First the prospect: Nick Greenwood is 22 years old, left-handed and has a 6 K/9 in the Midwest League. He was a 14th round pick in last year’s draft. He did not make Baseball America’s Top 30 Padres list last season, for what it’s worth, and it’s unlikely he rates very highly in our system either by seasons end. He has fringe stuff, save for a decent change-up, but he has good command. He’s a C grade pitcher, arms of his ilk are a dime a dozen.

So forget the player coming over providing much of anything. What this really signals is a huge vote of confidence for a couple of former Future Redbirds:  Jon Jay, and I’d throw Allen Craig in there as well. Mozeliak has to feel that Jay and Craig can match Ryan Ludwick’s production for the rest of the season. Jay has been a man on fire so far and LaRussa no longer has to take away at-bats from Colby Rasmus (good news!) or Ludwick.

Now obviously, the Cardinals know Jay cannot sustain hitting like a mad man for the rest of the season. He has a crazy .446 BABIP this season, so he’s due for some regression. What does it take to replace Ludwick? ZiPS projects Luddy to post a .363 wOBA the rest of the season. Assuming a couple runs of defense and 250 plate appearances, that’s about a win of production (1.3 WAR, to be exact) of production to fill. Can a Jon Jay/Allen Craig platoon match that? I don’t have the projections in front of me, but I doubt it. Considering Craig hits lefties, and Jay continues some semblance of good-hitting, a .340-.345 wOBA seems completely reasonable. That’s about a 5 run gap left to fill.

Well, Westbrook fills that gap. Westbrook projects around a 4.45 FIP for the rest of the season. Over 50 innings that equals 6 runs.  Suppan is a replacement level pitcher, so Westbrook is 6 runs better than Suppan. The Cardinals barely improved, if at all, but here’s where salary comes to play.

Westbrook’s salary will be covered by Cleveland. Ludwick is due around $2 mil the rest of the season, if not a little more, and he’s going into his last year of arbitration next year. He would probably make $8 or so mil in arbitration. If the team deemed that pricetag too high, he’d be non-tendered (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) and  the Cardinals get no compensation. So this is some sort of compensation now.

The Cardinals, at least on paper, didn’t get a lot worse I guess…and they get some salary relief next year from Ludwick to help try and re-up the Mang.  I think they’re maybe better in the long run, and about the same in the short run, just so long as Westbrook doesn’t crap the bed and Jay/Craig play as about expected.  Is that hoping for too much?

I’m afraid this is some sort of misguided endorsement of Jon Jay (from the front office that brought you: Kyle Lohse was flukily good for one year, so let’s re-sign him!) and Dave Duncan (Westbrook + Duncan = teh awesome FTW!). To me it makes more sense to hold on to Ludwick, get San Diego out of this deal and work directly with the Indians, and then shop Ludwick in the winter time if you find his price-tag too constrictive.

Maybe there’s something that will still happen today with the middle infield before 3pm that helps me understand this more, because I get the deal…except I really don’t get it.

My internet has been going in and out for some reason. This is the second time I’ve typed this up. This time I will remember to save to Word. Thanks, Mediacom!

Springfield makes some roster moves. Scruggs is moving on up to Springfield, which seems deserved.

Memphis 5, Okla. City 2

Rehab fight! Rich Harden struck out 10 in 6 innings. Kyle Lohse struck out 3 in 3 IP, and allowed a pair of hits.
Evan MacLane allowed 6 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings and escaped without giving up a run. He struck out 4.
Nick Stavinoha and James Rapoport both doubled.

Springfield was postponed. Palm Beach was off.

QC 5, Dayton 0

Shelby Miller went 7 innings (!) and gave up just three hits and struck out five.
CJ BEATTY!!! WENT 3 FOR 4 WITH DOUBLES. TWO DOUBLES. YE-AHH!!! (Twitter joke. I love CJ)
Luis Mateo and Devin Goodwin both had a couple of singles.
Alan Ahmady and Matt Adams both doubled.

