Archive for the “Lance Lynn” Category

The Cardinals got some good news over the weekend when their projected Opening Day starter, Chris Carpenter, received a moderately positive medical review. Neck pain that was radiating down both arms was diagnosed as a bulging disc rather than a potentially more serious nerve condition or other injury.

The Cardinals clearly had a Plan B in mind and are internally equipped to replace Chris Carpenter with another pitcher, if not one who is as effective on the mound.  Today, Mike Matheny revealed that Lance Lynn gets that label as the back up plan to Chris Carpenter and will be stretched out over the next several Grapefruit League starts. Matheny offered some rationale for the semi-secret backup plans via Derrick Goold and Rick Hummel in the Post-Dispatch:

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Per Dgoold on Twitter:

Lynn will start Thursday. #cardinals push other starters back a day. #stlcards

Holliday and McClellan will go on DL tomorrow, per Mozeliak. Lynn starts tomorrow. #stlcards

I’m not expecting a whole lot from Lynn, but he’s fortunate to be going up against a weakened Giants lineup which is 5th to last in MLB in wOBA for the year with .297.

Congrats to Lance and best of luck to the kid.

If there was any doubt as to what the strength of the organization is right now, the last five days of games should have put that to rest.  Starting pitching throughout the system, though most prominently in the low minors, is very much the backbone of the Cardinals prospect lists.  Here’s a recap of the top pitching performances thus far.

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Kyle McClellan has basically won the 5th starter competition, holding off all other comers in just two weeks.  Over at Gas House Graphs, Andy takes a perfect look at visualizing what type of contact each pitcher has allowed during the spring training games. I’m not going to steal the graph, so stop by and take a look at it.

Small sample size warning obviously, but it gives us some reinforcement of the information we had already on these guys.  Lynn is not a pure groundball pitcher but that’s not necessarily a bad thing and Dickson can get groundballs out of anyone.

Now that both look to be headed back to Memphis for the season, how has Spring Training changed your mind about these two hurlers if at all?

A very late post tonight but I had an all day meeting and this is more than substantial enough to warrant it. Much was made about Lance Lynn’s second half surge. He had struggled with command early in the season and frankly just was underwhelming. As the season progressed, however, he achieved some impressive results including a 16 strikeout game.

With the release of the Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus lists came some unusual — and the first I’d heard mention of anywhere — reports that Lynn had gained some velocity on his fastball. John Vuch, Director of Minor League Operations, was kind enough to fill me in on some of the details of Lynn’s improved fastball. Read the rest of this entry »

Lynn was drafted in 2008 and moved rapidly through the system making a stop at 5 different levels in 2.5 years.  With a low 90s fastball, a low 80s slider and a fringy changeup & curve, Lynn was a very polished college pitcher that didn’t offer much in the way of projection.  In 2010, his overall numbers took a tick toward the negative but there are reasons to be encouraged as we look toward 2011.

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Keith Law has another article up (prolific lately, no?) regarding prospects that could impact teams in 2010 but aren’t in the top 100.  He bypasses the Cardinal prospect (Jaime Garcia) that I believe is better in the long run due to injury related inning limitations in favor of Lance Lynn.  There’s nothing earth-shattering in his evaluation but I wanted to compare his comments to my own scouting report very briefly.

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The 39th overall pick in 2008, Lance Lynn followed in the steps of the previous seasons supplemental pick and rapidly ascended through the system.  Weighing in at a hefty 250lbs and a tall 6’5″ frame, Lynn got a taste of Memphis on the 4th of September.  What follows are my impressions of both Lynn and his start that night.

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Like mother hens clucking over a prized clutch, we only want the best for the top Cardinal prospects.  We’ve seen what happens when things don’t work out as well.  Starting with prospects 16 through 20, I’ll cover the highs and lows of what you might see this year.

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Jeff Luhnow said Reifer could be the sleeper of the 2007 draft, so far that prediction looks pretty good. BA had very high praise for Reifer, rating him the best pitcher in the league and the third best prospect in the league. Scouts are extremely high on his fastball/slider combo. His fastball reportedly was topping out at 99 and sitting around 96, 97. His slider is a plus pitch and he has the demeanor you look for in a closer.

What is shocking to me is there was no love shown for Lance Lynn. I mean, Danny Farquhar? How is someone who profiles as a middle reliever better than Lynn? The only thing I could think of is the piggyback system was Lynn’s doom in the rankings; maybe he didn’t qualify due to a lack of innings. If that’s the reason, then no big deal.

Just a note: I hate to be a wet blanket because personally think info is meant to be shared and I’m not really a fan of pay-per content, but BA does have copyrights on their chat and all their other subscriber content. I would ask that content would please not be retransmitted on the site in the comments.

UPDATE: I guess the chat isn’t subscriber only, so I don’t feel bad cutting and pasting this question from some weird Cardinal fan upset about Lynn being snubbed.

Q: Erik from Cedar Rapids, IA asks:
Thanks for the chats, this is one of my favorite times of the year to be a subscriber to BA. I was wondering however: Why no Lance Lynn? Seems like he’d be a shoe-in to me for this list.
A: Aaron Fitt: Lynn did not pitch enough to qualify for the list, but I’ve always been a fan of his at Ole Miss. Kind of like Brad Holt, his strength his is ability to command his heavy fastball, but his secondary stuff is fringy.

So I think he would have ranked if he had thrown more. For what it’s worth, KLaw gave his curve a 50 but future grade a 60. One thing I like about Law is, he does his own evaluating and you can decide. BA quotes these mystery scouts, so you can’t really evaluate the evaluator.