Daily Prospect Report 6/24/07

Few interesting reading items and tidbits before tonight’s DPR. It appears the key to Mather’s success this year has been that he’s stopped tinkering with his swing. Jarret Hoffpauir was named the TL player of the week. The Cards signed another indy leaguer. Saw this regarding Kozma and when he will sign at the comments at Birdland, asked by frequent poster at this blog, fewgoodcards. Here’s Goold’s answer:

It’s a good question. One of the holdups was the market. First-round picks tend to wait on other first-round picks to set their value. We’ve seen some go at less than slot and now others are signing around Kozma. The signing that most impacts Kozma just happened. The Blue Jays signed Kevin Ahrens to a $1.44-million signing bonus. Like, Kozma, Ahrens is a high school shortstop. He’s a switch-hitter. He went two picks earlier. And the Cardinals have said they had Kozma rated higher. The framework of the negotiations are easy to see. One other thing: Ahrens is represented by the Hendricks Brothers.

One last item for “ask the expert” found at Goldstein’s chat today, re: the PTBNL in the Maroth trade (side note, I was leery about the trade, after tonight’s performance it’s easy to love. And this tidbit makes it a lot easier to love:

Matt (Cambridge, MA): Kevin — Any word of which prospects (if any) are on the PTNBL list for the Cardinals in the Maroth trade?

Kevin Goldstein: I have not seen the lists, but somebody close to the deal said “it ain’t much.”

Ain’t much for Maroth right now is looking GREAT.

Memphis 1, New Orleans 4

• Tomo Ohka‘s outing was solid but not spectacular. He allowed 4 runs on 8 hits and walk, however 3 of the runs were counted as earned. He did allow a big HR off the bat of Quad A slugger Andy Tracy, and it was late in the game. He did coax 10 ground outs. Here’s where it gets weird. He threw 120 pitches! Isn’t he coming off an injury? Why have him throw 120 pitches? The nice part about it is that he threw strikes, 83 to be exact. I’m not sold on whether or not he’ll be an asset for the big club, but after that outing I’d be inclined to give him a green light.
• Rick Ankiel went 2 for 4 and was charged with a throwing error.
• Joe Mather drove in the only run.

Springfield is on their All Star Break for the next three days.

Palm Beach 4, Ft. Myers 0

• Adam Ottavino was lights out, this game was hands down his best game of the season, perhaps of his short pro career. He struck out 7 over 8 innings, allowed only 4 hits and didn’t walk a man. 10 of his outs came via the ground out. Nice game, Adam.
• No extra bases hits or multi hit games for anyone on the offensive side.
• Jon Jay went 1 for 4 with a stolen base.

The Swing were off tonight.

Batavia 6, State College 2

• Thomas Pham went 2 for 4 with a triple, a walk, a stolen bases and a strikeout.
• Steve Hill went 2 for 4 with a double.
• Daniel Descalso 1 for 4 with 2 steals.
• Jonathan Stambaugh pitched 4 innings and struck out 4, while allowing no runs on 4 hits.
• Brandon Garner allowed 2 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks, striking out only 1 but getting 10 ground ball outs.

Johnson City 3, Danville 15

• Well, the good news is that Jonathan Edwards homered in his 2nd straight game. He also struck out twice.
• Parkway Central grad Travis Mitchell went 2 for 4.
• Dognnt Bolivar committed three errors. The team collected a total of 9 errors all game.
• Two pitchers you probably never heard of got hammered and were betrayed by their defense. That’s about all you need to know.

GCL Cardinals 4, GCL Nats 3

• Osvaldo Morales went 2 for 3 with a HR and 2 walks.
• Joseph Hage went 2 for 5.
• Arnoldi Cruz went 2 for 5 with a double.
• The Gonzo (Carlos and Reynier) brothers piggybacked their way thru 7 innings, allowing 2 runs on 4 hits and 6 walks, striking out 10 combined. No, they are not related.