Batavia 3, Williamsport 2

Can I be real here? Not one Batavia pitcher that threw tonight is someone I care about, and I’m still annoyed I lost the first DFR. So I’m skipping the pitchers.
Bat Biserta hit a 3-run homer. He was the offense.

Johnson City 5, Burlington 1

Greg Garcia and Cody Stanley, two spreadsheet approved draft picks, both had 2-for-5 nights.
Travis Tartamella and Cesar Valera both doubled. Valera had two errors on the night.
Can I be real again? I don’t care about the pitchers that threw tonight. Kevin Siegrist is a 42nd round pick from two years ago that is in the Appy League. He’s probably not very good.

BONUS DFR COVERAGE!
GCL Cardinals 19 (!), GCL Nats 8

Wow. Thassalottahitsanruns, mang. Roberto De La Cruz hit his 5th homer. With a .745 OPS in his second go of the GCL, he’s not as advanced as advertised, or at least just judging by the numbers. But he’s still very young.

Memphis 2, Omaha 7

• Remember Rick Ankiel? Of course you do. He went 2-for-5 with a HR. I am assuming he is on a rehab assignment. Alex Gordon, who inexplicably is not on a rehab assignment also went yard. He’s hitting .320/.448/.586 but is still banished to Triple-A for some purpose of Dayton Moore’s.  O-Royals > KC Royals.
• On to the Redbirds. Mark Hamilton and Ruben Gotay both doubled.
• Bryan Anderson drew a pair of walks.
• Chuckie Fick struck out 5 in 5 innings. He also had the misfortune of giving up 4 homers.

Springfield 6, Tulsa 5

• Erik fact: I went to college in Tulsa.  I do not miss Tulsa in the middle of July. The bugs are huge, and it is hotter than hot there.
• Remember Stuart Pomeranz? Matt Carpenter hit a walk-off, two-run homer off of Pomeranz the Elder.
• Daryl “where did the tools go?” Jones went 2-4 with a HR. Yay.
• Scott “Farmer” McGregor gave up 5 ER and 2 HR. Boo.
• Andrew Brown went 2-for-5 with 3 strikeouts
• Chris Swauger doubled
• Blake King, Jason Buuuuuursma and Francisco Samuel all threw a scoreless frame. Each struck a batter out. King walked one, Buursma allowed one hit.

Palm Beach 4, Brevard County 8

• Niko Vasquez went 2-4 with a walk
• D’Marcus Ingram went 2-for-5 with a double and 3 RBI
• Hugo Castellanos and Rich the Rock Rocabadlo both doubled and drew walks.
• Richard Castillo – 4 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR. Castillo may have opened our eyes for his previous performances at a young age, but he has stalled. Considering the scouting reports were never all that glowing, I think it’s time for the last remaining Castillo bandwagoners to reconsider their position.
• Angel Tapia allowed a hit and struck out 3 over 2 IP

Quad Cities 2, Ft. Wayne 1

• Ryan Jackson went 3-for-4. Jackson also was caught stealing 2nd and picked up his 21st error. I”m not one for pointing out errors, but 21 seems like a lot considering Jackson’s defensive reputation.
• Matt Adams and Christian Beatty both doubled
• Jorge Rondon – 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K
• Jason Smith struck out three in his 3 innings. He gave up two hits and a walk.
• Aaron Terry struck out 2 in a perfect inning of work for the save. Terry was a 42nd round pick last year, but so far has some pretty gaudy numbers for QC. 40 K in 31.1 IP, 10 walks, and a 2:1 ground out to air out rate.

Batavia 1, Jamestown Grape Thingy 0

• Matt Valaika went 2 for 3 with a double.
• Audris Perez went 1-for-3 with the only RBI
• Kevin Siegrist struck out four, walked two over 4 IP
• John Gast, in his second game, faced nine batters. Two struck out, five grounded out. He allowed a couple of hits. I don’t know, but I like John Gast’s prospects as a LOOGY, but I’m probably jumping the gun by just basing it off his college numbers.

