Chris Perez called up

It’s official. Perez up, Izzy to the DL, down with Charlie Brown’s Disease. Hat tip to cardsfan1, who called this last weekend.  I usually save transactions like this for the DFR’s, but Perez to St. Louis is a relatively big deal.

Daily Farm Report – 5/15/08

This article indicates that the Cardinals will either be putting Isringhausen on the DL or possibly designating him for assignment. I would imagine that he would clear waivers at this point and his comments seem to indicate that he would accept a minor league stint to find a cure for what ails him. The corresponding roster move would almost certainly be to bring Chris Perez to St. Louis for his first major league experience, since that was the plan for about a half an hour a few days ago before minds were changed. I am sad to see Izzy struggle, because he has given us some good times, but I am really excited to see Perez in The Show.

As mentioned in the comments, Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus had some nice things to say about Jess Todd in an article today. The article is subscriber only, but I’m not sure about this audio interview on BP with John Abbamondi, Cardinals AGM. Elsewhere, Kary Booher has the details of the Cory Rauchenberger retirement and Mark McCormick‘s promotion to Springfield.

The system went 4-1 on the night, with Springfield’s seventh loss in a row as the only blemish on the evening. All the details are after the jump.

Walking the line

I wanted to check the theory on how indifferent the Cardinals have been towards walks when it comes to their early round draft picks, chiefly college pitchers. I find puzzling as to why the any team would take numerous chances with college players with wobbly control. If you’re gonna gamble on upside, you would think that would be on a few more high school pitchers, as presumably they are more impressionable and pliable. You’d also have to think it would be more challenging to attempt to correct the flaws of a more established college pitcher that’s already enjoyed a measure of success rather then an 17 or 18 year old kid. It seems like a method to stockpile the minors with future relievers, not starters. Anyway, here are the BB/9 numbers for players taken in Luhnow drafts. The #’s are their final college season. Yes, 2004 is included, although Luhnow wasn’t fully in charge of the draft at that time, his stamp is indelibly on it:

Final Impressions from Jupiter, Part One

My week at Spring Training is over, but my sunburn should last another week or so. I wasn’t able to post as often as I would have liked due to my computer situation (borrowed) and my schedule (Mrs. roarke). Regardless, I have several hundred pictures of various Cardinals players and prospects – I’ll post some with my impressions after the jump.

First Impressions

My first day in Jupiter afforded me the opportunity to get a first hand look at some of the prospects we write about for the first time.  My first impressions are after the jump.

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.

Mechanically inclined

Goold had some pretty interesting stuff to report out of camp the other day. Several of the Cards pitching prospects are at camp early, watching video, doing long toss and working with the new roving pitching instructor Brent Strom. Those pitchers are Garcia, Ottavino, Perez, Boggs, Mortensen and Walters- which also says something about their prospect status. One of the things that really caught my attention the work being done by Michael Witte, an on-staff consultant. Witte is not an ex-player, he’s just a fan. Doing a little googling, I found this article about him in the New Yorker. Witte is an illustrator by profession. Bored by his normal routine, he started going through old videos of games that featured Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, and Tom Seaver and felt he found common denominator in their mechanics and what helped them become so successful. He started sending his findings to the Cardinals, and eventually they came around on some of his theories. Sounds like our own version of Chris O’Leary or Carlos Gomez.

While I believe a good pitching coach worth his weight in salt ought to be able to find mechanical flaws in pitchers, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of utilizing video and finding what durable pitchers like Gibson and Seaver did to be successful and not fall apart while doing it. If many of our modern day pitching coaches already understood it, we wouldn’t see so many promising young players have their careers shipwrecked by injury. I’m glad the Cards have an open mind to this sort of stuff. And I’m liking what I hear about Strom’s desire to not make everyone cookie cutter. Adam Ottavino’s remarks show he’s pretty enthused. Maybe I’m reaching a bit here, but it sounds like they are willing to allow him to be himself instead of force-feeding him sinkerballism. With the changes in coaching staff and the new emphasis on “classic mechanics”, could it be the Cardinals are changing in philosophies? Just musing here…

