Archive for the “Mark Hamilton” Category

The Pujols negotiations are, well, pretty boring. If you are like me, you’re sick of hearing about aimless speculation about what will happen next. So lets speculate less aimlessly, if you will, about the future at first base without Five. We’ve got a few options. One, Matt Adams, may be a little far away, but that could change with an incredibly important, and what I cautiously see as a difficult, year for him in 2011. The other two are Mark Hamilton, and Allen Craig, viable mid-20′s players that could provide what most teams want from the corners — a hitter — one being more practical than the other. Let me explain…

Read the rest of this entry »

Another thought experiment for the end of the year 2010, this one a bit darker and one I hope never comes to fruition.  If the Cardinals do not re-sign Albert Pujols at 1B, will they be able to replace him internally from the farm system?  (Odds are that the Cardinals WILL re-sign Albert, but it does not hurt to take a look at our 1B depth just in case.)

The First basemen in the Cardinals system have been blocked by Pujols ever since he moved from 3B to LF to 1B and stayed there.  Pujols has been a full-time first baseman since 2004 and any prospect that was reaching the minor leagues’ ceiling as first base needed to be moved for a player at another position.  (See Wallace, Brett who will be a permanent 1B in the majors.)  That being said, what do the Cardinals have left in the minors at first base?  The great thing about first base is that it can be played by any slugging player that does not quite have a position and the Cardinals have a few of those as well.

Obviously, no one in the universe is going to replace Pujols’ production, so we can only look at the internal candidates to replace him at 1B and how well they will do.

Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Bakers covers the S-Cards for the Springfield News-Leader, and has stepped right in where Kary Booher has left off in putting together some great coverage for the team. You just don’t get the sort of coverage he brings from most AA teams, and he was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule and answer some of my questions about the team and his impressions of the players.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last time we took a look at the catchers, which is a top-heavy group led by Bryan Anderson. The first basemen, on the other hand, don’t have a lot at the top, with non-prospect Josh Phelps holding down the Memphis job and Mark Hamilton struggling at Springfield. The best talent we have at the position are guys that probably are only first basemen because they aren’t really capable of playing their ‘natural’ position well enough at the big league level.

We’ll run through the whole lot of ‘em after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

One last post about my trip to Spring Training and then I swear I’ll shut up about it.  This one will be more observational and less photo-riffic (although I can’t resist throwing a few more pictures out there).  So, after the jump I’ll list the guys that made positive and negative impressions during my time in Florida. Read the rest of this entry »