Archive for the “shelby miller” Category

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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Shelby Miller ALERT!

We saw how shaky the big league bullpen can be and how opportunities may present themselves to younger guys as the season progresses. Likewise, that dead weight we have at 1B may be an issue that needs addressed soon as well (snark!).

On to the DFR!
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Derrick Goold has some early top prospect assignments in his Bird Land blog today:

No. 1 prospect Shelby Miller, a righthanded pitcher, and No. 2 prospect, third baseman Zack Cox, have been assigned to the High-A Palm Beach club.

The Cardinals are not in a position to confirm the assignment, but it’s expected that Martinez will continue pitching in extended spring training rather than join the full-season rotation in Quad Cities.

All three assignments make sense.  Miller moves up a level.  Cox gets his first full season ball experience in Palm Beach.  Martinez continues his education before moving to Quad Cities this summer.  Smart move by the Cardinals, no reason to push Martinez when he is still new to the country.

As far as Quad Cities, I think their rotation will be fine for the time being:

Assigned to the Quad Cities No. 1 roster as RHP Seth Blair, RHP Jordan Swagerty and RHP Trevor Rosenthal.

We’ll project our #1 prospect this week. I’ve debated what assumption to make regarding his level.  Let’s say that the Cardinals are aggressive with Mr. Miller and he gets his wish playing the entire season at Springfield.  Projections should be in the following format:

IP,Hits,BB,K,HR,ERA

I’m pretty jealous of Kevin Goldstein. Beyond the fact that he has an awesome day job of discussing bsaeball prospects all the time, he’s also seen Shelby Miller four times this year in person! I’ve seen nine Quad Cities games and zero Shelby Miller appearances. Boo!

KG saw Miller in his latest start during the playoffs against Kane County. Miller was dominant over 7 innings and Goldstein has a full scouting report on the Cardinals top prospect:

Summary: Between body, delivery, and stuff, Miller has easy frontline starter potential, as 9/8 playoff start was best performance by a pitcher I’ve seen all year. Previous looks do create concerns, although potential for improvement is significant. Don’t see much projection in fastball, but doesn’t need it, and shows enough high-quality curveballs to project for a 70/60/50 repertoire only seen in star-level arms. Improved control/command throughout season and could be poised for ’11 breakout.

I’ve been critical of Baseball Prospectus in the past (and they still need to clean up their UI experience — their stats sections are awful) but between Goldstein’s continually awesome prospect reports and the additions of some “hardcore” sabermetric types (namely Colin Wyers), it wasn’t a hard decision to re-up my subscription last week.  The teaser above is just a small part of the awesome writeup that Shelby got from Goldstein.

I’ll be making my third trip of the year to Quad Cities to watch some prospects this weekend.  Once again, the starting pitching rotation has foiled me as Shelby Miller started last night and will not pitch again until next week after I’ve left.

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(azru: I asked Steve Sommer if he would toss together the limited pitch f/x data from the Futures Game for us.  Minuscule sample size alert as Steve will note so don’t make any life decisions from this. You can find more of Steve’s work at various joints including ESPN, Beyond the Box Score and Play A Hard Nine. Thanks, Steve.)

One of the best aspects of the Futures Game is that we get some Pitch F/X data on pitchers that we otherwise would not have any data on. This is especially useful for those of us that will not get to see these guys pitch until they reach MLB. Clearly we will be doing some analysis and making some observations with extremely small samples, but it is still useful to get a feel for each pitcher’s fastballs if nothing else.

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Just a quick note: Scott Gorgen left the Springfield Game today in the 4th inning with elbow pain.

Shelby Miller ALERT!

On to the DFR!
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I won’t try to hold you in suspense till the offseason.  Shelby Miller will be the #1 prospect here and in every major publication you read (BA, BP, Law, etc).  There’s several contenders but they’re all flawed or just as unknown.

1. Jaime Garcia – The upside isn’t quite what you want in a #1 and despite his sterling performance to date, there will be questions about his health for the next several years now.
2. Daryl Jones – Injuries have plagued him all season leading to questions surrounding his overall talent level and power projection.
3. Wagner Mateo – The one player who can match Shelby on upside is the one player we know even less about.
4. Island of Misfit Toys – Daniel Descalso, Eduardo Sanchez, Lance Lynn, Bryan Anderson . . . they all suffer from either Garcia or Jones syndrome above.  It’s still a nice collection of mid-level prospects but nothing here to challenge for the #1 spot.

So expect Miller to take over the #1 ranking.  Regardless of what he’s ranked or what deragatory remarks that incites from the STL P-D scribes about laying a new egg, the real question is what the Cardinals have just signed in Shelby Miller.

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I hope none of the other mods mind, but I thought I would throw up this post to congregate the Shelby Miller signings announcements, rumors, prices, links etc.

Here’s the tip of the iceberg from Jonathan Mayo:

Source tells me Shelby Miller has indeed agreed to terms with Cards.  No. 19 pick in #mlbdraft will indeed get $2.9 mil as I guestimated.

UPDATE It’s official, if it wasn’t already:

Per BA

The Cardinals have signed first-round pick Shelby Miller for $2,875,000. His bonus is the highest in the first round this year, the second-highest for a drafted player in club history and well over MLB’s $1,386,000 recommendation for the No. 19 slot.