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.

I would have to think the PTBNL is a “C” grade guy, or at least I would certainly hope so.

The flip side is that Perez may never harness his control to be a closer, but even as a good set up reliever, that should be worth more wins in the long run.

I think all the Cardinals are getting out of this is a win, maybe two tops. Flags fly forever, so if that means playoffs, then great. But it puts them in a bad spot a year or two down the road. I don’t hate this trade, but I don’t love it like some people do.

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.

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.

1. Colby Rasmus – Rough season or not, Colby’s tools have not gone anywhere. As rough as his start was, Colby finally started looking like the Razzle of old when he hit .333/.441/.535 for the month of June and was named to the Olympic national team, only to miss Beijing due to a sprained right knee. It was a rough season, but Colby still is a monstrous talent. As excited as I am about his offense, I am also pretty darn excited about his defense.

2. Brett Wallace – I’m getting about as sick about hearing about his defense (or lack thereof) as I am hearing the television talking heads gab about Sarah Palin. When you project to hit .300/.400/.520+ at the major league level, you can afford to be a minus ten at the hot corner. He is a lot more athletic than his pear shape dictates, and as I said, the fact that he can rake causes me to overlook the defensive liabilities.

3. Chris Perez -He’s had a few hiccups this year, but that’s not completely unexpected. Should continue to be a solid MLB closer…er, Duke of the Ninth.

4. Daryl Jones – If Jones played on an East Coast team, would prospect watchers be more excited about him? Think about how nuts people went over Austin Jackson last year when he turned his tantalizing tools into game usable skills. I’m not saying their breakouts are perfectly comparable, as Jones played mostly at the High A level, but Jones carried over his success in Double A. Hit a cumulative .316/.407/.483 line with 23 steals and profiles as a 20-20 outfielder in the majors.

5. Bryan Anderson – Young catchers can tire, and that is what I think happened to Anderson. He hit .388/.412/.525 in AA and was promoted in late April to Triple A. Before the all-star break in Memphis he hit .320/.396/.433; the second half: .212/.317/.282. Hopefully he grows in stamina and stops the trend of having second half swoons. What catches my eye is how Anderson considerably improved his defense. In 2006 he allowed 17 passed balls, in ’07 he allowed 15, this past season only ten.  He also caught 37.6% of would be basestealers, up from 26.8% last season. Matheny factor?

And here is where it gets dicey, at least for me, anyway. Garcia would have been my number five had it not been for him needing Tommy John. Now I’m not sure where to put him, being he will be of no use to the club until 2010.

6. Jason Motte – All I have seen so far is a pretty intimidating force on the mound, and from what little I’ve seen, his secondary stuff is not as bad as advertised, although I did read somewhere hearing that he had been developing a hard slider/cutter pitch. Secondary stuff or no, the man throws freakishly hard. He and Perez look to be a pretty nice 1-2 punch in the back of the bullpen, and it’s hard for me not to root for a guy who not long ago was struggling to hit as a catcher.

7. Niko Vasquez – It is interesting to see Vasquez leap over Kozma despite being picked in the third round and Kozma in the first last year. I sort of question myself putting Vasquez over Kozma here. Vasquez had a better pro debut than Kozma; for that matter he had a better pro debut than a lot of players drafted much higher than himself. I guess when I boil it all down, if you would ask me to take the less athletic SS with the power bat or the solid athlete with the ability to handle the bat but not hit for much power, I’d be a more apt to take the slugger.

Near misses: Todd, Kozma, Garcia. Todd is about as a near of a miss as I can think of given his great season.

Head on over to some of the other Cardinal blogs to read and discuss their rankings:

• Viva El Birdos
• Rockin’ the Red
• C70 at the Bat
• Pitchers Hit Eighth
• The Redbird Blog
• Cardinals GM

Be sure to tune into Bird Land later for his take on the project.

“There isn’t anybody in that bullpen that couldn’t pitch the ninth inning, in my opinion,”

Not to be snarky, but I can think of a couple of guys in that bullpen that have proven that they are not capable of handling the ninth inning. It will be interesting to see how the committee works out.

The News-Leader has a profile of Luis Perdomo, who was acquired from the Indians for Anthony Reyes.

The system was in full swing tonight, with six full games and the completion of a suspended game. They went 3-4 and all the details are after the jump.

Memphis 6, Sacramento 7

• Tyler Greene led off and got three hits, including a double, in five at bats and stole a base. We’ve talked a lot about his renaissance in the second half of this season and it is nice to see that it is continuing in AAA.
• Josh Phelps continues to be white hot, he hit another home run in going 3-4. I think Phelps has the right in his contract to demand his release if he wasn’t called up by late June and I’m surprised that he isn’t invoking that right because he’d be sure to get some interest by a contender in need of a right handed power bat.
• David Freese also homered and doubled in four at bats.
• Clayton Mortensen had a rough outing, lasting only 3.2 innings and allowing six runs on four hits and six walks (blech).
• Matthew Scherer and Randy Flores each pitched well in relief, but Kelvin Jimenez took the loss for allowing a walkoff run in the ninth.

Springfield 1, San Antonio 0

• Justin Fiske followed up on his outstanding start last time out with another solid outing. He scattered seven hits over 5.1 scoreless innings, walking two and striking out five.
• Luke Gregerson pitched 1.2 scoreless innings and Luis Perdomo chipped in a scoreless frame.
• Fernando Salas pitched a perfect inning with two strikeouts to preserve the victory.

Daytona 1, Palm Beach 4

• Pete Kozma got his first start for Palm Beach and he went 1-3 with a double and a walk. He was also thrown out attempting to steal.
• Daniel Descalso was 2-3 with a walk.
• Brian Cartie and Paul Vasquez were each 2-4.
• Shaun Garceau bounced back well after allowing seven walks in his last outing. He only walked one tonight and gave up a run and five hits over six innings. He struck out four.
• Pete Parise pitched two scoreless innings and Francisco Samuel picked up the save, walking one and striking out two in a scoreless ninth inning.

Quad Cities 0, Cedar Rapids 2

• Brett Wallace was 2-4, Domnit Bolivar was 1-4 with a triple, Blake Murphy was 0-1 with three walks and Roberto Espinoza was 1-3 with a walk. Pretty lame offensive evening.
• Lance Lynn got the start and gave up one run over three innings, giving up three hits, a walk, a hit batsman and striking out four.
• Jared Bradford followed Lynn with an unsteady four innings. He only gave up one run, but he walked three batters and allowed three hits. He also struck out four.
• Kenny Maiques finished up with a perfect inning.

Auburn 2, Batavia 1 (completion of suspended game from 7/20/08)

• Shane Peterson was 2-3.
• Zachary Pitts gave up two runs over six innings, allowing five hits and four walks.
• Hector Cardenas pitched three scoreless innings, allowing three hits and a walk while striking out three.

Auburn 0, Batavia 1 (7 innings)

• Only five hits for Batavia: Brett Lilley was 2-2, Colt Sedbrook was 1-3 and Chris Swauger was 2-2 with a double.
• Arquimedes Nieto got the start and only gave up one hit and two walks in five innings. He struck out six.
• Joshua Hester and Adam Reifer each threw a scoreless inning with a hit and a walk allowed by each.

Johnson City 2, Pulaski 5

• Alex Castellanos and Edgar Lara were each 2-4 on the evening and Castellanos stole four bases (!).
• Not a lot of other offense by Johnson City, even Nico was 0-5 on the night (but I’m sure HL will tell us all that Nico was busy with other matters).
• Reynier Gonzalez started and gave up five runs on seven hits and a walk over 4.2 innings. One of the runs was an inherited runner that Santo Maertz allowed to score before he retired the final batter of the fifth inning.
• Kevin Thomas came in and pitched the final three innings, allowing only three hits and striking out three.

First of all, he is a slider pitcher. Or at least he is when he’s right. Secondly, I had no idea he was being told to throw the sinker but…um…why? I have no qualms about having him try to throw lower in the zone, but when you throw 95 you can get away with throwing a pitch up on occasion. I tried to find data on Perez’s splits in different parts of the zone and found no success, (not sure what it would’ve been worth, anyhow) but I do remember that at times his FB would get a little too true at times, so he can’t just fling the ball up in the zone all the time, but I don’t seem to recall him doing that.

I’m continually baffled that minor league pitching coordinator Brent Strom preaches that pitchers should “be themselves”, while Duncan has to fix everyone by making them a sinker-ball pitcher. The whole org doesn’t seem to be on the same page, to put it lightly. But I’m not here really to discuss that; I would like to just ask you all: Should the Cardinals trade Perez? Because if he’s not their cup of tea I’d hate to see him be monkeyed with and correspondingly lose his value as a ballplayer.

Even without being monkeyed with, I for one am not thoroughly sold he’s the closer of the team’s future; it seems we have seen a lot of these college closers with shaky control problems settle in as middle inning guys-David Aardsma, Joey Devine, Royce Ring, Ryan Wagner, Craig Hansen, heck, even Braden Looper to an extent. The jury is still out Devine and Hansen, but their outlook isn’t as bright as it was when they were drafted. Chad Cordero and Huston Street have proved to be the exception and not the rule, so I found this past draft to be pretty screwy with the landrush on relief pitchers.

I think Perez is a heck of a bullpen arm, don’t misunderstand me. He’s easily a top 3-5 prospect and has more upside than any pitcher in the system. I’d like to see the Cards exercise some patience and help him develop. But if Duncan is the one developing him and feels he just has to reinvent him, then I’d rather see him traded while his value is high. My heart can’t take another Anthony Reyes saga.

As mentioned in the comments, Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus had some nice things to say about Jess Todd in an article today. The article is subscriber only, but I’m not sure about this audio interview on BP with John Abbamondi, Cardinals AGM. Elsewhere, Kary Booher has the details of the Cory Rauchenberger retirement and Mark McCormick‘s promotion to Springfield.

The system went 4-1 on the night, with Springfield’s seventh loss in a row as the only blemish on the evening. All the details are after the jump.

