Pete Kozma, Mark Diapoules and Charlie Kingrey were named to the Midwest League All Star game. The 22nd round pick out of McNeese St. is hitting .308/.368/.481 in 205 plate appearances. For what it’s worth, not much has come out of McNeese, only 7 big leaguers, Ben Broussard being the best, which isn’t saying much.
Kyle Mura and Jess Todd were both named “Pitcher of the Week” by milb.com for their respective leagues. We know about Todd’s brilliance over the past two months, but Mura has been a pleasant surprise as of late. He’s gone from starting to relieving and now back to starting the past two seasons, and has come on strong in his last two starts, going deep into both games. In those 2 games he has struck out 12 with no walks. Kyle’s father Steve Mura won 12 games as part of the World Champion 1982 Cardinal team. Kyle also used to play 3B in college for Loyola Marymount, and Baseball America named him the WCC’s “Best Defensive Third Baseman” in 2006.
Derrick Goold serves up some delicious draft nuggets, a listing of who they’ve recently worked out:
- The biggest names they’ve worked out are RHP/CF Aaron Hicks and RHP/SS Casey Kelly. Both players are extremely gifted athletes who can pitch and play in the field, but a lot of scouts think that both have brighter futures on the mound. And the conundrum is that both players say they prefer to hit. Even if either are drafted as hitters, both would still be first rounders because of their tools, and both are top flight defenders up the middle. If “surer things” are already gone by the time the 13th pick arrives, you could flip a coin for all I care in deciding between these two. I suppose I’d give Kelly the slight edge, because he is a rare power hitting/plus defending SS. According to Keith Law, Hicks’ workout was “stellar”.
- A few others who worked out were RHP Bobby Lanigan of Adelphi and OF J.P. Ramirez, a high schooler from TX. BA ranked Lanigan the 129th best player in the draft, Ramirez the 155th. BA says Lanigan is a fastball/slider righty with good control, but he profiles more of a back of the rotation starter. Ramirez is tweener-ish and draws comparisons to David Delucci. Both seem to be more 4th round material.
- Oh, one other player who worked out is 1B Brett Newsome. Did one of you find this guy for the contest? He’s from a small school– St. Ambrose, which located in the QC area and a part of the NAIA. He has the stats: He’s put up a .470/.584/.792 line with 36 walks to 22 K’s in 46 games. You can read more about him here.
Speaking of the draft, we’ll be liveblogging it the next two days and will probably have more frequent updates here at the site between now and then about any scuttlebutt/thoughts/mock drafts/rankings, etc. Check back often.
Colby goes boom. Matt Clement sighting. Not much else.
- Colby goes yard for his only hit. He also drew a walk.
- Speaking of walks, Chris Duncan drew three. I love the eye, but isn’t he in the minors to work on his swing?
- Nick Stavinoha also homered for his only hit.
- Jaime Garcia rules. The Mexicano southpaw allowed 2 ER on 3 hits (including a HR) and 2 BB over 7 innings, with 9 K’s. Out of the other 12 outs he recorded on balls in play, 11 were groundouts. Lots of K’s + lots of groundouts + lefty=Something Special.
Springfield had the day off.
- It looks like something may be salvaged out of the Matt Clement contract, after all. Clement was very good, going 6 innings and allowed just 1 hit. He struck out 5 and induced 10 ground outs.
- Antone DeJesus goes 2 for 3 with 2 walks.
- Arnoldi Cruz went 2 for 4 with a HR. Cruz is hitting .341 with 10 RBI and 4 XBH in his last 10 games.
- Oliver Marmol goes 2 for 4.
- Blake King had a classic Blake King performance. 6 walks over 3.2 innings, that’s all that I find important about that outing.
- Charles Fick allowed 3 runs on 2 hits and 3 walks.
- Thomas Pham had a golden sombrero.
- Ateo Folli had the team’s only XBH, a double.
Note: With the short season teams starting this month, I’m going to move VSL and DSL coverage to a once a month update. It’s not that I don’t find it interesting, but I’m not up for covering 9 games a night, nor would I want to ask AZ or Roarke to do so, either.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
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Nick Additon should have been an All-Star too, in my opinion.
Haha…I think I pitched vs St.Ambrose when I was in NAIA and actually got some people out.
Haha…and I sucked.
I wonder if Garcia would be considered a top 50 prospect by BA yet?
Also it looks like others are starting go with the prediction of the cards taking Fredriech.
http://www.mymlbdraft.com/MLB-Mock-Draft-2008
Last week I think they had us with hicks.
I am pumped for thursday. I already called in for work.
Didn’t Mulder dominate at Palm Beach too? I want to see more out of Clement. Any word on his velocity?
Clement’s FB velocity reported at 86-88 at the official site.
I’m really kicking myself over this whole scouting contest the Cards held. This season, I was an assistant coach up here in the chicago area and we had an amazing short stop. He was just named the DuPage Valley Conference player of the year (hitting .500 in conference with 6 hrs) and has had scouts all over him all year. Most notably the cubs who have had the special assistant to Jim Hendry at about 10 of our games including scouts from the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Marlins and a few others. I dont remember seeing any Cardinal scouts there, but who knows. He’s also got a full-ride scholarship to Purdue sitting there just in case he doesn’t get drafted high enough, which I have a hunch he will.
Anyway, I’m just kicking myself because I was so damn busy this school year, the scouting thing completely slipped my mind until yesterday. Oh, well, where ever he ends up, he will be an asset to the program. Hard worker, and one of the greatest and most polite kids I have ever been around.
That’s refreshing news, Liam.
where did clement’s fastball sit before he got hurt?
89-91, I believe. He was never a guy who blew it by people
I’ll miss hearing about the VSL and DSL kids But with monthly updates, i think we will be able to draw more conclusions about the players that are that young and that far from the majors.
When I went and saw QC at Kane County, I lucked out and saw the Addition/Diapoules starting tandem. It is strange seeing a teams top two starters throw on the same night. I thought Diapoules had better stuff overall, but no one squared up anything against Addition. Everything hitter got wood on were weird cue shot type balls off the handle or nubbers off the end of the bat. There is something about the finish of Addition’s motion that is funky. It is really abrupt and doesn’t give his arm time to decelerate.
Springfield off tonight? Rats. I wanted to hear about Salas striking out the side.
I’m going to go ahead and say what everybody else might be thinking: The Cards will shock us with their first round pick and take somebody completely different than what the projections/experts say. There’s too much consensus that we’ll take Friedrich or Melville or Lawrie. . .we’ll end up with Lancy Lynn or Putnam or someone like that.
I’ll provide an occasional Gerardo Mannbel update from Venezuela, if no one minds.
Yesterday, 2-for-2 with a walk–but also, 2 errors (still just 3 on the year), a caught stealing, and twice(!) picked off first. Well, he is a teenager after all.
Mannbel so far: .371/.482/.571, with 12 walks & just 5 strikeouts in 70 at-bats.
As for the St. Ambrose reference, I should have bugged some of my friends from my hometown. SAU was my first college, as they lured me with the promise of being the sports editor as a freshman. Turns out Ambrose is known for journalism, just not the print variety. Now if I wanted to be on the radio, well then things would have been great!
The funny part is that Newsome started out at Missouri Southern in Joplin, where I live now! Guess I should have paid more attention to that contest, as well.
Just thought I’d throw another name out from Owasso High School. (Pete Kozma’s HS) Brian Flynn is the name. 6′8″ 250lbs. LHP. Kid “signed” with Witchita State but so did Pete. Not sure where he is on a draft board, but somebody that should at least garner some interest. BTW Owasso just won state again this year!