Archive for the “Minor Links” Category

In case you missed it …

• The Batavian has some pictures from the start of the short season club’s season.
• Kolten Wong and Oscar Taveras are headed to the Futures Game.
• Jenifer Langosch writes on Joe Kelly’s experience in the big leagues.
• Now returned to the minors, Matt Adams spoke with Jenifer Langosch about pressing in the big leagues.
• Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes about Breyvic Valera’s short stint in Springfield (now playing second base for Johnson City) and Sam Tuivailala’s conversion to pitching.
• Baseball America covers the transactions in the minors including a bunch of non-drafted free agent signings.
• Keith Law has notes on the Futures Games that includes one of the two Cardinals representatives.

In case you missed it …

• Steve Batterson of the Quad City Times looks at Tyler Rahmatulla’s recent hot streak.
• Kary Booher of the Springfield News-Leader comments on Carlos Martinez’ return noting his fastball was in the upper 90s.
• Rahmatulla, who recently had a 6 hit night tying a Quad Cities record, makes the Baseball America Hot Sheet for this week.
• Baseball America’s transaction list includes recent signed draft picks this week.
• John Sickels looked back at Joe Kelly’s ascension through the minors. As a long time Kelly proponent, I have high expectations for what he can do in the majors. He’ll take the bump for his second start today in St. Louis at 1:15 CDT.
• Redbird Rants recently did some interviews with the Cardinals 2012 draft class: Kurt Heyer & Alex Mejia, Carson Kelly

In case you missed it …

• Marlon Morgan of the Memphis Commercial Appeal takes note of a recent visit by GM John Mozeliak and assistant Michael Girsh.
• Morgan also spoke with now-Colorado Rockie player Adam Ottavino who talks about his transition to relief. I still feel like a more aggressive media market than St. Louis could have come up with a hell of an interview when Ottavino left the Cardinals. That relationship was not always puppies and rainbows.
• A different Cardinals’ executive, Farm Director John Vuch, was also in the minors recently. Steve Batterson of the Quad City Times had the details.
• Batterson also has a profile of Hector Hernandez talking with both the player and Quad Cities pitching coach Ace Adams about Hernandez’s first year in full season baseball.
• Baseball America has the week’s transactions.  One that caught my eye was the release of Niko Vasquez a long time 3B in the Cardinals system and a 3rd round draft pick who had stalled out between Palm Beach and Springfield.  His release came about a week after the birth of his daughter — thankfully, he seems to have landed on his feet and is now with the Reds’ organization according to his twitter account.
• This is from two weeks ago — but I’ve been absent for much of the last week — and I know it came up in the comments but Charlie Tilson appears headed for shoulder surgery after injuring himself on a diving defensive play.
• Kevin Goldstein details the situation around Matt Adams call up and his future.
• With the promotion of Bryce Harper to the majors, Goldstein asks where you can find power in the minors and he comes up with a name familiar to many of us: Oscar Taveras.
• John Sickels looks back at Tyler Greene’s prospect journey through the minors.
• Seedlings to Stars looks at my favorite (realistic) draft possibility this year: Stryker Trahan.

In case you missed it …

• Steve Batterson of the Quad City Times profiles Colin Walsh.
• Kary Booher had mid-week reassurances that the injuries Oscar Taveras and Kolten Won sustained are minor and didn’t keep them out of the lineup for long.
• Jim Callis of Baseball America takes a shot at a mock draft for this coming June. If there’s one thing that I’ve taken away about this year’s draft is that it is a very hazy draft and mocks this year will probably be worse than other years.
• Jim Shonerd of Baseball America comments on Tyrell Jenkins’  10 strikeout game from this week.
• The Cardinals made a series of minor DL and reinstatement moves this week.

