Future Redbirds

Beware! Long-winded DFR tonight, with a lot of ground to cover.

One thing I’ll never understand is MLB.tv’s blackout restrictions. I really wanted to see Boggs’ first start, unfortunately I was left with Gameday. Yippee. I guess at least that way I didn’t have to see Pujols’ injury. Gulp. You can freak out about that all you want elsewhere. Here we will stick to prospects. Anyway, looking at Gameday it appears Boggs was pretty amped in the first couple of innings. He touched 95 against his first batter- Jay Bruce - and in his 7th pitch he got the uber-prospect to ground out on a 94 MPH sinker. He walked the next two batters on 8 pitches-all fastballs-before finally throwing a breaking ball to Brandon Phillips. (He threw almost nothing but breaking balls to Phillips). He would occasionally lose his release point. By the fourth inning his velocity was down to 89-92. That’s the inning he threw a meatball right down the pike for Joey Votto, who promptly took him deep. Judging by Pitch F/X, it seems like his curveball isn’t a bad pitch, just not one that he has great control of. He only got 3 swinging strikes out of the 72 pitches he threw, but he did manage to get 11 groundouts. Congrats to the young man on getting his first big league win.

Jon Jay was named the TL player of the week. Jaime Garcia and Nick Additon were the pitchers of the week for their respective leagues.

Per Derrick Goold, the Cards have already signed 30 of their 51 draftees. Notables who I thought could be tough signs are 7th rounder Anthony Ferrara and 11th rounder Devin Shepherd. No Niko Vasquez yet. Goold also reports the Cardinals signed non-drafted free agent OF and former 15th round pick Jarred Bogany of Lubbock Christian. He was ranked Brewerfan.net’s 61st overall draft prospect three years ago. He since has played at baseball powerhouses LSU and Arizona State before transferring to LCU. There he hit .322/.383/.615, but had just 11 walks to 41 strikeouts.

While I’m on the draft, I found this blog entry by Padres Assistant GM Paul DePodesta an interesting look into the mind of a decision maker. (Why yes, he is blogging. How cool is that?) He addresses some fan perceptions about the Friars not drafting players with “upside”. We’ve heard that complaint before, haven’t we? Here’s DePo-

When most people talk about ceiling or upside what they’re really talking about is the gap between the player’s current ability, call it his polish, and his ultimate ability. A bigger gap indicates bigger upside. Let’s think about that for a second - is that such a good thing? The answer is that it all depends on the ultimate ability as well as the likelihood that the player will reach that level. That ultimate ability, though, can be very difficult to measure.

Read the rest of the entry, and you can almost hear Jeff Luhnow, just substitute Brad Chalk, Cedric Hunter and Matt Latos’s names with Tyler Greene, Daryl Jones and Mark McCormick. The truth is we fans tend to complain when the unpolished players struggle in the minors, and we complain when they take a guy like Lance Lynn. Evaluating a draft is a tough task, because we have no idea how it will pan out until years from now, and even then we won’t have a perfect picture. The whole thing can be a hard to wrap our heads around, and people who have a real vested interest care a whole lot more then we do.

On to the games, the Cards go 3 for 4.

Memphis 3, Iowa 4

• Colby Rasmus went 2 for 4. He’s hitting .342 in is last 38 at bats, with 5 XBH, 8 walks and 9 strikeouts.
• Jarrett Hoffpauir went 2 for 3.
• Cody Haerther went 2 for 4.
• Brian Barden went 2 for 5 with a double.
• Anthony Reyes went 7 innings. He allowed 3 runs on 5 hits and struck out 3.
• Jason Motte allowed 2 hits and walk, and struck out two. Someday soon, his weird .400+ BABIP luck has to turn.

Springfield 3, Arkansas 1

• Shane Robinson went 2 for 4 with a HR.
• Tyler Herron allowed a run on 6 hits and 2 walks and struck out 3 over 5.2 innings. He had a harder time finding the strike zone than usual, throwing 47 of his 84 pitches for strikes.
• Luke Gregerson took a step towards righting his ship, throwing 2.1 innings, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out 2.
• Fernando Salas retired all three batters he faced on just 10 pitches, inducing 3 ground outs.

Palm Beach 5, Clearwater 4

• Daniel Descalso smacked two doubles in 4 at bats.
• Brandon Buckman doubled and homered.
• Luke Gorsett and Nicholas Derba doubled.
• Oliver Marmol went yard.
• Brad Furnish managed to only allow 3 runs despite allowing a load of baserunners. 4 walks, 8 hits over 5 innings. I’ve seen him pitch, I thought he looked pretty good. But statistically this season he just doesn’t do it for me–about 5.5 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, lots of fly balls. Myeh.
• Kenny Maiques is back, and he’s ringin’ tha bell…nevermind. He didn’t allow a walk over 2 innings, allowing just 1 hit. Good for him.

QC 8, Peoria 5

This game was on a local station, so I’ll try and add a little color to the boxscore. I also was watching my little guy for the first half of the game, so I was a little distracted. But here’s what I managed to see:

• Pete Kozma went 1 for 4 and drove in 2. His hit was a single that he wrapped down the 3B line. He made a loud out on a very nice swing close to the RF warning track.
• Tommy Pham went yard twice, making me look like a fool for saying he should try pitching. The first HR was to the opposite field in right center, a no doubter. The second hit the batters eye direct to center. He is quite the specimen and needs every chance to develop into a hitter. Pass the crow, please.
• Charlie Kingrey doubled on a pitch low, hitting the ball against the wall to deep left-center. He’s got some pretty nice power, I’d just like to see what he can do against more advanced competition.
• Matt Arburr hit a homer WAY OUT to left field. WAY OUT. It left the park, possibly the state.
• Luis De La Cruz threw out 2 basestealers. He’s got a cannon.
• Thomas Eager allowed 5 ER on 6 hits and two walks, picking up only 1 K. This report we were given was just completely spot on after watching him. Dead on. He has a good slider, and when he can locate his fastball down in the zone he’s OK, but he doesn’t have the best command and when he elevated the ball he got pounded. I think at best he’s a situational reliever.
• Matt Spade struck out 2 in his one inning, one a lefty and the other a RHB. He possesses a decent breaking ball and I’d say he has some LOOGY potential. Sure enough, he’s held lefties to an .050 average this season.
• Brian Broderick dominated the dojo. He struck out 8 over 4 innings, allowing 3 hits. For someone who struck out 2 per inning, he appears to be much more of a finesse guy. He’s a tall, athletic pitcher with an easy and repeatable delivery. He threw a fastball with some pretty nice sink to it, probably around the 87-89 range, but there was no gun, I’m just guessing. He threw 2 different versions of a curveball, one a faster, tighter version that got a lot of whiffs, and the other a slower, loopier version. He was really impressive, but it’s hard for me to say what his future potential is without watching the game again a little more closely. Luckily, I recorded it.