Archive for the “Steven Hill” Category

I missed this yesterday but Erin Bolen of the Springfield News-Leader reports that Steven Hill tore his meniscus and will be out 4-6 weeks.  That’s a pretty big setback for someone who is a) a catcher and b) not getting any younger.

Adam Reifer was also carted off the field during Memphis’ game per The Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Here’s hoping Hill & Reifer have a fast and full recoveries.

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

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With the recent news that the Cardinals outrighted Matt Pagnozzi and made him a minor league free agent and AZ’s article about the place of Bryan Anderson on the big club, it seems like as good of a time as ever to look at the catcher depth and depth chart in the minor leagues.  Assuming that Bryan Anderson makes the Cardinals as the left-handed, slick hitting backup catcher, that leaves us with an interesting group.

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As Jon predicted in our comment section for last night’s DFR, Steve Hill has been called up to the big club as Jeff Suppan has been placed on the DL.

Kyle Lohse’s start in Reno last night probably made Suppan’s DL trip possible.

Would love to see Hill get an AB during his cup of coffee, but he is probably up as Yadi insurance.

Discuss.

Steve Hill is off to a pretty torrid start to the season. Through 91 plate appearances, he’s hitting .333/.391/.679.  Last year, in about the same span of time for Springfield, he hit .303/.330/.505.  While those are just “slash” lines, but from that we can glean that he might be figuring out this whole AA thing so far. 

Hill is 24, so he ought to be figuring out AA. His walk rate is up from 2.9% to 8.8%.  He’s also hitting the ball with more authority, as his groundball rate is down from 46% to 36%, and therefore the ball is clearing the yard – 1 in 5 balls he hits in the air ends up leaving the yard. Sure, it’s the Texas League, but still, that’s pretty darn good. 

The thing with Hill is he’s going to have to hit in order to prove he belongs in the big leagues, because he has no true position. The notion of having him catch is a good idea, but in just 33 games of catching so far he’s allowed 8 passed balls, 12 steals and 3 errors, leaving plenty of room for improvement. He’s not the rangiest outfielder, either. 

Hill’s also not the most selective of hitters. In 717 minor league plate appearances, he has just 40 walks to 163 strikeouts. Yet in spite of his wrinkles, Hill has been an above average hitter or better at each level and still probably has yet to tap all of his power potential. Patience also tends to (but not always) improve with age.

As long he keeps smacking around the baseball, he should find himself a major league gig. The only question is where. The system as we know it now doesn’t need any more outfielders or first baseman, so he’ll really have to keep powering away to distinguish himself.

Ed. Note: This is a guest post from GForce. We’re always open to talented writers sharing their thoughts here at FR.

Thanks to Erik for this opportunity and I hope my writing skills aren’t too rusty. I have been thinking of a series to tie in the gap between the end of the minor league seasons and when the AFL and other winter ball starts. My thoughts lately have been drifting to next year and how the newly found depth of true prospects fits in throughout the higher levels of the organization. Using the criteria below, I give my top three at each position.

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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.

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I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the prospects currently in the Cardinals system and that the Cardinals have developed (or failed to develop) over the past five years or so on a position-by-position basis to take a closer look at the strengths and weaknesses of the system. The first position we’ll look at is catcher, which has become a strength in the last few years after producing a starter at the major league level and a top prospect that is getting close to the big leagues. The full breakdown of the position is after the jump.

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