Lot’s o’ stuff today. The big news of the day, Allen Craig gets the call up to AA. Sifting through his peripheral stats he’s done some pretty impressive stuff. He leaves 6th in the FSL in isolated power with a .218 and is tied for 3rd in line drive rate with 21%. 12.1% of the balls he puts in the air leave the yard, also good for 3rd overall. He was 6th in the league in wOBA with .377. He could stand to walk a bit more, but he doesn’t strike out too much. He’s really been under the radar, but not for much longer if he can help Springfield win the Texas League championship.
LBoros had an excellent interview with Tyler Herron. Pretty interesting stuff. Something I didn’t know:
Are there big-league pitchers who you admire and have tried to pattern yourself after?
Not really. I actually didn’t start pitching until my senior year in high school. I always played shortstop or third base. So I didn’t really pitch much at all. And then all of a sudden, scouts are looking at me for pitching. This is only my third full season throwing.
I had no idea he was so new to pitching, and that puts some perspective on his struggles the first two seasons of his and makes the success he’s had this season pretty amazing stuff. I’m sure the best is yet to come, it’ll be interesting to see if he makes the jump to AA next season.
Brandon Buckman, who hasn’t played since August 15th, was placed on the DL. More bad news. Blake Hawksworth also was put on the DL. Just say it isn’t the shoulder. That would explain some of the poor performance, though he did seem to kick it up a notch this past month, nearly doubling his K rate in August.
BA looks at the top prospects of the AFL, and unquestionably Colby Rasmus was distinguished as the top Prospect of the Mesa Solar Sox.
Kary Booher takes an interesting look at the “killing me softly” ways of P.J. Walters.
Here is a sampling of the radar gun readings the last time Springfield Cardinals right-hander P.J. Walters pitched at Hammons Field: 69, 67, 68, 71, 85, 69, 67, 71, 68, 85.
There has to be some sort of precedent for a soft tossing control right-hander having success in the majors over the last 20 years, right? (And don’t tell me Greg Maddux. I doubt he was throwing 85 in AA.) I can’t think of one off-hand, but if you can let me know in the comments. My brain is still itching, and it sounds like it’ll only stop when I see him in person.
Matt Spade was called up to the Swing to take the place of the injured Armando Carrasco.
I somehow missed it yesterday, but Mike Blazek also received mention at BA’s Hot Sheet yesterday.
Hooker’s teammate in the Gulf Coast League, Blazek has been just a shade below Hooker in terms of the numbers. Through 34 2/3 innings, Blazek has 42 strikeouts, 13 walks and a 2.60 ERA. In his last outing, the 18-year-old struck out 10 and walked two in five innings. The Cardinals drafted Blazek in the 35th round, and he also throws in the low-90s.
Nice to see the high school draftees make an impressive mark, especially all the strikeouts.
The usual suspects make some noise tonight. Colby and Mather continue their tater tear. The Swing make it interesting. And Chris Lambert starts…and doesn’t suck. Read on…
- Chris Lambert started the game with Hawksworth landing on the DL today. He actually wasn’t bad, pitching 5 shutout innings while allowing 3 hits and 2 walks, striking out 2. He had 10 fly ball outs.
- Mark Worrell imploded, he gave up 4 earned runs and didn’t get anyone out.
- Joe Mather went yard, but also uncharacteristically went down on strikes 3 times. The homer is his 6th in 10 games.
- Miguel Cairo went 2 for 4 with a double and a steal.
- Colby Rasmus goes deep again, a liner to center for his 28th of the season. He also drew a walk. Leave him in the lead off spot. All the runs came on HR’s. Casey Rowlett hit a solo shot, and Rico Washington hit a 3 run shot.
- Allen Craig went 0 for 4 with 2 K’s.
- Cory Rauschenberger allowed 2 runs on 2 hits and 3 walks, striking out 2.
- Matthew Scherer pitched 2 perfect innings, fanning 1.
- Mike Sillman picked up the save, albeit a shaky one. He allowed 2 runs in the 9th.
