dropping in the rankings lists, as he specifically mentioned Goldstein’s BP list. I guess your comment is that you personally don’t value the new draftees’ impacts on teams’ system or the effect they have on rankings, even if all the people who evaluate prospects and rank farm systems do. Fair enough.