Mike Parisi is closing in on the majors.

Background

Mike Parisi was drafted in the 9th round of the now infamous 2004 draft, out of Manhattan College. Parisi racked up plenty of K’s with his big curveball in the MAAC for the Jaspers, (272 in 243.2 innings) but had some control issues that needed ironing out. Fun factoid: Parisi was a battery mate with Nick Derba in his final season for Manhattan. He also majored in Physical Education in college. Thank God he’s in baseball, I’d hate to see his lanky legs in gym teacher shorts.

Performance

Parisi debuted in short season New Jersey, and posted a 3.39 FIP over 36.1 innings, striking out 26 to 6 walks. He was promoted to Peoria and was impressive, putting up a 2.98 FIP in 35.2 innings. He struck out a batter per inning while improving his control. He impressed his managers at both levels with his breaking ball and “pit bull” mentality. Gruff. John Sickels ranked him the Cardinals # 20 overall prospect in a very thin year. Sickels ranked him the Cardinals 20th best prospect.

In 2005, a 22-year-old Parisi started his season for the Quad Cities. He gave up quite a few hits (98 in 86 IP) but did well overall. He refined his control, walking just 6.7% of the batters he faced while striking out 17.6%. After 14 games for the QC, he moved up to the PB to start 13 games in sunny Florida. He allowed 79 hits in 78 innings, posting an identical walk rate as he had with the Swing. He also missed a few more bats, fanning 19.1% per plate appearance. Over 27 starts, Parisi didn’t wow anyone, but he proved himself to be a durable, dependable arm while successfully moving up the ladder. In his 27 starts split between the two teams he had a 129/47 K/BB in 164 innings, allowing 177 hits. Going into 2006, Sickels ranked him 18th overall and gave him a C+ grade.

Parisi kept movin’ on up in 2006. At age 23 he posted a 4.60 ERA over 27 starts for AA Springfield. His K rate declined some (15.9% K/PA), his walk rate spiked (9.4%) and he was imminently more hittable, getting tagged for 168 hits in 150.2 innings. With help from his sinker he did do a fair job of keeping the ball in a hitter friendly park. 48% of his balls in play were of the ground ball variety. He actually started the season missing bats at an insane rate, but batters soon got wise to his ways. He also showed a noticeable platoon split. Lefties pounded him for a .306/.377/.466 line, versus right handed batters hitting .259/.331/.337 against.

BA ranked him the team’s 24th best prospect going into this year, but AAA was not too kind to Parisi. He allowed 192 hits in 165 innings-but do remember that Memphis’s defense scary bad last year. Still, a 5.17 FIP is a 5.17 FIP, which is what he had. Parisi had 111 K’s to 65 walks and a decent 47% ground ball rate. He’s been miserable in the first inning, every batter turns into Ryan Braun in their 1st AB against Parisi-hitting .345/.390/.619 against. I’m not sure why that is, but he may need to tweak his pre-game routine habits. But the overall results aren’t necessarily an accurate reflection on his season, as lboros noted the other day, Parisi improved as the season progressed. That moves me to my next subject.

Scouting

Derrick Goold might be getting tired of seeing FR in his incoming links section on his WordPress dashboard, but Bird Land has been chock full of delicious morsels and tidbits since spring training started. In one of his latest dishes, he wrote about Parisi at length and how he was trying to make his curveball into 15 different pitches, rather then trusting his fastball to set up the curve. Parisi started journaling his games, picking apart what worked and what didn’t work against his various foes. With some, it was his sinker that got an out. With others, it was the curve that worked. It’s an interesting read that tells me about his willingness to learn and adjust. As far as more details on his repertoire go, here’s Mike Parisi on Mike Parisi from an interview at Viva circa 2006:

My main pitch is a two-seam fastball, a sinker. I throw that about 92, 93. My curveball is definitely my second pitch. I throw three different types of curveballs. I throw a slow one, that’s kind of like a get-me-over pitch. Then I throw a harder one that’s kind of like 12-6, and then I throw another hard one probably about 80 miles an hour that’s more of a slurve. it starts out at a righty’s hip but then breaks over the outside half. And then I have a changeup, which is kind of a new thing for me.

