The Cardinals are still strong in terms of right handed relief prospects.  Chris Perez resides at AAA.  The unexpected conversion of Jess Todd back to relief adds another arm to the list.  Fernando Salas, currently injured, is a viable if not quite ready option once healthy who would ideally be something of a mid-2010 callup.

Deeper in the system, the Cardinals have a pair of live arms in Francisco Samuel and Adam Reifer.  Both have top flight stuff but their command is somewhat questionable.  It’s impossible to predict what reliever is going to come out of the woodwork as they periodically and unexpectedly do.  They’re a fungible and volatile commodity, especially on the fringes.

That said, John Mozeliak and Co. took a gamble this offseason and lost.  There’s really no spin to put on it.  They hoped that Perdomo wouldn’t get picked and he did.  They hoped he’d have a terrible spring and get returned and he didn’t.  They hoped no one would scoop him off of waivers but the lowly Padres did.  The professed reason was that they didn’t want to burn an option year on Perdomo.  Quoting John Vuch:

With right handed relief being one of our biggest areas of organizational depth, placing Perdomo on the 40-man roster would have meant starting the clock on his options this spring. With the RH relievers we have ahead of him in the organization, it likely would be a couple years before he’d be in the majors with us, and saving an option year could turn out to be necessary down the road.

Vuch is right in that saving an option year down the road could be important for Perdomo.  The part that I believe he and Mozeliak are wrong about is whether it’s important for the Cardinals organization.  In that context, it isn’t.  The depth ahead of and behind Perdomo should allow the Cardinals a great deal of flexibility to try relievers in the near and long term.  If players stick, great.  If not, someone else will.

Whether the Cardinals were anticipating more late 40-man additions like Dennys Reyes is difficult to know. There’s some benefit of the doubt to be given in keeping alternative paths open on the 40 man roster.  The season has started now, however, and that numbers stands at 37.  Crystal Ball reading is needed at the time of the Rule-V draft but it looks like the front office needs to have theirs polished if they were this unsure about space on the 40-man roster.

Even more perplexing was the associated addition of Matthew Scherer.  Scherer’s not a bad pitcher but he’s not more than a fringe middle reliever either.  He’s as likely to turn into Andy Cavazos as he is someone like Brad Thompson, i.e. moderately useful but near replacement level.  The fact that he’s now injured only rubs salt in the wound but the front office chose to protect a less talented pitcher this year who is only arguably more prepared than Perdomo for the bigs.  99 times out of 100 this is going to be a bad decision.

If we as a blogging community are being honest with ourselves, this story and the continued furor isn’t just about Luis Perdomo.  The front office walked into the Anthony Reyes buzzsaw once again and we were happy to turn up the power.   Quotes like “we got $50, 000 for Anthony Reyes”, while technically true, are linking together disparate decisions that are interrelated only by the players and not the decision making process.  The lingering distaste over the Reyes situation speaks towards our (myself included) refusal to bury a grudge rather than the poor evaluation of the Perdomo situation.

Flip the assessment around — if Perdomo was hurt or pitching terribly and the Cardinals had held onto him, they’d be ridiculed for only keeping him becuase he’s the remnants of that trade.  There’s no rationale way to believe that when the decision was made this offseason, Cardinal Brass turned to each other and said, “Do you think we should add Perdomo to the 40-man roster?  If we don’t, we won’t have anything to show for Anthony Reyes. . .”  That’s an absurd proposition and it’s not how management is making their decisions.

Instead, the Perdomo situation is troublesome inherent to itself and what it portends for the future. The Cardinals had easy decisions to make regarding the Rule-V draft from an outside perspective.  Plain and simple they made poor decisions regarding Perdomo and Scherer.  In the next few years, the Cardinals will be hard pressed to protect all their outfield options and their relievers with starting pitching coming up right beind that.  They need to a) do a better job of determining which minor league talent is major league viable and b) do a better job of transitioning players to the majors.  The latter is much more difficult than the former but the Memphis Shuttle is detrimental to relieving these log jams.

The loss of Perdomo does little to cripple the system or hurt the Cardinals bullpen in any real way.  What it tells us about the future is perhaps more troublesome and certainly more cryptic.

Is Luis Perdomo coming back to the Cards?

As most of you know the Cardinals received relief pitcher Luis Perdomo from the Indians last season in exchange for Anthony Reyes.

Perdomo will be 25-years-old next month, has a big sinking fastball and a good slider.  He has racked up over 10 strikeouts per 9 innings in his minor league career, but has never pitched above AA and was older than most of his opponents at each level.

Chone and ZIPS both project Perdomo’s 2009 big league numbers to be around a 4.85 ERA with 30 walks and 45 K’s in approximately 60 innings.  Not an eye popping projection, but Perdomo could certainly outperform those numbers and be a valuable cost controlled asset over the next few years.

The Giants obviously think the Perdomo has some value because they picked him in the Rule 5 draft this winter.  This looked like a solid pick for a rebuilding team, but the Giants front office took something of a “win-now” approach in free agency.  Now it’s unclear if the G-men will be able bring Perdomo north with the big club.  Further complicating matters the Giants are considering an 11-man bullpen, meaning Perdomo could be facing an uphill battle for one of the teams last roster spots.

Perdomo hasn’t set the world on fire this spring, but has kept his head above water posting a 4.91 ERA with 7 K’s and 4 BB’s in 7.1 IP (small sample size but these numbers are similar to his Chone and ZIPS projections).

To get a better idea of where Perdomo stands I decided to email two Giants insiders to find out.

