Archive for the “Jess Todd” Category

Selected in the 2007 draft class with the Cardinals 4th pick (2nd round), Jess Todd was plucked out of the University of Arkansas in the same round as fellow Razorback Duke Welker and one round after Nick Schmidt.  There were plenty of questions about where Todd would fit in the majors due to his delivery and physical size.

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This has been mentioned in passing a few times but with the graduation of Eduardo Sanchez and Fernando Salas to mainstays in the Cardinals’ bullpen and the knee injury to Adam Reifer, suddenly a farm system that looked rich in right handed relief prospects seems lacking.  We’ll traverse the system looking for pitchers who could be the next prominent relief prospect.

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Around this time last year some of us were bemoaning the departure of some of our favorite Fabergé eggs. Chris Perez and then later Jess Todd went to Cleveland for Mark DeRosa. Matt Holliday was acquired for the man we affectionately dubbed the Walrus, as well as Clayton Mortensen and Shane Peterson. That was four of our top ten prospects going into the 2009 season, and Peterson was in most publications’ top 15-20.

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.

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As Joe Strauss so aptly twittered, it’s been a brutal week for the HPGF. (Hyperventilating Prospect Geek Fraternity). That’s now four of last year’s top ten prospects that have gone to other teams. Mozeliak has razed the system in hopes of fending off Chicago and Milwaukee (and I guess Houston). But considering how crummy the bullpen has looked as of late, this hurts, not just for the future, but now. After seeing the ‘pen recently get torched, Todd probably would have been the next one up.

Let’s do the whole surplus value thing.

Chris Perez was a top 76-100 pitcher last year, meaning his surplus value is $8.7M.  Jess Todd was given a B grade by John Sickels. B grade pitchers historically have averaged $6.5 million in value. That’s a total of $15.2 million of assets headed to Cleveland for a few months of DeRo. After some hand wringing about his wrist, he seems fine, hitting 4 homers over the last few days. DeRosa is worth about a win over the rest of the season, and about a 7% increase in playoff expectancy. Figuring his salary ($2.3M), what he adds in terms of wins ($4.5M), and Type B free agent compensation ($2.5) and the help he adds in possibly reaching the playoffs….

$15 M to CLE, $7M to STL. More paying out of the wha-zoo for rentals.

That said, Perez has that spotty control and may never pan out. He has been nails in low leverage situations since getting a rudely greeting to the AL. I have this weird thing with Todd. Having seen him pitch, I was less than impressed, but it’s really hard to argue with the results. He might end up being better than Perez when it’s all said and done, as he has pitchability and control that Perez definitely doesn’t have yet.

My poor faberge eggs. Win, Cardinals, win.

Two quick notes before the meat of the post:

• The draft mailbag will be posted Monday.  My apologies for the lateness, my schedule has precluded much blogging this week as you may have noticed.  Tuesday is the draft and we’ll be here chatting about it.  We expect you to be here as well.
• cardsfan1, our resident tipster, indicated that Hawksworth got the callup last night.  I’m a little unsure of this because of the risk involved in calling him up.  He can’t simply be optioned down again and would have to pass through waivers.  Now, the Cardinals have a plethora of guys like Hawksworth who are backend starter types so it certainly wouldn’t be a crippling loss but there’s more risk here than a Mitchell Boggs callup.  This is all probably related to the Lohse to DL move, which, by the way, once again shows the incompetency of the medical decisions this season with regards to the DL.

Moving on. . .

Obviously Jess Todd didn’t have the kind of callup that we’d all hoped for.  There’s not much to read into a night when 1) he’s pitching for the first time in the bigs and 2) the Rockies go to score 11 runs against some of our best relievers.

Inspired by The Destroyer’s promotion, bgh sent some quality shots of Todd from an Iowa Cubs v. Memphis Redbirds game.  And, I hope he doesn’t mind, but I have to quote the first line of the e-mail, which had me laughing uproariously at work:

My girlfriend has been holding these pics hostage for about a month via her indifference to my baseball photos.

With much thanks to bgh, pictures after the jump.  Don’t look to close, you might get hurt. . .

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I didn’t doubt HL and his sources for a minute and now it is official.

Cardinal Beat has the word.

Todd will be added to the 40-man roster as well.

UPDATE: So, Todd is promoted because Boyer is DFA’d to Memphis.  Reliever for reliever makes more sense.  Bring up a fresh arm, send a tired one down.

UPDATE 2: Matt Leach has all the info as usual on the follow-up moves.  In Summary:

Boyer DFA -> Todd to STL

Thurston’s wife is going to give birth soon -> T.Greene to STL

K.Lohse DL’ed -> Mather to STL

A meandering conversation ensues about the ranking of Jess Todd and Mitchell Boggs, their past, their future and the state of starting pitching in the Cardinals’ farm system.

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In what appears to me to be a bit of a down year for the Texas League, four Cardinal prospects ranked in Baseball America’s top twenty. Jess Todd ranked 7th, Daryl Jones 13th, Jon Jay 16th, and Fernando Salas 18th.

For whatever hand-wringing we were doing about Todd’s velocity, BA’s scouting report has him topping at 94. They seem to be fairly sold on him becoming a starting pitcher in the big leagues despite his size and they praise his strike-throwing ability and how he does a good job of keeping the ball down. Four pitch mix with fastball, slider, sinker, and a “squirrely” circle change. Todd was the third starting pitcher in the top twenty, with Vin Mazzaro (A’s) and Daniel Cortes (Royals) ranking just ahead of him.

Jones was omitted from the FSL top twenty, but again he came in 13th overall here. They praise the strides he has made in patience, power and base-stealing ability, but knock him for having a noodle of an arm and lack of instincts to play center field.

What BA liked about Jon Jay is his hands and ability to get the bat through the zone quickly, along with his solid center field defense. They again bring up his unorthodox approach but don’t seem to be concerned. With Colby and Ankiel ahead of him in the depth chart, he may need to move over to left field, where his power (or lack thereof) doesn’t profile well.

I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see Salas at the back of the list, but I think I like Allen Craig better as a prospect. They say Salas gets by more by being a strike thrower then by being overpowering, although with his short arm delivery his 91-92 MPH fastball can sneak up on hitters. His curve is also an effective weapon, but certainly not isn’t a devastating pitch. He ranked sandwiched between Kevin Jepsen, who is on the Angels playoff roster, and Casey Weathers, the 8th overall pick in 2007.

While I’ve belly ached about some of the rankings this year, I do look forward to reading them as they come out. Agree or disagree with them, they do get us talking.

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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The Hardball Times continued its series of breaking down draft picks. This entry covers picks 36-44, which includes the Cardinals Supplemental First Round pick Lance Lynn. Included are three different slow-motion videos of Lynn’s motion and scouting analysis. Good stuff.

This article discusses Jess Todd‘s rough outing last night, including this analysis from Todd himself:

“My mechanics are a little off right now,” Todd said. “I’ve been flying open a little bit, and it’s just something I’m going to have to work on.”

Batavia was postponed due to rain, but the rest of the system was all in action today and they went 2-3 on the night. All the details are after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »