7/31/07 Daily Prospect Report

All sorts of roster moves were made today. As I’m sure most of you heard, Chris Perez was promoted to Memphis. Mike Sillman was activated off of the DL and will pitch for Springfield. Cody Haerther is back with Springfield as well. Amaury Marti will now move to Springfield now that the Mexican League season is over. Marti posted a .963 OPS for the Minaltitlan Oilers and most encouragingly, he cut his strikeout rate in half.

Kary Booher has another “what’s up with Colby?” article, talking about his prolonged slump with Colby and his coaches, who are working heavily on getting him to control the bat in the zone more and starting to use the whole field. As I noted on an earlier post, Colby is extremely pull happy and lately hasn’t been seeing the ball too well.

But since early June, particularly after he fell ill with a sinus infection and dropped 10 pounds, Rasmus has become extremely pull-conscious as he tries to hit the ball to right field.

That is why May has stressed in recent weeks that Rasmus attack off-speed pitches and plop them into left field. But May notes that such a task is difficult for Rasmus because he moves his wrist through the strike zone as fast as anybody in the league.

“For him, he’s got such quick wrists, he’ll get out there and get around on it,” May said. “We’ve tried to have him release the top hand a little bit and we’re hoping we’re going to get to a point where he’s comfortable with that because he’s a two-hand guy (on the entire swing).”

Rasmus acknowledged it is a difficult adjustment but that he is heeding the advice.

Let’s face it, he’s young, and this horrific slump may be good for Colby in the long run. He has all the tools, open to learning and pretty driven. I’m confident he’ll turn it around, even if it doesn’t start to happen these last few weeks. Of course, I’d like to see him stop striking out at least once in every game and start driving the ball.

Lastly, Jocketty didn’t sound real certain about signing Kyle Russell . Per Jeremy Anders of MLB.com.

“I’d like to get him signed,” Jocketty said. “He strikes out a lot, but a lot of power hitters do. He would be a nice guy to have. … We knew it was going to take a while to sign him. He’s got a lot of leverage. He’s a sophomore.”

Yes, a lot of power hitters do strike out a lot so I don’t know why it’s worth mentioning, unless you’re trying to excuse yourself. Now that the trade deadline is over, I’m hoping something gets done but have become more lukewarm about the situation because I’m not expecting much. It would be a shame that they would essentially forfeit their 4th round pick. I gotta be honest. While the front office has been pretty genius over it’s long tenure here, but over the course of two bad off-seasons, two crappy trade deadline moves the past two seasons,  and now this, I wonder what in the world is happening these days, to put it mildly. At least they didn’t sell the farm for Matt Morris.

To the games…Palm Beach’s game was canceled, Chris Perez makes a splash in AAA, Cody Haerther is back, the Swing had their 6 game win streak snapped. And ladies and gentleman, it’s Tyler Henley! More after the jump.

Delusions of grandeur

Here comes Joel Pineiro to save the season! I don’t know who the PTBNL will be, but the Red Sox are a smart organization, it’ll be some sleeper type who I probably like.

The series against the Brew Crew was fun, but I don’t know how three well played games changed the Cardinals mindset at the trade deadline.  Grr….

 [Azru update:]  There’s no way to really spin this signing.  If Pineiro turns in some good outings it will be because of luck and not skillset.  He’s walking over 3.5 batters per inning and striking out just a touch over 5.  He has some modicum of being a groundball pitcher but his OPS against is over .800 for three years running.  If we gave up anything more than Michael Cooper, this wasn’t worth it.

 [Azru @ 3:02] Finally seeing the official word that Chris Perez is headed to Memphis.  He could be ready for a late inning role in the bigs next year if he performs well in August.  It will interesting to see if he steps right into the closer’s role for Memphis.  Falkenborg was there initially but Perez is obviously the organizations top choice to be the future closer.

Daily Prospect Report 7/30/07

Must read material-Lboros has some q+a with Jeff Luhnow regarding Arnoldi Cruz, Tyler Herrron, Jose Martinez, Steve Hill, and more.

Daniel Berk of MLB.com takes a look at the struggles of Colby Rasmus. Sinus infections, youth, whatever the reasons…I just want to see him stop striking out so freakin’ much and start driving the ball. Maybe we should start sending some sort of good thoughts, karma, prayers, voodoo or whatever else his way.

