Looking for the DFR?

We’re moving in over here!!! The .com address will repoint there also automatically shortly, but in the meantime, head on over to futureredbirds.net.

Afternoon discussion: What would Holliday and Fuentes cost? Is it worth it?

I’m a little pressed for time today, but I about fell out of my chair when I read the Cardinals may be interested in Matt Holliday and Brian Fuentes. Mozeliak may be serious about overtaking the Cubs, and why wouldn’t he? The NL has been surprisingly soft this year, and as good as the Cardinals have been, it’s hard to envision them continuing to do as well as they have considering the career performances they are coaxing out of their players. But would the cost be worth it? I would think the price would have to start with Rasmus, Garcia and a few other lesser prospects. A package similar to what the Tigers sent to Florida for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis immediately comes to mind. 

I’m not advocating the deal, nor am I just dismissing it. At first blush, I’m not crazy about the idea at all, however. What do you all think? 

post ideas

I figure most of you come here for the DFR’s more than for anything else, but I like having afternoon post during the week, just to give you all something more to chew on. Lately, I’m running low on post ideas. Here’s what I have on tap:

• Update on prospects in either our Reader Top 25, or my own.
• A retrospective on Skip Schumaker.
• Perhaps my own updated rankings–Top 10 or 15 at the most.

I can’t promise I’ll take every suggestion, but if there is something you would like to see here, I’m all ears.

I could be out for a while

UPDATE: I may be around even more. It’s doubtful I lose power, and I have no idea when I’ll be going back to work right now. 

As I’m sure you already heard, there’s a lot of flooding in Cedar Rapids and really all over Iowa. Thank God, I live in a nice, dry and cozy place of town, but you never know how these things will effect power, cable and whatnot. Roarke and AZ will hold the fort down in my absence, I am sure. Hopefully, there will be no absence, because talking baseball would be a nice escape right now. It’s some pretty strange and sad times here now, but it’s awesome to see people come together as a community to help one another. And thankfully to this point despite all the devastation, I’ve not heard of any deaths. I just hope the towns can recover from this…it’s just unbelievable.

New!

I did it. I finally joined Facebook, after much resistance. And now I’m pleased to announce Future Redbirds Facebook group has just been just been created. Feel free to join. I do have to confirm you first, but it’s not like it’s stringent or anything.

Oh, by the way for those who may be wondering- I’m high and dry in the Cedar Rapids area right now, but as for downtown…it’s not looking good. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s my turn to go sit on the interstate and park for a little while.

Now back to your regularly scheduled DFR reading.

Friday draft discussion

Baseball America released their Top 100 draft prospects this past week. We’ve talked at length around here about who the Cardinals may pick with their 1st pick, but what about their other picks? Who on this list (or just other players that you may know of) do you think the Cardinals will draft? Who do you want them to draft?

I’ll just throw a few names out there I see as definite possibilities because of their ability to get the groundball-

Zach Putnam of Michigan, Tyson Ross of Cal, Carlos Gutierrez, the closer for Miami, Zach Stewart of Texas Tech, Josh Lindblom of Purdue and Stephen Fife of Utah.

A couple of guys I’d like them to draft but may be gone already by the time 39 rolls around is Brett Lawrie, a high school infielder from Canada and Tyler Ladensdorf, a Juco SS who’s putting up Nintendo numbers in the NJCAA. Ladensdorf seems like he can do it all, he’s just been doing it against inferior competition. Eric Thames, an OF of Pedderdine is another who could be a 2nd rounder that intrigues me.

1,000,000 served and counting

We hit a nice milestone today, 1 Mil hits since the blog started in late summer of 2006. Yippee.

Thanks to azruavatar, fewgoodcards and roarke for all their help here, they are a huge part of the success we’ve had. And thanks to everyone for reading and helping spread the word.

 

 

 

College Monday wrap-up 5/19

Crosschecker season is in full effect, and the top bats didn’t waste the opportunity as nearly all of them had big weekends. Brian Matusz and San Diego had the weekend off, and you have probably heard of the unfortunate injury to Tanner Scheppers. Aaron Crow and Christian Friedrich tried to capitalize and establish themselves atop the college pitching class. Only two more weekends before the draft. Check it all out inside.

April stat bag

Another idea I cooked up was having a monthly look at various stats. Nothing really orderly, just random statistical info on players. Thanks go to firstinning.com and baseball-reference.com.

Here’s the most hideous stat of the month is that Colby Rasmus has made 89 outs, tied for the 2nd most in all the minors, and just one behind the minor league leader Hainley Statia of the Arkansas Travelers.

Why did Colby make so many outs? Out of all the balls he put into play, only 2% of them were line drives. 40% were grounders, up from 28% last season. It appears that the Raz is hitting a stunning amount of lazy fly balls. One very positive stat is his walk per plate appearance rate-14.3%.

Jack Cassel Starts

You’ll remember way back last season when our starting rotation in the bigs was absolutely terrible, I went looking for some minor league talent that could help, basically for free.  My favorite of those three options was Jack Cassel who signed a minor league contract with Houston this past season after being released by the Padres.

Well he got called up today and turned in a decent performance.  Over 5 innings, he allowed 7 hits (1 double, 6 singles), walked no one and struck out 1.  It took him just 68 pitches (I don’t think he was streched out in the minors) and he retired 9 of 13 on the ground.  He was up against a decent Reds team (12th in OPS in the MLB) as well so it’s not like he just slayed the lowly Nationals or anything.

Basically the Astros picked up Brad Thompson on a minor league contract this offseason.  Don’t believe me, take a look at their numbers. (Cassel / Thompson)  Moderate strikeout guys with groundball tendencies and good command.  Neither are them are much better than replacement level as starters but the point is you should never ever pay more than league minimum for these types of players because they are littered around the league.  I’ll probably be keeping tabs on Cassel for the better part of this season just to see how he pans out.  Too bad Colby Lewis got shipped out to Japan. . .

Draft Signing Bonuses

One of the interesting things in the Baseball America Prospect Handbook is they have some brief writeups about each teams drafts including the total budget and the top 5 signing bonuses. The whole book is a great resource and a good read but I’m always drawn to numbers so these types of things stood out to me as I initially paged through it.

In 2003, the Cardinals had a budget of 2.8 million for their draft. From 2004 to 2005 that number rose to 3.2 and 5.6, respectively. There may be a knee-jerk reaction to associate the increased spending with an improved 2005 draft class but I’d be very hesitant to do that; it didn’t seem to help the infamous 2004 draft. In 2006 that number dipped to 4.2M.

Perhaps more interesting is the top 5 signing bonuses issued.

Questions for Aaron Crow

A poster who goes by the moniker of Balkroth happens to be a Mizzou grad student with some access to the team. The nation’s top college ace Aaron Crow agreed to answer a few questions. Please post what you’d like to be asked in the comments. Balkroth and I will harvest the best ones, and the interview will appear on the site later.

Thanks, and now back to your normally scheduled DFR.