I’ve seen Parisi recently. You can too, actually. Memphisredbirds.com is replaying all of last year’s games for free. He does have a pretty nice hook, and he can locate it where he wants more often than not. I can see why he’s had difficulty trusting his fastball. It has velocity and movement, but he doesn’t always locate it down in the zone. His sinker gets up at times, leading to doubles and homers.

Outlook

Not much to say here that you probably haven’t already concluded yourself. He’s knocking on the door to the big leagues, and he very well could be the first guy up in a pinch. He hasn’t embarrassed himself so far in spring training. I think with his teachable attitude he could hack it as a decent option at the back of the rotation, or a decent swingman.

I’m pretty high on Kenny Maiques.

Background

Kenny Maiques began his college baseball at Long Beach State, where he was a teammate of Jered Weaver and Troy Tulowitzki. He first popped up on the prospect radar when he flashed a 95 MPH fastball in the Alaska Summer League. Maiques had the decision to duke it out for playing time with Cesar Ramos (1st round, Padres), Marcos Estrada (6th round, Nationals), and Jared Hughes (4th round, Pirates in 2006), or to try and blaze his own path in a place where he was more certain to get playing time. At the 11th hour he opted for the latter, and attended Rio Hondo JC to beat up some substandard opposition. It was like playing MVP 2005 on rookie for Maiques, as he put up some outlandish numbers while earning the National Junior College Player of the Year award. Maiques threw 2 perfect games, posted a 0.66 ERA and struck out 133 in 82 innings pitched. Baseball America predicted he wouldn’t last past the third round, but right before the draft Maiques was dealt a devastating blow-He snapped his UCL and would need Tommy John. He thought his baseball career might be over, but the Cardinals took him in the 37th round and paid for his surgery.

Scouting

I’ve had the advantage of seeing Maiques on several occasions, and he is pretty nasty. He throws a 92-94 MPH 4-seam and 2-seam fastballs and just a sick, sick sharp breaking slider. It’s more of a hard slurve, it breaks more vertically then horizontally. Being a Michigan native, I am nominally a Tiger fan 2nd after the Cardinals and when I saw the pitch, it reminded me of Jeremy Bonderman’s. Because of his injury history and smaller frame (6-1, 185), there is some concern about his stamina if he were switched to starting. He also does throw with some effort. I’ve also read some concern about him being regulated to the facing right-handed batters primarily, but his platoon splits show no evidence of him struggling against lefties, rather he has dominated them both.

Stats:
Year Age Team BB/PA K/PA BABIP GB% HR/Air FIP BsRA9
2006 A- State College 18.8% 25.0% .333 67% 0% 3.55 3.24
2007 22 A Quad Cities 9.6% 27.4% .256 55% 5% 3.10 2.55

Not much to not like here. Maiques misses bats, burns worms and keeps it in the park. He set the all time record for saves for the Swing with 31.

Outlook

I’m higher on Maiques then most, I went as far to rank him our #9 prospect when others have him more in the bottom middle of their rankings. Reason being, I’ve seen him pitch and I was very impressed. With his two dominant offerings and (if you can pardon the corny baseball colloquialism), bulldog mentality, I think he’ll go far. Maybe I’ll regret saying this, but I believe that he has the stuff to close not just in the minors but also throughout his career. The consensus view is that he will make a fine late inning reliever if he can stay healthy. Right now, Maiques is probably ticketed to move up the next rung to close games for Palm Beach, but he should see time at AA at some point this season.

I think Shaun Garceau is flying under the radar…

Background

Garceau was ranked the 68th best high school prospect by Baseball America in 2005, ahead of some noteworthy names, including our own Bryan Anderson and Daryl Jones. He also was ranked above Brad Suttle, who signed for over $1M with the Yankees last year, and Jemile Weeks and Dennis Raben, two U. of Miami FL players poised to be drafted in the 1st round this upcoming season. Perfect Game went so far as to rank him the 33rd best high school player in the 05 draft, and the 2nd best pitcher out of the state of Florida. Garceau had a strong commitment to U. of Alabama, so no team touched him until the Cardinals took him in the 20th round, and they met his bonus demands.

Scouting

Back when he was still in high school, Brewerfan.net had this brief scouting report on Garceau.