Johnson City 9, Kingsport 5

• Cody Stanley, Phil Cerreto and Chris Edmondson all went yard. Chris Edmondson has a .667 slugging %. He’s a 45th round pick. I’m not saying this because Edmondson is a future star, I just honestly don’t know what the heck it means.
• What I’m more excited about is Oscar Tavaras. He went 4-4 with 2 doubles and is now batting .385 and is slugging well over .600. He an 18-year-old signee of the DR and plays center field. If anyone can give us a scouting report, please share it.
• Travis Tartamella went 3-3 with a double and a walk.
• Patrick Daugherty filled up the boxscore. 5 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 HR, 9 K.

I wasn’t a big fan of either trade at the moment they happened, but I gradually sobered up from my prospect fanboyism and realized that the deals, in themselves, were perfectly justifiable even if it meant putting a pretty big dent in the farm system. So far, Luhnow has done a pretty good job re-stocking the system with some potential, assuming the tops picks of the draft sign and the Carlos Matias signing is OK’d.

I thought it would be fun just to check in with some of the players and see how they’re doing for their new clubs. This isn’t to pronounce a winner or a loser in the trade, just a status update.

The Walrus’ slash line of .293/.353/.503 for Triple-A Las Vegas looks pretty good, but can be deceiving. I’m not hear to bash on Brett, but there’s some red flags about his numbers. First of all,  Las Vegas is a hitter’s heaven. Adjusting for park, Wallace’s line diminishes to .280/.341/.480. Still not shabby considering he was only drafted two years ago. What’s got to be a little disconcerting for Blue Jays’ fans is his plate discipline. Touted as a disciplined hitter coming out of college, Wallace has a .32 BB/K ratio and just a 6% walk rate. His MLE OPS is .667. Oh, and he’s officially moved over to 1B.

I like Wallace, I still think he’s a good prospect, but I’m not quite as confident that he’s some sort of future all-star.

Shane Peterson has a .300 wOBA for Double-A Midland and a nice, shiny .003 ISO.

At age 25, Clayton Mortensen is still doing his thing in the PCL. He has thrown 100 innings, is striking out about 7 batters per nine, walking 2.8 per and is still getting lots of groundballs. (53% GB%)

Through 125 innings of professional ball, the former “closer of the future” has pitched right around replacement level. His strikeout rate has dipped down to around 6 per nine for Cleveland this year, and he has a 5.31 xFIP. Ouch. Remember the Motte versus Perez debate? I was on Team Perez for the reason of secondary offerings or lack thereof for Motte. Bully for those who were on Team Motte.

Jess Todd probably won’t destroy us all after all, but for Triple-A Columbus he’s striking out a batter per inning with good control to boot. I feel sort of silly for thinking he ever might be a starter, but he still might be a valuable set-up man. He was pounded in his brief major league stint, his opponent’s BABIP was .411. I wouldn’t read too much into his struggles in the majors last year.

Who knows what will become of Seth Blair once he signs, but if he turns out to be a quality #3-4 starter like he’s projected, then Todd and Perez for a couple of bad months of DeRosa and Blair will look pretty good.

I think the deal that none of us bemoaned but are bemoaning now happened before last season started. If you ever want to get depressed, just look at what Luke Gregerson is doing to major league hitters now. I can’t discuss it, it’s too painful. Just look. He has become my new Dan Haren.

Mark “I’m a legend in my mind” Worrell is in Triple-A, still. He has a 4.36 FIP in 34.1 innings pitched.

I still like the futures for several of these players, but it’s funny to me, in a painful way, that the most valuable player out of them all, at least so far, is the guy we didn’t mind parting with, the player we thought of as a fungible middle reliever. Sure, we all liked his shiny minor league numbers quite a bit, but we had several relievers in the minors doing similar things. The players I liked least parting with are showing all sorts of wrinkles and may not end up amounting to much of anything.

Oh the  joy of prospects.

Boxscores aggregated  daily, XXL version with the Appy having their Opening Night tonight. Onward DFR! Feels good to be sharing the best of the boxscores again as I sub in for Jeff.

Memphis 3, Nashville 6

• Allen Craig went 3-4 with a double.
• Ruben Gotay went 4-4 with a double
• Evan McLane doubled and pitched a complete game. 10 hits, 6 ER, 2 BB, 4 K and *gah* 3 HR.

Springfield 5, Arkansas 2

• DJ Tools, 3 AB, no hits, 2 K, 2BB. How good are his tools, really?
• Jose Garcia went 2-for-4 with a double
• The Kozmanaut went 1-3 with 2 walks and a stolen base
• Aaron Luna doubled and walked. Luna is walking in 14.6% of his plate appearances.
• Farmer Scott McGregor threw 7.2 innings, 2 R, 0 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 5 K. 12 outs via ground, three via air. Not shabby for his Double-A debut. McGregor boasted a 58% groundball rate at Palm Beach, but only managed 16 K in 52 innings. On the positive he only walked 13.
• Eduardo Sanchez struck out one, allowed two hits and picked up his 11th save.

Palm Beach 0, Fort Myers 3 (Game 1)

I’m guessing this was finishing off a game that was previously started, as Mark Diapoules, who pitched last night for Springfield, has a line of 5 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 4 K for this game. The only hits came from Charles Cutler, Alex Castellanos and Colt Sedbrook, all of which were singles.

Palm Beach 2, Fort Myers 0 (Game 2)

• Xavier Scruggs went 2-4 with two doubles and two strikeouts
• Jermaine Curtis and Rich “the Rock” Rocobaldo both went 2-4 with a double.
• Newly promoted Scott Schneider: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 3 K
• Tyler Norrick struck out the side to end the game.

MWL West All Stars 2, MWL East All Stars 6

• D’Marcus Ingram singled and stole a base

Batavia 4, State College 5

• Audris Perez went 3-4 with a stolen base. Behind the plate he allowed 2 basestealers on three tries.
• Adam Melker went 2-4
• Jose Rada blew the save, allowing 2 ER on 2 H and a walk.

Johnson City 5, Kingsport 8

• $500,000 bonus baby Cesar Valera went 0-3 but drew two walks and scored. He played SS.  Greg Garcia, one of my favorite draft picks went 0-5 and played 2b.  Greg Garcia is considered to be a plus defensive shortstop, so I’m guessing this is a temporary move, but there’s no harm in him getting reps at other positions along the infield. I don’t if the same can be said about Valera’s defense, but he had a pretty ugly game as it pertains to errors tonight. He made two throwing errors and one fielding error. Two of the errors came in the same inning.
• Chris Edmondson went 2-3 with a HR and a walk.
• David Medina doubled.
• Hector Hernandez’s line: 4 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 2 HR. Hernandez was a 10th rounder out of Puerto Rico last year.

Things I’ve learned since I’ve last DFR’d: MiLB.com is getting worse, not better.

Blair’s FIP is inflated by a HR/9 rate of 1, I guess. Theses numbers are adjusted for park and schedule, so it’s less than  an inspiring number, but FIP aside, he’s got a good K/BB and GO/AO rates. Watching him in the Super Regionals this past weekend, he definitely has some good breaking stuff. The fastball was in the upper 80′s at times and his command seemed to leave him after the first three innings facing a very tough Arkansas lineup.  

Color me intrigued with John Gast. I know we are only looking at a handful of batters faced, but in 21 innings, Gast posted a K/9 rate of 10 with a 34-to-6 groundout to fly out ratio. His scouting report says he has a nice fastball/slider combo. That’s a nice LOOGY starter kit right there.  I’d give him every opportunity to start first, of course.

For that matter, I think Bibona and Lyons in the 8th and 9th round are about as good at is gets. Lyons was a possible early rounder coming out of high school but opted to go to Okie State. He was great in 2008, his stuff and his results since have declined, but there’s the hope he bounces back. And then there’s also the off-chance he’s the next Great Crafty Lefty and not merely a terrific college performer.

Boone Whiting could potentially be a steal, or at least a guy who posts some interesting numbers regularly in the DFR’s to come. For that matter, we’ll be seeing plenty of these players names soon, with the Muckdogs’ season starting tomorrow.

Earlier in the week I posted some of these advanced stats for the picks taken on day one and two of the draft, now here’s day three, plus I added in a few new stats – walk-to-strikeout ratio, batting average of balls in play and speed score.

