Archive for the “Adam Ottavino” Category

In my piece for Viva El Birdos on Sunday, I recapped a little of Tyler Greene’s history.  Prospect watchers will probably have been familiar with the term “prospect fatigue” and it’s connotative use with Greene but there’s another player this year — who likely has less of a shot at the major league roster right out of Spring Training — that I actually think of first when using the term prospect fatigue: Adam Ottavino.

Read the rest of this entry »

Update II: Nope, probably the Cubs on Saturday.

• Wednesday @ Padres: Garcia
• Thursday @ Padres: Walters
• Friday vs. Cubs: Carpenter (on normal rest)
• Saturday vs. Cubs: Ottavino (on normal rest)

Update: I’m doing my rotation/schedule math again and it may not be the Cubs. That’s bad on me. Short version – Adam Ottavino will be in the St. Louis rotation.

* * *

We don’t pass it along if we aren’t confident in its veracity. Expect Adam Ottavino to be called up to start next week against the Cubs.

Congrats to Adam who is having a tremendous season this year.  He’s certainly earned this chance with a lot of hard work and great pitching.

Stats

I have no real reason to think that Kyle Lohse is hurt. The fact that Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan let him pitch deep into a failing outing makes me think that there’s nothing physically wrong with him. He did seem remarkably detached from what he was doing as the game progressed but that’s a very subjective assessment on my part and one that, admittedly, may not be fair.

That said, we’ve seen players hit the DL with what many outside the clubhouse perceive to be phantom illnesses. Whether that’s to let them rest or get some mental things worked out, it’s tacitly accepted among MLB. So if that were the case, who would be the option to come up from Memphis?  This also assumes that the Cardinals wouldn’t want to simply give Kyle McClellan, Mitchell Boggs or Blake Hawksworth a spot start but they seem content with those three in the pen.  On to the stats!

Read the rest of this entry »

I took the time to review the tape from Adam Ottavino’s game on the 10th.  There was some disgruntlement of my labeling it a so-so outing based on the boxscore.  Talk of the strikezone being small and him only allowing 1 ER meaning I should have been more positive about it.  I’m glad I took the time to watch the video.

Read the rest of this entry »

Like mother hens clucking over a prized clutch, we only want the best for the top Cardinal prospects.  We’ve seen what happens when things don’t work out as well.  Starting with prospects 16 through 20, I’ll cover the highs and lows of what you might see this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over at BtB, Harry took an in-depth look at Adam Ottavino thru the lense of Pitch F/x.  Nice to see Ottavino go out and pitch quite well against a talented Venezuelan Team.

Prior to the season I took a look at the workloads of several Cardinals prospects in relation to the Verducci Rule.  The basic premise of the Verducci Rule is that pitchers who increase their workload by more than 30 innings from one season to the next have a heightened risk of injury.  Will Carroll has found that the Verducci Rule does not exactly translate for minor league innings, but I used it as a conservative baseline for the number of innings I thought would be appropriate for the Cardinals prospects.  After the jump I’ll take a look back at the workloads for those same pitchers and how it compared to the numbers discussed prior to the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey y’all. Nope, still can’t pull it off. Oh well. I thought I would give it a shot, seeing as how I haven’t been around here much at all for quite a while.

You know, I was actually planning a post today taking that long-promised look at the Cincinnati farm system, but something erik put in his GCL wrap just a couple of days ago changed my mind. And I quote:

I don’t want to pick on Gary Daley any more than I already have, but when was the last time you’ve seen a 5/32 K/BB ratio? From a 22 year old in rookie ball? From a third round pick? That’s just…wow.

That got me to thinking. Over the past few years, the Cardinals have shown a proclivity for drafting a certain type of player, a certain draft demographic, if you will. I’m speaking, of course, of the raw college pitcher. A bit of an odd breed, to be honest. Traditionally, teams would draft one of two ways. If they wanted upside and talent, they would draft a raw high school kid. If they wanted experience and polish, they would draft a guy out of college, who was much closer to being a finished product. The Cardinals, however, have bucked that bit of conventionality by taking pitchers out of college programs who have had relatively poor results, often are considered very raw, and generally just need quite a lot of work.

Anyway, I immediately decided that, rather than discuss the Cincinnati Reds and their prospects, I would take a look at some of the pitchers that the Cardinals have taken out of this specific segment of the draft, and see if they’ve had any success at it. Read the rest of this entry »

The News-Leader has an interesting article about the Cardinals involvement with Buddy Biancalana’s “Motion Science” system to help ballplayers improve. Now, I still harbor a grudge against Mr. “Can’t hit is way out of a paper sack” for his .435 OBP performance against the Cardinals in the 1985 World Series, but if his system is helping guys like Adam Ottavino and Daryl Jones be all they can be, then I’m all for it.

There was limited action in the system today, with only three teams playing. All the details are after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

(photo: NY Daily News)

I was able to get in touch with 2006 1st round pick Adam Ottavino recently, and he was happy to do a little Q and A for the blog. I greatly appreciate him taking time out of his schedule to share his thoughts  with us, and I hope you all enjoy his answers as much as I did. The Q and A follows after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »