I think Shaun Garceau is flying under the radar…
Background
Garceau was ranked the 68th best high school prospect by Baseball America in 2005, ahead of some noteworthy names, including our own Bryan Anderson and Daryl Jones. He also was ranked above Brad Suttle, who signed for over $1M with the Yankees last year, and Jemile Weeks and Dennis Raben, two U. of Miami FL players poised to be drafted in the 1st round this upcoming season. Perfect Game went so far as to rank him the 33rd best high school player in the 05 draft, and the 2nd best pitcher out of the state of Florida. Garceau had a strong commitment to U. of Alabama, so no team touched him until the Cardinals took him in the 20th round, and they met his bonus demands.
Scouting
Back when he was still in high school, Brewerfan.net had this brief scouting report on Garceau.
Garceau has a nice, athletic frame and a whip-like, effortless delivery that creates a fair amount of deception. He throws in the 89-91 range with a promising curveball and a developing changeup.
Rivals.com also had this-
Garceau showed the best raw stuff in camp, throwing 88-91 MPH with four-seam action. His 69-70 MPH change-up was very advanced and could turn into a “plus” pitch in time. Garceau is still raw with his breaking ball and his frame is smaller than the major league prototype for a pitcher. He also struggled with command, which is not unusual for a pitcher in the fall of his junior year.
I’ve personally seen Garceau, his velocity was up to 91-94 on his fastball, and he showed a power curveball that had more of a 11-5 drop then a 12-6. He also had a pretty decent changeup, but most accounts I’ve read say it’s still a work in progress. He throws lots of strikes but can catch too much of the plate at times, leading to some hard contact. He missed all of 2006 with a staph infection, but lost nothing on the stuff that caused him to get drafted in the first place. He’s an athletic looking dude at 6-1, 185 and should fill out more with time. At the start of the season, he was the youngest player on the Quad Cities roster.
Stats
While I’d like to attribute the poor BABIP to just bad luck, the QC defense was actually pretty darn good this year. Garceau is more of a fly ball pitcher, and accordingly Garceau had 8% of his balls that were hit in the air leave the yard. That doesn’t sound that bad, but for Midwest League standards it was the 2nd worst among qualified starters.
Garceau got off to a very hot start, and was even named to BA’s prospect hot sheet at one point early in the season. But on 6/29 the Swing announced the whole piggyback/tandem rotation was over, and Garceau subsequently fell apart.
[edit: that's in order of innings, K/9, BB/9 and HR/9]
In 3 of his last 10 starts, Garceau was dinged for 17 runs in 6 2/3 innings. Last week, I asked John Vuch if it was a matter of fatigue and his response was-
Shaun took a big step forward in ‘07, but it was also his first season throwing 100+ innings, and it may have caught up with him a bit by the end of the year. He was roughed up for 6 or 7 runs in the first inning of his last start, which unfortunately tacked about ½ run on to his ERA at the end of the year. The key thing from the Cardinals perspective is that we were happy to see him healthy and pitching the way we had envisioned when he was drafted.
The future
It’s too far too early for me to even get a good guess. Watching Garceau live, he had pretty nice velocity and a good breaking ball. The fatigue factor is worrisome, I’m eager to see how he holds up for a full season this year. If he starts to tail off again later in the season, then I think a switch to relief could be in order. If that happens, I could see him adding another tick or two to his already strong fastball, and he could be a pretty nice reliever. He’s probably my favorite “sleeper” prospect at the moment
Filed under: Shaun Garceau, prospect profiles
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
i’m also a pretty big fan of garceau. i remember early last summer when discussing top prospects lists i had garceau in my top 10 right with tyler herron, and i think he has even better stuff than herron. he did kind of fall apart, but i don’t think it was so much about the piggyback as it was missing the previous season and maybe wearing down a little. still, even if it wasn’t for that last start he would have had an ERA in the 4.20-4.30 area and people might be taking more notice of him.
I also am a fan of Garceau’s. I really expect a big movement forward this year.
