Archive for the “Minor Leagues” Category

One name that stuck out for me in yesterday’s Vuch Report was Kevin Thomas with 3 strikeouts in 2 innings.  The scrimmages during Spring Training are not gospel, but if something does not match what a player has done in the past, I take a look back at the stats.  Thomas has been in the system for 3 years and his last year at the pitcher friendly Palm Beach was his best.

In Palm Beach he was able to strike out 7.9 batters per 9 innings, which is not a stellar rate, but it is solid.  However, the fact that he has averaged only 3 walks per 9 innings in his career helps his strikeout rate stand up.  But, Thomas’s strength does not appear to be with the strikeout, instead forcing ground balls.  Thomas averaged around 60% ground balls last year in Palm Beach and regardless of the park, that will get outs.

I’ll be curious to see what Thomas does in Springfield against better competition in a park more suited to the hitters than the pitchers.

There was recently some discussion on twitter about the use of the #hpgf tag (I believe cariocacardinal was involved – you are like my muse this month!), also known as Hyperventilating Prospect Geek Fraternity.  That phrase was coined by St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Joe Strauss as a way to rip on us prospect watchers and our habits to over-valuate (in his opinion) the young players that are in the Cardinals system.

I was not aware that it still had a negative connotation attached to it, I had thought that we had co-opted the use of it here in a positive way.  What do you think?  Is it still used as a negative attack in places outside of Future Redbirds?  Or is it positive?

Erik pointed out a great post on Royal Review by Scott McKinney in which Scott takes a look at a Success and Bust rates for Baseball America’s top 100 prospects over 13 years to see how they turned out.  And I thought that on the eve of spring training, this was a good check on the “hope springs eternal” optimism of Spring Training.

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The Cardinals are lacking anything resembling depth in their middle infield in the minor leagues and this is no more apparent than at the shortstop position.  They have no one in the system that is currently solidly projected to be a major league regular.  Tyler Greene at one point was projected that way (and may still become one) but has lost his luster through poor performance and the Memphis to St. Louis shuttle yo-yo.  Greene could quite possibly be “Punto’ed” (patent pending) off the major league roster and be back in Memphis for the 3rd straight season.  That actually would be a good move for the Cardinals short stop depth as they would actually have a prospect playing shortstop in Memphis.

The other tale of lost luster is former 1st round pick Pete Kozma, who’s story has been told a thousand times, but he has not had the upside of a major league starter since the evening when he was drafted (if even then).  Kozma’s play has not done anything to silence his doubters as he has piled up strikeouts at the plate and errors in the field.  He still has time to prove people wrong, but the clock is ticking.

Ryan Jackson might be the next best hope for a major league regular just because of his defense and he can pick it.  He has never been known for his bat, but he put up a line drive % around 23 last season, which is a good start.  If he continues to get solid contact at the plate, his defense will take him to the majors.  But as far as projecting him as a major league regular, that is still a long way off.

Sam Tuivailala is a 2011 draftee and highly projectable shortstop out of college.  However, he is not a sure thing to stay at short, he might move to third because of his size or to the mound.

Other guys kicking around are Yunier Castillo who was in short season Batavia last year and Ronny Gil (ex-Grabriel Hernandez) .  I’ll still always hold out hope for Gil, all his scouting reports and numbers were glowing from the Dominican.  He was out last year for false documents (and name).   Now that he is all set with his identity and slightly older, he could make an appearance in the US-based system this season.  Domnit Bolivar is another, yet smaller name.  Cesar Valera is also notable only for the fact that he started at short at Johnson City in his age 18 season.

So all these spilled pixels and names mean the Cardinals are dreadfully thin at short in the minor leagues and have not in quite a long time had a plus prospect at shortstop.  Other teams have had big time prospects but for mistakes or players not developing the Cardinals have not had one of their own and they continue the tradition with this motley crew of low upside and imperfectly projectable prospects.

The Cardinals do not only look thin at the major league level at 3rd base, they look pretty thin in the minors as well minus a few exceptions.  We are considering Freese and Allen Craig major leaguers at the position.

Matt Carpenter will play every day at Memphis at 3rd base to build on his breakout 2010.  Carpenter is the emergency third baseman should something happen to Freese and the Cardinals decide they do not want Allen Craig or Nick Punto starting every day at third.  Craig is much more palatable than Punto, but Carpenter is the “next man up” as far as 3rd base is considered.

The next step away from the majors has a bit of a empty space unless Zach Cox gets pushed to Springfield right away.  That seems unlikely, so Niko Vasquez might be the next in the depth chart here.  Vasquez finally began to hit again last season and finally gained his promotion to Quad Cities.  He will soon be hard pressed to turn his project-ability and swing into numbers in the mid to high minors.

Jermaine Curtis is also kicking around Springfield at third, but his projection does not take him anywhere above a 4-A player.

Further away from the minors is top 2010 draftee Zack Cox, who we have see so little of in the professional leagues that the jury is still out on how he will translate to the pros.  Scouts are mixed on Cox’s projection and whether he is a better fit on 2nd or 3rd, but his first full season in the minors should tell us two things.  First, where the Cardinals place him should tell us a lot about where they think he stands on his pro progression and his numbers should tell us a lot about where he actually stands.

John Rodriquez part 2 is also in the low minors with bonus baby Roberto De La Cruz.  At this point, De La Cruz has lost a lot of his luster and J-Rod 2 is waning.

After taking a second, third and forth look at the third baseman depth it is not as scary as I initially thought.  However, if Zack Cox moves off of third base, the Cardinals will need a huge year from either De La Cruz or JRod 2 to keep the quality of this group high.  What do you think?  Do the Cardinals have enough here?