 
Pos.
PA
AVG
OBP
SLG
wOBA
BB%
K%
ISO
BB/K
BABIP
Spd


Zack Cox
3B
265
.420
.509
.598
.483
14.0%
12.1%
.178
1.16
.464
6.9


Cody Stanley
C
280
.341
.455
.562
.443
15.4%
7.9%
.221
1.95
.340
5.6


Nick Longmire
OF
248
.302
.409
.470
.392
14.5%
15.7%
.168
0.92
.350
5.4


Greg Garcia
SS
274
.431
.513
.610
.492
11.7%
10.6%
.179
1.10
.479
8.3


Colin Walsh
2B
278
.330
.445
.520
.427
15.8%
17.6%
.190
0.90
.389
4.7


Geoff Klein
C
267
.323
.411
.498
.404
10.5%
9.4%
.175
1.12
.335
2.9


Chad Oberacker
CF
284
.431
.507
.661
.502
11.6%
8.5%
.230
1.38
.462
7.5


Pat Biserta
LF
271
.440
.502
.812
.548
10.3%
10.3%
.372
1.00
.439
6.8


Victor Sanchez
1B
147
.265
.400
.470
.388
13.6%
11.6%
.205
1.18
.263
4.3


Taylor Black
SS
231
.281
.398
.517
.403
6.9%
14.7%
.236
0.47
.284
6.0


Mike O'Neill
OF
226
.387
.456
.522
.434
11.5%
6.2%
.135
1.86
.401
5.7


Joey Bergman
2B
230
.351
.452
.516
.431
12.2%
9.6%
.165
1.27
.376
7.3


Matt Valaika
2B
217
.284
.383
.415
.361
9.2%
16.6%
.131
0.56
.333
6.8


Packy Elkins
SS
238
.327
.495
.679
.494
19.3%
8.8%
.352
2.19
.252
6.2


Phil Cerreto
3B
226
.409
.471
.710
.504
11.5%
6.2%
.301
1.86
.391
5.1


Chris Edmondson
OF
244
.363
.436
.627
.459
7.8%
8.6%
.264
0.90
.353
5.5


Adam Melker
OF
243
.342
.433
.538
.425
9.5%
9.5%
.196
1.00
.363
7.1

Remember, these stats are neutralized for park and strength of schedule.

As far as late round draft picks go, Packy Elkins and Phil Cerreto are about as interesting as they come, or at least they have some noteworthy stat lines.

Plus, Packy Elkins name is Packy, and he has some interesting facial hair.

Real college baseball player, not an undercover police officer

Per the guys at Splits, a walk rate below 12% and a strikeout rate over 18% are red flags.

You might have heard about Zack Cox and his lack of big-time power. He did change his swing this season into something more of a line drive, contact-oriented swing this year, and it clearly helped his batting average. But a .179 ISO is rather light for a college hitter. Still, if he can hit around .300 every year while being near adequate defensively, he’ll be just fine if all he hits is 12-18 homers per season.

It may seem strange to you that Cox’s numbers aren’t worlds better than some of the later round picks. The answer is simple, scouts are looking at future projection, the player’s tools, not their stat lines. All I’m sharing here is what the player has done, this year.

Cody Stanley is a sabermetric darling of sorts. He caught the attention of Jeff Sackmann, who using a system that weights offense, defense and baserunning, ranked Stanley as the second best college catcher after Yasmani Grandal. He’s good at a bit of everything; best of all he should stick at catcher.

If Nick Longmire has a Chris Young starter kit, he needs to tap into it. An adjusted .470 slugging percentage at the college level is less than impressive. Again, tools before stats, but it was not a real impressive season for Longmire on paper.

Pat “The Bat” Biserta was someone who caught my eye while screwing around the College Splits leaderboard earlier in the year. Rutgers plays in a hitter’s graveyard and plays a tough schedule, and as you can see, the dude put up some crazy numbers. Not a very good walk rate, but behold the ISO! It was a breakout season, and it coincided from a move from DH to left field. It also didn’t hurt that he cut down his strikeouts and started hitting more balls in the air. Biserta was also subject of discussion over at College Splits’ blog, head over there for more details on the Pat Biserta story, or question, whichever way you want to put it.  I think the question about his draftability has been answered; it’s pretty clear major league teams aren’t overly sold given how low he was drafted. I bet he mashes in A-Ball, though.

