Amaury Marti is currently hitting .424/.509/.633 in 39 games for the Mexican Red Devils of the Mexican League, also known as Liga de Amaury Cazana. Bud Selig ordered the Cardinals to banish him to there, in fear of the major leagues losing competitive balance.
Amaury also refuses to accept the watch curse. He has the power to curse, and the power to bless.
FirstInning.com: St. Louis Cardinals Daily Report
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Interesting article by Joe Strauss over at the STL PD. It doesn’t pertain directly to the minors but discusses a little about the conundrum that Mozeliak is facing as well as whether they may get involved in the Far East among other things.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
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What are the odds that Hoff is ready to play 2B for the big club out of the gate? While AK may rebound he is still awefull agains LHP. Even at his best I am not sure how much better he is.
It seem to me you have to at least stongly consider it.
I think Hoff may be ready, the only question is who they sign. If you don’t sign anyone then you have Ryan, Hoff, Kennedy for the MIF, Rolen, Spiezio, Pujols (maybe Dunc) for the CIF. If you sign Eck or Miles (hopefully not both) then you have Eck/Miles taking Hoff’s place so he doesn’t have a spot just yet. I am not completely sold on Ryan yet, even though I want him to get the shot, so I am not against signing a SS but I just don’t want Miles signed regardless.
The question that I’d ask is: What else can Hoffpauir learn in the minors that he can’t in the majors? To me the answer is nothing. That’s not the same as me thinking he’s going to succeed in the majors immediately but unless the front office as concerns about his makeup or defense, I don’t see why they don’t let him learn by facing the big kids. He’ll probably struggle to hit for average initially but if he maintains a double digit walk rate his OBP should stay in the .310-330 range even without a good batting average.
the question Hoff hasn’t answered in the AFL is whether or not his power surge last year was for real. If he has an OBP of .350 but no power, he is basically no upgrade over Miles. If he can show some power again to go with that OBP (which I think with experience will get above .380) he can be a starter.
seems best bet is to let hoff play some ss and 3b in memphis while we take a chance ak and/or eck (if signed) make themselves desirable enough for a trade. i agree, however, that keepiing eck and miles makes little sense. too bad we can’t move ak, put eck at 2b, ryan at ss, and hoff learning the ropes with miles moving on.
Why not allocate the 1 million it will take to bring back Miles to any 1 year deal for Eck? If signing Eck at 5 or 6 million for 2008 means Miles is gone and Hoff is given the chance to be the backup MI, then lets resign eck!
Don’t treat Miles as a 1M player since his replacement would be .5M you only gain .5M by letting him walk. With that said though I wouldn’t be mad at 5-6M for Eck on a 1 or maybe 2 year contract, especially if you aren’t afraid to trade him.