During the Winter Warm-Up, the Cardinals picked up another veteran middle infielder on a minor league deal with a spring training invite.  This time the player was Ramon Vasquez.  Not sure what the reasoning is for this acquisition, but that’s not what we are here for today.  Let’s analyze Vasquez’s stats and see where he fits in amongst the Cardinals’ Future Redbirds.

In 2010, he did not make it out of AAA and to the majors and 2008 was his best season of his career when he was with Texas.  His 2008 season was supported by a BABIP of .342, but he did hit a much higher percentage of line drives that season.  Despite that strong season, he could not replicate it with Pittsburgh in 2009.  His career OPS in the major leagues is .678.  So, maybe we should take a look at his defense?

His career UZR/150 at shortstop is 0.8, which puts him slightly above average.  His UZR at all other infield positions are negative.

Considering all these numbers, Vazquez is pretty close to the definition of a replacement player.  Considering the Cardinals middle infield options in the minors, I’m not sure why the Cardinals would add another replacement level middle infielder.  Tyler Greene is projected by ZiPS to have an OPS similar to Vasquez’s career numbers in 2011.  Daniel Descalso is projected to have a much higher OPS, although he is not a shortstop.  Will the Cardinals carry Vazquez and Punto north from Spring Training rather than Greene and Descalso? Will the Cardinals keep Vazquez in Memphis just in case of an injury to one of their middle infielders?

As a replacement player, I cannot see what Vazquez brings to the organization or to the Memphis Redbirds or St. Louis Cardinals.

(Ed Note: You may have gotten a sneak preview of this yesterday, but it was supposed to run on Thursday all along.  Doh!)

Another minor league free agent with a non-roster invite to Spring Training in the form of Miguel Batista.  Batista fits the Dave Duncan profile:

Old: Check!

Ground ball tendencies: Check!

Abnormally low ERA last year: Check!

Batista is taking the “old” thing to a whole new extent as this next season will be his age 40 season.  There are too many seasons to digest on the whole career for Batista, but looking at the last few we can get a good enough idea of where he is coming from.

Batista is the opposite of Snell in that he has added 2 MPH on his fastball since 2004.  He has also developed a cutter and turned himself into a two-pitch pitcher.  Over 95% of the time, he throws either a fastball at 92 MPH or a cutter at 86 MPH.

Bill James thinks he will have a very similar season to last year with the Nationals, but without the abnormally low BABIP (.258 in 2009) that kept his ERA low.  So, beware the false ERA straw man.  Batista is one of the least exciting pitchers I can think of looking at the stats.  He doesn’t strike out a low of guys, he doesn’t have a lot of different pitches, he had an abnormally low ERA and did I mention he is 40?

I cannot see Batista accepting a demotion to Memphis, even though he accepted a minor league free agent deal, but odds are we will not see the 40 year old in the DFRs this Spring.  If someone is going to get a chance in the back of the bullpen, I’d much rather see Salas, Sanchez or even Augenstein than Batista.

The Cardinals are really serious about adding to their middle and left-sided infield defense.  They added Freddie Bynum who played in MLB last in 2008 with the Orioles and he has been in Japan with the Orix Blue Wave.  Per Matt Eddy on Twitter.

His last season in MLB he OPS’ed .444 and his career OPS is .654, so don’t think too much of him.

On the surface, the Cardinals signing minor league free agent Raul Valdes looks like an immediate replacement for Evan Maclane, last seasons four-A left-hander at Memphis.  And in reality, that is probably what he ends up being, because similar to Maclane, he was a starter in the minors and a reliever at the major league level.  He was signed Nov. 19^th, so this is old news, but let’s take a quick look.

Valdes just turned 33 in November.  He’s a Cuban defector who left Cuba in 2003.  He first signed with the Cubs and then after a few years away from professional baseball in the US, he was a minor league free agent and signed with the Mets.  In New York is where he got his first taste of the major leagues before being granted free agency again this offseason.

At first glace, Valdes career numbers are not good.  He has a career (minors and majors) FIP of 4.31.  But, with a strikeout to walk ratio of 2/1 over his career, he has shown the ability to get strikeouts and limit walks, which has some value.

In his small sample size in the majors, he struck out left-handed hitters at a 11.57 Ks over 9 innings and walked 1.29 over 9 innings.  He suffered some bad luck with a BABIP of .437.  But, his xFIP of 2.78 against left-handers reflects that bad luck.  He’s not looking like a great candidate for a LOOGY role now that the Cardinals picked up Brian Tallet, even though he has shown the ability to get out left-handers in limited at-bats.

Here’s a good video from MLB.com that shows Raul Valdes against Philadelphia from May of this season. He looks a bit more like what someone would call a “junk-baller”, but he does feature good movement.

My initial feeling that Raul Valdes is the Cuban Evan Maclane for the Cardinals was not far off, however, with MLB experience and the ability to get out left-handers, Valdes might have slightly more value in depth than Maclane did.

Minor league relievers are a dime a dozen. They often come out of nowhere (Dennis Dove, anyone?) and disappear into the annuls of MiLB just as quickly. This past year Pete Parise was a name many were touting and that was profiled here as well.  After a 2010 injury, Parise has a more difficult road to trod with statistical doppleganger Chuckie Fick having a productive season and players like Eduardo Sanchez not slowing down at all.  Another example of how tenuous a player’s grasp on the “next guy up” can be in relief.

What follows is a quick guide to minor league relievers whose name you’ll likely hear bandied about during Spring Training.

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