Future Redbirds is now the official sponsor of the Colby Rasmus page at Minor League Splits. Yippee for me.
Speaking of Colby, he’s the only Cardinal that cracked Kevin Goldstein’s Top 100, coming in at #50.
Dayn Perry has started his top 100 prospect rankings, coming in at 97 is Bryan Anderson.
That makes Garcia, Anderson and Rasmus the only 3 Cardinals to be ranked in a major publication. SI ranked Garcia 74th and Rasmus 28th.
Not long ago I attempted to project the Memphis roster for opening day, I thought maybe it would be easier starting from the ground up. Here’s my projected roster for the Swing of the Quad Cities:
C-Christian Reyes (20 year old posted .849 OPS for JC, picked in 27th round.)
C-David Carpenter (12th round pick is noted defensive backstop.)
1B-AJ Van Slyke (Must overcome disappointing season. Brandon Buckman could get a look here as well.)
2B-Isaias Garcia (Appy League batting champ, will be 23 shortly after opening day.)
SS-Allen Craig-(University of Cal product picked in the 8th round. Hit .344/.403/.561 his senior season. There’s some thought Pham would start here, but I think he’ll repeat rookie league given his age and lack of experience.)
3B-Jared Schweitzer (Hit .369/.445/.573 for the Jayhawks as a senior. Dan Nelson may be in the mix as well, but he’d be a repeat.)
LF-Mark Shorey (Appy League home run leader.)
CF-Nathan Southard-(Tulane product hit .872 OPS for SC, stole 16 bases out of 18 attempts. Draws comps to Eric Byrnes.)
RF-Daryl Jones-(Jon Edwards could very well be in the mix here. He’s young, so he may have an extended spring training and report State College. It depends on how aggressive the Cardinals want to be with him.)
DH-Luke Gorsett-(7th round pick had a 1.072 OPS for Nebraska last season. Can knock the ball out of the yard, but a lot of effort to the rest of his game.)
To me, here’s where the picture gets pretty muddled. A lot of pitchers could go a lot of different ways. I’m guessing Ottavino goes to PB, as well as Adam Daniels. McCormick should stay at PB to start the season, but I don’t know if he’ll be ready physically. Garcia also will probably start the season at Palm Beach as well. It’s trying to guess the AA roster on down that’s difficult, there’s a real logjam here. Here’s my best guess, we’ll see how it shakes out-
SP-Gary Daley
SP-Tyler Norrick (ex-Saluki lefty with a fastball that touches 94.)
SP-Eddie Degerman
SP-Brad Furnish
SP-Matt Lane (6′8″, 225 lb ground ball artist, held batters to a .205 average and walked only 1.6 batters per 9. Could be this years Trey Hearne if he can continue to that sort of command.)
One of the higher round college picks could find their way to Palm Beach, I suppose.
Any one of these guys could close, the rest should end up in middle relief somewhere:
Luke Gregorson, Kenny Maiquies, PJ Walters (I failed to realize he closed 8 games last year when I wrote my article on him.), Armando Carrasco.
I’m sure I’m missing something here, feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments.
Filed under: '07 Rosters
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
southard played a corner most of the year at state college last year so i would look for him to move to a corner and and daryl jones to play center.
allen craig was drafted as a shortstop, but he played mostly 3rd last year. i think he will once again be at third. jose salazar was solid for state college last year, and got a little taste of quad cities last year. i think he will be the shortstop.
the rotations for palm beach and quad cities are very hard to figure out. eddie degerman was a 5th year senior and is already 23, i think he has to start at palm beach. norrick is also 23 and has 12 starts in the midwest league, i think he will be at palm beach.
here’s how i see it
palm beach
ottavino
meacham
degerman
hearne
norrick/daniels (one will be in the pen)
mccormick is out until atleast may with minor labrum surgery and i think you have to bump garcia up to AA simply b/c we don’t have enough rotation slots in the lower levels.
quad cities
4 guys i think are in for sure
furnish
daley
king
herron
after that the competion will be between walters, lane, maiques, hernandez, smith, and depending on injuries wilson and garceau.
Erik, fyi: Derrick Gould said recently that the team is looking at mid-May for McCormick’s return after labrum surgery.
Good stuff, as always. I’m enjoying your site.
Make that “Goold,” of course. The man deserves to have his name spelled correctly.
Hell, I can’t even spell my own name right.
Greg
nice job overall erik, but don’t forget about donnie smith — he might actually be worth a separate blog post. he was a 4th-rounder out of old dominion in 2004; had a 41-5 so-bb ratio at short-season A, but then got hurt in 2005. he returned midway through last season and finished up with 8 starts for QC. he’s a prototype groundball maker: 62 gb versus 40 fb/p last year for the swing.
i think the organization likes him; he’s already turned 24, but if he has a decent spring i imagine they’ll move him right along and see how he responds.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/S/Donnie-Smith-1.shtml
fgc, I can’t believe I forgot Blake King! While I’m sure he’ll get every chance as a starter, there is thought of King being moved to relief. He has a max effort delivery, may not be cut out to pitch a lot of innings.
lboros-Donnie Smith, I should do something on him. I overlooked him and would like to know more about him. I’ll have to dig around for some scouting reports on him.