It is a rare high schooler that wont experience fatige when going pro. If he make half of his starts for his high school team and throws a 7 innings complete game, that would max him out at about 120-140 innings. Most high schoolers never make it over a hundred. Second those are a lot easier innings, high school teams generally have a lot of esy outs in the line-up. Pro innings put a lot more stress on the arm, you are pitching near 100% the whole time. I think we will see him start to break down again this year after about 125 innings. Next year, if he continues to develop, he will probably start to fatigue after about 160. I think, from some observation, arms will handle about a 25% increase in work load year after year. Using that theory he is easily still three years away from throwing a strong 180 innings, but he will only be 23-24 in AAA or the Show–that is pretty awesome. The major worry I have is him fitting the organizational phliosophy.
Echo the under the radar thought - during a point in the season I was thinking this kid would be getting top 10 prospect status. It will interesting if he starts the season at QC or PB this year.
I don’t know a whole lot about the kid, honestly, but I like what I’m hearing from the scouting reports and all.
I’ll toss my hat in along with some others and say I’m not particularly concerned about his dropoff. He pitched in HS, then made a fairly brief debut, then didn’t pitch again for, what, almost a year and a half? I’m impressed he still had any kind of stuff at all after that. I hope they move him up to PB to begin this year; challenge him right out of the box.
So far, he hasn’t really grabbed my attention, but I may need to pay a bit attention to Garceau this season.
One other thing on Garceau-
He made it into Deric McKamey’s book this year, so somebody likes him. Here’s what Mr. McKamey had to say-
“Athletic/projectable pitcher recovered well from staph infection in 2006. Possesses good velocity and power curve which elicits strikeouts. Throws strikes. Struggles to repeat delivery which hinders changeup and needs to be finer within strike zone to prevent high oppBA.”
McKamey has him making his ML debut in 2010, and sees him as a #5 starter. Hopefully, Garceau can improve a few things and improve his projection a bit. Still, its nice to see a guy that young, and with pretty limited experience, pitch well enough to get some recognition.
By the way, if anybody doesn’t have McKamey’s book, I highly recommend it. I just ordered mine from Amazon, but I’m sure you can find it elsewhere. I would post a link, but I don’t have time just this second. My apologies.
As always - Great work. Yours has become the first Cards blog I visit each day (before viva el birdos? Great job).
I am intrigued by the thought of seeing a lot of new blood in PB and Springfield. Any idea who will be starting at AAA? I can think of a few possibilities but outside of Hawk, not sure if I want to…
This is the first full season where I will be attentively watching the prospects and all the minor league teams. I have enough knowledge now thanks to this site and Viva El Birdos to really enjoy watching the youngsters this year.
I also am excited to see what Arnoldi Cruz does this year….
Do you have enough info to do a piece on him???
I’ve searched for info on him and i’d have to say no. he is an international man of mystery
Man, how do you miss an entire season with a staff infection? That had to be nasty…
Need to find some information on the always hurt and never easy to find Josh Wilson.
He is still only 21….just another reason why taking a HS’er is an advantage.
You get 3 more years of prospect years to battle thru injuries and developmental issues
Herron, Garceau and Kopp were all teammates on summer travel team in HS, Kopp one year ahead of them.
They all did an awesome job just missing a trip to the CMWS by one game.
Should be fun to see them back together again.
Here’s a bit more…
Kopp and Garceau were teammates on the same travel team….
Garceau did go to the the CMWS, in New Mexico, with the FLA BOMBERS, with teammates such as Colton Willems, Jemile Weeks, J.P Arencibia, Yonder Alonso….
In his HS season Herron, Garceau, Volstad were all rivals in the same 6A district…just imagine the amount of radar guns at these games…
Diapoles and Garceau were also teammates in another travel team during their hs years…
Lots of talent coming from Palm Beach County!!!
Picklefork - I am solidly with you - Where in the world is Josh Wilson? He was briefly pitching last year but then was gone just as fast. Not sure if his arm is destroyed or if he has a Maiques like comeback in him this year but have heard absolutely no chatter on the subject….
Good stuff on who our future redbirds played with and against. Kopp played with the two younger birdies on the Florida Pokers the summer before he went off to college. I do know the following year Garceau played for the Bombers.