Daily Farm Report 5/5/08
Posted on May 5, 2008 by azruavatar
Cardsfan1 (our Springfield tipster if you will), noted in the comments that Adam Ottavino should be back from the DL this Saturday. Kary Booher confirms this in his recap of Cory Rauschenberger’s 2nd start in place of Ottavino.
Bryan Smith, the BP college baseball & prospect guru, had a chat today that included some Cardinal drafting notes, Jaime Garcia, a nice Wainwright note and a failed Chris Duncan comparison.
Forgot this yesterday but here are the standings for our farm teams:
- Memphis 14-18, .438, 2nd in the division
- Springfield 15-16, .484, tied for first
- Palm Beach 20-11, .645, first
- Quad Cities 16-13, .552, 3rd
The Mark Mulder train wreck continues as it heads towards STL (possibly). Shane Robinson is a hitting machine and Joe Mather continues to impress. It’s your Daily Farm Report on Cinco de Mayo.
- Colby Rasmus goes 0-for-4 with 3 Ks. No bueno. He did steal his 5th base though — small victories.
- Joe Mather went 1-for-3 with a walk. In 51 ABs, he’s hitting .333/.477/.588 having lost a little time to a DL stint. He’s getting a little lucky on hits right now but his walk rate is doing great and he’s cut down on his strikeouts thus far. All in all, a nice continuation from last season.
- Cody Haerther goes 2-for-5 with a double.
- D’Angelo Jimenez goes 2-for-4 with a HR and Uncle Rico hit a HR for the second consecutive game.
- Bryan Anderson goes 2-for-4 with a double.
- Let me put this nicely: Mark Mulder isn’t MLB ready. I’m reluctant to say that his goose is completely cooked but the best he’s been during his entire rehab time was just OK. You’d like to see an MLB caliber pitcher dominate in at least 1 game in the minors. He went 6 innings tonight allowing a ghastly 7 runs. 9 hits (4 doubles) combined with 2 HBP and 2 walks against 4 strikeouts completes the ugly line. The only positive was the 10 groundouts vs. 4 flyouts. Again: Mulder is not MLB ready and his rehab time is up.
- Ron Flores struck out 5 in 2 perfect innings.
- Kelvin Jimenez struck out the side in a perfect 9th. Still not an MLB caliber reliever but probably the first in line to be recalled from AAA.
- Shane Robinson continues to hit. 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and his 5th stolen base.
- Mark Hamilton’s early season success has largely evaporated. He went 1-for-3 with a walk but is hitting just .156 over his last 10 games.
- Brandon Yarbrough was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk.
- Rauschenberger went 5 innings allowing 4 hits, 1ER, 1BB and striking out 4.
- Josh Dew retired 4 batters allowing a hit, a walk and 2 HBP but got lucky as Fernando Salas came in to strand the bases loaded in the 7th.
- Luke Gregerson worked around a hit and a walk to pick up the save striking out 1 in the 9th. The Springfield bullpen is looking a little shaky — but that was to be expected.
- Steve Hill went 1-for-4 with a double.
- Daryl Jones was 1-for-3.
- Tony Cruz supplied the offense with a 3-for-4 night.
- Shaky outing command-wise for Brad Furnish. He only allowed 2 hits but walked 3 (plus a wild pitch) and struck out just 1 for 1 ER in 5 innings.
- Mark McCormick came in to throw 3 innings striking out 3 and allowing 1 hit. Walks remain the issue for McCormick as he’s striking out almost a batter an inning, getting groundballs and isn’t too hittable.
- Pete Kozma was 0-for-4.
- Adron Chambers was 2-for-4 with a double.
- All told the offense was a disappointment with 7 hits (2 doubles) and 2 walks.
- Nick Additon took an ugly loss allowing 5 ER in 2 innings on 4 hits and 2BBs. He struck out 4 but also allowed a solo HR. He’s got a 4:1 K:BB ratio but batters are teeing off for a .306 average and 5 HRs in 25 innings.
- Mark Diapoules finished up the last 4 innings of the game allowing 4 hits, 1 ER and striking out 3.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
ha, love the fact that Bryan follows FR. You guys deserve the respect…
Garcia will be a major-league pitcher, and soon, for just the reason Smith mentioned: he’s smart enough to listen and make adjustments, and has the talent to execute them. This kid’s ceiling is higher than people think. Hoping to catch him next weekend down at Memphis - anybody know his first rotation turn?
As far as 13, I’m betting on Scheppers… I’d love it if they’d consider Weeks or Skippworth (if he falls), but there aren’t many stud SPs on the horizon in the system, and restocking just seems to make sense.
Mo was supposed to be in Memphis for that game to watch Mulder pitch. I don’t think he’s going to see St. Louis anytime soon…
Can the team just release Mulder and cut our losses on that trade all together? He does as much damage to the roster situation as he does to the team’s postion in the standings. I thought the Cards would be better this year by addition through the subtraction of the old versions of Edmounds and Rolen. It just seems like we would be better off letting Mulder follow the same route. It will be better for the team to pay him his salary to sit at home and be done with one of the failed pieces of late Jocketty era.
