Per Bernie Miklasz, Joe Mather has been added to the 40 man roster. Congrats to Joe.
Mitch Boggs participated in the AFL Rising Stars Showcase game last night. The game is like the AFL All Star game, but rather then players being on teams for their performance, they are put on the team based more on their prospect status. I would assume the coaches and managers make that judgment of who makes the squads. Boggs came in in the 3rd inning for the East team. He induced a grounder to 2nd off the bat of Mike Costanzo. He allowed back to back line drive singles against Trevor Crowe and Dexter Fowler, then hit Matt Antonelli with a pitch. He then induced a ground ball to get a double play facing German Duran to get out of the inning unscathed. Here’s the box score.
Baseball America has it’s NL draft report cards up. (Subscription required) The highlights are:
- They like Beau Riportella’s speed and overall athleticism.
- Steve Hill and Daniel Descalso are the “best pure hitters” of the draft. It’s notable to me that they don’t see Kozma as the best hitter the Cardinals took in the draft.
- They like Clayton Mortensen’s sinker quite a bit, but for pure heat they like Adam Reifer.
- Brett Zawacki is their favorite late round pick out of a “deep group of sleepers”.
Later on in a chat, there was a question as what they saw for this draft in the future. Callis said he saw Todd setting up, Mortensen near the front of the rotation and Kozma starting at SS.
Sounds about right to me, but I’d bet there could be a few of the sleepers in the mix who could surprise. I like hearing Mort could be “near the front” of the rotation, versus at the back of it. I really am liking him quite a bit, that’s about where I see him too.
Lastly, I’m sure most of you have seen that it’s sounding more and more that the Cardinals are serious Antonetti, and Antonetti is serious about the Cardinals. I mean, the guy is looking at neighborhoods with his wife serious. He totally fits with Luhnow, La Russa is saying the right things about working with a young GM and a young ball club. This is just all too right. I’m really, really, really happy about this.
Filed under: 2007 Draft, Chris Antonetti, Joe Mather, Mitch Boggs
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The question is will Reifer be 96 MPH after surgery. Does anybody have any details on his injury - elbow (TJ)?, shoulder (rotator cuff?)?
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a short piece on Antonetti interviewing with the Cards:
http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/119356037589940.xml&coll=2
This is particularly interesting:
“Should Antonetti leave, Shapiro would have to restructure his front office. John Mirabelli is the Indians’ other assistant general manager, but his expertise is in the player draft. Antonetti concentrates on contracts, contract negotiations, payroll structures and statistical studies on players.”
There was some speculation that his interests and Luhnow’s would interfere with each other, but it doesn’t sound like he had a proprietary interest in the player draft. And it sounds like Mo, as assistant GM, could focus on the things that Antonetti used to do while assistant GM for Cleveland.
If Tony is willing to trust Antonetti’s philosophy on the payroll, it could be a good situation all around.
Like Eric, I have a good feeling about all this.