…after typing that last sentence or two, I did a little more googling, this time on Strom. He is an ex-MLB pitcher, but what intrigued me was his work at Ron Wolforth’s Baseball Ranch. I actually heard an interview by Will Carroll with Wolforth on BP’s podcast a week or so ago; it was interesting stuff. Looking at their rather ugly website, they have some pretty out of the ordinary ideas. They emphasize going retro. In their own words they teach a pitching style that is “up-tempo, dynamic, athletic, free, non-choreographed, and individually unique movements of Hall of Fame pitchers such as Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, Dizzy Dean, and Fergie Jenkins.” They have an accent on long-tossing to build arm strength and preach a paradigm shift in coaching, stressing freedom and allowing pitchers to use their athleticism rather then trying to be robots. There are certain elements they are looking for, and they are all for making some adjustments, but they aren’t in the cloning business.

I don’t know about you, but I’m digging this. While Koufax and Dean aren’t the poster boys of mechanical success given their relatively short careers, I like the freedom they are giving their pitchers and am excited for Ottavino in particular. We may witness some breakouts this season.

[update: DG has even more info on the relationship of Strom and Witte at his blog.]

Prospect Profile: Chris Perez

There’s not much to say about Chris Perez that we really don’t already know, but hey…it’s winter and pitchers and catchers are still a few weeks away from reporting, so what the hey…

Caravanning

The Cardinals Caravan has been making it’s way across the midwest, and some of the local papers have picked up on a few tidbits here and there.

Right-Handed Relief Prospect Battle Royale

I’ve developed something of an obsession with our relief prospects as of late. It’s to the point that I’m going to come out hard and fast against (virtually) any free agent relief signing in the next few seasons. There’s just too many good relievers at the upper levels of the system to continue dumping money on mediocre middle relief for the veteraness.

This isn’t a stats post and it’s meant to be more fun and help to draw comparisons and contrasts between the relievers. If someone wants to argue any of the rankings, there are several I could be persuaded on. The table that follows has 5 different ratings: Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Great. You could probably read those as fringe, marginal, average, above-average and plus if you wanted terms that sound more baseballee.

Prospect Stew

A couple of items to mull over for you this Sunday.

A Q&A by Derrick Goold with Chris Perez and Joe Mather. The players are watching the changes in the front office as much as we are as fans:

Q: Do you guys pay attention to what seems like a change in direction in this organization? Chris you haven’t been around the organization as long, but Joe I think you know that three years ago maybe these opportunities aren’t there. Do you guys notice that?

Mather: Absolutely. I think more so probably at our level than the guys in the big leagues. It has a direct effect on that. Mozeliak is a great guy and we kind of came up with him as well. Same with a couple managers. … Definitely we keep tabs on what’s going on.

Q: So, do you see an opportunity that wasn’t there three years ago?

Mather: Yes. Absolutely. Just look at our Springfield team. Take that for example – how young we were there. I think that’s kind of going all the way up. Memphis will be young. Obviously, St. Louis will be young. It’s proven. The Brewers won. The D’backs won. It can work. I think it’s good for all of us in that sense.

Kary Booher has the coaching staffs for the farm system next year. A part of me wishes that Derrick May would have moved up with guys like Mather and Hoffpauir who give him a lot of credit for retooling their swings. Blake IIlsey moves up to Memphis from Springfield replacing Dyar Miller. Joe Almarez will be back coaching Johnson City again. I imagine he’ll still be scouting before the season and the amateur draft.

Jump over to Minor League Ball to read John Sickel’s take on PJ Walters. He has Walters fastball about 3mph faster than what I’ve heard it listed at. I’m just not going to be able to get on that bandwagon. He’s going to have to prove himself at every level given his reported velocity — 85mph fastballs don’t typically play in the majors.

Texas League Top 20

Finally, BA gets to the cache of Cardinal prospects. Springfield was the hotbed for redbird talent and hopefully we can look back on this group in a few years as the force that revitalized the big league team. The Cardinals walk away with no less than 5 players on this top 20 list and I’ll recap them in reverse order (not that you should be in particular suspense about who was the best).