Garceau has a nice, athletic frame and a whip-like, effortless delivery that creates a fair amount of deception. He throws in the 89-91 range with a promising curveball and a developing changeup.

Rivals.com also had this-

Garceau showed the best raw stuff in camp, throwing 88-91 MPH with four-seam action. His 69-70 MPH change-up was very advanced and could turn into a “plus” pitch in time. Garceau is still raw with his breaking ball and his frame is smaller than the major league prototype for a pitcher. He also struggled with command, which is not unusual for a pitcher in the fall of his junior year.

I’ve personally seen Garceau, his velocity was up to 91-94 on his fastball, and he showed a power curveball that had more of a 11-5 drop then a 12-6. He also had a pretty decent changeup, but most accounts I’ve read say it’s still a work in progress. He throws lots of strikes but can catch too much of the plate at times, leading to some hard contact. He missed all of 2006 with a staph infection, but lost nothing on the stuff that caused him to get drafted in the first place. He’s an athletic looking dude at 6-1, 185 and should fill out more with time. At the start of the season, he was the youngest player on the Quad Cities roster.

Stats

While I’d like to attribute the poor BABIP to just bad luck, the QC defense was actually pretty darn good this year. Garceau is more of a fly ball pitcher, and accordingly Garceau had 8% of his balls that were hit in the air leave the yard. That doesn’t sound that bad, but for Midwest League standards it was the 2nd worst among qualified starters.

Garceau got off to a very hot start, and was even named to BA’s prospect hot sheet at one point early in the season. But on 6/29 the Swing announced the whole piggyback/tandem rotation was over, and Garceau subsequently fell apart.

[edit: that's in order of innings, K/9, BB/9 and HR/9]

In 3 of his last 10 starts, Garceau was dinged for 17 runs in 6 2/3 innings. Last week, I asked John Vuch if it was a matter of fatigue and his response was-

Shaun took a big step forward in ‘07, but it was also his first season throwing 100+ innings, and it may have caught up with him a bit by the end of the year. He was roughed up for 6 or 7 runs in the first inning of his last start, which unfortunately tacked about ½ run on to his ERA at the end of the year. The key thing from the Cardinals perspective is that we were happy to see him healthy and pitching the way we had envisioned when he was drafted.

The future

It’s too far too early for me to even get a good guess. Watching Garceau live, he had pretty nice velocity and a good breaking ball. The fatigue factor is worrisome, I’m eager to see how he holds up for a full season this year. If he starts to tail off again later in the season, then I think a switch to relief could be in order. If that happens, I could see him adding another tick or two to his already strong fastball, and he could be a pretty nice reliever. He’s probably my favorite “sleeper” prospect at the moment

It’s a crucial season upcoming for Tyler Greene.

Background

A top high school player, the Atlanta Braves drafted Tyler Greene in the 2nd round in ‘02. Either he really prized a college education or thought he could do better, so he opted to go to Georgia Tech. He hit .431 in the Pan Am games, showing a knack for hitting with wood. He also was named the 2nd best prospect in the Cape Cod League in 2004. Despite having good showings in the summer, his NCAA career was marked by inconsistencies.

His close up came as a junior, when he hit .372/.460/.584 with 31 in 32 tries steals in 61 games, but also struck out 71 times in 269 at bats. He was rated the 40th best prospect going into the draft by Baseball America but was considered more of a high risk/high reward type of player. There was some concern regarding whether or not his swing would translate to the pros. The Cardinals felt confident that they had done their homework and took him as the 30th pick of the ‘05 draft. He signed for $1.1 M.

Scouting

We’ll start with the pluses here: The man is highly athletic. Scouts rate his speed as a 60 to 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale. He rarely gets caught stealing and will take an extra base. Greene’s speed plays to his advantage in the field, as he has good range, nice hands and the best infield arm in the system. He also has some power. The big fat negative is that his plate discipline is a mess. He struggles to make contact and is overly aggressive. He has a hard time adjusting to breaking pitches. He also tends to get pull happy. Greene dislocated his kneecap in the middle of last season and missed the 2nd half, and I have wonder if that will effect his speed.