In case you missed it …

• Steve Batterson of the Quad Cities Times takes a look at the 22 year old Virgil Hill who has seen limited playing time in QC this season. Hill was a 2009 draftee who has slowly been moving through the system from the Gulf Coast Cardinals to Johnson City to Quad Cities to Batavia and now back to Quad Cities.  Hill discusses the 2011 demotion and how he handled it.
• Derrick Goold delves into the future of first base in a post-Pujols era and finds … not Matt Adams but Allen Craig.  It’s an interesting look ahead because it alludes to a nice problem that the Cardinals will have as the move forward. Consider that Matt Holliday is under contract through 2016 and Carlos Beltran through 2013. Behind those two players are a host of prospects and young players under team control that are restricted to the corners of the outfield and infield: David Freese, Allen Craig, Matt Carpenter, Matt Adams and Zack Cox. Clearly, that’s more players than you have positions. And that’s not even mentioning Oscar Taveras who could be ready for a big league debut in 2013. Again, it’s a nice problem to have but one to keep an eye on.
• Goold also notes that it will be a few more months before we see Mitch Harris — a 2008 draftee — on a regular basis.
• Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com talks Charlie Tilson and Mitch Harris with Cardinals’ Farm Director John Vuch.
• Baseball America has the minor league transactions from the last week. The Cardinals shuffle a handful of players on and off the DL. No major moves.
• Proof that local coverage is, at times, better than national coverage. Baseball America’s JJ Cooper expresses surprise at Oscar Taveras’ power ouput.  As we often noted here last year, Taveras put up monster power numbers in 2011 for a 19-year-old.  With a .198 ISO in a slight pitcher’s park, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Taveras hitting for power (.327 ISO) in 2012 in Hammons Field as a left hander.  There’s also the usual equivocating about his defense and being a “proficient corner outfielder” but everyone doubting his ability to stay in center. Keep on proving them wrong, Oscar. I believe.
• Baseball Instinct profiles Trevor Rosenthal.
• If you want to prep for the draft, I recommend John Kilma’s Baseball Prospect Report site.  Kilma, this week, touched on, for a second time, one of the players with the potential to go first overall in this year’s draft, Mark Appel.
• Oscar Taveras made the 10-pack this past week with Kevin Goldstein.

In case you missed it …

• Marlon Morgan of the Memphis Commercial Appeal visits with former Redbirds Donovan Solano now a member of the Miami Marlins AAA affiliate the New Orleans Zephyrs.
• Zack Cox talks with Morgan about his rough start in Memphis. Cox seems to keep a level head about his 0-for-26 slump noting, “All the great hitters have been through some kind of struggle, maybe not as bad as that. You’ve just got to try to be mentally tough and just persevere.”
• Steve Batterson of the QC Times writes about the River Bandits’ catcher, Juan Castillo, including comments on the time Castillo threw his bat at an opposing pitcher.
• Over the weekend, Kary Booher notes that Tommy Pham has once again found his way to the disabled list. The Springfield Cardinals replaced him with Kyle Conley fresh off his own DL stint.  This is Pham’s third season in Springfield. Despite being in the farm system seemingly forever, Pham is just 24. Hardly the oldest prospect to pass through Springfield in recent years on their way to the majors.
• Derrick Goold gets a candid response from Robert Stock regarding his conversion from catching to pitching.  If there’s an organization that should make you feel good about transitioning from catcher to pitcher, it out to be the Cardinals who have groomed both Jason Motte and David Carpenter into big leaguers.  Casey Mulligan ascended to AA after his transition to the mound before being sidelined by injuries.
• Jose Pasen, a right handed starter in short season baseball for the last two years, was suspended for performance enhancing drugs as Jenifer Langosch reported this week.  Pasen had posted solid numbers at Batavia and remains on their roster. He will have to serve a 50 game suspension for his positive test results.
• Alex Castellanos continues to make hay in the Dodgers organization. I’ve seen numerous tweets about his conversion from outfielder to second baseman being a surprising success in the sense that he’s potentially a viable option there long term.
• Baseball Instinct profiles Kolten Wong.
• Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus goes back and looks at his responses from a 2011 draft amending and elaborating on them months later.  It includes comments on Wong.
• Matt Adams earned the spotlight on John Sickels’ site as a prospect of the day.  He also appeared in a notes column a few days prior.
• Sickels also commented on Oscar Taveras hot start.  I think that we’re going to find, similar to Adams, that Taveras is a player who can maintain a high batting average and will never draw a ton of walks. It leaves them vulnerable to slumps when their swing mechanics get out of whack and they don’t have plate discipline to fall back on but it’s also an inherent part of their game.  I think there’s an understandable and correct bias to favor players with good walk rates but consistent “hitters” may be something we have to cope with when watching some of our own prospects.
• Matt Carpenter also gets profiled by Sickels. (It was a big week for Cardinal prospects on Minor League Ball.)  I’m really thrilled to see Carpenter contributing in so obvious a way to the major league club. As a committed and vocal advocate of Carpenter’s offensive abilities, it’s reassuring. It would be more reassuring if he was doing it by drawing walks.