Oklahoma 4, Memphis 6

• Joe Mather hit a two run homer in the bottom of the 12th to bring home the victory. Atta boy, Joe! It was his only hit in six chances on the night, but he made it count.
• Colby was dropped to eigth in the lineup but it made no difference on this night. He went 0-4 with a sacrifice.
• Brian Barden went 3-6 with a double and Mark Johnson went 2-3.
• On the mound, Anthony Reyes got the start and gave up two runs on six hits, two walks and a hit batsman over 3.2 innings. He struck out three.
• Hugo Castellanos went three scoreless innings, giving up three hits and a walk and striking out one.

Springfield 5, Arkansas 6

• Allen Craig played leftfield tonight and went 3-4 with a homerun and a double.
• Jon Jay went 1-3 with a homerun and two walks.
• Isaias Garcia went 2-4 and Matt Pagnozzi went 2-3.
• Tyler Herron had a bit of a rough outing, giving up five runs on seven hits, two walks and two hit batsmen. He struck out five.
• Marco Gonzalez pitched two hitless innings, giving up a walk, hitting a batter and striking out one.

Vero Beach 4, Palm Beach 5

• Brian Cartie follows up his successful debut with Palm Beach with a huge night, driving in all five Palm Beach runs while going 3-4 with a double and a homerun. He DH’d today after playing third yesterday.
• Daryl “Tools” Jones went 2-3 and Arnoldi Cruz went 2-4 and also threw out two runners attempting to steal.
• Kyle Mura got the start and didn’t have a particularly good day. He gave up four runs in five innings on eight hits and two walks. He also struck out three.
• Brandon Garner and Jon Mikrut each pitched two scoreless innings. Garner struck out three and gave up two hits while Mikrut gave up a hit and a walk and recorded one strikeout.

Quad Cities 3, Peoria 1

• Quad Cities only managed two hits, doubles by Andrew Brown (1-3 with a walk) and Paul Vasquez (1-4).
• Joshua Wilson got the start and lasted five innings, giving up a run on three hits and two walks, while striking out one.
• Brian Broderick went four scoreless innings, striking out three and allowing two hits.

VSL Cardinals 5, VSL Tigers 4

• The batting line of the day goes to Carlos Yegues, who went 3-5 with a pair of doubles.
• David Brito gets the pitching line of the day for pitching 3.2 hitless innings, giving up only a walk and striking out two. Honorable Mention goes to lefty Miguel Lopez for giving up only an unearned run on two hits over four innings and striking out three.

As everyone now knows, the Cardinals top prospect, Colby Rasmus, is ready for prime time. He impressed everyone that saw him in Jupiter and I feel pretty confident in saying that his (temporary) demotion is due to the financial realities of baseball in 2008 rather than any testiment to his readiness to play against major league caliber opponents. Here is a nice two picture sequence of Colby batting – a good job of taking the pitch right back where it came from against the Mets.

The other prospect that impressed everyone was Joe Mather. I boldly declared that Joe would make the big league club after my first two days in Jupiter. I was wrong, but I don’t think I’m the only one that was disappointed. It was interesting to me how Colby and Joe hung out together the whole time that they were up with the big club. Here they are before a game discussing a different kind of swing (is it possible that Joe bats righthanded and plays golf lefthanded?):

They are gone for now, but they’ll be back soon.

My favorite pitcher to watch was Chris Perez. He was dominant almost every time he went out there (his second inning against Baltimore on Wednesday was the exception). I think it might be best for Chris to start the year as the closer in Memphis because I think I’d rather he got regular innings instead of irregular usage at the big league level. There is no doubt, however, that he can get big league hitters out. He might be the most impressive player I saw (non-Pujols division), Colby included. Here is a picture of Chris just prior to release and another of him (not really) auditioning for another job.

Finally, these last two pictures are more for Erik’s benefit than anything else. So, with no further ado, here are Carlos Pupo and Amaury Marti:

1.  Jason Motte needs another pitch.  His velocity is impressive, but he was hit pretty hard once hitters were able to time him.  Also, his mechanics look painful to me – look at the torque on this picture.

2.  Chris Perez is going to be a dominant reliever in the big leagues.  His numbers point to this conclusion, but seeing him in person drives the point home.  His fastball is special and his slider makes people look foolish.  His mechanics, in contrast to Motte’s look pretty clean.

3.  Colby Rasmus… what more is there to be said?  He stroked a beautiful line drive on a 3-2 pitch when the game was on the line and he threw a runner out at the plate that was trying to score the game winning run in the tenth inning (it wasn’t a flawless play – he bobbled the catch a bit and the throw was up the line, but it got the job done). 

4.  Joe Mather is going to make the team.  It seems to me from the playing time given out recently that Mather is going to play the “Scott Spezio” role for the Cardinals this season.  He looks like he is comfortable on the team and he has been producing lately.  Here’s a decent picture of the follow through on his swing.

5.  Non-Cardinals impression: Fernando Martinez is the real deal.  He looked great in his two at bats, turning around a Jason Motte fastball for a double down the right field line his second time up.

I am not travelling to Vero Beach tomorrow to see the Cardinals and Dodgers, but I will be in Port St. Lucie on Saturday.