Stats

Let’s start off with the positives again:

• That’s a nice gain in his extra base hit rate and isolated power last season and the season before with QC.
• He’s a very effective base stealer.
• A huge improvement made in his line drive rate is a good sign.
• Greene is a good fielder, saving the team 8 runs with his glove according to Dan Fox’s Simple Fielding Runs.

Negatives

• Strikeouts. That’s obvious. It’s highly unlikely he will ever hit for average.
• I can live with lots of strikeouts with that power/speed combo. The big problem is he doesn’t walk enough to offset the damage done by the K’s.
• Greene was actually demoted from Palm Beach to Quad Cities in 2006; word is his turnaround can be attributed to him seeing more fastballs. Whatever confidence he gained there was undone by not hitting in AA. There were some reasons to hope he was turning it around with the % of extra base hits and the increase in line drive rate, but the knee injury didn’t help his progress.
• His PEAK translated EqA line is .238/ .293/.436.

The Future

Greene is still pretty raw and you really don’t want to have to say that about a 24 year old. His power/speed/fielding skills are tantalizing, but his lack of plate discipline may limit him to being a utility man or worse. I think his floor is former Cardinal farmhand John Nelson. He could turn out to be another Alex Gonzalez, but with stolen bases. Other then that they look the same: Low average, low OBP, slick glove and some occasional power. A good comparison we can maybe hope for is Jose Valentin. Valentin’s no star, but he’s been in the game forever because of his glove and his power, even though he’s not a big source of OBP. If Greene is still playing in his late 30’s like Valentin he’ll have a good reason to be pretty proud.

Blake Hawksworth’s baseball career has been a roller coaster ride, to be sure.

Background

Drafted in the 28th round in the 2001 draft, Hawksworth a consensus 1st round pick alongside high school teammate Andy Sisco. He fell as far as he because of a commitment to Cal State Fullerton, but Hawksworth’s grades weren’t up to snuff…and back then, if you didn’t have the grades to play college baseball, you didn’t have the grades to be a drive-thru cashier. Yeah. I’m not throwing stones, I can relate to being a fellow former unfocused high school punk, but that’s another story for perhaps another day. As a draft and follow, the Cards signed him for $1.475 M. As an aside, for my young single readers, and I know you all are out there-his sister is a sports reporter for a local TV station in Dallas who also happens to be pretty easy on the eyes. I’m not sure what her status is so don’t start revving up your engines, fellahs.

Injuries

Hawksworth pitched most of the 2003 season with a bone spur in his right ankle and was shut down mid August. After only 2 starts in 2004, he was shut down again and had surgery repair a partially torn labrum and he didn’t see any action until late in the 2005 season for New Jersey. Because of that, Hawksworth will always come with a warning label attached.

Scouting

Hawksworth was thought to have the highest ceiling of any Cardinal pitcher since they had Rick Ankiel in the farm system. When he was their #1 back in 2004, he was at 90-95, now he’s throwing 88-91, and can touch 92 on a good day. He will mix in a curve and a slider. His 12-6 curve can be a nice offering at times, but it lacks consistency in its rotation at times. The changeup is his best weapon, it has good descending movement, and Hawksworth has nice deception in his ¾ delivery. Here’s a video of him setting the Royals down in order.

Seems pretty smooth mechanically to me, maybe some of you amateur scouts can weigh in. His curve looks sharper then advertised, and for the most part he was hitting his spots with the fastball.

Stats

The K’s have expectedly declined after the surgery, but it’s the gopheritis that burned him last year. Let’s say he gave up 5 less homers last season; we’d be talking about what a successful year he had rather then him falling off the prospect map. His HR/air ratio was 10%, the 3rd highest in the PCL, and the PCL is a homer happy league. Maybe some of that was some hard luck. Overall, this is a Suppan-like skill set here, and Suppan’s a comparison a lot of people have drawn with Hawksworth, including some Cardinal insiders. Larry Borowsky interviewed his coach Dyar Miller not long ago, and he had this assessment on Hawk’s funky season:

Lboros: Was he getting beat on mistakes, or were they hitting his best stuff?
Miller:I think he started to get some pitches up, and maybe his pitch selection was a little off. They were looking for his sinker, and they hammered some of those. He pitched in some bad luck, too. He almost overanalyzes. He wants to be too fine, kind of like throwing darts. I tried to get him to just let the ball go. I just think he needs to get a little momentum going and not worry so much about being perfect. He’s got a pretty decent curve, his changeup’s one of his best pitches, and his fastball’s getting a little better. It’s starting to come back. There were a couple games toward the end of the year where it averaged 92, which is pretty good. My hope is that he’ll be 100 percent healthy this year. He can pitch in the big leagues.

