It was just one bad day, right?

Yesterday was an ugly day for the Cardinals, losing 20-6 to the Dodgers.  My man in Jupiter described the scene as “pathetic”.  The good news is that Brian Barton continues to make a strong case for making the team.  He went 2-3 yesterday with a triple.  Colby Rasmus (who really needs a good nickname, if you ask me) went 1-2 with a double and a run, and Joe Mather went 1-2 with an RBI single and a run scored. 

 On the pitching side of the prospect ledger, Mark Worrell went one inning and gave up two hits, one a homerun, and walked a man.  His spring ERA is now at 6.00, which puts a damper on my hopes that he would make the club out of Spring Training.  Blake Hawksworth gave up three runs in two innings of work, but struck out five Dodgers. 

 Today, Clayton Mortenson started because Anthony Reyes has flu-like symptoms.  I will be in Florida starting on Wednesday, so I will be reporting back on what I see with pictures and words.

Camp chirps

With it being spring training time, there are all kinds of nuggets that were getting from our terrific beatwriters Matthew Leach and Derrick Goold. Here’s some nuggets coming from Leach today.

Prospect Profile: Blake Hawksworth

Blake Hawksworth’s baseball career has been a roller coaster ride, to be sure.

A peak at peak translations part 4: pitchers

As promised, we will now take a look at Clay Davenport’s Peak Translations for pitchers. This gets into a little more precarious ground, as pitcher projections are much hazier then projecting hitters, as pitchers can be pretty volatile lot.

6/3/07 Daily Prospect Report

2 more draft and follow picks were signed today.

I happened to miss mentioning this over the weekend, but Colby Rasmus was named the organizational player of the month. Colby hit .340/.439/.699 for the month. P.J. Walters was named the pitcher of the month. He has a 0.88 ERA in 30.2 innings. He struck out 27.4% of the batters he faced and had a ground ball rate of 71%. He only walked 4.3% of the batters he faced. Those are some impressive numbers.

Colby was also named the Topps Texas League Player of the Month.

Derrick Goold has a profile of Daryl Jones, whom the Cardinals are currently preaching patience with. Says his manager Keith Mitchell-

“It’s there. You can see it. You can see the tools. His defense can improve. His batting can improve. It hasn’t clicked yet. When it does click for him, you’ll see a big difference and he’ll move fast.”

lboros has an interview with Blake Hawksworth, who’s speaking some very La Russian language about “competing” and the “mental aspect of the game”. Look tomorrow for an interview with Adam Ottavino and more on the war over the 2-seamer.

Memphis 7, Las Vegas 14

It’s time for these journeymen AAAAers to journey elsewhere. Randy Keisler allowed 7 runs in 4 innings. He allowed 2 home runs.
Chris Lambert allowed 3 runs on 3 hits. Please God, let’s hope the Cardinals make a good #1 draft pick.
Dennis Dove allowed 2 runs on 5 hits, including a solo HR in just 1 inning of work. His ERA is now up to 5.28. His stock is slipping…
Rick Ankiel went 2 for 5 with 2 strikeouts.
John Rodriguez went 2 for 5 with a double.
Edgar Gonzalez 2 for 4 with a walk.
Mike McCoy went 2 for 5 with a HR.
Rico Washington went 2 for 4 with a double.
Skip Schumaker also went 2 for 4 with a double.

Springfield was off today.

Palm Beach 11, Clearwater (Phillies) 5

Mark Hamilton went yard three times. He drove in 6 and went 3 for 4 overall, plus he drew a walk. He’s hit 5 homers in his last 3 games. He’s now raised his OPS to .878, adjusted for park and that’s .925.
Adam Daniels allowed 4 runs on 9 hits and a walk with 8 strikeouts in 6 innings. He had 7 ground ball outs to just 2 flies.
Dan Nelson went 2 for 4 to extend his 12 game hitting streak.
Ian Church went 2 for 4 with a double.

Quad Cities and Wisconsin was rained out.

A brief history of Blake Hawksworth

 

In light of some recent events, we could be seeing top pitching prospect Blake Hawksworth a lot sooner then later. I am certainly not excited about the circumstances around all that, but it’ll be nice to see the possessor of the James Bondsian movie moniker in real life form. Here’s a brief history of “the Hawk”.