Two of my pet draft picks were honored today, as Jesse Todd was last weeks’ NY-Penn pitcher of the week, while Steve Hill took the honors for player of the week for the Midwest League. Hill was 14 for 30 with 3 homers while Todd struck out 15 in just 8 innings while allowing 1 run.

Springfield was off tonight. Injured Birds made their return as Tyler Johnson pitched for Memphis, Reid Gorecki was on rehab assignment for the GCL team, and Allen Craig was hitless for PB in his first game back.

Rick Ankiel went yard yet again. Clayton Mortensen is the man. There were two walk off hits. And Pete Kozma!

The official 2007 trade deadline thread

[Update Tuesday 10:49 by Azru]  The Cardinals acquired Joel Piniero for a PTBNL.  Since this probably won’t cost us any real prospects, whatever.  I’m skeptical that Piniero will be anything even remotely resembling an asset but I guess it can’t hurt.  If this frees up Jocketty to move a middle reliever or shove Maroth to the DL, so be it. 

I’m swamped at work at the moment, but I’ll take a looksy at him a bit later today.

7/29/07 Daily Prospect Report

Kevin Goldstein had an interesting article today at BP on positional differences and why moving a prospect to one position or another can hurt or help a prospect’s status based on what the average hitter does at his position. This explains why moving Bryan Anderson to another position is a dumb idea.

Did you know that Brendan Ryan was kicked off his college baseball team? 4 times!?

Adam Foster of Project Prospect has their mid-season Top 10 SS prospect rankings, and Kozma appears conspicuously at #5 on the list, ahead of notable prospects Chin-Lung Hu and Jed Lowrie. Apparently Adam puts a lot of stock in to how high a player was drafted, as much as I’d like to be in agreement with him, let’s see what Kozma produces on the field first.

At VEB, poster “Whopperman” has a diary of the post-game festivities at the Memphis game Saturday night, which involved Rick Ankiel, Tagg Bozied and hitting coach and Wrestemaniac Rick Eckstein rumbling in the squared circle with some pro-wrestlers. Mulleted Redbird fans rejoice.

Elsewhere, games were played. Ank hit #30. Jesse Todd continues to miss bats. Palm Beach and the GCL team was off today. More after the jump.

Daily Prospect Report 7/28/07

At my internship, I file documents, make some phone calls and generally do all the work that no one wants to. (PS – I’m a full graduate working on my Masters in Electrical Engineering. It’s the worst internship ever.) How do I get this intership!!!

Jim Masilak is quickly becoming a thorn in my side. Here’s another poorly written recap of the Memphis game.

By promoting Ferris to Memphis last week in the midst of another uninspiring season, the Cardinals’ message to the Evansville, Ind., native seems clear: It’s time for the former second-round pick to sink or swim.

First of all, make the cliches stop. It’s gimmicky writing. Second of all, the Cardinals promoted him because Mark Hamilton was taking over at 1B. Mike Ferris sank long ago. And then this brillant quote from Ferris:

“The expectations were up here,” says Ferris, holding his left hand out at head height, in regard to his early days in the Cardinals organization. “I don’t want to say I haven’t fulfilled them, but I haven’t played as well as people expected me to.”

Mike, I hate to break the news to you but it’s safe to say you didn’t fulfill the expectations. O wait, it gets better:

“With the year I had last year, I was expecting it,” Ferris said. “But I had a good spring and I was the first guy (promoted).”

Ferris, 24, hit .212 with one homer and nine RBI in nine games for Palm Beach before graduating to Double-A Springfield.

I’m not sure why Masilak would print that quote and then add his statistics. Unless this is a backhanded ‘gotcha’ moment, in which case, kudos Jim.

Chris Lambert is still a bad pitcher. Steve Hill goes boom. Osvaldo Morales puts on a fielding exhibition (the bad kind). And finally, Pete Kozma is alive. It’s your Daily Prospect Report.

Daily Prospect Report 7/27/07

I want to touch on something before we get started tonight. In the comments of erik’s look at the 2007 draft class thus far, we’ve got a note that says Tyler Henley is expected to sign in the near future. Now, I have no reason to believe that this comment isn’t legitimate and true but I don’t want to start any wild and crazy internet rumors. I will say that, if at any point, people start making comments that turn out to be patently false (i.e. “OMG we just traded Brian Esposito for Grady Sizemore. No seriously, Grady just called me.”), those comments will be deleted and all further comments from that individual will be moderated. It’s not something erik or I want to do, but this isn’t going to become a forum for crazy rumors. That said, I’m really hopeful that we get confirmation of this news in the near future so that we can brag about how the story broke on Future Redbirds. (Here is Henley’s scouting report from MILB.)

[edit 7/28-3:28pm] Story confirmed per Moisekapenda Bower of the Houston Chron.

Tyler Henley agreed to terms with the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday. Once Henley signs, he will report to the Batavia Muckdogs of the New York-Penn League.”It’s a dream come true,” Henley said this afternoon. “I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time. I can’t say enough good things. It’s very exciting.”

 

According to someone familiar with the situation, Henley will sign for $190K, adding to what has been a lucrative summer for the Owls’ spectacular junior class.

Hat tip Hammond for sharing the link. And special hat tip to coach P.J. Giamanco for sharing with us the situation. A big thank you, sir.</end edit>

Roster move: Chuckie Fick gets promoted to Quad Cities from Johnson City.

Chris Kline does a chat a Baseball America. There’s only one snipet about a Cardinal prospect where someone asks if he preferred Adam Ottavino or Kyle McCulloch. The questioner obviously has not met firstinning.com where we can learn that Ottavino strikes out more batters, walks fewer batters and is a year younger. Unless you are obsessed with groundballs [insert TLR and Duncan snark], Ottavino is the better pitcher by a healthy margin.

Colby Rasmus is clutch. Steve Hill makes some noise. Nick Vera succeeds where everyone else failed — you’ll find this and more in today’s Daily Prospect Report.

Maybe it’s a gyroball

Probably not.

Derrick Goold has an interesting look at P.J. Walters, the rich man’s Trey Hearne circa 2006.

In trying to describe the unexpected break and counterintuitive spin of P.J. Walters’ best pitch — the reason he’s climbed three levels this season — a few Cardinals officials fell just short of calling it a trick pitch.

It might look like one. It may veer like one. But …

“It’s not a screwball,” Walters said earlier this season. “It’s just my changeup. I don’t throw a screwball.”

Goold also confirms what I’ve heard others say who’ve seen him, he’s a real soft-tosser, topping out sitting at 87. AA should make or break him with that velocity. Regardless, 143 K’s to 33 walks in 137.2 professional innings is something to call home and tell your mother about. Perhaps with that sort of pinpoint control and his bag of tricks he can survive.

At this point I would like to gloat and remind you all I pegged him as a sleeper before the season got started. Even I get it right sometimes. Root for him.

Daily Prospect Report 7/26/07

erik has a summary below of the early returns on the 2007 draft class.

Long intro tonight w/ a lot of news.  Catch it all after the jump.

Early Returns

Of course it’s far too early to judge a draft by the first month and a half, but for fun let’s take a look at some of the early returns on some of the Cardinal draftees and see some of the early surprises and disappointments.

