Jonathon Mayo of MLB.com has his organizational review up.
He also has a nice rewind of the year that was in the Cardinal minor league system.
Over at BP, Bryan Smith profiles (subscriber only content) a minor league free agent I should not have overlooked: Brooks Conrad. Smith thinks he’d be a exactly the type of player the Cardinals should take a flyer on, and I tend to agree-
Prior to this year’s disappointing campaign, PECOTA forecasted Conrad for 20.3 VORP as a major league second baseman in 2008. Now that he’s going to be 28, he’ll be starting to come down out of his prime years, but as a discount-rate minor league free agent. There are plenty of teams who could use a second baseman at the major league minimum, both rich and poor, especially one with the gap power Conrad can offer. It’s not a guarantee that he’ll grab a major league job this winter, especially given the lack of interest in him during the Rule 5 draft all the years that Houston never put him on their 40-man roster, but this is the kind of player someone like the Cardinals or Twins should look into, given their budgets and keystone situations.
He’s got just all kind of power at the 2B spot, and he could use a fresh start after being freed from the Houston farm. The rub of course is there’s that Jarrett Hoffpauir fellow. There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition, and if all else he could play 3B.
BA looks at Team USA. (Subscriber content) Of course when you are talking about Team USA, you are going to talk about Bryan Anderson and Colby Rasmus. One scout had some high praise for Rasmus. saying he may be the best outfielder out of that glorious 2005 draft that gave us Cameron Maybin, Jay Bruce, Andrew McCutchen, and Justin Upton. Another scout says he likes Anderson quite a bit as a hitter, but was more sold on Jason Jaramillo’s (Phillies) glove. Jaramillo is also 25. More talk on Anderson and Jaramillo @ Phuture Phillies.
Mitch Boggs finally hit a bump in the road. In 4 innings, he allowed 5 run on 7 hits and a walk with one K. He gave up 2 doubles and a HR, and threw a wild pitch on top of it all.
Jarrett Hoffpauir had a sac fly, but went 0 for 3 with a BB.
Amaury Marti went 0 for 1. While sitting on the bench he counted to infinity. Twice.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
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theredbaaron
I’m a little lukewarm on bringing in Conrad. It never hurts to have a little competition, and a little insurance, but I don’t really see that he offers anything the Cardinals don’t already have, IF, and I do mean if, they were to utilise their roster properly.
I think the reports on Anderson really should highlight to people just what kind of a big time prospect the kid really is. He’s being written off by a lot of people who think that Yadi is the only possible solution at catcher, which is a shame, in my opinion. Everyone talks about Rasmus being one of the youngest players in his league. Anderson hit .300 this year in AA, and he’s still about a month shy of being able to order a beer with his dinner. He’s even younger than Rasmus, and performed very well this season against competition that was several years older. He slumped a little in the second half, and his power numbers aren’t quite what has been projected. He still had an outstanding year. I’m not sure what the guy has to do to make Cardinal fans really take notice.
Taguchi’s option was turned down
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/48F09069179BA0A58625738B001E42BA?OpenDocument
Anderson is growing on me. I remember when Matheny was the only solution at catcher, don’t you? Then Matheny walked and we got Yadi, not it is him, see a pattern? I love Yadi, own his Jersey, don’t want to see him leave, etc. but Anderson could very well take his spot. The question I have is whether or not Yadi would even want to be a backup if his offense regresses next season instead of improving, but I think he deserves to start somewhere. My biggest hope is that Yadi will start to produce offensively and improve on this season. If Yadi can hit .290/.350/.450 then I don’t see much improvement in Anderson (whose best numbers so far were .331/.383/.513). While he is better it would be closer then it is now. I think a competition is a good thing.
Turning down Taguchi’s and Bennett’s options opens up 2 more 40-man spots to protect guys from Rule V. As both guys are replaceable (or even could be signed later), seems like a couple really smart moves. Also, seems to be getting away from some of TLR’s favorite older but not productive guys. Now, if Mo will only non-tender Aaron Miles…
Nothing on Hoffpauir in the article by Jonathan Mayo, not even in the Others of Note section. Oversight? Or a reflection on what the author thinks of Hoff as a prospect?
Also regarding the Anderson/Yadi debate, my hope is that it pans out much the same way as the McCann/Saltamacchia situation in Atlanta. I hope we’ll see Anderson at the end of 2008 and backing up Yadi in 2009 in order to look to trade one in the 2009 season. My preference would be to trade Yadi and take Andersons hopefully better bat and average defense. The only issue is that it would be Yadi’s last arbitration year I believe. It might be hard to move him for as much as Saltamacchia got Atlanta with free agency looming.
Oversite
I am a bit skeptical of Anderson. Some how it often seems that most big time offense centric catching prospects never quite pan out as planned. With this in mind, I really don’t mind the idea of trading Anderson in the right deal.