Chad Oberecker has my attention now. It looks as if he has some speed to stay in center and he did the right things with his bat this season.

Hawaii’s ballpark must be a real pitcher’s park, because his raw numbers don’t look anywhere near as good as his adjusted numbers. Luhnow says his glove is “plus-plus”. Could be an interesting sleeper, although the walk rate isn’t great.

Taylor Black’s OBP, BB% discrepancy comes from 20 HBP’s. In other words, he’s playing loose with the rules, and may have a future in acting.

Anyway, again this is just what the players have done. These numbers might help identify some undersold prospects, and I know I’ll be watching the career of Pat Biserta now with great interest.

If Zack Cox does play hard ball, they could always offer Cox’s big bonus to Wilson. Maybe he’ll bite.

Scouting report

Anyway, in my opinion this has been a great night for Jeff Luhnow and company. After getting the best pure hitter in the draft, the Cardinals were able to draft two very good arms with some upside in Blair and Jenkins.

Blair was a player I thought the Cardinals might be interested in. He had a pretty good year at Arizona State, and he gets his fair share of groundballs.

Law on Blair:

Arizona State right-hander Seth Blair came out of the chute throwing bullets this spring, reportedly touching 98 in his first outing of the spring, but he has settled in since then as a 90-94 guy who might flash a 95 or 96 once or twice a game.

He’ll throw the pitch to both sides of the plate, and pairs it with a solid-average slider at 78-84 mph with good tilt. He’ll show a change, curve, and even splitter, although only the change projects as a potential weapon in pro ball. He throws from a 3/4 slot and his hand travels a long way from separation to release, with his pitching elbow going just above his shoulder before he pronates it.

He’s not a big, physical kid, and there will probably be teams that view him as a reliever in the long term, but he has the repertoire to start and should get that opportunity first.

Tyrell Jenkins was ranked 23rd overall by Law, so getting him at 50 is a great value pick, and he’s considered to be very signable in spite of being recruited by Baylor as a QB. This pick was the real shocker to me, in a good way. I think I’d rather have him than Stetson Allie.

Law on Jenkins:

A three-sport athlete, Jenkins is committed to Baylor to pitch and play quarterback (albeit likely as a backup behind Robert Griffin for a year), but his pro future is now as a right-handed pitcher.
He’s very crude, but has arm strength and is, of course, a tremendous athlete, so there’s great raw material here. Jenkins has hit 96 several times this spring but will pitch around 89-92, although with some delivery cleanup he should be working at 92-94 or better; when he gets on top of the pitch he gets excellent downhill plane. He’ll show a low-70s curveball and a slider around 80. His delivery is unrefined; his stride length and landing vary from pitch to pitch and he separates his hands very low, but his arm is loose and he keeps his elbow down.

Taking Jenkins is a bet on athleticism and velocity, but because his arm works well he’s well worth that gamble.

Baseball America:

Jenkins may be the most athletic pitcher in the draft. Baylor’s top quarterback recruit, he also lettered in basketball and ran a 49-second quarter-mile in a relay race this spring—without any training. The next day, he was throwing 92-93 mph fastball in the seventh inning. Jenkins has a loose, quick, whippy arm that can deliver fastballs up to 95 mph. There’s a lot of projection remaining in his 6-foot-4, 180-pound frame, and lots of room for improvement with his secondary pitches. He can spin a curveball and also throws a slider and changeup. He should develop more consistency once he focuses on baseball and does a better job of repeating his delivery. He’s raw but has tremendous upside, making him a perfect fit in the sandwich round for teams with multiple picks.

I like this pick a lot better than the Dodgers’ pick of Zach Lee.

These are two very hard throwing righties with some upside. A very nice first night of the draft and my cheeseball Eibner is still on the board. For that matter, so is Workman, Allie and James Paxton.