Nick Webber needs to have a big year. He’s being used as a long reliever now, which could be a busy job having 3 of Springfield’s 5 pitchers coming off tandem starting. He’s off to a horrid start, with 21 walks to only 7 K’s, but apparently Brent Strom has found a flaw in his delivery and it’s been corrected now. We’ll see if that leads to an improvement, but right now he looks like a blown 2nd round pick and a good candidate to miss the 40 man roster later this year.
Draft tidbits-KG ponders the Rays’ 1, 1 conundrum and whether or not they should draft Buster Posey. I’d take Pedro Alvarez. Forget “need”. You can find some position for him to play to get his bat in the lineup. Alvarez was widely considered the best player in the draft pre-injury, and I don’t think there’s any reason to believe he won’t come fully back. If the Rays do take Posey, and it’s believed they will, I don’t think it’s a bad decision. It’s just not the right one, in my opinion.
Matthew Leach reports Luhnow is leaning towards a college pitcher. I’ll have more on that on a post tomorrow, but I have to wonder…what if the big 4 are off the board? Then what? I’m starting to hope that scenario unfolds, as I’m liking the idea of drafting Brett Wallace or Yonder Alonso if they could play a passable LF.
Speaking of the draft, I’m working at putting together something unprecedented amongst baseball bloggerdom. Inspired by C70 and his terrific United Card Blogger projects, I’ve started a United Baseball Blogger Mock Draft! It’s not a 100% sure thing yet as we don’t have all the participants down yet for each team, but the idea is to have team specific bloggers play their team’s scouting director/GM and we all come together and do a mock of the 1st round. So far I’m very pleased to say we have Geoff Young from Ducksnorts, Taj from Athletics Nation, Phuture Phillies, Redsminorleagues.com, Bucco Blog, Nationals Farm Authority, Royals Authority, Batters Box, Prospect Insider, Seth Speaks and several others participating. I know most of you who read this are Cardinal fans, but if you’re a blogger of the teams listed below and would like to participate, I’ll be happy to provide more details. Just leave me a note in the comments.
- O’s
- Astros
- Rangers
- Brewers
- Mets
- Diamondbacks
- Indians
- Yankees
I’ll be posting the results here and discussing how it went and who I was able to pick and why. If all goes well, we’ll expand out to the supplemental round too.
Just to break up some monotony, we’ll look at last night’s games from the bottom up. The farm goes 3 for 4 tonight.
- SS Gerardo Mannbel continues to rake. He went 2 for 5, including a HR and a SB, and he is now hitting .375/.459/.594 in 32 at bats. Last year Mannbel caught our eye with his eye when he walked 41 times to 26 K’s over 218 at bats.
- Yorbel Alcala went 3 for 4.
- Javier Avendano went 5 innings, and allowed 2 ER on 3 hits, 2 walks, and 2 K’s. He threw 3 wild pitchs.
- Just when I mention Mark Diapoules in the latest 3 up, 3 down column, he goes down. Er, not down with an injury, he just had a bad game-6 ER, on 6 hits (including a HR) and 2 walks over 3.1 innings. He struck out 3.
- Nick Additon threw 4 innings of 1 hit ball, striking out 3.
- Cardoza Tucker allowed 4 earned runs in the 10th, and managed to record just one out.
- Tommy Pham went 2 for 5 with a double and struck out twice.
- Pete Kozma uncharacteristically struck out 3 times in 4 AB, but reached base on a HBP.
- Charles Kingrey went 2 for 5.
- Matt Arburr doubled.
- Daryl Jones is on fire. After homering twice yesterday, he followed that performance up with a 3 for 4 night, including a triple and a SB. He’s hitting .320/.399/.500. I know this is his third year in the minors, but had he gone to college this would only be his first full year. I’m glad to see him start to figure things out.
- Pride of McNeese State and 3B Brian Cartie doubled.
- Andrew Brown went 2 for 4 with a double.
- Luke Gorsett went 2 for 5 with 2 k’s.
- Brad Furnish was kinda blah…He went 3 innings, allowed 2 ER including a HR and walked 4 to 3 K’s. A 1.25 HR/9 rate in the FSL is not a badge of honor. What’s gonna happen if he gets called up to AA?
- Josh Dew struck out 2 of the 3 batters he faced.
- Fransisco Samuel walked 2 and allowed a hit but came out of his inning unscathed while having struck out 2.
Springfield was off
- Anthony Reyes had a nice audition for another team last night, having allowed just 3 hits over 5 innings. He gave up 1 ER, 3 walks and struck out 7. He threw only 82 pitches, which for Reyes to throw under 85 pitches through 5 innings is actually pretty good.
- Jason Motte pulled a Fransisco Samuel.
- Joe Mather went 2 for 5. As did Brian Barden.
- Mark Johnson went 2 for 4 with a BB.
- Colby Rasmus finally played in a game…as a 9th inning defensive replacement.
Filed under: 2008 MLB draft, Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Gerardo is a Mannbel among boys in the VSL. Great to see him adding power to that plate discipline. Don’t know why Luhnow didn’t mention GM among the players to watch in Venezuela….
Additon looks to be back to his early season form–pretty exciting to see.
Free Joe Mather!
Couple quick questions.
Ryde Rodriguez, what team is he playing for, and what is his projection?
I remember when we first signed him, I saw 2 different scouting reports, one said he was going to be great, the other said he was going to be horrible.
Which one is it, or do people generally think he will fall somewhere in the middle.
Colby, Is this funk he is in really about someone trying to change his swing?
If that is true, who told him to do it?
I have seen several people talk about his dad and brother complaining about the Cardinal orginazation, does Colby feel the same way?
Forgot one other question I had.
Did anyone ever find out what Marti’s injury was?
