Future Redbirds

Jeff Luhnow, Vice President, Amateur Scouting and Player Development, in the midst of preparing for the draft and the dozens of other things that come with his hectic job, was kind enough to do a little Q and A with me over email. Thanks go to out to him for his thoughtful answers. Enjoy.

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Baseball Prospectus continued its ‘PECOTA Takes On…’ series with third base prospects today. This article is probably for subscribers only, but I think I can go so far as to mention that David Freese made the list as a “Very Good Prospect” (which is odd, because that list actually ranks below the list of “Good Prospects”). Allen Craig did not make the list at all. Both Freese (.284/.336/.480) and Craig (.284/.342/.493) are off to solid starts to the season and probably deserve a little more respect than PECOTA gave them based on their careers prior to this season. I imagine that Freese was downgraded in PECOTA because he had never played above high A before this season and he is 25 years old, but after skipping AA and mainting a solid performance in AAA I would imagine that criticism would fade. It is a little harder to understand why Craig would be overlooked by PECOTA, since he has hit at every stop and has been fairly age-appropriate for each level. Regardless, I think Freese and Craig are emblematic of the newfound depth in the system. The outfield isn’t the only position that is getting crowded with solid prospects in the upper levels.

This is a few days old, so I might have missed mention of it elsewhere, but here is a nice story/interview with the Cardinals minor league pitcher of the month for April, Jess Todd.

The system played four games tonight and all the details are after the jump. Read more »

Yesterday erik gave everybody a look at how he thinks the first 13 picks of the draft are going to go, and today I am trying to figure out the top 20 prospects available. We are about a month out, and while there is some consensus starting to develop with the college players, the high school group is still mostly up in the air.

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Kary Booher has an interesting story about Brandon Yarbrough, the man responsible for catching the up-and-coming pitching prospects in AA now that Bryan Anderson has moved up to Memphis. Yarbrough has aquitted himself well at the plate so far this season, putting up a .286/.375/.357 line in 80 plate appearances. It would be nice if he developed a little more pop in his bat, but as long as he continues to get on base at a decent clip and continues to play solid defense he provides value to the organization - even if his upside is as a backup catcher.

There were only three games for the system tonight, as Quad Cities was rained out. All the details are after the jump. Read more »

This mock draft I’m doing a little “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” version of the draft. The past two weeks I’ve heard different rumors on where certain prospects may land, what team is hot for what player, etc. in another Sisyphean attempt at the mock draft. Oh, the mock draft. How it mocks me.

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Jeff Luhnow was on Bernie Miklasz’s radio show, and highlights are posted here. A little sneak preview: Luhnow also was nice enough to agree to do some Q and A with me concerning some prospects and the upcoming draft, so be on the lookout for that later this week or so.

All sorts of draft stuff coming today: John Sickels ranks the top college hitters. Matt Blood of BA weighs Buster Posey against Gordon Beckham, two players Cardinal fans can forget about getting. Taj Adib, who blogs about the team that picks just before St. Louis, identifies several of the top players at each position, and he’s holding out hope for Kyle Skipworth or Tanner Scheppers. Brett Wallace is blogging about what it is like to be a draft prospect.  And Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com notes that unlike last year when there was a clear cut no brainer at #1, that’s not the case this year. Some scouting directors are less then thrilled with this year’s crop and I have to say I’m feeling the same way. I just don’t see a monster prospect falling into the Cardinals lap, not at 13.

“You had Price No. 1 last year, you don’t have any of those this year,” one scouting director said. “That’s obviously the drop off. [The Draft class] is pretty good. it’s not phenomenal, but it’s pretty good. I think there’s some depth. I’m not googly-eyed over this Draft.”

Do you like good pitching? If the answer is yes, look away now. The farm was outscored 34-12 last night, thanks to some rather horrid pitching last night. Springfield made up for 7 of the 12 runs.

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(No Three Up, Three Down today. I’m thinking it will work better as a bi-weekly series.)

Admittedly, I haven’t quite jumped on the whole Pitch F/X bandwagon quite yet. It does make for a more enjoyable experience when you’re stuck in one of the MLB.tv’s (EXTREMELY STUPID) blackout zones. I can listen to Shannon and Rooney and watch gameday, at least getting a decent idea of how different pitcher’s pitches move and track the game a little better. Anyway, while I was unable to see Mike Parisi make his big league debut last night, I was able to get a better idea of his droppish/droppifying (?) curveball last night, and learned that he has a little more giddy up in his fastball than was previously reported. Thanks to this handy-dandy little pitch F/X tool by Dan Brooks, we can look do a little bit of scouting on Parisi.

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Cardsfan1 (our Springfield tipster if you will), noted in the comments that Adam Ottavino should be back from the DL this Saturday. Kary Booher confirms this in his recap of Cory Rauschenberger’s 2nd start in place of Ottavino.

Bryan Smith, the BP college baseball & prospect guru, had a chat today that included some Cardinal drafting notes, Jaime Garcia, a nice Wainwright note and a failed Chris Duncan comparison.

Forgot this yesterday but here are the standings for our farm teams:

• Memphis 14-18, .438, 2nd in the division
• Springfield 15-16, .484, tied for first
• Palm Beach 20-11, .645, first
• Quad Cities 16-13, .552, 3rd

The Mark Mulder train wreck continues as it heads towards STL (possibly). Shane Robinson is a hitting machine and Joe Mather continues to impress. It’s your Daily Farm Report on Cinco de Mayo.

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Another rough weekend for the top college pitchers, but Christian Friedrich took advantage and fired a great game.  I don’t know if the Cardinals will look at relievers early, but this week I decided to add a few of them in the report.  The bats continue to roll as Yonder Alonso and Brett Wallace show off their power stroke.  Check it all out inside this special Cinco de Mayo edition of the wrap.  I don’t really know what you are supposed to do for Cinco de Mayo, but I wouldn’t mind a few margaritas or i heard azru likes the Bud Light Lime.

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Quite the tumultuous few days in Cardinal Farmland. Parisi to the bigs. Garcia to Memphis. Reyes to Memphis. Herron to Springfield. Walters to Memphis to help with a double header. Todd is headed to Springfield on Wednesday (probably). Rauschenberger is going to take Ottavino’s place in the Springfield rotation. Got all that? Good.

Derrick Goold takes a look at the 2004 draft class again. Salt meet wound. A note at the bottom, and it could be that I was napping previously and missed this, says that Mike Sillman had TJ surgery this season. He was another sidearming righthander similar to Mark Worrell.

The high minors win while the low minors lose. Meanwhile, my Colby Rasmus concern level is slowly starting to rise. Call it mild concern right now.

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Today the Cardinals have promoted Mike Parisi to the major leagues while sending reliever Anthony Reyes to Memphis. Parisi becomes the first member of the Cardinals’ 2004 draft class to make it to St. Louis. It is not clear what his role will be, but I would expect he will just assume Reyes’ long reliever role. This seems to be the move that set everything into motion over the last 24 hours. P.J. Walters was promoted to Memphis to take Parisi’s start today, with Tyler Herron filling in for him in Springfield. There are other rumored moves, but none of them have been officially announced to this point.

The organization went 3-1 on the evening, with a nasty blowout against Springfield being the bad news of the evening. Congrats to Jaime Garcia, his promotion to AAA is the big news of the day. One of my other favorite pitchers, Clayton Mortensen, struggled for his second consecutive start. It may be an overreaction on my part, but I am starting to wonder if there isn’t something wrong with him - like there was with Adam Ottavino.

All the details from the day’s action are after the jump. Read more »