Palm Beach was off
Quad Cities 4, Burlington 3 10 innings
- Tim Dorn hasn’t lit the world on fire since coming over from the indy leagues. He did however have a great game tonight. He doubled in the 10th and was pinch-ran for, which ended up scoring what would be the winning run. He went 3 for 4 overall, including a HR, an inside the park job
- Oliver Marmol was the one who hit the go ahead RBI. Marmol went 2 for 4 with 2 fielding errors.
- Steve Hill went doubled twice.
- Daryl Jones was on fire a few weeks ago. He went 0 for 4 and is hitting .114 over his last 10 games.
- Birthday boyShaun Garceau pitched
46 scoreless innings, allowing 4 hits and a walk, striking out 2. - Kyle Mura vultured his 7th win.
- Clayton Long was bombed on, allowing 3 homers and 4 earned runs overall in 4.2
- Newbie Jameson Maj struck out the only batter he faced.
- Thomas Eager allowed 2 runs in 3 innings, walking 2 batters and giving up 4 hits, striking out just 1.
- Daniel Descalso and Ross Oeder both went 2 for 4.
- Collin Fanning went 2 for 4 with a double.Jon Edwards also doubled.
Johnson City was rained out.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
soft tossing righty…Bob Tewksbury?
Paul Byrd.
Oh, and what a fantastic site y’all have here. Long time / first time. I posted a link here on birdsonthebat, hope you don’t mind.
Acording to Bill James, Slowest average Fastball in 2006 (min 162ip)
Maddux 83.4
Hernandez, Liv 83.9
Glavine 85.3
Doug Davis 85.6
Jeff Francis 86
Chris Capuano 86.8
Josh Fogg 87.1
Also to mind springs:
Tewksbury
Mark Portugal (not sure what his fastball clocked)
Of course don’t forget, yes I know they threw from low angles.
Dan Quisenbury (SP?)
Kent Tekulvy (sp?)
Erik- Like the VSL & DSL teams, the GCL has wrapped up its season (on Monday).
Johnson City will wrap up its season with a DH tomorrow (Wednesday)against Princeton.
typo: Garceau threw 6 scoreless innings. You gotta get it right on the kid’s birthday!
FYI, Dorn’s HR was an inside the parker.
The odds are agains him. No argument.
On the other hand, I can name a few righthanders that got by on movement alone. Tim Wakefield would top that list. I realize Walters isn’t a knuckelballer but there is proof that some amount of movement will get it done.
I hope somedays soon we have data similar to the pitchFx system in the minors. It would make it a lot easier to evaluate pitchers like this because we could quantify the movement and compare it against other soft tosser that have survived for a while.
Livan was the 1st name to come to mind.
wow…you guys are on top of it. i’ll fix whatever errors.
driverZN–thanks for posting that. interesting list. Not surprising, most of those guys are lefties. tewskbury does come to mind with the good control he had, and the trickery he used. pj walters is a rare breed, that’s for sure.
Not to switch gears on this conversation, but I would say the book is out on former uber-kind Arnoldi Cruz and the pitchers have adjusted. I’m waiting to see if he can turn the corner and reassume his production, but it appears not yet. Henley also seems to be over-matched at QC(small sample size noted, but those numbers aren’t good).
guys let me tell you a little about walters & this is not hear say I have seen him pitch (alot).he normally pitches at 86-89 consistently.usually the 1st couple of innings will be a little slower & if there not getting good swings at it he will just stay right there.the other night against ark he sat at 85 but he said he only threw 2 pitches (because he might see them again in a week)fastball, changeup & they werent hitting it so he just stayed with it.he has the fastball when he needs it or when he has a batter set up.he definately relies on movement & location but what good pitcher doesnt. i watched the padres diamondbacks game last night & neither starter hit 90 so its not as big a deal as everybody makes of it.i commented the other day about college hitters saying that there is no difference at all in hitting 86-91 because 90% of pitchers will be in that range, they said they didnt have to make adjustments until it was 92+. i would be interested in hearing some comments about that & if we have any college or ex pro guys on here what do they think..if you have any questions about PJ just ask away..also this is a great site you guys do a tremendous job of covering the players..
