Archive for the “Jose Martinez” Category

We continue our way around the infield with a look at the shortstops in the Cardinals system. As with second base, shortstop has been a weak spot in recent years – the last shortstop of any signifigance that came through the system was Jack Wilson, who made his major league debut in 2001 with the Pirates. Brendan Ryan was with the big league club for most of the season and many hoped that he could become the everyday shortstop for the Cardinals, but his performance this season has made that possibility seem remote.

Unlike the keystone, however, the minor league system currently has talent at the position sprinkled throughout the levels. We’ve got a minor league trade acquisition playing at a high level in AAA (and now the Olympics), a first round draftee that has regained some luster in AA (and hopefully will continue to do so at AAA), a recent first round draftee that has been proving that he deserved such a high pick in A ball, and a 2008 high school draftee that has been tearing up rookie ball. We’ll take a look at them all after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

2B/SS Jose Martinez came into the season with lofty expectations after a breakout season in AA, where he hit .300/.337/.472 over 412 at bats. Baseball America ranked him the Cardinal’s 17th best prospect heading into 2008, and Kevin Goldstein went as far as to rank him the Cards’ 7th best prospect.

Disappointingly, things haven’t worked out as well as we had hoped for Jose going into the year. He’s been one of the Texas League’s least productive hitters with a horrendously bad .598 OPS,  the league’s worst among qualified batters. So what’s the story?

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In our third installment of the Prospects by Position series we look at a position that has been a weak point of development for the Cardinals (unless you really like Bo Hart) in recent years. Adam Kennedy came up through the Cardinals system and he was a useful 2B for the Angels for a few years, although he was mostly a shortstop until his second year at AAA. Otherwise the Cardinals system has been (and still is) pretty thin at second base. Currently they’ve got a guy in AAA that many of us would like to see playing in St. Louis and then there are a whole bunch of question marks. The rundown of all the second basemen is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »