Archive for the “Bryan Anderson” Category

I found myself faced with an unexpected question this past Saturday at VEB day. The topic of the conversation was Bryan Anderson, longtime prospect and martyr of the “Veteran Backup Catcher” philosophy. He’d become something of an afterthought this year after seemingly falling by the wayside to one Matt Pagnozzi. So what has the erstwhile 2005 prospect sidekick been up to.

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In a fairly surprise move, Memphis catcher Bryan Anderson has been called up to the majors to make his major league debut.

He was called up over Matt Pagnozzi who was the last catcher to be moved down from major league spring training.

Backup catcher Jason LaRue is headed to the DL.

What do you think of the move?  Good move? Or should Anderson stay in Memphis and get regular ABs?

Alternate Title: Why the Cardinals re-signed Jason LaRue

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I think Jeff Luhnow has done tremendous things with the farm system and bringing the Cardinals forward into the statistical age of baseball.  I have a very strong suspicion that the Cardinals (and other clubs) have reliable, advanced metrics on catcher’s defense that simply are beyond what has been developed in the public domain.  That said. . . oooff! . . .

Great to see Matt Pagnozzi with a strong game at Busch. He’s a perfect example of why the organization values strong catch and throw skills

I think Pagnozzi’s defense is largely overrated.  He’s got a good arm but he struggles with balls in the dirt from what I’ve seen.  He’s an average defender; more importantly, he’s a terrible hitter even for a catcher.  Unless his bat takes a quantum leap forward, he shouldn’t be anywhere near the big club, today’s effort notwithstanding.  Part of Luhnow’s job is to be positive about the minors in the press and while I appreciate the opportunity to praise an individual, I’m perturbed by reading what appears to be organizational philosophy that results in bad players coming up at certain positions.

Poor Bryan Anderson.

Ben Badler takes a look at catchers in the minors who best controlled the running game. The good news is out of the 55 catchers on his list, 3 Cardinals are in the top twenty in caught stealing percentage.

• Nick Derba caught 34 out of 78 attempts (43.6%) and came in 5th on Badler’s list.
• Luis De La Cruz caught 20 out of 52 (38.5%), coming in 13th.
• Bryan Anderson was much improved from last year, catching 41 out of 109 attempts (37.6%), good for 19th. Last year his CS% was 26.8%. Hopefully that will squelch some of this nonsensical talk that he should be moved to another position.

Badler only looked at players whose names were in one of their handbooks so I figured I may as well could look around and see how well our other catchers controlled the running game. Onward bullet points, ho!

• Arnoldi Cruz:  15-for-55, good for 27.2%.
• Blake Murphy:  20-for-53, 37.7%.
• Paul Vasquez:  31-for-74, 41.9%
• Brandon Yarbrough: 26-for-75, 34.6%
• Kevin Moscatel: 12-for-35, 34.2%.
• Steve Hill: 1-f0r-4, I don’t have is AFL #’s, unfortunately.

Some quick thoughts:

• The reverse-Inge experiment with Cruz is probably still worth exploring, but he has some work to do. That percentage would put him well in the bottom third of Badler’s list.
• Nick Derba fooled us into thinking he could hit, posting a .377 wOBA for the Quad Cities last season. This season at Palm Beach his wOBA .274, but he dominated the running game. Another Jason Motte experiment in line?
• Murphy was my favorite late round pick last season, and here is another reason why. The 42 round pick completely dominated college ball both on offense and defense, then he hit pretty well in Batavia before struggling a bit at the QC. We’ll see what he can do over a full season before I get really interested.
• Paul Vasquez came from the independent leagues to hit for a .394 wOBA in the Quad Cities. He struggled in under 70 plate appearances at Palm Beach. Maybe he’s a hidden gem.

The handlebar mustache ain’t going anywhere, Bryan Anderson fans gnash your teeth! AZ already found more pros then cons in using Anderson as Yadier’s backup, but for one reason or another the Cards do not see that it as Anderson’s proper role, at least for the near future. His days in the Cardinal organization are probably numbered, me thinks.

Anderson will however be backing up Molina in the Puerto Rican Winter League, which starts on Election Day.

Speaking of voting, Derrick Goold is polling the fans on who should be the Cards minor league player of the year. There is a great case for Freese, but where is the love for Daryl Jones? I just am not sure the real organizational player of the year should be trailing by so much.

Arizona Fall League

• Shane Robinson went 1-3 with an intentional walk. Who is the manager that would intentionally walk Shane Robinson? He stole his sixth base of the AFL season and also had a sac fly.
• Brett Wallace went 0-4 with a walk. A .644 OPS wasn’t what we were hoping to see out of Wallace in fall ball; I’ll have to look at his batted ball types to see if it is just a matter of tough luck.
• Adam Ottavino with another less than stellar performance- 3 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR.
• Justin Fiske threw a scoreless inning, pitching around a couple of hits. He recently updated his blog, found here. Box.

Hawaii Winter Baseball

• Tony Cruz went 1-4.
• Blake King allowed two hits over two innings and struck out five.

Dominican Winter League

• For Halloween, Albert Pujols dresses up as Amaury Marti. Marti doubled and walked in four at bats. Box.

Venezuelan Winter League

• David Freese drove in a pair of runs, one on a sac fly and another on a solo jack. He struck out twice in his other two at bats. Box.

Positional scarcity is a concept that’s easy to understand but hard to keep in mind.  Conceptually, there are fewer players capable of playing certain positions (catcher, shortstop) than other positions (1B, corner outfield).  Part of the issue is the defensive spectrum and another part is the physical demands of the position.  Not many players can spend 100+ games behind the plate squatting for 900 innings.*

The baseball population is skewed toward replacement level on a talent curve.  There’s far more replacement level players than average players and far more average players than superstars.  We assign value to the superstars because of scarcity (although baseball still does so in a linear fashion**) of talent.  If you further diminish the pool of players (looking for a catcher), it’s like placing a seconder finer granularity filter beneath the first — less is going to pass through the second filter.

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Despite a down year at the plate, BA whole heartedly named Colby Rasmus the top prospect of the Pacific Coast League, ahead of Chase Headley, Max Scherzer, Brandon Wood and Carlos Gonzalez. It’s their faith in his tools that supersede the numbers and judge that’s it’s only a matter of time for Colby.

Chris Perez ranked the 12th best prospect in the league and is the top relief prospect. Bryan Anderson ranked between Nate Schierholtz and Franklin Morales, and was the second catcher to make the top twenty after the M’s Jeff Clement. They praise his game calling skills for someone of his youth, and they note his improvement in controlling the running game. They also like his speed (for a catcher) and hope he still may yet add some power.

Jaime Garcia and Mitch Boggs ranked 16th and 17th, respectively. Someone needs to update BA with the fact that Jaime went under the knife for Tommy John surgery, as they project him to be in the 2009 rotation. Scouts are high on Boggs’ pitching acumen and competitiveness, but question his ability to stick as a starter without at least an change up.

What excites me the most is in BA’s top twenties for the TL and PCL, nine of fourty made the cut. I’d rather have some players ready to make some big league impact then to have our best prospects in the lower minors. Now it’s up to the coaching to recognize their talents and properly employee them in the right spots.

Ed. Note: This is a guest post from GForce. We’re always open to talented writers sharing their thoughts here at FR.

Thanks to Erik for this opportunity and I hope my writing skills aren’t too rusty. I have been thinking of a series to tie in the gap between the end of the minor league seasons and when the AFL and other winter ball starts. My thoughts lately have been drifting to next year and how the newly found depth of true prospects fits in throughout the higher levels of the organization. Using the criteria below, I give my top three at each position.

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Cardinal70 recently asked me to participate in the latest “United Cardinal Blogger” collaboration, a project that I could not say no to. The project: Name your Top 7 Prospects, as inspired by our esteemed beat writer Mr. Derrick Goold. The regular minor league season just finished and it seems like it wasn’t long ago we were talking draft, and here we are already ranking players. Time flies.

NOTE: This is NOT our official list that we will be rolling out later. This is more or less my off the cuff rankings as things stand at the moment, and it’s still pretty fluid right now.

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