Author Archive

We again participated in the United Cardinal Bloggers’ annual with recaps of the minor league team’s seasons from Johnson City through Memphis. You’ll also find a look at the team’s 2011 amateur player draft. I’m going to unceremoniously steal C70‘s description of the annual below the fold. He led the initiative as an editor and was a driving force behind its completion.  My thanks to him for allowing us to participate again.

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This is the second part of my conversation with Cardinals Farm Director John Vuch.

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Entering the 2011 baseball season, John Vuch was promoted to the role of Farm Director where he took overall responsibility for the state of the Cardinals’ minor league farm system.  What follows is part 1 of an exchange of questions and answers on a variety of topics including Mr. Vuch himself, social media and spring training.

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Just a curious Friday question for you.  If you were General Manager of the Cardinals and you were discussing the parameters of a trade, which would include prospects, are there any prospects you would consider untouchable? The details:

• You’re trading for a good not great player. Someone around 4 WAR like a Chris Young or a Peter Bourjos who is under contract (or team control) for 2 years.
• It’s a straight prospect for MLB player trade.
• The opposing team wants the package to be centered around a single prospect with some other lesser prospects added in too.
• The team keeps asking for a better prospect in return as you slowly move up your person top 10 list.

When do you say enough is enough? Who would be an untouchable prospect for you in any realistic trade scenario?  My personal answer after the jump but I’m curious about just how protective we are of our prospects as a group.

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A .310/.373/.512 line in the Midwest League at age 19 is a great performance. A .386/.444/.584 in the Midwest League at age 19 is great enough to lead the entirety of single A baseball in offensive performance as measured by wOBA (min 200 PA).

The first line, Colby Rasmus’ performance in 2006, cemented his position as the Cardinals’ #1 prospect, which he wouldn’t relinquish until graduating to the majors. The latter performance put Oscar Taveras at #4 on the Future Redbirds top 20 and generally in the #3 or #4 spot on industry lists. Is it possible that Oscar Taveras is underrated?

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The Cardinals placed 11 pitchers in our top 20 prospect list this year. One item that sticks out is that while the Cardinals have had the occasional late round break through (Trevor Rosenthal was drafted in the 21st round), the Cardinals have drafted well with their early round picks.

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The Cardinals are approaching the end of what will be a nine-year relationship with catcher Yadier Molina barring an extension beyond 2012.  Over that 9 year period, Molina will have earned something in the neighborhood of $25M according to Cot’s Contracts.  It’s almost certain that Molina would have been a starting catcher on the merits of his defense alone but he has also proven a capable hitter at the plate.

From 2004-2011, Yadier Molina ranks 8th in Fangraphs’ WAR among catchers.  This understates his talent though as defensive rankings for  catchers are rudimentary. While other catchers are getting nearly full credit for their talent since they are offense first players (e.g. Jorge Posada), Yadier Molina doesn’t even crack the top 30 in wOBA over that time period. There’s a compelling rationale that Molina is a top 5 catcher during his MLB tenure.

The Cardinals have become accustomed in recent years to consistency in their backstop. Prior to Molina, now manager Mike Matheny was the primary catcher from 2000-2004. Matheny personified the Cardinals desire for a defensive catcher in spite of offensive shortcomings.  Loved by his pitchers, Matheny was nothing short of anemic at the plate.  Posting a .277 wOBA, about .055 points worse than league average or 3 wins below league average on offense, Matheny was still behind the plate for no less than 110 games each year.

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This is the consolidated top 20 list rolled out last week.

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Before rolling out the 2012 Future Redbirds Top 20 prospects, I trolled everyone inadvertently with a compilation of the 2011 list. There was a lot of turnover from last year with nine players who appeared on the previous list failing to make this years. Who were they, and why did they go drop off?

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