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[azru]: I was excited when roarke contacted me about writing again. He’s an old hand at this having been a regular DFR contributor in the past.  Alas, he was waylaid by two little girls (my words not his) and children beat blogging every time. What follows are some of his notes from Jupiter and a great set of photos. Welcome back, roarke!

Hello my internet friends and acquaintances, it has been a long time.  As some of the long-time visitors to this site may recall, I used to be a regular contributor here (back in 2008, which, not coincidentally, was the last baseball season before children entered the roarke household).  Writing for Future Redbirds was not the only thing that fell by the wayside as real life intervened; my annual trips to Jupiter for Spring Training also ceased for a few years.

Until this year, that is.

I was able to sneak away for a few days and catch some games and practices last week and azru has been kind enough to let me share some pictures I took and my observations.  So, without further ado, words and pictures are after the jump.

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Minor league stories you may have missed:

• March 5th – Cody Stanley – Q&A by Derrick Goold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• March 12th – Sam Freeman – Q&A by Derrick Goold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Mark Appel Scouting Report by Wes Yee, Project Prospect — You’ll hear Appel’s name more often as we approach June. He’s potentially the number 1 overall draft for 2012.
• Tyrell Jenkins writeup by Thomas Belmont, Baseball Instinct
• Ask BA by Jim Callis, Baseball America – Lookout for Oscar Taveras, Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez
• MLB Suspends Erick Hurtado by Ben Badler, Baseball America – The Cardinals voided their contract after this suspension.
• Organizational Farm Rankings by Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus – The Cardinals rank #3 and with as many top 100 picks they have in 2012, it would be a shame to see them slip in next year’s rankings.

A vast majority of you are probably already aware of this but, given that I contributed for the first time this year, I’m making an extra point of self-promotion. What was formerly the Maple Street Press Annual, has now been retitled the Viva El Birdos Annual and has a plethora of content including a 2,000 word essay on Tyrell Jenkins by myself.  It’s major league oriented with some prospect and farm articles mixed in.

This year’s annual is available as an e-book and further purchasing details are available here.

So I’m not trolling you for hits all day, the Jenkins piece isn’t quite done being edited by me. It probably won’t go up until this evening but I promise it will go up today.

Catching up on the St. Louis’ minors and things you may have missed:

• Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has some comments from players and coaches on Tyrell Jenkins.
• Make sure and check back on Monday for more on Jenkins. I interviewed Jenkins and Johnson City pitching coach Doug White for an article that will appear in a VEB preseason review book that Larry Borowsky and Dan Moore (lboros and danup, in internet parlance) are editing.  More details on that at a later point in time.
• Goold also has a Q&A with Rule 5 draftee Erik Komatsu.
• Speaking of Komatsu, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch has a feature on him and his chances of making the club out of spring training.
• Langosch also has some quotes from Kolten Wong about Spring Training. I may be off base here, but I just don’t recall the plethora of articles that included young players raving about the spring training atmosphere in past years. Mike Matheny’s tactic of intermingling the prospects seems to have produced a markedly different tone and environment than previous seasons. Again, that’s purely an outsider’s perspective.
• Baseball Instinct has a full writeup on Matt Adams.
• The most recent “Ask BA” article at Baseball America notes some prospects that garnered votes for their top 100 list but didn’t make the cut. It includes: Matt Carpenter, Lance Lynn and Eduardo Sanchez. There’s some additional comments on Zack Cox, who did make the top 100.
• Baseball America also had a top 100 draft prospects for the 2012 draft which they released at the start of Februrary.
• Kary Booher of the Springfield News-Leader, had an extensive profile on Dan Krantovitz, the Cardinals new Scouting Director.
• We aren’t the only ones who immediately thought of Matt Carpenter as a good fit for the Athletics.

Catching up . . .

• MLB.com Cardinals’ beat writer Jenifer Langosch has an article on top prospect Shelby Miller.  There’s some candid conversation about his suspension in 2011.
• Langosch also has notes from the end of each day in Spring Training as well. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3
• From the Day 1 link:

Over on one of the far fields, third base coach Jose Oquendo worked two-on-one with Minor Leaguers Zack Cox and Matt Carpenter. The Cardinals intend to keep Cox, who was a first-round pick in 2010, at third despite some external grumblings about how Cox could fit better at second long-term. Carpenter is projected to be the starting third baseman in Triple-A, though he should also get some spring work at other infield positions to improve his versatility.

• It would be a non-surprise to see Matt Carpenter spend some time in the outfield at Memphis this season.
• Derrick Goold has some notes on the BA top 100.  Goold adds some context to the Tyrell Jenkins inclusion on that list.
• Seedlings to Stars has it’s top Cardinals prospect list, which is presented in a different format than other lists.

Below the jump is the Fox Sports Midwest press release for the upcoming year’s television schedule. The most interesting note, to me, is the five grapefruit league games they will be televising beginning on March 17th.

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Catching up on some links:

• Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus released his top 101 prospects of which the Cardinals had 5 making that list: Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, Oscar Taveras, Matt Adams and Kolten Wong. Notably absent was Tyrell Jenkins who has appeared on other similar lists.
• Goldstein also did a chat about his list. One sampling:

Kevin Goldstein: I like [Wong] way more since signing, and I liked him plenty coming out of the draft.

• Derrick Goold has been a busy man lately. He has some notes on Kevin Goldstein’s list here.
• Goold also did an extensive Q&A with Dan Kantrovitz, the Cardinals new Scouting Director. The whole thing is excellent and I can’t pick just one piece to excerpt. Just go read it all.
• Baseball Instinct is working through some of the position-centric results of their overall top prospect lists. To see where Kolten Wong, Matt Adams or Oscar Taveras fall in their respective fields check out their articles on position.

We again participated in the United Cardinal Bloggers’ annual with recaps of the minor league team’s seasons from Johnson City through Memphis. You’ll also find a look at the team’s 2011 amateur player draft. I’m going to unceremoniously steal C70‘s description of the annual below the fold. He led the initiative as an editor and was a driving force behind its completion.  My thanks to him for allowing us to participate again.

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