Archive for the “Daryl Jones” Category

There was some dispute as to who was the player of the month. Both Wallace, David Freese, Josh Phelps and Daryl Jones all had outstanding months. In the end, I think we all were happy to see Daryl take home the “Futchee” for the last month of the minor league season.

Jones hit .319/.441/.549 in 91 at-bats in August. He hit five home runs and stole five bases in six chances. He struck out 23 times but walked 19 times, showing some excellent plate discipline. For his all around efforts this season Jones will get plenty of Top 100 consideration, a vast improvement from going getting cut from the Cardinals Top 30 in Baseball America’s last Handbook. Jones is no longer tantalizing us with his tools, he’s flashing them on the ball diamond.

2. Brett Wallace – I personally voted Wally for the top spot, but he did have somewhat of an uneven month. Through 71 plate appearances for the Quad Cities Wallace had a power outage, hitting .306/.394/.387. But once promoted to Springfield, he went on an absolute tear, hitting .400/.471/.711. He did hit the ball on the ground a lot – 69%, but when he did hit the ball in the air, it usually went a long way. 27.3% of the balls he hit in the air cleared the fence.

3. David Freese – After a hot July, Freese showed no signs of slowing, hitting .349/.410/.632 for the month of August with seven homers.

As with the hitters, neither of us could decide who was in the top spot for the pitcher of the month. According to our system, Nick Additon is our pitcher of the month. Additon had a 3.21 ERA in 14 innings for QC with 24.1% K/PA rate and a 5.2% BB/PA rate. He had a 0.50 ERA with a 13/5 K/BB ratio over 18 innings and held batters to a .167 average.

2. T- Jason Motte and Richard Castillo – Motte held PCL hitters to a .163 average and struck out 22 of the 47 batters he faced, just showing utter dominance. Seeing him pitch yesterday all I have to say is wow…beware the goatee. Castillo posted a 1.99 ERA with a 23.2% K/PA ratio and a 4.5 K/BB rate. Pretty nice to see a converted catcher and an 18 year old pitcher both have terrific months.

Kevin Goldstein has either read some comments on this site or you’ve been e-mailing him.  Two Cardinals make his Monday Ten Pack.  The first is Daryl Jones whom Goldstein says will get plenty of top-100 consideration.  I have a hard time picking on Kevin for dropping Jones off his top 10 list last year.  I barely kept him on my top 25 list. . . he was almost a throw in down at the bottom.  I’m sure we’ll have some post-mortems of the top-25 list once the season is over but Jones is definitely one I’d like a do-over on.

Brett Wallace also makes the ten pack:

I don’t think anyone is all that surprised that Wallace has an overall batting line of .341/.430/.549 in his first 46 pro games. The guy can hit—nobody questions that at all—although many still wonder where the defensive liability fits in with the Cardinals big-league roster, and at this rate, they’ll need to come up with an answer more quickly than expected.

Goldstein’s spot on and I’m not sure the Cardinals have answer all their questions about Allen Craig’s defense much less Wallace’s.  (PS – Kevin’s been stepping his game up lately, imo, after a bit of a slump in his writing.  He remains one of the foremost reasons that I subscribe to BP.)

Memphis Redbirds are officially eliminated from playoffs.

Jose Martinez out for the season on foot injury.

Josh Kinney:

That comfort level is what has kept Kinney out of commission for so long. He could throw fastballs as early as spring training but has only recently been able to throw breaking balls without pain.

“The doctors told me it would take a little while to heal, and they were right,” he said. “I’ve been throwing really well the last three weeks, and here I am.”

Todd, Craig and Salas all named to the All-Star team.

Daryl Jones was the Texas League player of the week.  Nick Additon was the FSL pitcher of the week.

Sorry for the delayed DFR. This is Erik..I’m willing to bet $100 that AZ unexpectedly lost his power or his internet, as the post was just a few lines away from being complete and then suddenly was cut off mid-sentence. Anywho, the farm goes 2-for-5 tonight.

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 »

Once again, you’ve probably all heard by now, but I will post the link to Team USA’s 7-0 victory over Netherlands. They play Cuba tonight.

Derrick Goold has some notes about Colby Rasmus‘ rehab and Josh Kinney‘s intention to return to the team this season. Goold also posted this article about Rasmus and a whole lot of other minor league related notes.

Kevin Goldstein answered three Cardinals questions in his chat the other day. Since it isn’t a subscription piece, I don’t feel bad giving them to you here in their entirety (although you really should subscribe to BP and visit every day):

KCardinal (KC): With Daryl Jones turning his tools into performance this year, will he make your top 100?

Kevin Goldstein: I’m a big Daryl Jones supporter and he’s got a lot of tools, but Top 100 is pushing it.

MikeJordan23 (Brooklyn): I’ll keep asking until you answer: With Brett Wallace hitting abilities but lack of position should the Cardinals trade him to the AL when he’s eligible or find him a new position? And thoughts on Niko Vasquez?

Kevin Goldstein: Stop asking! You don’t really worry about any sort of logjam until you are forced to. The Cardinals right now have a valuable commodity in their minor league system, but there is no reason to start making any decisions on it. Thoughts on Vasquez? I’m a big, big fan.

Jason Motte (Memphis): Would my one-pitch repetoire hold up in the Majors right now?

Kevin Goldstein: Seriously, what’s up with all the Jason Motte questions? Is there a fan club or something? I love the guy, gotta give it up for any converted catcher who has 97 whiffs in 58.2 innings at Triple-A. That said, I think he’d get righties out right now, but his arm angle and lack of secondary stuff would give him trouble against lefties.

Action all over the system (and the globe) – all the details are after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Before we get to the meat of this post, let’s start off with some good news: neither Tommy Pham or Daryl Jones have any lasting injuries as a result of the outfield collision last night. Jones is going to be put on the DL because he had some swelling in his calf and he was expected to miss around a week, so the club went the safe route and used the DL. [Thanks to John Vuch for the inside scoop]

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A few days ago I was chastised in the comments for having unrealistic expectations for Pete Kozma. The commentor was correct – hoping that Kozma can raise his slugging percent to .450 while maintaining his high OBP is setting the bar pretty high at this point in his career. It made me wonder, though, what a realistic expectation for a player in Kozma’s position would be. So I went back and took a look at every high school shortstop taken in the first round since 2000. A breakdown of their performances as nineteen year-olds is after jump, along with the details from tonight’s games. Read the rest of this entry »