I hope they don’t take Weeks that high. I think Weeks is a very late first rounder. W/o much power, you would be banking on his ability to stay at second base - which I have heard is not a foregone conclusion. I’m not sure his power plays in the OF, and we have a CF about his age already.
I think Mulder’s line looks even more horrendous when you see that Flores and Jimenez struck out eight of the same hitters over the last three innings.
Just an ugly outing for Mulder and if he is only going to chuck 85 mph fastballs with poor secondary offerings and bad control, then his goose is cooked.
Given the success of the Cards rotation thus far, there is no reason to rush Mulder. The question of the hour is whether the speed will return over time as he refines his pitching motion and gains additional shoulder strength.
Maybe the Cards could use another lefty in the pen?
avenger, yeah i didn’t see that one coming when i posted that question. it is nice to get some recognition though. maybe more people check us out than we thought
Assuming we don’t just release Mulder outright (which I wouldn’t be opposed to at this point), can we send him to the 15-day DL again and give him another rehad stint in the minors after that?
On releasing Mulder - the cons seem to far outweigh the pros. In fact, I can’t really think of any pros except “no more worrying about Mulder.”
Listen, when you barely pitch over the course of two years, you simply don’t regain your ability to pitch, your arm strength, your true mechanics in a few weeks or even months - it takes more time. This isn’t ’spring training’ for a guy who pitched all of last year - it’s ’spring training’ for a guy who has had two major surgeries in the last year, whose mechanics have been jacked up for a long time.
It’s going to take much longer than people think.
We’ve made an investment in Mulder, and we may as well follow through. What happens if he needs a couple more months, but he’s where he needs to be around the All-Star break? We might as well keep him and hope that the ‘real’ Mark Mulder returns, rather than him haunting us as a Dodger or something in the fall.
Besides, we’re playing the D-Backs a bunch in September, and I think fate is mapping out a Mulder vs. Haren showdown…
^ Time to pencil that one into the old schedule as the night Dan Haren pitches a perfect game.
Mulder’s own quotes should tell him he’s largely done as a pitcher:
”The minute I made a mistake over the plate, they’d hit it,” Mulder said. ”I’d make two or three good pitches and then that one mistake, I’d throw a sinker away and I’d hit a little too much plate and they’d hit it to right field.”
That’s what happens when you’re throwing 85mph slop over the plate. And Mozeliak seemed to sneak in a sting:
”Obviously, it wasn’t an outing where he could just breeze through it. I feel at times it lacked a little effort, or intensity may be the right word. There’s still some work to be done.”
The article goes on to note that Mulder isn’t experiencing any pain in his shoulder. I seem to recall him saying he had no pain just before he landed on the operating table though. They’ll put him on the DL before they simply release him but I can’t forsee that option getting picked up.
That is what I was wondering? Can they just move him to the 60-day DL and forget about him for most of the season? I am right that they have to make a decision, they can’t just leave him on a rehab stint for ever. That is basically designating him for assignment and he can refuse that.
he wasn’t throwing 85 last night, he was consistently 88-89 which is plenty of velocity for a lefty. his problem was just what he said, he would spot a couple of fastballs perfectly and they wouldn’t even be close to hitting them then he would leave a fat one. his offspeed stuff wasn’t sharp either. i think there is still a chance he can be a useful pitcher, but he has a lot of work left to do to get his command back and regain the feel on his secondary offerings.
There were two significant omissions in the current report:
1. Marti pinch hit for Mather in the eighth inning of a close game, not a normal occurrence, particularly since both are righthanded. Why? Did Mather re-injure himself?
2. You stated that walks have been a continual problem for McCormick, but then curiously failed to note that in his three scoreless innings last night he walked no one.
Mike -
1. Don’t know about this one unless they wanted Marti’s defense out in RF. Dan Fox’s SFR really liked him as a corner outfielder so that’s possible. It’s also possible they’re still being cautious with Mather’s back.
2. I didn’t list that he walked anyone in those three innings but I didn’t call it out specifically. I don’t think I ever list “0BB” in the reports because (if i don’t list it) I assume that it’s recognized that there weren’t any. If not, that’s why we link to the box scores. As for the walks in a more general sense, I’m thrilled he didn’t walk anyone in 3 innings but those innings don’t negate the fact that control has been the thematic problem for McCormick. I’m not trying to overlook the fact that he walked no one, but neither am I going to champion 3 innings as problem solved. It’s a fine balance between pointing out the night’s events and trying to offer some big picture type insight on a daily basis.
BJM - rehab stints are limited to 30 days. Mulder’s first start was on April 15th so they have a little time left before they have to DL him again or recall him to STL. I think they can simply put him back on the DL if they wish.
Thanks AZ,
I thought there was a time limit for rehad stints. There has to be a little more to the disable list than meets the eye. It would appear that they could put cycle him on the 15 day DL then start a 30 day rehab stint ad infinitum. I was thinking though that for the sake of the teams roster places they will need to stick him on the 60 man DL and free up a 40 man roster spot for one of the kids that might not be on the roster but could play this year.
Either way he is toast…
BJM