When asked if he thought Perdomo would make the Giants, Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News responded saying “I think Perdomo will be traded or offered back to the Cards — especially if the Giants are serious about keeping 11 pitchers.”  Baggarly also added that he’s been told the Cardinals want Perdomo back.  Henry Schulman of the San Fransisco Chronicle thinks it’s still up in the air saying, “I don’t even think the team knows yet.  I know they like him.  We’ll have to wait til the end of camp to find out.”

If Perdomo misses out on a shot with the Giants due to a roster crunch, then it appears that the Cardinals will have a good chance of getting him back.  While the Cardinals bullpen already has plenty of right handed arms, there is still some upside to a player like Perdomo who could go to Memphis and offer insurance in the event of an injury and provide even greater organizational depth.

Righthander Luis Perdomo, mentioned in our initial preview last week, seems almost certain to get popped.

What a total waste.

update : 11:01am With the first pick, the Nationals take Terrell Young, a hard throwing right-hander with iffy command. Back to Perdomo, your points made in the comments are well noted that Perdomo might not be ready and is likely to be returned. I still am not sure why you would want to risk him not ever returning. For one, he’s all the Cards have to show for Anthony Reyes. Secondly, inferior talent was added to the 40 man roster in order to protect him. It’s not like it’s a huge deal, but it is a still a baffling decision to me. Depending on the team, there is still a decent chance someone keeps him.

update: 11:09am. And Perdomo is gone, taken by the Giants 6th. I would say a non-contender like the Giants have a good chance of stashing him on their roster all season long, don’t you? Waste. Veal is also off the board, going to the Bucs.

update: 11:19am. And the Cardinals don’t select anyone in the major league phase. Meh. I guess they feel Charlie Manning or Ian Ostlund are just as good as any lefty to be had in the Rule 5.

update: 11:29am. In a twist of irony, Ricciardi gets his man…again. Cody Haerther is taken by the Blue Jays in the AAA portion of the Rule 5. Hah. The Cardinals get this guy.

update: 11:34am. Cards pass on the 2nd round of the AAA portion and on the AA portion. I can’t find much on Russell Haltiwanger, but I’m sure they have a hard time fitting his name on his jersey. He’ll be 25 in April, from the Royals organization. He pitched 56.1 innings of relief for the Wilmington Blue Rocks, struck out 6.4 per nine, walked 4.6 per nine and posted a FIP of 4.09. Wilmington is the Royals high A affiliate, a league in which he was repeating. His 5.64 tRA was below league average…ugh. Wangafingers was a 29th rounder of the Reds, later to be traded for Jeff Keppinger.

To wrap up: Good luck, Cody Haerther. I am still baffled by the Scherer over Perdomo decision. We basically traded Reyes for $50K in a feeble epilogue of the Flat Hat saga.  I’m glad Mark McCormick is safe and am looking forward to seeing what he can do in the bullpen next year.  Runamucker is AAA roster filler, at best. Bah.

The BA scouting report, written by Badler, on Perdomo, while I don’t doubt the accuracy, is uninspiring given how many minor leaguers it could describe.  A fastball that touches 95 and sits at 94* with a hard slider that’s devastating to right handed hitters.  Both pitches are potentially plus.  The problem is command.  I’ve got it stuck in the back of my head that the Cardinals are not good as an organization at correcting command issues in the minor leaguers.  I have no evidence to back that up beyond anecdotal examples but it’s stuck there nonetheless.  Take that for whatever it’s worth.  So you’ve got a fastball-slider pitcher who may sit in the mid-90s with his fastball but lacks command.  Yawn.

The numbers thus far are a good deal more exciting. In his first full season of pro-ball, the Indians put him at A ball and let him throw 66 innings striking out 88.  He posted a 57% groundball rate as well.  At age 23, there’s bound to be some valid questions about the level of competition he was facing.  Issuing 26 walks to A ball hitters isn’t a good indicator either but it’s hardly a death sentence.

2008 saw the move to A+ for 37 innings.  Perdomo walks away from AA with a sterling .96 ERA but there’s a massive luck component there.  His groundball rates slipped to 52%, which is still well above average. 42 strikeouts against 15 walks is almost an exact repeat of his 2007 rates.  His move to AA between Akron and Springfield was, again, extremely simlar to his rates at the previous level.  A slight down tick in strikeouts (39 in 33 innings) and groundbal rates descended again to 44%.  Perdomo was bit by some bad luck posting a .327 BABIP in Springfield contributing to a 4.50 ERA that was a full run higher than his FIP.

Don’t be surprised if the Cardinals move Perdomo to AAA this next season.  A lot of those decisions will depend on whether Motte and Perez are in the majors.  After those two, Mark Worrell and perhaps the rehabbing Mike Sillman are the only two players with the talent to make it into the big leagues.  The Cardinals would be wise not to bother with the Cliff Politte’s and Dewon Brazelton’s of 2008 as players like Luke Gregerson, Fernando Salas and Josh Dew are all viable promotion candidates as well.

Perdomo is a better player than he appeared on the surface in Springfield but his scouting report doesn’t jump out at me.  A full season at AAA (at some point) is likely necessary to see if Perdomo can adjust to more patient hitters and develop the command to consistently throw strikes.  He’s not the best reliever the Cardinals have in the minors.  He’s not even the best reliever the Cardinals have toward the upper minors.  He is, however, a reasonable bet to have some success in the majors in middle relief within the next 2-3 years.

*I do doubt the accuracy of this.  If a fastball can only touch 95, it’s probably sitting 92-93.