• A live arm out of high school and a consensus 1st round draft pick, he fell to the 28th round in 2001 when his commitment to Cal State Fullerton was seen as a pretty big hurdle in getting him signed. Too cool for school, he was signed for nearly $1.5 as a draft and follow pick and made his debut at age 19.
• He impressed in his first season in rookie ball, putting up  a 3:39 K/BB ratio and an ERA of 3.14 as a 19 years old.
• He was even more impressive in his sophomore season in 2003, with a 4.75 K/BB ratio and a FIP ERA of 1.83 in 10 starts of low class A ball. Promoted mid season to Palm Beach, he continued to strike out a batter per inning, and his FIP ERA was 3.29 over 6 starts. Then things took an ugly turn.
• Hawksworth was shut down in July of that ’03 season to have a bone spur removed in his ankle.
• In ’04 he appeared in only two games for high Class A Palm Beach in 2004 before undergoing surgery to repair a partially torn labrum.  He missed the rest of the season.
• In ’05 he returned late in the season, pitching 14 innings and he couldn’t get any one out in the NY Penn, posting a 7.98 ERA and walking 10 batters. I guess I shouldn’t have said he couldn’t get anyone out, he did strike out 10. It was encouraging to see him get back on the mound, and after missing all that time the rust was expected.

That brings us to last season, in which we saw the prospect status of Hawksworth return.  He didn’t really dominate his first season back at Palm Beach, but he kept runs off the board with his 2.47 ERA over 84 innings. He only struck out 5.9 per 9 innings, but his demonstrated good control with a BB/9 rate of 2.05. His FIP was a healthy 2.78

Promoted to Springfield, his K/9 rate jumped up to a more healthy 7.46. On the negative, his walk rate jumped up to 3.5. His FIP was a 4.09 over 13 starts. It was a good return for Blake in that while velocity didn’t return to the 95 mph range, he started to max out at 92 and his terrific change up was still there. Best of all, he pitched 160 innings with no ill effects.

If he does in fact make a start this week, personally I wouldn’t expect the world of him. He has good command of his fastball more often then not, but it’s more in the 88-90 mph range now. Like I said, he can dial it up to 92 on a good day. His changeup is his best pitch, and his curve is average at best. Coming up, he looked like a possible #1, #2 starter. Now he profiles more as a bottom of the rotation pitcher. I’ve read from Goold that some in the org say he’s comparable to Suppan. He really would benefit more from a season at AAA, but sadly the Cardinals may not have that luxury for a while.

For what it’s worth, here’s a couple of his projections:

CHONE: K/9 5.27, BB/9 4.11, HR/9 1.16, FIP 5.20, 70 IP

ZiPS: K/9 5.01, BB/9 3.68, HR/9 1.02, FIP 4.79, 176 innings.

My New Top Ten

In light of recent developments which I’ll discuss in a bit, here’s my latest “Top 10”, take it for what it’s worth:

1. Colby Rasmus
2. Jaime Garcia
3. Chris Perez
4. Bryan Anderson
5. Blake Hawksworth
6. Adam Ottavino
7. Jon Jay
8. Tyler Greene
9. Dennis Dove
10. Cody Haerther

Rasmus and Garcia are still on top, Chris Perez soars up to #3. Reason being is the early word is he’s hitting 95 on the gun already in camp, and I read a very nice review from Carlos Gomez at BTF, who’s opinion I respect.

I’m higher on Bryan Anderson now then I was before due to his high UPSIDE scores and some good comps, though I’m worried about him contracting “young catcher stagnation syndrome” at some point.

Jon Jay goes to #7, but I still like him like him quite a bit. He’s in the Memphis camp right now, which shows me the Cardinals are quite serious about promoting him aggressively. We’ll see how he fares against stiffer competition. In case you missed it, Jeff Albert broke down his swing at VEB.

Dove shoots way up after making a very favorable impression in camp thus far, flashing a 97 mph 2 seamer. That begs me to ask- how fast he could throw a 4 seamer? Has he tried to throw it? I didn’t know he worked exclusively with the 2 seamer, you’d think he’d have at least a slightly higher GB% then 40% at Palm Beach. With the loss of Kinney, I’m rooting for Dove to break camp with the big club. Thus far he’s shown pretty good poise and command, and the Cardinals certainly could use a power arm in the pen.

