Here’s a nice piece on Tony Cruz’s switch from third base to catching. One quote I’d quibble with though:
“I think he has a higher ceiling catching than he does at third,” Palm Beach manager Gaylen Pitts said. “Good catching is hard to find, especially guys who can hit.”
Pitts is conflating concepts here, imo. Cruz’s upside really isn’t any higher at catcher. His offensive projection doesn’t change by switching positions. It’s a matter of positional scarcity. There are fewer hitting catchers than there are third baseman. Again, it’s a minor quibble on semantics but I tend to view a player’s offensive “ceiling” independent of position and then ask the question of whether that ceiling is good enough to play at their projected position.
Paging the grit and heart committee. We’ve got a Eckstein-esque Shane Robinson hitting well in Springfield.
There’s some nice pictures of Springfield’s Allen Craig and Jaime Garcia to the right of this article about Jon Jay and the early season struggles of the Springfield team. Garcia has a nice pitcher’s build. If he stays healthy, he’s gonna be a beast.
Chris O’Leary has an analysis of Mizzou’s Aaron Crow’s pitching mechanics. I’d love to see some kind of quantitative analysis of the Inverted L and Inverted W. In my mind it would go something like this: Go back to 2000. Take the 5 initial starters and the closer (only because these players are easy to identify). Count how many have an Inverted L or Inverted W. Then identify how many suffer an injury during the next 5 years. I know Chris is working with a major league club so maybe they’ve already done/are doing something like this but that’s what it would take to sell me on these findings. I haven’t studied the issue so I won’t pretend to know more but that’s the kind of thing that would make me a true believer.
Saber-Scouting’s doing a psuedo-chat. There’s already a PJ Walters question.
(Note that has nothing to do with baseball: I’m watching Saturday Night Live while I’m doing this DFR. It has one of my favorite hosts, Christopher Walken, and a band I really like as well, Panic at the Disco. Walken was great. They did a skit where everyone talked like Walken the entire time. Hi-larious. Tragically, Panic at the Disco sounded like absolute crap. They sang their breakout song, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”, at the end of the show and it might have been the warbliest suckfest I’ve ever heard.)
The farm system goes 1-for-5 as a group tonight. We’ve got some very good pitching performances (Mortensen, Kopp, Additon) and a few who didn’t fare so well (Hawksworth, Webber, Zimmermann). Palm Beach has a good night and Daryl Jones keeps hitting. Gosh I’ve missed these DPR’s…er, I mean DFRs.
And away we go.
- The Memphis Redbirds hitters got shut down by Doug Mathis who had a good, not great, year for the Ranger’s Double A affliate last season. He’s a moderate strikeout, lots of groundballs type pitcher so it would have been nice to see the Cardinals do a little more against him. They collected just 5 hits; Colby Rasmus, Brian Barden, Mark Johnson and Casey Rowlett all had singles and Johnson doubled as well.
- The only walk was drawn by Joe Mather who went hitless in his 3 ABs.
- Defensive problems plagued the Redbirds with Rasmus, Rowlett and Hawksworth all committing errors. Rasmus also got picked off first by Saltalamacchia.
- BlakeHawksworth had a blech night only lasting 4.2 innings despite recording 9 groundouts to 2 flyotus. He allowed 6 hits and 6 runs (5 earned) with 4 Ks and 3 BBs.
- Hugo Castellanos didn’t do him any favors allowing both inherited runners to score on a HR to former Detroit Tiger Chris Shelton. Castellanos threw 3.2 innings total. I’d guess that Memphis is trying to keep him stretched out in case he needs to head to the big league team. If the Cardinals need another reliever, I’d rather see Hugo ride the STL-Memphis shuttle than shuffle one of the real prospects back and forth. Plus, it’d be cool to have a side-armer in the pen.
Springfield 4, Frisco 7 (11 innings)
- Speaking of the Ranger’s Double AA affiliate and the question about blocked SS prospects in yesterdays thread, I know very little about his offensive projection but Elvis Andrus plays a mean defensive SS for the Rangers affiliate. Wicked slick with the glove.
- Jon Jay went 0-for-6.
- Luke Gorsett was 2-for-3 with a BB.
- Cody Haerther was 2-for-5 with a double. I’m not a huge Haerther fan but he doesn’t belong in AA. The Cardinals would be wise to move someone at the major league level (Duncan, Schumaker, Ludwick) and moving up Mather or Rasmus from AAA. They’ve got plenty of OF prospects — it’s time to turn the surplus into something else that they are missing.
- Clayton Mortensen went 5 strong innings allowing just 3 hits. He struck out 4 and walked 2 without allowing a run.