In case you missed it …

• The sports editor for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, David Williams, pens an editorial about Autozone Park, which has been in and out of financial trouble ever since being built. For those of you who haven’t been there, it is an absolutely stunning park with excellent amenities. Simply fantastic. At one point, the St. Louis Cardinals were rumored to be interested in buying the facility before some of the more grisly debt facts came to life. I’d be shocked to see the AAA affiliate move away from the park inside of 5 years. Just doesn’t make any sense to me.
• Steve Batterson of the QC Times catches up with Robert Stock on his transition to pitching.
• Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch checks in on the minor leaguers who jumped Palm Beach directly to Springfield this season.
• Kevin Goldstein lists the top pair of teams to see in each league. Springfield checks in for the Texas League.
• John Sickels makes a lofty ETA prediction for Kolten Wong following his hot start.
• Wong’s hot start also earns him a spot on Baseball America’s Prospect Hot Sheet.

In case you missed it …

• Lance Lynn isn’t really a Future Redbird but given his impressive start yesterday, he is topical. If you want to read a third party’s take, here’s Baseball Instinct‘s writeup on Lynn from last week.
• Kevin Goldstein has been writing a lot recently and dropping some knowledge on Cardinals’ prospects (subscription) whether it be the two prospects that made his opening day Future Shock Column (Adams & Jenkins), a look at some surprising minor league level assignments (Rosenthal), a full preview of each NL Central System or telling the world to keep an eye on Oscar Taveras as a potential Minor League Player of the Year.
• If that wasn’t enough of a reason to re-up your subscription with Baseball Prospectus, check out this extensive article about pitching mechanics.  Don’t focus too much on the “good mechanics vs. bad mechanics” part but rather absorb the descriptive terminology.
• John Sickels takes note of the Robert Stock conversion.

I’m out of pocket for most of the day but the minor league starts bring about other writers as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Sickels had Shelby Miller as the 47th best pitching prospect in baseball entering 2010. I’d say that’s a touch low but Miller’s done nothing to dent his status as a blue chip arm this year.

Sickels also had his top 50 hitting prospects though no Cardinals made the list last year.

The Cardinals failed to make the PCL Top 20 list from Baseball America. As someone who has had concerns about Brett Wallace (#10 on the list) from the beginning, I’m getting the sense that evaulators are starting to turn against him a bit:

PCL observers did have  concerns about Wallace’s offense, however. He has trouble pulling balls with authority, and managers felt he could be attacked on the inner half. He doesn’t clear his hips well in his swing, which makes scouts wonder how well his stroke will translate. His speed and mobility are well below-average and he’ll never be an asset defensively.

This seems more firmly worded than in the past though that may simply be my perception. He’s obviously still well regarded.

In the chat, BA’s Jim Shonerd noted that Lance Lynn was one of the last cuts from the Top 20 List.

Jordan Swagerty checks in from the AFL after their first three games.