Daily Farm Report – 6/4/08

[UPDATE: Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus is reporting that Buster Posey is asking for $12M and, therefore, the Rays will be selecting Tim Beckham first overall.  KG thinks that the number is posturing on Posey’s part and I happen to agree.  Frankly, I think the Rays should be taking either Beckham or Alvarez anyway.]

I haven’t had this much anticipation for the draft since… well, last year probably, but there is a little more of an edge to the excitement this year because of where we are drafting. To me, the big question is whether the slotting system is really on life-support, as many are reporting, and teams are going to take the best prospect, regardless of bonus demands. If that is the case, then I see the Cardinals taking someone like Friedrich who is considered good value for their spot. However, if the draft continues as it has in years past, the Cardinals are in a great spot to nab one of the top guys that drops because of signability concerns. There is always someone that falls further than anyone expected – the edge in my anticipation comes from the concern that the Cardinals will allow that player to get past them.

Let’s take a quick break from the draft-related hoopla and take a look at the guys already in the system. You will be returned to your regularly-scheduled programming shortly.

Kary Booher had an interesting article today about Mark McCormick‘s recovery from shoulder surgery and his outstanding start on Monday. Memphis had the day off and the rest of the system went 3-0 on the day, all the details are after the jump.

Checking in with BA’s Top 30 Cardinal Prospects: 1-10

Finishing up the series of looking at who BA ranked in their top 30 Cardinal prospects during before the season. Here is part one and two.

10. Daryl Jones- The Cardinals continue to preach patience with Jones, and at times he shows flashes of brilliance but the results are seriously lagging. He has just a .550 OPS thus far for the Swing and has 50 strikeouts in 201 at bats. I’ve seen him play, he does look like a scouts dream but so far he’s a statistical nightmare.

9. Josh Kinney- As you all know, he’s out with TJ surgery. And he lost his dog. He did just have his own bobblehead day at Springfield this week, so I guess that’s a good feeling.

8. Mark McCormick- Our own Rickie Vaughn is still out with a strained shoulder and is just starting a throwing program, according to Derrick Goold. If he still has his velocity, he’s valuable. Hopefully he’ll learn that ever important lesson of learning to be a “pitcher, not a thrower.” Darn cliches.

7. Adam Ottavino Ottavino has been pretty strong, striking out 25% of the batters he’s faced but the walks are still an issue, as he’s given up 29 walks in 59.2 innings. Perhaps Dan Nelson is a terrible 2nd baseman, because according to Ott’s batted ball chart at Firstinning.com, batters are hitting .333 against him on ground balls to Adam’s left. That’s not going to encourage him to throw sinkers. .333 also happens to be his opponents BABIP, no wonder he just wants to just strike guys out.

6. Bryan Anderson – He’s roughly done the same thing in Springfield that he’s did for the Swing last year. He still throws out base runners, has issues with passed balls, hits for good average but has limited power. He’s not a monster prospect, but at 20 years old he’s really doing something to be proud of is still a ways off from his ceiling. His .354 BABIP seems rather unsustainable but he hits lots of line drives and doesn’t strike out much, so his ability to hit for average is very real.

5. Jon Jay-Hurt his shoulder and re aggravated it promptly upon returning. Hit just .235/.333/.373 in 102 at bats, mostly due to a slow start in April but was starting to really heat up in May, hitting a 1.090 in 25 plate appearances. Hopefully he comes back soon, I fear he was vastly overrated based on what he did in low A last year.

4. Blake Hawksworth- Wow, he got hammered yesterday. Hawksworth has shown excellent control but his K/IP ratio dog low and is reason for alarm. His comeback last season was inspiring, but my gut feeling is he’s not a going to be much of a factor in the future. I hope I’m wrong.

3. Chris Perez- He’s striking out 38% of the batters he’s faced, pretty freakish. The strike against him is that he’s a severe fly ball pitcher and his walk rate is too high. In other words, he’s a Dave Duncan nightmare. He’s exciting, but makes things too exciting for his own good too often. Once he cuts those walks down, he’ll be major league ready. I’d like to image he’s destined for Memphis very soon.