- Bob Zimmermann blew the lead allowing 3 runs in the 6th. The Springfield Cardinals tied it up in the 8th only to have Nick Webber allow 3 runs in the 11th.
- In between those two unfortunate bookends, Luke Gregerson threw 2 perfect innings striking out 4.
Palm Beach 10, Brevard County 1
- Tyler Henley went 3-for-5 with a double and a walk.
- Steve Hill was 3-for-5.
- My favorite 1B prospect, Brandon Buckman was 3-for-5 with a double.
- Daryl Jones was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.
- Donovan Solano was 3-for-5 with a double. If you haven’t noticed the trend, PB doubled the opposition to death with 5 doubles in total.
- David Kopp threw 4 innings allowing 2 hits and 2 BBs while K-ing 4. All 8 of his outs in play were groundballs. Question: When will I start to regret not being on this bandwagon?
Quad Cities 0, Wisconsin 2 (7 innings)
- The Swing River Bandits got shut down by the Mariners first a overall draft pick Phillip Aumont. He held them hitless for 4 innings and the team only recorded 3 hits.
- Catcher Luis de la Cruz recorded a double, the only extra base hit, in his 3 ABs.
- Peter Kozma was 0-for-2 with a walk.
Quad Cities 0, Wisconsin 2 (7 innings)
- QC faired even worse in Game 2 of their double header recording just 1 hit: a double off the bat of Domnit Bolivar.
- Nick Additon was absolutely stupendous tonight. He threw 4 innings striking out 9! He walked 1 and allowed 2 hits. He struck out 9! He faced 14 batters and 9 of them struck out! 7 of his 9(!) strikeouts were of the swing and miss variety. Welcome to my radar, Nick Additon. I’m gonna have to make sure I catch one of his starts when I go up to John O’Donnell Stadium this summer.
- QC had 3 errors in their second game with fielding errors by Kozma and Bolivar and a throwing error by Justin Roberson.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
I’m just going to make it a habit of pointing out Solano’s good nights every time he has them.
At 16 the kid was considered to be further along than Renteria. Obviously he hit a snag, but his contact rate indicates a certain degree of discipline that can hopefully turn into a solid average as his baseball IQ increases.
I know I’ve asked this before, but an analysis of how contact rate among younger minor leaguers translates into average as they have more career ABs would be very interesting. My gut says that there would be a trend upwards in average.
I think I’m going to have to disagree with you on the whole upside thing, Az. I understand what you’re saying about trying to evaluate independently of position, then decide if a player is good enough for said position, but I don’t that’s quite right. Various positions require differing skillsets; therefore, players are going to profile differently at different positions. A player who lacks the power potential to hit many home runs but has a great glove might have limited upside as a third baseman, where you typically look for more power, but great upside as a second baseman, where the added defensive importance changes the profile of his bat.
I know it’s one of those moneyball tenets, to simply grab the best statistical players and then sort out their positions, but I don’t agree with that premise. I think you have to prioritise various skills differently at different positions, thus changing the way a given player profiles there. That does, in my opinion, change the player’s ultimate ‘upside’ in relation to how well he can perform in that role. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding your argument.
I really don’t know much about Solano, but I may have to educate myself a bit more, considering his name keeps popping up here.
Additon and Kopp, two of my favourites, and I don’t mind bragging about picking them both for big seasons. C’mon, boys, don’t let me down. I’ve talked too much smack now to back down, so you’re just going to have to perform.
I think Tyler Henley could turn out to be an even better pick than a lot of us thought he was at the time, and I know most of the regulars here were thrilled even then. Now, if this organisation could just figure out how to draft some #@!?* infielders…
Also, Elvis Andrus is going to be a beast. He’s a little like Edgar Renteria in his very best years, but with even better speed, maybe just a shade less power.
One last thing that just occurred to me. Booo on PATD for taking out the exclamation point after Panic. They had the best midname punctuation since Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and they chose to forsake that awesomeness. I say again: booooo.
there still is plenty of room on the Kopp bandwagon, AZ. and red baron, you comment way too often here and have too cool of a moniker to not have an avatar!
I suppose the following may be a bit premature, what with small sample sizes and all, but how long is it going to take before we shake our heads sadly and relegate Blake Hawksworth to the List of Things that Might Have Been? He just doesn’t seem to be the same pitcher that he was before all the weird injuries/illnesses. Is it really productive to have him on the AAA roster?
RB -
One of the things that drives me absolutely bonkers in today’s baseball analysis is when there are comments like player X lacks the power to play position Y. They say it about guys like Daric Barton. The reality is that players have positive and negative offensive contributions. When evaluating a player in isolation, I don’t care how they make those contributions — hit for average, walks, power, defense, whatever — so long as they are positive.