Predictable patterns… over analyzing… “dart throwing”…getting the ball up. I could see why he was getting tagged. One thing Suppan was good at was out thinking the hitter, but you would see him “think too much”, if you can forgive me making a baseball cliché’.

The Future

I’m willing to bet that Blake’s problems are mental more then anything else. My initial concern was fatigue, and maybe there is some of that but there was no clear indication from that it was “the” issue. His K% actually spiked the last couple and Miller said his velocity was improving. My stupid hunch, for whatever it may be worth, is that his confidence eroded over time, he was pressing a little too hard, and getting into “don’t be a doofus” mode. Memphis is a depressing place to play baseball, they’ve been the Pittsburgh Pirates of the PCL for way too long and losing gets old, I don’t care who you are. He’s not coming fully back, but optimistically he could be a decent enough back of the rotation option along the lines of Ryan Franklin, Brian Bannister or your current day Matt Morris. But based on last year’s stats, he looks like a run of the mill swingman. No matter what, the dude’s name is Blake Hawksworth. That in and of itself is pretty cool.

The Rule V draft leaves Barton in a somewhat unusual position for me concerning his prospect status. In terms of major league experience (of which he has none), he still qualifies as a prospect. The only way we’ll see him in the minors, however, is a) via rehab from an injury or b) if the Cardinals decide they want to hold on to him but not at the major league level and work out a trade with the Indians. After seeing his ranking in BA’s list, I was curious what to make of him. Before we get there though, let’s run through the info –

The Draft

. . . . . . He wasn’t drafted . . . . .

After The Draft

Brian Barton’s academics precluded many teams from trying to lure him away from college. An aerospace engineer out of University of Miami (Florida), the Indians signed him for 100k plus 100k denoted for school expenses. The Cardinals have dipped into the Miami talent pool recently in the 2006 draft when they picked Chris Perez and Jon Jay. (Best player drafted from University of Miami? Greg Vaughn although I’d say Pat Burrell has a reasonable chance to steal that title). If Barton makes the team, I fully expect someone in the local media to write a “human interest” type of story that focuses on his degree. For whatever reason, a lot of people eat that sh!t up — and in this instance, I might be one of those people. I can’t fathom trying to get my engineering degree while juggling a college baseball schedule at the same time. Makes me wonder if he ever had time to just sit down and watch a movie. In any event, since he wasn’t drafted there’s not a lot of draft-time articles on him.

The Statistics & The Analysts

Barton started his minor league career in 2005 in A-ball at age 23. Given his later start, scouts and analysts inevitably equivocate about his performance because he’s “old for the level”. They’ll rave about his skillset in the next sentence after they’ve properly covered their a$$ in case he were to flame out. Let’s see what happened in 2005:

Quick, guess what I’m going to talk about first. . .

Huge fan of the plate discipline and, as we’ll see in subsequent years, it’s something he needs to get back to. Obviously those A-ball stats are padded by an unsustainable BABIP. The isolated power is nice for a centerfielder although not particularly spectacular. Given his combination of power and speed — a phrase you’ll hear a lot in connection with Barton — we can expect elevated BABIPs as he’s more likely to run out groundballs than, say, Yadier Molina. The numbers posted at high-A seem like a much more reasonable baseline for his performance that year.

2006 would follow up with solid, if unspectacular, results:

My initial reaction when seeing this line was that we shouldn’t be too concerned about the declining walkrate when he’s hitting .351 but again the BABIP gives me cause for concern. I’m still willing to extend the benefit of the doubt that when your average is that high, psychologically, you feel like there’s not much you can’t hit and you swing at pitches you otherwise might not. The BABIP combined with the batted ball data is even worse though. A rough estimate of his BABIP for AA would at least 100 points lower and probably closer to 130 points lower.

