In case you missed it …
- Steve Batterson of the Quad City Times looks at Tyler Rahmatulla’s recent hot streak.
- Kary Booher of the Springfield News-Leader comments on Carlos Martinez’ return noting his fastball was in the upper 90s.
- Rahmatulla, who recently had a 6 hit night tying a Quad Cities record, makes the Baseball America Hot Sheet for this week.
- Baseball America’s transaction list includes recent signed draft picks this week.
- John Sickels looked back at Joe Kelly’s ascension through the minors. As a long time Kelly proponent, I have high expectations for what he can do in the majors. He’ll take the bump for his second start today in St. Louis at 1:15 CDT.
- Redbird Rants recently did some interviews with the Cardinals 2012 draft class: Kurt Heyer & Alex Mejia, Carson Kelly
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With a lot of likely graduations (carpenter, Adams, cleto, Kelly, sanchez, lynn) and some curves thrown by injuries (swagerty, tilson, Copeland, whiting), as well as conspicuous flops so far (cox, reifer), writing this off-season’s top 20 is going to be interesting. A lot of younger players from the 2011 draft will be getting their first full season in short season ball, along with players from this year’s draft.
I was thinking the same just the other day. If you remove Lynn (who I think would actually rank #1 right now if you still considered him a prospect), Carpenter, Adams and Cleto, it’s tough to come up with an obvious top 10 right now. I assume guys like Wacha and Kelly will be ranking in it by season’s end.
I thought BA’s “man among boys” designation for Rahmatulla was kind of harsh. 22 is the average age for low A. The guy was a 34th-round pick who missed most of his junior year at UCLA.
And it’s not like he’s repeating the level. He’s been in full-season ball all of 2 months.
As someone who always reads BA’s hot sheet, I thought the same thing. Should have made the regular hot sheet list.
I don’t think it was meant to be harsh. It meant that he’s good. He’s ran into some bad luck but had pedigree going into UCLA and a few weird occurances caused hiim to to drop.
Man among boys is disparagement for having an age advantage over younger guys
Or it’s a compliment on how dominant he has been
Or someone a lot better than the competition.
But that is not the meaning of baseball America, as understood by lou
The bottom line is that Rahmatulla deserves a promotion. Just find him a place to play and get his bat to PB. We need to determine what level (if any) of a prospect he is.
I think they will move Walsh and Rahmatulla up during the second half. I believe they are All Stars. Piscotty will be coming to QC. They missed the 1st half title so no real reason to keep them in QC now.
There are a lot of guys that deserve to be promoted throughout the season but end up spending a full year in one league. I understand that there are certain guys who are doing extremely well in their respective leagues but it isn’t that simple. Most of the time, a promotion occurs due to an injury and the most deserving player in the level below gets the call.
Also, many of the trips players take to the “Disabled List” are solely to clear roster space for someone else and that player is kept as an insurance policy. It doesn’t mean the guy isn’t any good, but there is a log jam at his position and sending him down to a lower level would start a trickle down effect. If a player goes down, the player on the phantom DL is almost always going to be activated.
Last year at QC you could argue that half of the roster deserved to be promoted. Whiting, Rosenthal, Kiekhefer, Ferrara, Lucas, J-Rod, Stanley, and Taveras and a few other guys. If you think a potential championship run has any effect on an organization’s willingness to promote guys, you’re simply wrong. Winning in the minor leagues is nice, but it will never be more important than the development of a player.
Sometimes guys just have to wait until a roster spot is available at the next level. The ones that make it continue to do their job regardless of what level they are at, age appropriate or not. When the time comes, they’ll be promoted.
I think Mo does want players to win to get used the culture of winning. The organization isn’t going to “overpromote” someone just because they are doing well at the level they are at. They rather them get a full season of success where they are at. It’s different with Rahmatulla and Walsh. Walsh has been a QC for awhile and it’s time to see what he can do at a step up. Rahmatulla has mastered the league, and Piscotty is coming in so Rahmatulla has to be promoted. It’s not like PB has a third baseman. They just cut Nico Vazequez.
I was just going to make the same point: cutting Niko Vasquez opened up 3rd base in PB.
Right now one of their infielders is Ildemaro Vargas who, despite the fact he turns 21 next month, has never played above the GCL. I assume the Cards plan to assign him to JC or Batavia, and for now he’s just a placeholder until Rahmatulla and/or Walsh get promoted to PB.
The other placement to watch is Ramsey. He could be finished with the CWS as early as this evening, if FSU loses to Stony Brook. If they place him in QC, as I think we all expect, that almost certainly sends Walsh to PB.
We also did interviews with Steve Bean and Jacob Wilson.