Rounding up Redbird notes from around the net.
You may have missed this piece by Goold on Joe Mather since it wasn’t a part of Birdland. As much as I like (read: am semi-obsessed with) the statistical aspect of baseball, I still enjoy these types of articles. Although hitting coach Hal McRae gets the quote award in this article for asking the 6′4″ Mather:
Why do you hit like a little man?
At which point, Mather got mad. Really mad.
“I just told him to hit like a big guy,” McRae said. “He’s too big to hit like that.”
The day after that advice, Mather cranked two homers.
At which point, Mather calmed down. Amaury Marti, unimpressed, was overheard saying, “Just because he’s green doesn’t mean I can’t take him.”
Dan at getupbaby finds himself haunted by a former prospect. Amaury Marti, unimpressed, was overheard saying, “Just because he’s a ghost doesn’t mean I can’t take him.”
Totally unrelated to the Cardinals or prospects but these Mariner clips are pretty damn funny. The Felix one was my favorite. (Not that they need it, but hattip USSM)
Matthew Leach takes another stab at the opening day roster. I’m really hopeful that this Gonzalez abdominal injury coupled with Barton’s recent tear has put the kabosh on any comeback. I need to confess as well that I just don’t understand McClellan in the big league bullpen. He’s got the repertoire to start and they obvious considered that this spring so why not send him to AA or AAA and see if he can handle the workload. I doubt he’s appreciably better than Motte or Perez at this point in the pen but he has four average or better pitches. It just doesn’t make sense to me. . .
While he hasn’t commented on any Cardinal prospects, Keith Law has been checking in regularly with notes about other prospects from spring training. Know thy (future) enemy.
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The community sees a downturn for Craig especially considering he’s headed from a pitcher’s environment to a hitter’s one. Some of that stems from the fact that only one person considers him a .300 hitter for next year. Last year, in Palm Beach, he hit .312/.370/.530 with 21 HRs. There’s nothing crazy in his batted ball data to suggest that he was just lucky. Despite that the community projects him to hit .280/.341/.501 with 24 HRs. Note the .220 ISO that’s awfully similar to last year’s .218.
As for Ottavino, the projections forecast marginal gains in both strikeout rate and walk rate. He gets a little tater happy though with 15 bombs which basically holds his FIP steady at 3.91 — I wonder if that still isn’t a little too sunny for a pitcher with control issues and no dominant secondary offering. Holding par would be an acceptable result, next season, but what would that mean to Ottavino’s prospect status. It would probably knock him down a few pegs in my book but time will tell.
Filed under: Prospect Stew
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Why not send McClellan to AA or AAA as a starter, to see if he can handle the workload? Several reasons, notably the strong likelihood that he can’t. His arm trouble followed on the heels of a season where he did push his workload up into starter territory. Since he is looking like a useful reliever (to put it mildly), that provides powerful disincentive to risk breaking him again.
Some other reasons:
* He’s still on the young side of what Will Carroll calls “the injury nexus.” Carroll claims, with considerable evidence, that pitchers below age 25 should be handled with kid gloves unless proven otherwise, on the grounds that they’re more susceptible to injury — which surely isn’t a surprise to readers here. McC turns 24 during the season. Pushing him on inning count would be a better idea a year from now.
* It is not a bad thing to let a promising kid get a taste of the bigs under controlled conditions; it avoids the sprained brain that affected prospects like, notably, Zack Greinke, not to mention a certain Cardinals left-hander.
* Remember that the major-league roster will start the season with 12 pitchers, but it certainly won’t end with that many. If the weight of evidence suggests that McC will be better off getting some starts in the minors, the bullpen will be down-sizing some time around May, and he’ll get the “opportunity” to be the guy demoted.
* And there’s always the Waino factor…
McClellen could go 2, 3, even 4 innings if necessary.
Given his limited innings last year, a full workload of 150-160 IP this year might be a bit heavy–for these reasons, I kind of like Kyle as a MLB reliever to start the year (but just to start). As guys like Pineiro & Clement join the rotation, Thompson or Wellemeyer (or Looper?) can assume long relief duties, while KM goes to AAA to be a starter. That’s my thinking, anyway.