The batted ball data is ugly to say the least. You don’t want to see players driving that many balls into the ground. The ISO drop is in part attributable to his change in parks. The A+ ballclub plays in a park that inflates HR while the AA club suppresses them. His 2006 stats leave me with the feeling that there’s still work to be done with his swing so that he elevates the ball more. Baseball America placed him as the 16th best prospect in the Carolina League (A+) and the #5 prospect for the Indians after 2006 saying the following:

Barton has the rare combination of power (he led the league with a .515 slugging percentage) and speed that scouts dream of. He hit an opposite-field home run that caromed off the top of the scoreboard at Salem, a bomb that carried an estimated 500 feet away from home plate. Barton’s swing tends to get long at times, but he has tremendous bat speed that generates good carry and loft to all fields. A truer comparison for Barton is Mike Cameron, another wiry strong outfielder with above-average speed and solid instincts. He has enough range and arm strength to stay in center.

Mike Cameron is one of those players, in my opinion, that does a lot of things well but no single thing outstanding, which leads to them being undervalued in terms of their total impact on the game. His 2001 campaign is truly impressive given it was done in Seattle and accompanied by fantastic outfield defense in a park where outfield defense has a much more significant impact than say Wrigley. That said, I think that’s the perfect-world comparison as Kevin Goldstein would call it — “a multi-faceted starting outfielder” who ranked #5 in the Indians system as a 3-star prospect. (As an aside, I hate when people quote slugging percentage as representative of a player having power — that’s misleading when it’s accompanied by a high batting average as Barton’s was in this case. Yes, his power was good but it wasn’t great given the park.) And while I’m usually loathe to look at baserunning, Barton was 41-for-49 for an 84% stolen base rate.

2007 would be split across multiple levels again with some improvements and some concerns. Barton was interviewed by Chris Kline at BA during the 2007 season and the first question was concerning his knee and injuries sustained to it on opening day of the 2006 season:

Baseball America: First I guess let’s start with the knee problem. Is it a serious problem or is it something that’s kind of a day-to-day thing?

Brian Barton: For me, it is what it is. I try not to bring it up as much as possible just because I don’t want to use it—and I don’t want anyone else to use it as an excuse . . . especially after playing with it all year last year and having a pretty good year. I don’t want anyone to say, you know, X-Y-Z happened because of my knee. I feel like if I can play on it, I can give it 100 percent and should be able to perform. So it’s just a matter of being able to go out there on the field and give all I can give. Even if I can only give 85 percent I feel like my 85 percent is pretty good. My main priority is just to keep going out there and try to make it as less of a factor than what it really is.

Injuries are always difficult to deal with statistically because there’s little, if any, way to know exactly what impact they have on a player’s game. Was he playing at 60% the entire time, or 85%? Where some days better than others? etc. etc. I’ll leave that all up to you as a discerning reader to remember that there were injuries involved but the degree of their import is hard to tell.

The 100 plate appearances in AAA don’t tell us alot. I’m much more interested in the 463 PAs at AA. The GB rate is still higher than I’d like and the BABIP isn’t sustainable but the walk rate was better and the strikeout rate isn’t horrendous. The question I have is why the power outage? Is Barton being overpowered by more advanced pitchers? An 850 OPS from a CF isn’t bad but that AA line translates to .254/.341/.383 as a peak (the regular translation looks worse).

He just missed out on Goldstein’s Top 11 list for the Indians this year (when the system is weaker than it has been in the past) and he wasn’t on Baseball America’s list. He dropped a full letter grade for John Sickels from a B+ to a C+ and was #15 for the Indians in 2008.

The Rule V Draft

Goldstein’s comments on the pick:

Some people saw Barton as a possible number one pick, but he does have some health concerns, as there are whispers that a recent knee surgery was not entirely successful, and that he might be permanently affected by the injury. Unsigned out of college—most expected him to take a high-paying job at Boeing with his aerospace engineering degree—Barton is a career .317/.417/.476 hitter who does many things well, but few things very well.

Baseball America pre-draft preview:

Quiet and leading through example through his 2006 season, some scouts expressed concerns about Barton’s demeanor. “I loved him that first year in Double-A,” one scout from a National League club said. “But this past year, it was almost like he’d earned this elite status and you saw him have this lackadaisical approach to the game that wasn’t there before. Where he was playing with chips on both shoulders with something to prove initially, that part of his game was replaced by some sort of false bravado. He’s really tough to get a handle on, but the tools are very real.”