Notably now off the list is Mark McCormick. McCormick has to undergo shoulder surgery to repair some debridement, and that ain’t good being that his main asset is his ability to throw hard. Without velocity, he’s nothing, we’ll have to see if he can rebound. Narrowly missing is Daryl Jones. I had a hard time shuffling between Jones, Hamilton and Haerther, but in the end it came down to Haerther having done more at higher levels. I guess I’m not all that high on Jones compared to others, his athletic ability gives him a high ceiling, but until he converts those tools into game usable skills I’m not super excited about him.

Detwiler Watch 3/10/07 and other stuff on Hawk, Ottavino and Perez

Ross Detwiler wasn’t quite as sharp as his usual self yesterday against the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. He pitched 7.1 innings, striking out 7 of the 29 batters he faced, but he also allowed 4 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks. 2 of the runs were charged as earned. He also threw a wild pitch with runners on the corners, allowing a run to score. Missouri state was blanked, 4-0.

Matt Leach has a profile of the return of Blake Hawksworth.

Fanhome has an interview with play by play man David Kelly of the Memphis Redbirds.

Why didn’t I see this before? The chadbradfordwannabee of Bullpen Mechanics has his reviews on Chris Perez and Adam Ottavino based on their scouting videos at MLB.com:

On Ottavino:

I don’t see the “aggressiveness” that he has on the mound on his video. Decent arm action, but doesn’t use his body well enough for my liking. As a safe, polished pick, then he’s Ok. I don’t see massive upside with this pick, but I can see him dominate the lower levels before he plateaus at AA.

Grade: C+

Ottavino’s had a terrific start in the New York-Penn League with a 1.46 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 24 2/3 innings for State College.

On Perez:

Quick, powerful, compact arm action. I love this pick at 42. Good intent to throw. Gets out in front well enough. Like how late he breaks his hands.

Grade: B+

Perez has a 1.59 ERA in 6 relief appearances for the Quad Cities Swing.

Gomez goes on to rank put the pitchers in his own draft order based on talent, and has Perez at 14 and Ottavino at 32. Pretty bearish on overall for Ottavino and quite bullish re: Perez.

That’s all for now…

Prospects Ranked by Projected VORP

1.  Jon Jay
2. Colby Rasmus
3. Jaime Garcia
4. Cody Haerther
5. Tyler Greene
6. Chris Narveson
7. Nick Stavinoha
8. Chris Perez

These are not necessarily how these prospects would rank in the organization, this is just how PECOTA judges their recent work to project how well the player would fare in the majors.

• Jon Jay and Colby Rasmus were separated by only one tenth of a point, though I’m sure we all agree that Rasmus has the higher ceiling. It’s pretty exciting that projects so well already. One of Rasmus’s top comps is the oft-rumored to be traded Lastings Milledge of the Mets’ system. Jay’s projected VORP was higher than any left fielder without major league experience. PECOTA thinks he could nearly hit .300 in the majors next year.
• Jaime Garcia’s projected VORP is higher then any other Cardinal starter not named Carpenter, Wainwright and Reyes (and Jeff Weaver, should he resign.) PECOTA believes Garcia would be a more valuable starter then Mark Mulder and Kip Wells by a full win above replacement.
• Cody Haerther’s VORP is about the same as Juan Encarnacion’s and higher then Preston Wilson’s.
• Despite his hacky-ness, Tyler Greene isn’t a full win less then Adam Kennedy and David Eckstein. That bodes well for his future, however one of his top comps was John Nelson, the soon to be 28 year old and two true outcome SS for Memphis, also a recent September call up.
• The rest: Narveson, Stavinoha and Perez are closer to replacement level.  Chris Perez is on the fast track and should be promoted aggressively. As a reliever, he doesn’t need to learn 2 or 3 new pitches like a starter, he just needs to get a little more experience. I expect Stavinoha to improve after being slowed by an ankle injury last season. Narveson is probably as big league ready as he’ll ever be. If he doesn’t make the team out of spring training, he’ll be exposed to waivers. Considering he’s a long shot to make the rotation and  the Nats are desperate for pitching, why not flip Narvie for Church straight up? It’s not like they are going to suddenly like Ryan Church. I’d hate to lose him for nothing.

