Quad Cities gets rained out. Shelby Miller continues a streak of bad results mixed with what looks like some bad luck. The top prospects in Springfield continue to hit.
- Memphis had an abysmal game all around. The offense tallied 1 single and 3 walks the entire game.
- The Zephyrs were running wild on Shelby Miller and Bryan Anderson with three stolen bases.
- Eugenio Velez committed 2 errors in the game.
- Shelby Miller had the kind of outing that actually does give me pause. He walked 3 batters in 4.2 innings and only struck out 3. Miller was responsible for 7 runs (5 earned) and 7 hits including another home run. Miller is suffering some terrible luck on balls in play and it doesn’t help that his defense (Memphis is second only to Fresno in unearned runs) but working around errors by your defense is inevitably part of the game. Miller’s season is no where near as bad as it looks on paper but he’s not a perfect prospect right now.
- Kolten Wong was 2-for-5 with his 7th home run of the season.
- Oscar Taveras was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.
- Jake Shaffer was 2-for-4.
- Travis Tartamella was 2-for-4 with a double. Without really checking, it seems to me that outside of Juan Castillo, the Cardinals minor league catching core is having a really bad offensive year.
- Scott Gorgen had a solid outing striking out 6 in 7 innings of work. He walked 2 and allowed 7 hits for 2 runs. Having missed over an entire season, Gorgen’s 2012 campaign looks very successful so far with a 2:1 K:BB rate and a better than league average FIP.
- Mike O’Neill was 0-for-3 with a pair of walks as the leadoff batter.
- Starlin Rodriguez was 0-for-1.
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I-love-it charted the pitches over at STL Today’s Cards Talk forum, and 37% of the pitches Shelby threw last night were curve. The batter that ended up hitting the home run saw almost exclusively curveballs, and it just happened to be a hanging curveball over the middle of the plate the hitter got a hold of.
This may or may not be worth following:
Luis Perdomo, a 19-yo pitcher (and former outfielder) for the DSL Cards, has gone 3 starts w.o. giving up an earned run.
17 IP, 10 hits, 3 BB, 19 K, and nearly 3-1 GB-FB.
Goold mentioned him in this morning’s column.
I think he is. Last profile of him was a 17 year old 6’2 165 obviously projectionable threw high 80′s low 90′s but what set him apart was a very good curveball that could be a plus. That was about a year ago. I’m sure he’s filled out some and obviously he’s not being hit very hard at all.
Is Max Foody signed or not? The Pd article Goold did about the farm this morning seamed to suggest he hasn’t.
Makes it seem like it’s either Foody or Williams. I’d rather have Williams.
Regarding Williams and Foody:
“Those two are definitely on our radar,” Kantrovitz said. “Given how the new (process) is shaking out, I think it’s more than likely (that) we’re not going to have enough for both of them. Ideally we would (finishing signing the top 14). We might not be in that position.”
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cards-keep-rolling-out-draft-picks/article_69ce53b4-a367-5eba-90c2-9a27c2f54691.html
Definitely sounds like we will not get both. I am hoping they are looking to sign Williams with Foody as the backup if they don’t have enough cash left over.
Foody has not signed. Previous reports were inaccurate. It makes sense that the stl brass would wait until all of the top 10 round selections sign, before moving to Foody and Williams. In this way they gain budget definiteness. If stl budgets for someone to sign below slot and the player does not sign, then that budget money is lost at slot.
By waiting until Ramsey & co sign, the remaining pool money will be obvious. That said, they might have an informal agreement with Foody, contingent on the top 10 round signings.
Thank you for clarifying.
This situation makes me wonder if the agent or agents for Ramsey, Mejia, and/or Heyer is/are hedging on pre-draft agreements. The latter two, especially, have raised their profile quite a bit in the 2 weeks post-draft.
Completely speculating, of course. But if the Cards were planning to sign all 3 for, say, a total of $1.5 million under slot, and now it looks more like $1.2 million below slot, that could eliminate $300,000 they were hoping to use for Foody.
We all assume there’s a strategy in place to sign everyone, including Williams and Foody. But any combination of Kelly costing more than they anticipated or one of the 3 CWS studs raising his price would throw the whole thing off.
