Scouting Jason Motte

I sat down to take a look at a couple of Motte’s outings. I’ve probably watched Motte throw about 10 innings on video so far this year so I’m pretty familiar with him. I charted the pitches from 6/8 & 6/10 to see whether he’s made any adjustments over the course of the season. The 6/8 outing was excellent where Motte strikes out 4 hitters allowing just a double to JR Towles. The 6/10 game left a little more to be desired. I’ll talk about that more at the end but let’s get the pitch sequence and notes out of the way.

Prospects by Position: Catchers

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the prospects currently in the Cardinals system and that the Cardinals have developed (or failed to develop) over the past five years or so on a position-by-position basis to take a closer look at the strengths and weaknesses of the system. The first position we’ll look at is catcher, which has become a strength in the last few years after producing a starter at the major league level and a top prospect that is getting close to the big leagues. The full breakdown of the position is 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.

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.

BA talks up redbird relievers

Chris Kline of BA talks about the Cardinal relief prospects in his latest edition of Prospect Pulse, specifically Kyle McClellan, Jason Motte and Mark Worrell. (Subscription)

On to the blurbage-

Mesa Solar Sox – November 6th

(Note: this has been in the hopper for a while — since before Christmas I think — so if it has outdated references, please ignore them.)

Remember when the Arizona Fall League was going on? I’ve had this sitting on my list of things to do for a while and finally managed to watch the November 6th game which is available for free. It’s been a rather slow week for me so I grabbed a cold one, kicked back and watched a game in December — a nice Christmas present for me! If you can stand some bland announcers and the worst camera work this side of FOX’s diamond cam, the game is worth a watch.

The game features Stu Pomeranz as the starting pitcher for the Mesa Solar Sox. If you remember, he missed all of last year due to injury but was sent to the AFL to get some innings in. He pitches three complete innings before putting the first two batters on base in the 4th. Before I discuss him, a couple of players that caught my eye but that I have only a cursory knowledge of:

• I was impressed with Elvis Andrus fielding at SS. Don’t know a thing about him but he seemed to do very well transfering the ball from his glove and making strong accurate throws to first.
• LaPorta has a very nice swing but he’s a butcher in LF.
• Chris Lubanski (who was available in the Rule V draft but not chosen) looked like a decent hitter but I wasn’t particularly impressed.

Moving on…

40 man roster updated

Per Kary Booher:

Jarrett Hoffpauir, Jason Motte, Kyle McClellan, Mark Worrell and Mike Parisi have all been added to the 40 man roster. That will leave Matt Scherer and Stuart Pomeranz exposed, and I doubt either will be drafted in the upcoming Rule 5 draft that will be held at the end of the winter meetings.

Booher seems pleasantly surprised Motte was added to the 40 man, I would’ve been surprised if he wasn’t on.

Update: Per the Birdhouse, Cavazos and Falkenborg were released. Also of note, Troy Cate found a home, signing a minor league contract with Oakland.  

Questions for Derrick Goold

The apprised Mr. Goold of the Post Dispatch has agreed to answer 10-15 questions from the stupendous readers of FR. Goold knows the Cardinal farm system as he also writes about the Cardinal Prospects monthly at Baseball America, as well as he comes up with the annual top thirty in their annual publication. AZ and I call dibs on the first five or so.

In the comments, let me know what you’d like to know and I’ll forward your requests on to Derrick.

Speaking of Goold, he recently interviewed Jason Motte, who talks about thinking like a catcher on the mound, amongst other things

DG: Have you started thinking like a pitcher?

JM: Catching in pro ball and working with the coaches and some of the managers has really mentally prepared me for the games and taught me how to go after hitters, how to pitch to hitters. That has helped me, I think. But I think I still think like a catcher. I watch for how the hitter reacts, I read guys’ swings. I think like, If I was catching, what sign would I put down here. I still like to think as if I back there catching.

Pretty interesting perspective.

10 Things to Watch in 2007

As the new season draws ever so close, here’s 10 things I’ll be watching closely in the 2007 season:

1. How quickly can Colby adjust to AA? He was slow to get going both at the low and high A level last season. If he has a bad April I won’t worry too much, if he’s looking over matched after that I might start to worry a little.

2. Jaime Garcia’s strikeout rate. Garcia struck out a batter per inning for the Quad Cities, but only about 6 per 9 innings at Palm Beach. Reports were he was becoming too curve happy. Just reading Goold’s “Vuch Report”, early word is Garcia’s velocity is up a little this spring and he’s been getting lots of strikeouts in the exhibition games. Good news.

3. Chris Perez’s rapid ascension. He already pitched a nice inning this past Sunday, facing big leaguers Brian Roberts, Freddy Bynum and Melvin Mora, setting them down in order. He could now break camp at AA, with Sillman being his set up man. Watch his platoon split.

