Our fine beatwriters keep dropping tasty tidbits from camp.
First from Leach’s blog:
- Everyone loves Kyle.“…every time I talk to any member of the brass, the pitching name that keeps coming up is Kyle McClellan. They all love him.”
- Later at the official site, Chris Carpenter is taking upon himself to help Jason Motte. Chris Carpenter watched, too, and then offered some tips to the youngster as they walked back to the clubhouse. “He can definitely throw it,” Carpenter said. “But he’s obviously got to locate still, and do things like that. He’s still new to what he’s doing. It’s impressive to have an arm like that, but you’ve still got to do things like make adjustments and locate.” Maybe Carp, maybe. But he still had a 3:1 K/BB ratio and he walked 9.5% of the total batters he faced. If Carpenter has anyone to talk about locating, it should be Chris Perez.
- Per Goold, the Cardinals looked at former 1st round pick Kris Honel. Previously with the White Sox, Honel is a case in point of what happens to good pitchers with bad mechanics. Honel was known for being a pitcher who got a lot of movement from his fastball and knuckle curve, but shoulder and elbow tendinitis started to destroyed his control. He succumbed to TJ surgery in 2005 and is trying to come back as a minor league free agent. Goold said his mechanics still looked like crap. Calling Brent Strom. Brent Strom, please. He could be AA bullpen filler.
- Day before…Duncan loves Clayton. “…as for Mortensen, the word used to describe his session against hitters on Sunday was “overmatched”. As in, according to Duncan, the hitters were overmatched by the power sinker. Asked if he’d like to see Mortensen fill out his lithe frame, Duncan said: “He’s doing pretty well now without that.” Maybe he’ll ask him to the ball. “He’s Live?” “Lithe!” “Lithe?” “Lithe!” “Well, you two will have a great time there.” “It can’t be worst then this“.
- Wednesday. SLU verses Cardinals. Huzzah. Boggs will start 2 innings, Mortensen, Garcia, Walters will all throw two innings. Perez will throw 1. Live baseball. Ahhh….
- This has nothing to do with spring training, but FGC’s boy Tanner Scheppers dominated for Fresno St. He was named the D1 pitcher of the week, striking out 10 in 7 innings while allowing just 4 hits and no walks.
- The big hoss at Ole Miss Lance Lynn caught my eye, striking out 12 in 5 scoreless innings. He struck out the first 8 batters he faced.
- Mizzou went 3-0 on the road, Kyle Gibson and Aaron Crow both pitched well for the Tigers. For a team that’s touted for having one of the best (if not the best) rotation in college baseball, their offense wasn’t shabby either, scoring 30 runs.
Filed under: college baseball, spring training
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
anyone else want to bet that if scheppers is still around at 13 that he will be the cardinals’ pick?
Not if Brett Hunter is around is still around too!
Haha….the Cards are so predictable.
Can you throw hard?
Can you throw a sinker?
Are your RH?
Have you ever played well in the Summer?
Do you goto to a 4 year college?
Is Scott Boras not your agent?
If you answered yes to all the questions above, your hired.
yeah, i about threw brett hunter’s name in there too. they both fit the profile so well that if they are both available the cardinals might get confused and accidentally take a high school pitcher.
from what i understand, hunter throws with quite a bit of effort. with all the emphasis on mechanics i thought maybe that would be a turn off, but maybe not. i really don’t want them to sign a guy who profiles as a reliever. scheppers otoh i’d be ok with.
i prefer scheppers as well, but i don’t really know how to describe hunter’s delivery. i don’t know if i would call it a lot of effort, he just has this funky thing he does with his hand where he kind of wraps the ball at the back of his delivery. that’s not really a great explanation either, but you kind of just have to see it. go check out one of the archived team usa games from this summer if you want to see what i mean.
anyway, while we are discussing which college pitchers are better than others, here is how i would rank the top college pitchers currently.
1. Brian Matusz-had a rough outing, but he is still a lefty with 3 above average pitches
2. Aaron Crow-righty with two plus pitches and great command
3. Christian Friedrich-athletic lefty with above average fastball, plus curveball
4. Tanner Scheppers-nasty mid 90’s fastball and power slider combo, plus a projectable frame
5. Brett Hunter-upper 90’s fastball, potentially dominating slider
I don’t know if this has been brought up before, but here is a very lengthy interview with McClellan from last year at about this time (before the breakout). Pretty interesting read. He definitely seems like a good kid
http://www.fanhome.com/forums/st-louis-cardinals/4388-chat-room-session-kyle-mcclellan-02-18-07-a.html
i thought this was interesting
BY HOW THEY SIGNED
46 High school draft picks
25 College draft picks
and yet the cardinals continue to draft almost exclusively college.
Not that interesting…
Top high school draft picks stay in the minors longer than top prospects drafted out of college, so they have more opportunities to show up on lists like this. A quarter of the guys BA considers top prospects are 20 years old or younger… so obviously all those players are high school picks.
My guess - if they included all the top prospects who happen to be playing college ball now (Pedro Alvarez, Justin Smoak, Matt Harvey, and so on, the list would be near 50/50 among players drafted out of high school and playing in/drafted out of college each year.