I don’t know why we would assume that “there’s a strategy in place to sign everyone.” After all, there wasn’t a plan to draft Williams and Foody in the first place (since no one would have planned for Williams to be there in the 11th round anyway).
As for Heyer and Mejia, I don’t think there’s hedging going on. First, I don’t know who their advisors are, but it’s likely that they are repeat players in this market. It’s going to be increasingly important under the new rules for advisors to be upfront and honest in dealings with teams about signability. If the advisors can’t be trusted, teams won’t draft their players. Doubtful Heyer’s and Mejia’s advisors are going to start re-trading deals to try to squeeze the Cards for an extra 25 grand, when it will literally ruin their reputations and hurt their current and future clients far more than the benefit gained, if any.
Again, I was just speculating on the potential reasons why Foody seemed to be signed one day and then emphatically not signed a few days later.
I could be wrong about both guesses — that Kelly cost more than anticipated, or that other players are hedging on their predraft agreements.
Whether I’m wrong or not, I disagree that an agent would be ruined if he upped his price upon seeing that his player is suddenly more valuable than he was before the draft. That’s what agents do. When circumstances change, the price changes.
It’s also worth remembering that predraft deals are against the rules. How do you make an agent stick to an unwritten, unenforceable agreement? Even if the Cards would refuse to draft any of his clients going forward, 29 other teams have no skin in the dispute and will gladly take good players the Cards pass up.
Like I said, this is what agents do. They get the most money possible for their clients. Pissing off one team is a small price to pay for building a reputation as a guy who fights for his clients.
Amateurs cannot have agents. So there are non existent deals with non existent agents.
this is another reason we like Ramsey. He has been compared to Tim Tebow for his good attitude. His word is his bond. We love that young man.
Yeah, I disagree that you’re correctly understanding how repeat players in a market behave. If an agent lies to the Cards, he’ll lie to other teams. That’s why other teams won’t trust his signability information and won’t take his players; they won’t want what happened to the Cards to happen to them.
What you’re describing is not in fact what agents do (reneging on deals with teams if they think they can chisel a few extra thousand, all to get a reputation as an unreliable chiseler). That’s a very good way to have a short career.
All of this besides the fact that I don’t think Heyer and Mejia are more valuable today than when they were drafted.
All three of those players are still playing.
If they sign a contract with a professional baseball team they would be ineligible to continue playing therefore forfeiting their ability to be on a team that could possibly win the college world series.
They’ll sign as soon as their teams are eliminated or they win the tournament.
There are unreliable rumors floating around the Web about Foody. Is he a $400000 bonus talent? There is no reliable reason to think so. In 2009, we drafted a juco lefty in rd 12 and signed him for under $100k. This is a reliable fact. so why would Footy mysteriously deserve $400k?
The cards signed 27 guys within a day. They announced the signings. did the Cards Nnounce Foody? No. Only a non traditional media site announced a deal and Rob Rains denied the claim.
If Foody wants big bucks, he should go to Florida State and earn it.
It should be mentioned that Ferrara pitched a perfect inning in the Florida State All Star game.
Saw Scott Gorgen pitch last night. He threw a 4-Seam Fastball sitting 90-92 consistently he topped out at 93-94 a few times on the radar gun I’ve heard reports of that Springfield gun being a little fast but he’s got a good live FB. Threw a change-up around 80-85 he had good feel for it on the mound. Also could till that his out-pitch was his breaking ball 80-83 he had solid break and spin on it good fell for it as well. He also used the breaking ball to get ahead in the count throwing it for strikes it’s a plus pitch. Pitch deep in the game with the consistent velocity and overall command of his pitches all game. He has an easy delivery to the plate mixed speeds all game keeping the Natural hitters off balanced. Intriguing pitching prospect to watch.
IMO he looked like a very “polished” pitcher.
Forgot to add in his delivery he hides the ball well when he is pitching in his motion good deception.