I get to go see Quad Cities play Kane County saturday. I was wondering if anyone has someone that they would like me to snap some photos of and maybe do a little write-up on. I am of course excited to see Kozma and am interested to see Pham, but beyond that let me know and I will try to put something together.
-BJM
Viva El Birdos is down it seems…
Anybody know why or how long?
Saw this on Cards Talk. Someone found Marti…
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Amaury%20Cazana&pos=&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=502973
BigJawnMize- If you would plz I would like a few pictures of Luis De La Cruz and Domnit Bolivar. Mainly Domnit but anything you get i’ll be happy.
VEB is working for me…..
If you read what Jeff actually said he made the comment that there’s a good chance that the Cardinals would go in the College Pitcher Direction. He didn’t say they were focussing on it. In fact, he also directly commented that after the top 3-4 guys there was a sig. dropoff in the College pitcher ranks and that should answer your question about those guys being off the board.
Also, after reading the article, personally I believe it is being over-blown. The Cards may well go in that direction, but nothing Lurhnow said in that interview made me believe it is a forgone conclusion. Furthermore, since Lurhnow has taken over the Cards have actually been pretty balanced between high school and college players, at least with their very early picks. I think Jeff was doing his best to avoid giving anything away actually and wouldn’t have expected any different answer even if they hated all the college arms.
I don’t get the disdain for college arms either. I read Baseball America, etc. too and despite their tendency to favor high school players for upside — BA’s very own research indicates that you’re pretty much equally likely to get a good player either way you go. I’d love a toolsy high school kid, but would he be just the next Daryl Jones or the other end and be Colby Rasmus?
I try to judge players based on what I perceive them to be and not what age or school level they are at. Last year, I wanted the Cardinals to take Porcello. This year, I like Christian Friedrich.
“Furthermore, since Lurhnow has taken over the Cards have actually been pretty balanced between high school and college players, at least with their very early picks.”
Really? They have picked one HS player in the top 230 picks the past two drafts. A total of 18 picks. And yeah I cherry-picked 230 and left out 2005.
But I honestly don’t think Luhnow was giving anything away in this piece. There is no reason for him to hint to anyone other than people inside the FO who they might take. And damn you Scheppers for getting hurt.
I don’t have any disdain for the college pitchers, I would be please with Friedrich, moderately happy with Hunt but I have some concerns about him and as much as Crow has a lot of wow factor, I fear for his health.
Scheppers was my #1 guy I thought might be around at 13, and now he certainly will…not sure what to make of his injury, though.
My preference would be for a big time college hitter, perhaps because of the success we’ve seen with some of them like Matt LaPorta. Ultimately I think we end up with Friedrich, which would be fine with me.
Shhh, that is whay I said “with their very early picks.” With their first rounder pick the Cardinals have taken a high school player 2 of the last three years.”
Erik, that comment was not directed at you or anyone else in particular. It is just a general feeling that you get from people who follow prospects. There’s always this distorted view about how great high school players are and that taking a college player is always being conservative. For me, I think the teams who ignore any of that stuff and focus on what the player actually is consistently do the best in their draft.
Generally, I would prefer the Cardinals take position players with their first rounder and then draft pitchers from there and find gems based on volume. Also, I don’t think teams should draft for need in MLB, but I’m honestly not crazy about another guy to be an outfielder unless they honestly see and believe that he can rake like Laporta. Optimally, middle infied prospects are the most valuable, but I really don’t think the Cardinals have a great shot at getting the premium guys at those position. All in all, I trust Lurnow. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt from me (at least for now) regardless of what direction they go.
I’d rather them focus in players up the middle myself, but that doesn’t seem to be the way this draft is shaping up, at least not in the first round. I happen to think Wallace and Alonso could put up some pretty good numbers. Wallace I think is more like Butler of the Royals, while I’m not sure Alonso reminds me of…Albert-lite? I mean, he just has an unbelievable eye and good power too. I’m pretty sure he’ll be gone by the time the Cards pick anyway.
Memphis just batted around in the 7th. Jimenez made the 1st and 3rd outs. Rasmus walked but got erased by Anderson grounding into a force out. He just can’t get any luck, from what I understand he has 2 line drive outs to go with that walk. Once his balls find holes I think he will blast open.
Interesting note: BA just released their top 100 with scouting reports today and I noticed that they say Alonso is limited to first base only. I wanted to cross-reference this, so I checked his page on minorleaguebaseball.com and the guy in the video says the same thing. If this is true, I would say that it eliminated any chance of the Cardinals grabbing him.
Springfield has added Mikrut and Sadlowski from Palm Beach. Daniels sent to the Mexican League. Zimmerman released. Robinson is back in the line up tonight with Hill catching.
I generally like the notion of picking a high-upside HS pitcher early in the draft, but I don’t know who fits that bill.
Tim Melville pitched in our town last night against a scrappy, senior-laden team with no hitting prospects above NAIA. His numbers wer not particularly impressive: 5 2/3 IP, 5H, 6BB, 1ER, don’t know how many Ks.
My son watched him pitch. Now, he is no scout, but he was a 1st team class 4 all-state pitcher and pitches D1 right now (at least when his elbow isn’t barking). He played summer ball with Max Scherzer and Nathan Culp and has competed against the likes of Kyle Drabek.
He said Melville is a “max effort” guy who couldn’t throw a fastball in the zone past a slightly better than average high school team, had a lazy curveball, and a mostly non-existent change.
Melville threw in the low-90s when he faced him during Melville’s freshman year and my son says he looked about the same yesterday. I have concerns about a kid who hasn’t picked up significant velocity from 15 to 18.
I hope the kid has a great career and all that, but I will be crushed if the Cardinals waste a 13th overall pick on him.
I’m sure they won’t. I’m starting to think there is Melville the kid, and Melville the Myth.