2. Jaime Garcia- Not quite the extreme ground baller that he was in A ball, but his 56% ground ball rate at AA is still pretty good. When he gets the ball elevated, bad things happen, as he’s allowed 11 homers in 73.1 innings. There was some nail-biting after his strikeout rate dropped precipitously once being promoted to Palm Beach, but that has come back with a vengeance. Unfortunately, his walk rate has doubled along with the return of the K’s. Still, he’s 20, and he’s pitching in AA and doing a fine job. There’s a lot to like here.

1. Colby Rasmus- Very streaky. He hit his 12th homer last night, hopefully that’s a good omen. .734 OPS in April, 1.138 in May, .544 for June. Also just a .695 OPS against left-handers while he has a .901 OPS verses righties. Looking at this slump he’s in, he’s really had some tough luck. His BABIP is .205 while he’s hitting line drives 22% of the time. His ground ball rate went up some, and he’s doubled his K rate, so some things are his fault, too. I wonder about why he’s suddenly striking out so much, I hope it’s not because he’s been solved. Alright, enough hand-wringing, he’ll be fine. I don’t believe in jinxes, so I have no issues saying he was born to be a major leaguer, and at 20 years old he’s done some impressive things upon being promoted aggressively. Hopefully he can start catching some breaks and start waiting for hit pitch rather then hacking away.

Since we’re at the half-way point, here’s my own personal half time Top 30, without comments, just for fun.

1. Rasmus
2. Garcia
3. Anderson
4. Perez
5. Ottavino
6. Hawksworth
7. Herron
8. Mather
9. Ankiel
10. Hamilton
11. Shaun Garceau
12. Degerman
13. Tyler Greene
14. Stavinoha
15. Jones
16. Jay
17. McCormick
18. Buckman
19. Maiques
20. Jon Edwards
21. Craig
22. Pham
23. Walters
24. Boggs
25. Norrick
26. Marti
27. Furnish
28. Motte
29. Daniels
30. Worrell

I’m sure I’m overlooking someone here, just going off the top of my head late at night here.

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.”

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.

Weekend This and That: South of the Border

The Cardinals have signed 21 year old Mexican right handed reliever Fernando Salas from Saltilla of the Mexican League. Between the 2005 and 2006 season, including winter ball as a teammate of Troy Cate’s for Mazatlan, Salas has a 2.47 ERA in 97 innings. He struck out 88 and walked 41. He’ll be heading to AA.

Another former Mazatlan Deer is Hugo Castellanos, who will start the season in Memphis. Castellanos will turn 27 this season, he’s been in the Blue Jay, Devil Ray and Cub organizations at different points of his career as well the Mexican League. Castellanos has had problems with walks throughout his career, but gets lots of ground outs. Joe Strauss also mentioned the Cardinals signed Mexican teenager Angel Rivera, I wish I could say I knew more about him other then he’s headed for rookie ball.

Another Cardinals of Mexican descent quietly had one of the best seasons in the minors last year. Out of the Top 100 Prospect prospects at Baseball America, Jaime Garcia had the shared highest percentage of batters retired by K and ground out then any of the top ranked pitcher other then Phil Hughes, who he tied with 58%. Trailing those 2-Yiovani Gallardo, Adam Miller and Nick Adenhardt. That’s pretty nice company. He also had the highest percentage of all ground ball outs at 73%.

On Deck Baseball got around to ranking the Cardinal hitter and pitchers. For those of you not familiar with On Deck, they use stats and factor in age for level to rate prospects. I may not see eye to eye with some of the stats used in the system, but it’s interesting none the less. The system obviously puts a lot of value on youth, Jon Edwards and Daryl Jones were #2 and #4 ranked hitters, and Blake King came out as the #1 pitcher with Garcia following.

Matt Leach shares on Mike Sillman’s transformation into a submariner.

Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com has his Cardinal 2007 organizational report.

You know you’ve hit it big time when you get your own bobble head give-away day. Springfield-ians, don’t miss your chance to get your free Josh Kinney bobble head!

Bad news for Mark McCormick. He’s expected to miss at least half of the season after shoulder surgery.

Ross Detwiler pitched 7 scoreless innings against Middle Tennessee State, allowing only 2 hits and walking 3. He struck out 7 and 11 of his outs came via the ground.

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.