The Question

It’s odd that the question we hear for players like Daryl Jones or Tommy Pham at the low levels of the minors applies to Barton who is set to make a major league roster but can he put all the tools together? We’ve seen good plate discipline, speed, power and ability to make contact but we’ve yet to really see them all at the same time. If there was one thing I’d single out it’s that he simply hits too many groundballs. Change a few of those into linedrives and you’d see his power numbers and batting average improve rather than being propped up by high BABIPs.

The Future

Given the tools and his makeup, I can understand the ranking from Baseball America a little better now. Barton is probably interchangeable with any of the 6 pitchers after him as there isn’t anyone whose separated themselves from that second-tier pack of prospects in a serious fashion.

Brian Barton and the St. Louis Cardinals could not be a better fit for each other right now. The Cardinals are heavy on left-handed outfielders without good platoon mate options. Barton offers a little of everything and profiles well as a lead-off option if he can maintain the above average OBPs we saw in the minors. The declining power concerns me but I’d like to see what kind of response a new set of hitting instructors creates from Barton. This should be another test of the organizations direction. Barton is a more valuable piece to the club that Schumaker — no ifs, ands or buts about it. There isn’t a skill that Schumaker has that Barton can’t approximate from the right hand side of the plate.

Provided he’s healthy, Barton should make the Cardinals roster and stick around as a 4th outfielder/platoon parter for some of the lefty bats. In the long-term, there’s still some reason to believe that he can be an everyday player but the window for that opportunity is closing rapidly. The quotes from Barton make him sound very self-effacing and like someone who wants to re-establish themselves. Hopefully, Tony La Russa will both recognize and nuture those qualities to help Barton “put it all together”.

There’s not much to say about Chris Perez that we really don’t already know, but hey…it’s winter and pitchers and catchers are still a few weeks away from reporting, so what the hey…

Background

Selected in the supplemental 1st round in the 2006 draft out of the U. of Miami-FL, where he spent most of his collegiate career basically doing what he does now. He was not drafted out of high school. He also was criminology major, so when he’s not playing baseball you can catch him patrolling the mean streets of Miami with his partner Shaq.

The scouts

Perez is filthy, and probably has the best pure stuff of any pitcher in the system. Tall and strong, Perez has a 90-95 MPH fastball that touches 98; a hard breaking slider, and he even mixes is a curveball now and then. All of his pitches rate as plus to plus-plus pitches, there’s not a weak link in his arsenal. His only weakness is a lack of command, and it’s a rather glaring one. He needs to work on repeating his arm slot and delivery. The slider breaks away from right-handed batters, and some scouts have made lofty comparisons to Brad Lidge’s slider. He can probably survive by being “effectively wild” to some extent, but needs to polish his command in order to reach full potential. He does a good job of keeping the ball down. If you’ve ever read stories about Perez, you usually hear a quote or two about how he loves to get the ball when it’s close and late.

The stats

If you just look at his K’s and opponents batting averages (not shown), he’s just been scary good. The big issue: Perez can be his own worst enemy. In 84 professional innings, he’s allowed just 43 hits, but has walked 60, hit 13 batsmen and thrown 13 wild pitches. The big oddity with Perez is his handling of left-handed batters. He is equally tough to hit facing either, and strikes both out with regularity, but he walks them twice as often. (10.31 BB/9 against 5.2 BB/9.) AZ hypothesized earlier that he may be trying too hard to freeze them on a backdoor slider and that’s a plausible guess. His coaches want him to throw the curve more and that could be the reason why. If he could use the curve as his breaking pitch against lefties while trusting the slider against right-handers then that should solve some of the needless wildness. His command eroded with his promotion to Memphis, and it carried over into the Arizona Fall League, where he lost his job as Team USA’s closer. Hopefully he’ll pull the train back on the track this spring.

