Archive for the “Tyler Herron” Category

Derrick Goold:

“He was not progressing the way we needed or expected him to,” Luhnow wrote in a text message. “We need to give the valuable innings to other players who deserve the opportunity.

His performance was cited as a reason for the release.

Matt Baker:

“He had been given substantial opportunities in the organization,” Warner said. “He wasn’t progressing the way we had hoped and the way we thought he would. He was taking innings away from guys we thought were more deserving.”

But it wasn’t enough for the organization. Warner said Herron’s release was based solely on his performance on the field.

{Update}

I have no idea who Luhnow is referencing in “other players” if they are looking at performance.  Herron hasn’t been great but he’s certainly been as good as some of the other guys they keep around (and promote) so that doesn’t add up for me.

All the talk of performance strikes me as odd but at this point, there’s no way for us to know what else it might be.  You have to hope the team isn’t being disingenuous when revealing why he was released but teams (not just ours) have been known to DL people for mysterious illnesses; it would be naive to think they aren’t capable of telling the truth but telling it slant.

Like mother hens clucking over a prized clutch, we only want the best for the top Cardinal prospects.  We’ve seen what happens when things don’t work out as well.  Starting with prospects 16 through 20, I’ll cover the highs and lows of what you might see this year.

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Prior to the season I took a look at the workloads of several Cardinals prospects in relation to the Verducci Rule.  The basic premise of the Verducci Rule is that pitchers who increase their workload by more than 30 innings from one season to the next have a heightened risk of injury.  Will Carroll has found that the Verducci Rule does not exactly translate for minor league innings, but I used it as a conservative baseline for the number of innings I thought would be appropriate for the Cardinals prospects.  After the jump I’ll take a look back at the workloads for those same pitchers and how it compared to the numbers discussed prior to the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Our old friend Kary Booher breaks down the rosters of each of the Hawaiian League rosters.

FORGET ABOUT THE REGULAR SEASON: Cardinals righthander Tyler Herron, a 2005 first-round supplemental pick, was only mediocre in Double-A Springfield after arriving in early May and eventually was demoted back to high Class A Palm Beach. He was a combined 7-7, 4.17 with 102 strikeouts and 40 walks in 138 innings. But he also struggled to pitch beyond the fifth inning in Double-A and doesn’t have the put-away fastball, requiring him to pitch to contact.

X-FACTOR: Cardinals righthander Blake King, a nephew of the late Mickey Mantle, was 3-8, 4.52 in 93.2 innings this year in A-ball. A former juco standout in Oklahoma, King struck out 105 but also walked 85 this season.

One of the nice things about Booher’s hire is I think we’ll be hearing a little bit more about Cardinal prospects.

Non-baseball observation: Tyler and Blake had to have been the trendy name to give your kid if they were born in the mid-eighties. Just looking in the Cards’ system, it seems like there is nearly a dozen Tylers and Blakes. I shouldn’t gripe, I suppose. I once considered myself to be pretty anti-trendy when it came to baby names, and now I have a son named Landon…pretty trendy. I wanted to name him Miles, after the jazz musician, but my wife wasn’t having it. Next time.

Baseball observation: There are some pretty good and intriguing prospects going over to Hawaii. Buster Posey, Yonder Alonso, Jason Castro, Andrew Brackman, (the Yankees 1st rounder from last year, who is coming back from Tommy John), Jeremy Bleich, Roger Kieschnick, Chris Carter (Oakland’s Chris Carter who came over in the Haren deal), Corey Brown, Ryan Kalish, Todd Frazier, Tony Thomas, the list goes on. Should be a pretty competitive league, with Japanese players sprinkled throughout.

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.

There are a multitude of reasons why pitching prospects don’t pan out.  I believe that, after talent, the biggest reason is health.  Every organization has had its share of pitching prospects that have flamed out, or at least have had their career temporarily derailed, due to injury and the Cardinals are no exception. 

There is no absolute connection between workload and injury – certain “rubber armed” pitchers seem to be able to throw endlessly without injury (Livan Hernandez comes to mind), but there is enough of a connection that teams are paying much closer attention to pitch counts than they used to, especially with younger pitchers.  The depth of the Cardinals system, at least according to most prospect lists, lies in our pitching prospects.  The question then, is what has their workload been thus far, and what would be ideal for 2008?  I’m going to take a look at five of the Cardinals top starting pitching prospects after the jump.

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