• Clayton Mortensen– I was surprised as most of you were that the Cards took Mortensen in the supplemental round, but so far he’s acquitted himself rather nicely. In 20 innings pitched for Batavia, Mort struck out 27.7% of the batters he faced and had a nifty 72% ground ball rate. He did struggle a bit with walks (11). Since promoted to the Swing he has a 5.63 ERA in just 8 innings, but he’s struck out 9 and walked just 1 batter, and has a crazy BABIP against of .542. Carlos Gomez gave him a favorable review, and I’m liking the pick far more then I thought I would. He also came $205K under slot.
• David Kopp – Earlier landed on the DL with an ankle injury, only pitched 4 innings so far. A sinkerballer, 17 of the 19 balls put in play against him have been grounders.
• Jesse Todd – He’s struck out 30% of the batters he’s faced and has a 59% ground ball rate over 35.2 innings for Batavia. One of my favorite picks of the draft, he’s probably ready for the next level.
• Daniel Descalso – From day one I said this was a totally insane overdraft, and Descalso is proving me right so far. He has one XBH in 118 at bats and a .501 OPS for Batavia. While you could say his BABIP of .235 is unlucky, he’s killing worms, hitting the ball on the ground 60% of the time when he puts it in play, and has a lowly 12% line drive rate. On the plus, he hasn’t struck out much so I expect some progression. Did I mention it was early? No need to call him a total bust yet, but he needs to figure out how to hit with wood. I just don’t see why they picked him so high when scouts saw him in the 6th to 10th round. Xanadu.
• Thomas Eager – I’m thinking as a general rule of thumb, the Cardinals need to stop looking at Cal Poly pitchers. Gary Daley has been hurt, but hasn’t really done anything that special when healthy. Eager has a 4.65 FIP in 25 IP thus far, not that great so far pitching for Batavia.
• Oliver Marmol -He has 10 errors in 26 games and an OPS of .583 for Batavia. I don’t want Oliver Marmol, just enough for my pancakes.
• Deryk Hooker – So far, so good. For the GCL team, he has 23 K’s and just 3 walks over 16 innings. One of the few high school picks, glad he’s doing well so far.
• Beau Riportella – In case you didn’t know, Beau knows baseball. Beau also has a posse. He must be pretty fast, because he’s hitting the ball on the ground 57% of the time yet is hitting .356. Turns 20 next month, and while he’s doing well on the surface, his periphs are not that exciting, low ISO .115 and walk rate 6.3%. He still is a pretty interesting pick to me, given the scouting reports of his speed and fielding ability.
• Steve Hill – Easily one of my favorite picks, Hill was off to a great start for Batavia, posting a 1.203 OPS in 45 plate appearances. Hit somewhat of a wall for the Swing as of a late, but still slugging .480. Now if they could find him a position.
• Josh Dew – Has struck out 27.4% of the batters he’s faced out of the bullpen while walking just 3 batters in 12 appearances.
• Charles Fick – Has a 1.29 ERA, but a 3.61 FIP. 69% ground ball rate and is missing bats. Our nepotism claims have been shot to shreds, at least so far.
• Arnoldi Cruz – Solid line drive rate and ISO support the numbers on the surface thus far. The man, the myth, the legend. Arnoldi Cruz once scissor kicked Chuck Norris into Narnia.
• Nick Derba – 1.121 OPS for QC. 23% line drive rate and and 18.4% walk rate at 2 levels so far.

There are others that missed mention; DeJesus and Hage to name a couple. These are just some of the early standouts and laggards. De-slacko could start to tear it up and guys like Derba could fall off the face of the earth, and few would notice.

Notable MIAs:

Kozma, who signed almost a week ago and has yet to play a game, as well as Kyle Russell, Mike Stutes, Tyler Henley, Brett Zawacki, Adam Reifer (who has signed, just hasn’t played, probably because he had bone spurs removed from his elbow earlier this year…will he need TJ, too?) 1b C. J. Zeigler and RHP Dan Thomas. Just playing the waiting game with the way that MLB has put the kibosh on handing out crazy bonuses like Jolly Ranchers, hopefully most of these guys will come into the fold by Aug. 15th if they aren’t in already.

Be Walt for a day

With the trade deadline approaching, I thought I’d steal John Sickels’ schtick (Sickelschtick…is that a candy?) a little bit and have a little mid-day conversation starter. You’re the Cardinal GM. You have the Brewers who have built a strong core from within and the Cubs who are willing to spend, spend, spend to contend with. You have an owner who is wanting to stay competitive yet thrifty and a veteran team that has imploded. What moves do you make? What prospects in other systems of potential trade partners are you interested in?

And try to be realistic! This isn’t fantasy baseball!

Daily Prospect Report 7/25/07

The man. The mystery. The Legend. ARRRRRRRRNOLDI CRUUUUUUUZ. Quick quote from the article:

[Quad Cities manager Keith] Mitchell said Cruz’s quick cruise through the Cardinals’ system likely will stop in the Quad-Cities for the remainder of this season.

I was kind of wondering if he might fill in at Palm Beach for Allen Craig but it looks like Quad Cities is going to have to try and contain him.

Slow news day other than that. I don’t even have any fluff pieces to feed you. Tragic. Quad Cities was off tonight. Rick Ankiel goes boom (has he done that before — I can’t remember. . .). Trey Hearne gets lit up. Batavia pitchers remind us that the whole team isn’t terrible (just a large portion of it).