The change-up is his plus secondary offering. Though his breaking ball looked sharp last night had some good break to it…
Article on Butler effective slider good piece. http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cards-prospect-bulter-has-effective-pitch-whatever-it-is/article_f5f659ca-53e7-541a-9d65-f2267879ce5e.html
Notes from Springfield 6/16:
The start of the game was delayed almost 20 minutes due to pre-game festivities and Gorgen wasn’t sharp to start the game. It looked like he couldn’t find a rhythm (perhaps due to the delayed start) and gave up both runs in the top of the first. Settled down in the second and literally cruised through the fifth. Seemed to visibly tire in the sixth and labored though the sixth and seventh. Aided by some good defensive plays and loud outs he was able to finish seven relatively strong innings. I agree with DT above that he sat 90-92, didn’t catch anything faster than that (with the ordinary Spgfld. gun disclaimer). Solid outing.
There have been a number of questions related to G. Garcia’s defense the last few weeks. He started one nifty double play (Wong made a nice play and scoop up the middle to start another). However, I’d call his range solid, if unspectacular, and his arm falls considerably short of Jackson’s. He makes the plays he gets to, and looks reasonably comfortable, but isn’t particularly rangy. The best way to describe him would be to say he plays ss like a very good 2bman (probably where he belongs on the field, but isn’t likely available so long as he plays on the same team as Wong). Might be a plus defender at second, probably not an everyday ss at the MLB level.
Wong led off with a bloop the other way in the first. Ran the bases well and almost manufactured a run on his own. Hit a 370ish foot homer in his second at bat. A lefty was brought in to work to he and Taveras before his fourth PA and he had a fairly ugly looking at bat resulting in a strikeout.
Taveras made a loud out to the deepest part of the park in the first, hammered a double in his second at bat. Walked on four pitches (with nothing close to the zone in his third at at bat and struck out on a pitch in the dirt in his final at bat (against the lefty). Taveras is relatively fast for his size and runs well. Played a solid center last night, but wasn’t particularly tested in the field. On the bases he held up at third on a hit that he likely could have scored on. Not sure if he’s been instructed to be careful on the bases or not, but it sure looked like he was doing so last night.
I’m as big a fan as anyone in aggressively promoting the dynamic duo, however, they both have things they can work on at this level. Having seen each play about 10 games at this point, both remain a little vulnerable to more advanced lefties (which is normal given their ages). Having watched a lot of players pass through in the last several years I think they could both hold their own at AAA right now, but it isn’t a waste for either one of them to work on their game at this level a bit longer. Both are very good players for AA, great prospects given their respective ages.
It seems grossly unfair to me that Gorgen was allowed to “literally” cruise through the fifth. Hitting baseballs pitched from the deck of a moving target, with the aid of gravity increasing their velocity from well over 50 feet in the air, must be extremely difficult. Not to mention the fact that any attempt to drive the ball out of the infield would presumably hit the hull of the ship. I’d have thought there would be some sort of rule against this, but apparently not?
Selig should really look into this.
Anyways, nice to see a report on Garcia’s defense. He’s been one of my favourite sleeper guys for ages now, and it’s good to see him getting some press. Whilst he probably only ends up as a backup IF guy, having one of those who can play SS whilst actually being able to hit is something we’ve not really had for a while. Could be quite a valuable player IMO.
Eugenia Velez is having a pretty good season! thank goodness we signed him. Can you imagine where Memphis would be without Eugenio?
Rahmatulla has been promoted to Palm Beach with Piscotty reporting to Quad Cities.
Justice for Rahmatulla! Good for him. Now the pressure will be on to show that those numbers in QC were no fluke.
Agreed on Garcia. While he isn’t likely ever going to be an impact player at the MLB level, he has a reasonably good chance of reaching his ‘ceiling.’ I haven’t seen him play third, but am confident he would hold up over there defensively, probably be above average there. The issue with him is going to be range, and to a much lesser extent, arm. I also think he could hit ‘enough’ to be a pretty productive sub around the infield, particularly considering his platoon advantage. He is a better ss than Descalso has proven to be, for whatever that is worth (and in fairness has loads more experience at short). A bench that had he and Jackson on it would be pretty versatile down the road.
One other interesting note about Garcia is the disparity in his walk rate. I’ve seen him play around 10 games this season and never noticed him being particularly patient at the plate. Several people have mentioned his plate discipline numbers (which despite the last few games are very good). If you look at his very SSS home/road splits, it seems odd that he has a 10% walk rate at home and an almost 22% walk rate on the road. I guess that will even out over time, but he profiles as a completely different hitter away from HF.
Short porch syndrome?