DriverZn nailed it, I think. Pitchers who can’t just blow everything by hitters need two things: location and movement. If Walters has a little shimmy and shake to his slowball and shows pinpoint control, I see no reason why he can’t see at least some success at the major league level.
The hardest adjustment for a hitter to make is the changing of speeds when the arm slot is the same regardless of the pitch. It doesn’t matter if the fastball is coming at 87 as long as the changeup is thrown at the same arm angle and is coming at a 76-78. The best example of this is Johan Santana, not that I am at all comparing Walters to Santana. His fastball arm angle and motion is the exact same as his changeup, even the way he jumps off of the mound. That is the hardest thing for a hitter to adjust. As a hitter it is difficult to get a read if the pitcher can change speeds and locate every pitch on each side of the plate in the same arm slot. The only disadvantage Walters has is that when the fastball is only coming at 84-86 it is easier to recognize it as a fastball based on the spin of the seam, now if his changeup has the same spin it wouldn’t come into play. His main problem is that when a batter at the MLB level guesses right on his fastball he will be unable to sneak it past a hitter just based on pure power (Santana). The Maddux comparison is not real accurate because if you watch Maddux pitch he is unique in that he has the innate ability to throw 4 different pitches at 4 different speeds in 4 locations (high inside, low inside, high outside, low outisde) consistently.
i will say this, after the ark.game PJ told me that sean rodriquez got on 1st base late in the game & hamilton asked him why they were having a problem hitting walters & he said hes only throwing 2 pitches a FB & change but they all look different he said its like hes throwing 6 different pitches..i had never heard that before but thought you might like to hear that.
I wonder if he can change movement and/or speeds on his pitches.
his change will move down & in to a righty,he doesnt change movement but the speed will vary a little. his fastall will sink & tail in to a righty but he does throw a different grip to get his Fb to cut away from a righty thats the pitch that he is throwing most of the time when it is around 83-85.
It will be intersting to see his progression next year, especially since he has a strong chance to possibly pitch at least half the season in AAA. I would like to see our AAA staff next year include Walters and Garcia; with Herron, Mortenson and Ottavino at AA. I think the Cards should look to aggressively move their pitchers up the ladder and clear out guys like Smith and Keisler.
Anybody know what Lunhow and company are planning on doing with the outfielder glut? I think Skip replaces So next year, but I can’t see any of the other guys making the team next year. I just don’t think any of the AAA or AA (except Rasmus) outfielders grade out to be anything more than a 4th or 5th outfielder. Am I wrong?
I do find it interesting that of our recent drafts some of the biggest strides and upside shown has been our high schoolers. I read an interesting article about the Yankees pitching prospects (Hughes, Chamberlian, Kennedy) and how the organization made a strategy change to go after high ceiling kids, instead of the more safe college guys. I am hoping that the Cards will adopt this kind of strategy since now they have filled out the system with some good “filler” role players. I think the Cards system is strong enough now to begin going with the higher ceiling prospects in the earlier rounds. Thoughts?
What about Mitchell Boggs? He always seems to get forgotten in the mix. His stats would make me presume that he is in AAA rotation next year with a shot at the majors in ‘09.
http://firstinning.com/players/Mitchell-Boggs-466/
I wonder if someone like Skip shouldn’t be a starting, or at least platooning CF for some club. Sounds crazy, but he just seems like a better option than Nook Logan in Washington, or Nate McLouth in Pittsburgh, or Alejandro De Aza in Florida, or even Jerry Owens/Darin Erstad in Chicago. Not that I’d want to give him away for free, but he’s always hit well in the minors and his defense is more than adequate. Of course he’s a good 5th OF for us, too, but it is pretty crowded here. Just thinking…
If Mather can keep hitting, he has upside. He’s not any older than Chris Duncan was when it finally clicked for him. Just not sure where he’d fit in.
Chris–agree 100%. i think that some decent depth has been established, but the too few of it is roster filler. i’d like to see them take more risks on talent with higher ceilings. they did with herron and daryl jones in 05. sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t be i’d rather gamble on upside when it presents itself.