Also of note- Tagg Bozied, who was signed as a minor league free agent and is the owner of the best name ever is very close to Haerther’s projected VORP. Top prospects Bryan Anderson and Daryl Jones were forecasted way below replacement level, they are still pretty far from reaching their ceilings. Hawksworth, Lambert, Ottavino and McCormick were all forecasted to be below replacement level. Ex-Cardinal prospect Daric Barton’s projection wasn’t all that hot. I can’t say the same for Dan Haren.

ZiP-id-ee-doo-dah

Even with new baby born, suprisingly I find myself unable to sleep tonight, so I may as well blog.  Dan Szymborski has his latest ZiPS projections out for the Cardinals, I found some of it interesting as far as some of the minor leaguers go.

• The Cardinals are looking for another outfielder, but they may already have one with Ryan Ludwick. He projects a .247/.316/.459 batting line, not great, but his presence doesn’t make resigning Preston Wilson seem like a wise move.
• Stavinoha projects to be every bit as ‘valuable’ as Preston Wilson. Can’t wait to see what he does this year when healthy.
• Andy Cavazos’s projected ERA is 4.28, a hair under Russ Springer’s projection. That bullpen is getting pretty crowded.
• Troy Cate projects to be a run better then Tyler Johnson and every bit as good as the recently re-upped Randy Flores. He’s doing a great job for Matzaltan in the Mexican Winter League right now as a starter, it’ll be interesting to see what role the Cardinals put him in this spring.
• Blake Hawksworth deserves a good look this spring, though I think he could benefit for some more seasoning in AAA. ZiPS has him at a 4.81 ERA over 29 starts, pretty close to Mulder’s projection, only of course more starts. It’s kinda funny, it took Hawksworth almost 2 seasons to recover from shoulder surgery and it’s about halfway safe to say he’s come fully back. He’s lost some of the zip on his fastball, but the rest of the goods remain. The Cardinals are gambling Mulder will make a quicker recovery then Hawksworth. That’s understandable, Mulder’s shoulder injury wasn’t as bad, but I wouldn’t be totally shocked if Hawksworth outpitches Mulder over the next 2 seasons.
• Somewhat to my suprise, Chris Narveson and Dennis Dove don’t really project all that well, both ERA’s well over 5.
• Not to my suprise, Stu Pomeranz, Eric Haberer and Chris Lambert project to be decroded pieces of crap. (Forgive the Nap Dynamite ref)

New additions to the 40 man roster

The Cardinals made a few roster moves, waiving bub-bye to Larry Bigbie and Carmen Cali, and adding Blake Hawksworth,Cody Haerther, Dennis Dove and Troy Cate to the 40 man roster.

One of the names of that list that really intrigued me is 26 year old Troy Cate. Cate was a 6th round draft pick in Seattle’s system as left handed starter and was switched to relieving mid career. He posted high strikeout ratios but had struggles with his command. He also was suspended for steroid use in ’05. Since coming over to the Cardinals, Cate’s been a dominant lefty reliever, with a 4:1 strikeout ratio and holding batters to a .127/.214/.206 line in 2006 between Palm Beach and Springfield. He has a decent fastball, but his curveball is his out pitch. He’s likely to start the season in AA, but if he continues to pitch this well he could be a September call up.

Another name of interest is Dennis Dove. Dove is 25, old to have been pitching in most of his season in A ball. Drafted in ’03, he was switched from starting to relieving and has really taken to it, striking out 56 and walking 13 in 52 innings for Palm Beach. He was called up late July to AA, where he struggled with his command, walking 8 in just 14 innings, but still struck a batter an inning (15). He allowed 6 homeruns in that short time, awful. He then went on the the AFL and posted a 1.93 ERA in 6 appearances. In a free article at Scout.com, Ray Mileur recounts of seeing Dove hit 103 mph on the generous Springfield radar gun. With that type of velocity, you can see why the Cards protected him from the Rule 5 draft.