Archive for the “Tony Cruz” Category

Since it is the offseason and there is plenty of time to look back at all of our young and not so young prospects, this is a great time to look at some prospects individually and in depth.  First on the docket is the hot name in the Cards organization from the Arizona Fall League, Tony Cruz.

Tony Cruz was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 26^th round of the 2007 MLB draft.  He started his career at short season ball bouncing from the GCL to Johnson City to Batavia with 7 games or less at each spot before playing the bulk of the season at Quad Cities.  He was drafted as a third baseman and did not start playing as a catcher until the next season, even though he had previous amateur experience at catcher.

In 49 games in Quad Cities, Tony Cruz’s wOBA was .364, but he struck out more than he walked and hit a too healthy percentage (50%) of batted balls on the ground.  Never the less, that’s a good year for a partial season right after being drafted and Cruz was moved up to Palm Beach the next year.

The rest of Tony Cruz’s career after the jump!

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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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Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com is rolling out his Top 50 prospect list, and has Brett Wallace at  # 42. With his report, there’s a video of him in action.

Ryan Fagan of Yahoo! has some scout talk on the Walrus as well.

“Let’s put it this way: If he was a better third baseman, I think we’d be talking about him being ready for a starting job this spring. He’s that good…Problem is, defensively he’s a question mark. His agility, actually, is OK for as big as he is. He’s a pretty agile guy. He makes good plays—he can dive for the ball, pop up and get the throw to first—but when you’re projecting him, he’s not going to get any smaller and he’s not going to get any faster. He’s at least average at third at 22, but is he going to be OK at 26 or 28? And his throwing arm is OK. He doesn’t have a classic third baseman’s rocket arm. He can get it over there, but it’s not the ‘Oh, wow’ that you want at third base.

He can hit, but he might not be able to stay at third base. You don’t say.

Tony Cruz makes BA’s Hawaiian League Top 20 on a technicality. In their print edition they actually have someone else, but then they realized the player they ranked threw 7.2 innings. I guess it’s better to be ranked because of a goof than to not be ranked at all. It’s subscriber content.

Ben Badler gives us some context on the Arizona Fall League. The league average slash line was .293/.365/.473, so yeah, I’d say it was a hitter’s league. Steve Hill led the Cards with an OPS+ of 133. Wallace was next with 128, followed by Tyler Greene at 111, and Robinson brings up the rear with 89.

If the Cards get outbid on LOOGY’s this winter, they easily could land one in the Rule 5 draft.

Jon Jay and Allen Craig are in a dead heat for the # 14 spot at Bird Land, so be sure to vote. That is a tough call.

Here’s how some of the Cardinal prospects are faring in the Caribbean Leagues:

• Bryan Anderson is hitting for a bizarre .240/.406/.240 in 25 at bats for Jose Oquendo’s Carolina Gigantes.
• His battery mate P.J. Walters is an oddity of his own. In 19.1 innings, he has 24 K’s to 7 walks but has allowed 28 hits and is sporting an ERA of 6.52.
• Luke Gregerson finally allowed a run. In 17.1 innings, he has an ERA of 0.52, with 13 K’s to 2 walks and 13 hits allowed. Gregerson’s pitching in Venezuela for the Margarita Braves.

Tony Cruz is not a Cardinal.

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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I just received word that the Cardinals will be sending Tyler Herron, Blake King, Arnoldi “Tony” Cruz and James Rapoport to the Honolulu Sharks of the Hawaiian Winter League. That sure beats last year’s group of Marco Gonzalez, who finished throwing in middle relief in AA and Michael Cooper, who was released early in the season. The league starts on the 27th of this month. Mike Budaska, the hitting coach for Memphis, will be the hitting coach for the team.

• Tyler Herron‘s stock slipped this season from last given how hittable he proved to be in AA, but taking his cumulative numbers and neutralizing for park and luck, he did manage a respectable 3.99 FIP. He threw nearly 150 innings, so I would imagine they won’t stretch him out too much in Hawaii.
• Blake King struck out ten batters per nine innings between the Quad Cities and Palm Beach, but also walked over seven batters per nine. Obviously, he’ll be working on his control.
• Arnoldi Cruz got off to a slow start, but was coming on pretty strong in until hitting the DL in July. He was hitting .308/.342/.511 throughout June and July. Not sure if he’ll be catching or playing 3B.
• James Rapoport hit .277/.322/.339 with 23 steals between Palm Beach and Springfield this past season. He struggled to hit in AA. Seems like a Scott Podsednik clone.

It could prove to be a pretty competitive league, with five first rounders going to play, including Buster Posey and Yonder Alonso. We will keep you posted on the Cardinals progress while they suffer for their craft in sunny Hawaii.

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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