Cards sign another indy leaguer

I’m not sure how post-worthy this, but trolling around at the Swing’ site, I found that the Cardinals have signed 1st baseman Tim Dorn from Southern Illinois Miners of the Frontier League. He’ll be stepping into Buckman’s spot as designated huge first baseman. According to his page at the Baseball Cube, Dorn was a 14th round pick of the Mariners back in 2003, as a pitcher. He only pitched 29 innings over 2 seasons for some reason or other, but struggled with control and was apparently cut. He’s been bouncing around the Indy Leagues, this go around as a hitter. He hit .327/.386/.506 last year with 10 HR and 31 walks to 76 strikeouts for Pensacola Pelicans. (“Fly Pelicans!” says Tony Montana). This season for the Miners he’s hitting .349/.421/.659 with 12 homers, 12 walks and has fanned 27 times in 129 at bats. One thing about Dorn is he’s huge, 6’8, 255, and with that size comes some power. So he may be named Dorn, but he hits (and whiffs) like Serrano.  Here’s a link to his player page for the Miners. I know there are some of you out there that go to indy league games and may have seen this guy play, if so drop your thoughts of Dorn in the comments.

Monday Morning Reading

erik’s got the Daily Prospect Report below.  He’s also got a great poll posted in the righthand sidebar. [update AZ 2:28 – Dognnt is winning in the poll currently.  Also, for the person who voted other. . .you kinda have to comment on who the other person is.  There isn’t actually a baseball player in the Cardinals system called Other.  Although, uses for a player named Other are now springing from my head like Athena from Zues.  (Learn your Greek mythology, kids.)]  [2nd update AZ 2:30 – Upon further inspection of the poll, I’m curious where the textbox below other goes.  It appears to suck your text down into a vortex of nothingness in the internet and not post it anywhere.  Polldaddy, that’s pretty effin lame.]  erik’s always thinking about you readers — check out the prospect tracker link he added at the top of the site.  Here’s what I found interesting in my monday morning meanderings of the baseball prospect internet world. 

Remember the Sizemore comparison without the defense.  Read this — I know it’s an isolated incident, but I think Colby will be at least average in CF. 

Here’s a Baseball America write up on Mike Stutes’ (repeat) National Champion Oregon State team. Congratulations Mike!  Hope you bring your A-game to Redbird nation (once you sign).  

erik referred you to the article that included Pete Kozma but let me refer you to the latest Carlos Gomez article (we can commiserate over what the Cardinals could have picked and be thankful about what they didn’t pick).  Gomez is open to suggestions for reviews in the next couple of articles and his e-mail is at the end of the Hardball Times article.  Couple things I notice from the videos:

22: I keep watching that video of Tim Alderson from the front and everytime I watch it, I expect the ball to be coming out of a high-3/4 slot (a little more over the top) rather than the lower slot that he’s using.  I’m not sure what it is about his arm level that keeps deceiving me but I actually try to place the tip of my pen where I expect the ball to be released from and it took me 5-6 times to get it right. 

23: I didn’t like Schmidt on draft day.  Still don’t like him.

27: [AZ is weeping silently in his cubicle]

28: As much as I didn’t like Schmidt, I would rank Revere as easily the worst pick in the first round.  Watch the swing that Carlos has posted in his article before you read what he has to say.  Just ask yourself if that looks like a good swing.  He has zero ability to transfer his inertia in the lower half of his body.  I hate the way that he plants his front foot and seems to almost lock that front knee while pushing himself taller on it.  That’s not the most articulate description of Revere’s swing but if you thought Kozma had an ugly swing, Revere’s is worse in my opinion.

29: Look at Fairley compared to Revere. Not only does he have better hand/wrist action but watch the weight transfer.  I’m not that high on Fairley. . .but after watching his swing again, I’m more impressed.

30: Brackman’s ‘tall and fall’ mechanics don’t bother me as much as they do Carlos, but I wish he’d keep that left shoulder closed longer.  His right shoulder looks like its under tremendous strain.  Just one more frame before he opens his shoulder and I think he’d be better off for it.

Again, fantastic work by Carlos.  Rob Neyer called him the “most important baseball writer on the Internet” and while I certainly make no claim to be even worthy of standing in Neyer’s midst, I’ll echo those sentiments after another incredibly interesting article.