4. Speaking of platoon splits, watch Ottavino’s. 1.052 OPS against lefties at QC last season.

5. Bryan Anderson and “catcher fatigue syndrome” as John Sickels calls it. It can happen to any catcher, no matter how good he is. Just ask Jarrod Saltala…what’s his name.

6. Jon Jay. Lower minors all star or pro hitter? AA separates the men from the boys, and scouts and stat heads alike have their doubts about Jay despite his .342 average last season for QC.

7. Daryl Jones’s growth. For 2 seasons we’ve heard about his toolsiness, but now it’s time to see a little better results. He had a nice go at the Appy and all, I’m hungry for more.

8. Lambert. C’mon kid, no one likes to be remembered as a bust.

9. Tommy Pham. With a half decent season, he could surpass Jones’s prospect status as the resident “super tool-sy guy”. If he really hits, he could be a top 5er Cardinal in next years edition of the Baseball America Handbook. I won’t get too ahead of myself, just sayin’ is all.

10. Mark McCormick’s health. Can he come back from shoulder surgery and still throw in the high nineties?

Hey, rook!: Guys I wouldn’t be shocked to see get some MLB service time this season are Amaury “Bill Brasky” Cazana, Dennis Dove, Chris Perez and Brendan Ryan. Oh, and Rick Ankiel.

Terry Evans Award: Kooky prediction- Mike Ferris will wake up one day, find religion, learn to hit and get traded for a struggling pitcher who goes on to be a post season hero.

Hey, who’s that guy?: Jason Motte, ex-Yadier Molina-ish catcher (all arm/defense, no hit) now turned fireball reliever. He can hit 95 and has a surprising feel for his slider. Another who I guess has already surprised already, and could continue to do so: Nathan Southard.

Trade bait: Mark Hamilton. He’s not moving to the OF. As Gump has said, “that’s all I got to say about that.”

Meet your 2006 State College Spikes

 

Continuing the series of 2006 season wraps, it’s past time to go over the Spikes season. It turns out that it was the Cardinals’ lone rookie ball season at State College, but it was a memorable one.

The City: State College, PA. Pop. 38,420. Fun factoids about State College: Home of Penn State University, home of Joe Pa and the launching pad of half back Larry Johnson’s career. State College is referred to as Happy Valley, due to a study done by psychologists in the ’80’s where they ranked State College as one of the least stressful places to live in the U.S. (Serenity now!)

The Ballpark: Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, built directly across the street from Beaver Stadium, home of the Penn State football team. Park factor wise, it’s pretty neutral. Here’s a peak inside. 

The Team: The team went 39-36. 299 scored to 321 runs allowed, so their record is a bit deceiving. They were 6th out of 14 teams in OPS (.658) and were 12th in ERA (3.71) in a pitcher friendly league.

The Players: 17th round pick Nathan Southard exceeded everyone’s expectations. The outfielder from Tulane was 3rd in the league in slugging (.488), 6th in average (.306), 8th in OBP (.384) and 4th in RBIs (44). He also stole 16 bases, getting caught only twice. His main tool is his speed, but he opened some eyes with his pop.  Jim Rapoport led the league in stolen bases with 24, despite a low OBP (.306). He’s probably just a one trick pony.  Mark Hamilton, another Tulane standout, tied for the league lead in homeruns with 8. Hamilton ranked as the 12th best NY-Penn League prospect by Baseball America. The downside is that scouts say he has some rather large holes in his swing. Regardless, between Tulane, State College and QC he hit a total of 31 homeruns in ’06. 20 of those HR’s came at college, and it should be noted that Zephyr Field, where Tulane was forced to play due to Hurrican Katrina, is a very unfriendly ballpark for power hitters. After an impressive debut in ’05, AJ Van Slyke slugged only .376.

Eddie Degerman led the league in K/9 with 11.33. Lefty Brad Furnish finished 7th in the league in K’s with 68. After catching for nearly 4 seasons, Jason Motte switched from being an all glove, no-hitting catcher to pitching as a reliever and was met with relative success, striking 25 batters in 26 innings, walking only 4 and saving 8 games. Adam Ottavino made his impressive debut, striking out 26 batters in 29 innings, with a 3.14 ERA and was considered by BA the 8th best prospect in the league. Matt Lane was 7th in the league in WHIP with .97 and only walked 1.59 batters per 9. Gary Daley had a 3.28 ERA, striking out 64 in 74 innings, but was 3rd in the league in walks with 32. Scouts note Daley as having a strong arm; his fastball tops out at 96. Daley threw a 6 innings of 1 hit baseball on 7/8, and didn’t allow a homerun all season.