I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the individual parts of what made up the 2012 Texas League Champions. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to feature the top 5 hitters (according to regular season wRC+), the top 5 pitchers (according to regular season FIP), and a few honorable mentions. If you feel like I’ve neglected any players, feel free to discuss them in the comments section.
Need a refresher course on wRC+ or FIP? Check out FanGraphs’ glossary. Read about wRC+ here and FIP here.
Before following the jump to the rest of the post, enjoy a video recap of Springfield’s triumphant season:
It’s not a secret that the Cardinals major league middle infield has been a struggle for them. Last season, they eyed a trade deadline upgrade at shortstop to replace Ryan Therior with Rafael Furcal. This season has seen a revolving door of players at second base including Daniel Descalso, Tyler Greene, Matt Carpenter and Skip Schumaker. All of those players have their own warts at the position and the Cardinals are most likely still on the lookout for a long term answer at second.
The two most touted prospects for the Cardinals middle infield are Kolten Wong in AA and Ryan Jackson in AAA. How are they doing?
The St. Louis Cardinals have upgraded their farm system in a major way the past two seasons. Just last year Baseball America ranked their club 29th out of all 30 major league teams. They received a relatively small bump up to being ranked 24th earlier this season after the Cardinals drafted Zack Cox, Tyrell Jenkins, and saw the beginning of the rise of a now highly touted prospect by the name of Carlos Martinez. In 2012, it’s entirely possible that the Cardinals will receive a consensus Top 10 ranking.
Below is an updated depth chart for the top position player in the Cardinals system for each respective position. Due to length, I’ve broken it down into two parts, the second of which will be posted tomorrow. For each player, a breakdown of their skills is included in addition to other information and statistics that I found interesting in their stance with the big club and their current league.
I was really fortunate to see a lot of impressive players over a three day trip to Quad Cities. I’ve had weekend trips before that felt like a total bust but this one was pretty good. The starting pitchers were most impressive, relief pitchers were underwhelming and it is something of a mixed bag for the position prospects.
In case you missed it, Kolten Wong signed on the dotted line this weekend and the details are almost exactly in line with the initial report out of Honolulu.
I linked to this post yesterday from a Hawaii based news channel and the links to our post started their way around the internet. Afterwards, Derrick Goold threw some lukewarm water on it saying that there wasn’t an official agreement in place.
I clicked through to the Hawaii report earlier today and noticed some oddities. First of all, the report originally said
KITV4 Sports has learned that Wong will receive a $1.5 million signing bonus.
but now reads with a more nebulous
KITV4 Sports has learned that Wong will receive a signing bonus between $1 million and $1.5 million.
The title of the post changed from a definitive “signs” to a less definitive “agrees”. All of this is just a small blip on the radar, if an admittedly frustrating one for me personally. The reporting isn’t mine but I do feel somewhat at fault for latching onto a (likely) premature report out of Hawaii.
The reality is that this will be a quick sign for the Cardinals barring something unforeseen. They want to get Wong into the system in a hurry and avoid a layoff like Zach Cox had. It’s best for both sides. Wong will likely sign at or near slot value — maybe a little over — but there’s no indication that he won’t sign. Official word, confirmed by a local scribe or the Cardinals themselves, probably isn’t far off (a week or two at most is my speculation) but this time I’ll wait for the ink to dry.
Entries (RSS)