Now, I think that argument carries more weight when you are talking about roster construction and having a balanced offense but who knows what the major league team will look like when these prospects reach it. Replacement level is higher at certain positions (like 3rd compared to C) but why should it matter how they pass that threshold so long as they do?
donovan solano has already matched his double total from 50 games in palm beach last summer in 3 games.
just a question for pitching mechanic gurus, why do you call it an inverted W? why don’t you just call it an M?
nice starts for morty and kopp. they fit the duncan model perfectly, and could both move pretty quick if they can continue to throw strikes with those power sinkers.
Az- you know, that’s a good point. There is far too much of that type of analysis on players as far as who can play where based on those sorts of things. Point conceded.
However, I still think that, on balance, when evaluating a player as far as different positions, certain skills are more desirable at certain areas. Therefore, the more unusual a player’s skillset is in relation to the position you’re evaluating him at, the higher his ceiling is, relative to the typical player at that position. Catcher, for instance, is a position where defense tends to be much more highly desired than, say, left field, (although I know that you and I are in agreement as to the ridiculousness of catcher defense evaluations) and so a player who plays catcher and hits better than other players of said position would have a higher ceiling at that position. If you were to move that player to left field, perhaps now his offensive numbers are not at all unusual for his position, reducing his so called ceiling.
I see the value in evaluating a player apart from position, but I just don’t think that you expect the exact same priorities at any given position. Therefore, when the criteria for evaluation shifts, so does the player’s ceiling.
Good point on the whole power at a given position, though. One of those ingrained bits of wisdom that one simply regurgitates regardless of it’s actual value.
fewgoodcards-
The reason it’s called an “inverted W”, as opposed to an “M”, (which would make just as much sense, really) is because there is also a “W” position that you can look for in mechanics.
When a pitcher draws his elbows back toward each other, thus “loading” his scapulas, (shoulder blades) that’s a “W” position, because, from above, it looks like the letter W. See if you can find an overhead shot of Jake Peavey mid delivery to see what I mean.
When a pitcher does that same thing, but with his elbows above shoulder level, you still get a “W”, but now it looks as if it’s been flipped over. This is the position that seems to cause so many shoulder problems among Tom House devotees and Rice graduates, to name a few.
In short, it’s only called an “Inverted W”, and not an “M” because there’s already a “W” position, and the “inverted” form of it is a damaging variation of the same biomechanical action.
Just because I’m a Missouri St. honk…the name is Bob (not Rob) and his last name is spelled Zimmermann (with two N’s). Of course, if he keeps getting lit up, it won’t matter how he spells his name, or where he played in college.
I’m not an Andrus fan because of his terrible plate discipline, and the line drive percentage he has, but he is a magician with the glove.
I had written off Solano, but if he takes a turn for the better this year it would serve two purposes:
Bring us another IF prospect to watch out for (obviously).
Start to show some promise and ROI for the Latin camps. With as hard as it seems to be at times to get DeWitt to open his DeWallet, we need the players we do sign from the Latin camps make some progress to convince upper management how important our investments in that area can be. (This is my theory anyway)
phin,
Did you remember seeing at the beginning of ST how Luhnow, other minor league associates, and even Mo, made a trip down to the Dominican to let all of the agents/players know that they were in the market for serious talent, and going to be bigger players? It was early in ST, but I was excited.
I imagine we’ll see some bigger-named signees this year. The minors sure are getting a lot more fun to watch.
Regarding target production levels or hitting “types” at certain positions:
Opportunity cost. That is why people look for production levels or “types” out of specific positions. Conitinuing with Daric Barton as an example, he may indeed reach some threshold of absolute production without ever becoming a raging power hitter….but his production would be relatively easy to find in someone who also was able to defensively handle LF/RF/3B…..thus allowing the Ryan Howards, Prince Fielders, and Mark McGwires to occupy the 1B spot.
If you have no Howard, Fielder, McGwire, then no worries….but as soon as you do, then there becomes opportunity cost.
Regarding Pitts’ comment:
Maybe he just means that Cruz is better suited to play C than 3B, hence that is why his “ceiling” is higher. Offensive production was only a part of what Pitts appeared to be considering.
That isn’t a pic of Allan Craig. Craig is #5 and bat righthanded. Got his autograph on a Bowman Card yesterday at the game, very nice guy.
Daryl Jones anyone?
phinstd — duly noted on Zimmermann’s name. I misspelled the last name and they have Rob listed on his MiLB player page. Will change.
Nick — you’re right that’s a lefty but I don’t recognize them. . . Hamilton maybe?
“power at a given position” is keeping John Olerud from being a viable Hall of Fame candidate.