In case you missed it …
- Kary Booher of the Springfield News-Leader had several interesting posts this week covering players that passed through Springfield and now find themselves called up to the majors: Sam Freeman, Chuckie Fick, Alex Castellanos (LA Dodgers). Some are reprints of previously published pieces but they are all informative and interesting in light of recent promotions.
- Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch takes a look at the struggles of Zack Cox who continues to scuffle in Memphis. Cox currently has a .209/.257/.349 line in AAA.
- Springfield starting pitcher Trevor Rosenthal and Quad Cities jack of all trades Colin Walsh took the organizations’s minor league players of the month honors for June.
- Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com takes a look at the Cardinals’ upcoming draft. This is also my chance to plug the fact that Future Redbirds is planning to do our normal live and post draft coverage. We’ll have live chats on Monday night during the televised first round and Tuesday during the conference call. Afterwards, we’ll scour the web to aggregate the best and most comprehensive information we can on each pick. To take a look back at last year’s coverage, click here.
- John Kilma has some video and comments on a group of players that the Cardinals have been linked to at various times in the last few weeks: Stryker Trahan, Addison Russell, Hunter Virant.
- Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus writes on five of the Cardinals top prospects: Oscar Taveras, Shelby Miller, Kolten Wong, Carlos Martinez, Tyrell Jenkins.
- Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus gives his top 30 draft prospects: Part 1, Part 2
Entries (RSS)
One thing Kevin said in a comment was that Stryker Trahan, much lusted after by Future Redbirds folks, was the last one “cut” from his top 30 list; he’d have been #31. Presumably his stock is still down a bit with KG following the injury(?) that weakened his spring performance. Still looks to me like someone reasonable for the Cardinals to pursue.
The problem with Trahan is that unless the board unexpectedly decimates before we get to our picks, he just isn’t great value with the question marks about his defense. Grabbing either Clint Coulter with the 36th pick or Wyatt Mathisen with the 52nd pick to me is just much better value.
In a perfect world, we’d go with Addison Russell at 19, Hunter Virant at 23, and then go grab Clint Coulter at 36. Not sure Mo and co. will go with that high school heavy, but balancing it with Barrett Barnes with our 52nd pick and Nolan Sanburn with our last pick.
There is a rumor that the Cardinals are on Lucas Giolito and a way to sign him would be for them to essentially punt 2 of there top 5 picks and sign college seniors to make up for the money gap. Said other teams with multiple 1st and supplemental picks could do that too.
I heard that as well, not sure I believe it though. Doesn’t really fit the Cardinals strategy of putting all their eggs in one basket. Not to mention, that pretty much guarantees they use the 23 on a well-below slot guy and probably 32 as well.
Mo and Kant have both mentioned that the fact they have so many picks means they can be creative with there portfolio of picks that they have in the 1st and the supplemental round. Not sure what else “creative” means :) It’s not like we would be getting total bums. If we draft Giolito at 19 it’s almost certain we get James Ramsey at 23 and Pete O’Brien at 36. Speaking of Ramsey just hit a Grand Slam. I know we worked out Coulter and Dahl. Hrabosky mentioned today the Cardinals were working out a left handed hitting hitter from Texas who was hitting bullets all over the field. Only thing I can think of is Dahl but he got where he was from wrong?
On that note, “rumors circulating that a team in the back half of round one will pick Miami senior 1B Peter O’Brien to a well below slot deal” (Kiley McDaniel an ESPN writer, not sure if I trust him though). It’s believed to be either St. Louis or Toronto with an outside chance it’s Boston. This would be in preparation of taking a hard sign like a Lucas Giolito. The idea at least from the Cardinals perspective would be to move him behind the plate where he likely wouldn’t be much more than organizational depth, maybe a back up catcher if everything went right.
As for Mo’s comments, I think you’re taking it out of context. The way I took that context is that they’re willing to take a few more risks (read into HS players) than they normally would given the number of picks they have and how they feel with their farm system. I still don’t think the Cardinals are going to put all their eggs in one basket regardless of how good that basket is.
Cardinals worked out David Dahl a few days ago. The only OFer I can think of that would meet that would be Courtney Hawkins, and he’s expected to go somewhere in that 8-12 range on Monday. Probably more doing due diligence than anything.
First off, I want to say I don’t believe he’ll be on the board and if he is I don’t expect the Cardinals to pick Lucas Giolito. I’d love for it to happen, but I’m definitely being pessimistic on this one.
I’m torn on it. How often do we get a chance to get someone taht would have been the 1st player drafted? That said if he changes his mind and we are screwed big time.To put it in perspective Giolito is a much better prospect out of HS than Miller was. I doubt the Cardinals worked out Hawkins. The person Al was talking about was left handed.
If he’s on the board and the Cardinals think he’s signable, I’d take him and not think twice about it. The problem is I’m not sure where the demands truly are and if he doesn’t sign, we’ve effectively wasted two of our early picks making sure we could sign him.
I’m not sure who he is referring to if he’s hitting left handed. The only player that could come to mind that might even be in play in the first or supplemental first would be Nick Williams. Toolshed of talent, but raw as hell.
I think we would have to have a guarantee that he will sign. Just us thinking he’s signable isn’t enough if we are going to change our whole draft strategy just for him.
If the Cardinals were to go that route, they’d have to be pretty sure they had the parameters of a deal in place.
Must be Tyler Naquin
wouldn’t be naquin. no way he would be at busch doing a work out when A&M’s season is still going
A few more nuggets to pass on.
Apparently Cubs are zeroing in on Albert Almora. He had a really good workout with the Cubs, and the fact that they’re zeroing in on him means they think Carlos Correa is gone. Pretty similar to Brett Jackson that is already in the Cubs farm system though. Odds are he’s gone third to Seattle. That means San Diego is going to have an AMAZING board if the draft falls like my source says it will. Between Kyle Zimmer, Lucas Giolito, Mike Zunino, and Max Fried on the board, it’s going to be tough for them to screw it up.
Devin Marrero to the Pirates just won’t go away. They’ve already publicly denied that they’re going that direction, but it just won’t die. Things will get interesting if Kyle Zimmer and/or Mike Zunino are still on the board. I wouldn’t count on them passing up on Zunino/Zimmer, but Marrero is very much still in the mix.
hmmm. Adams is struggling in St Louis. Both Wong and Taveras have struggled lately in Springfield. Fornataro just blew up Rosie’s game. Memphis can’t buy a win. The Cardinals haven’t scored a run in 2 days or won a game in ages….
Feels like the franchise is imploding.
It just feels like it. The draft is monday and the main thing I’m excited about right now to distract me from hwo things are going in STL. Rosenthal and Jenkins both had very good starts today.
Re: Matt Adams: first, 50 PAs is not enough to judge whether someone is struggling; second, I wish all our prospects “struggle” to a .360 wOBA.
But he looked pretty bad on that throw from Holliday, which advanced 2 runners into scoring position. Granted, it was a terrible throw, but Adams was caught daydreaming.
More and more, he just doesn’t look like a guy who’s ready for MLB.
That’s no surprise — we all thought he needed a full year in AAA. But it goes to show you can’t accelerate the timetable too fast on these guys.
I think Al was talking about the Mets working out a RH hitting prospect from Texas which would fit Hawkins.
I believe the Mets worked out David Dahl prior to the game last night.
Astros are taking Mark Appel with the first pick. No surprise.
https://twitter.com/JimBowdenESPNxm/status/209393768556789760