The future

College closers are a weird lot and I’m not sure how great of an idea they are to draft. I understand the point; the good ones usually have dynamic stuff and team’s hope to fast track them to the big leagues. But for every Chad Cordero and Huston Street, you have a Craig Hansen or Joey Devine. Perez’s career has mirrored Devine’s the most because of all the walks, and Devine’s stock eroded to the point where he was traded to the rebuilding A’s for the charred remains of Mark Kotsay. It’s still too early to write off Devine’s career, but hopefully Perez fairs a lot better. There’s no question that Perez will pitch in the big leagues, probably as soon as next season. The question is whether or not he’ll be able to assume the closer’s role. There are some examples of pitchers who’ve ironed out their issues; Bobby Jenks was the Minister of Silly Walks throughout the minors, allowing 6 per 9 innings. And Jenks displayed extemporary control last season. The aforementioned Lidge is a little wild still, and there’s no doubting he has stuff aplenty to close. We’ll have to sit back and watch what happens. I can’t wait to see what he does this spring, as he’ll be in camp with the big boys.

(Photo from Tipster Hog)

I’ve been hearing more and more experts who are sharing a high regard for Jess Todd, so let’s take a closer look at him.

Background

Todd transferred from Navarro College to Arkansas after obliterating NJCAA hitters for two seasons. He handled the notoriously tough SEC almost as effortlessly as he handled JUCO hitters, striking out 128 in 93.1 innings with a 2.89 ERA. He earned national player of the week honors after he set an Arkansas and SEC Tournament record with 17 K’s in 8 IP on May 24. He utterly dominated in the month of May in particular, fanning 49 in 31.1 innings with a 0.57 ERA. The rotation of Nick Schmidt (1st round, 23rd overall by San Diego), Duke Welker (2nd round, 68th overall by Pittsburgh) and Todd (2nd round, 82nd overall) made for a pretty formidable three-pronged attack for the Hogs. Todd statistically was the best of all three, working at first out of the bullpen and later cementing a spot in the rotation. His signed 7/20/07 for a $400K bonus. I’m guessing Todd was taken after his rotation mates because he projects more as a reliever while Schmidt and Welker are more projectable. Fun fact: He is a former high school teammate of fellow Cardinal farmhand Josh Wilson.

Scouting

Todd’s stuff is also rated the best of all his Razorback rotation mates. He primarily works with a 90-94 mph four-seamer, and a hard mid-80s slider that’s a put away pitch. Baseball America noted that both pitches were some of the best in the Cardinal draft. He also throws an upper-80s two-seamer and a circle change that moves like a splitter. Both rate as fringe average or below. His velocity was down a little bit towards the end of the season due to fatigue, but that didn’t make him less dominating in the New York Penn. A lot of people feel his ticket to the big leagues is in relief, because he throws with some effort, and he’s a bit “smallish” for a starter, standing at 5’11”. Carlos Gomez said:

Todd has an aggressive “stepover” that kickstarts his explosive hip rotation into footplant. Todd is a pitcher who just “comes at you.” As I said with (Tim) Alderson, guys with aggressive lower body action tend to be more effective with offspeed pitches because hitters will try to “hit the motion” instead of letting the ball travel. You’ll probably see Todd strike out many hitters who will jump at his filthy slider. I like his aggressiveness and expect him to move pretty quickly. Stick him in the bullpen, let him go all out, and watch him be a better version of the “slider happy” Turk Wendell.

Performance

Lots to like here. Todd struck out 197 batters in 151.2 innings pitched. His walk rate is low, he keeps the ball on the ground and in the park. Because he’s a “slider happy” RHP, his platoon splits are sorta noticeable. Southpaw batters hit .284/.330/.330 against him, whereas right handers hit .178/.230/.263. In college, lefties were .269/.331/.381 against; righties .217/.287/.266. He also walked lefties more at least in college– 3.38 BB/9 against 2.42. Professionally, it was less of an issue–2.61 versus 2.27.

Outlook

I like Todd a lot. He was a favorite pick of mine on draft day, and he hit the ground running in his pro debut. He could jump to Palm Beach to start the season after a very strong showing in the instructional leagues this past fall; he allowed one earned run on a hit while striking out 15 there and walking none. His velocity also returned. The consensus view of his long-term outlook is in the bullpen, but I think he should get every opportunity to start. I see him possibly taking the Brad Thompson path to the big leagues—starting until reaching AAA and then converting to relief. Like Wonderbrad, Todd should have no major troubles in the lower minors. I like his future better because of the strong K rates, and I see him setting up in a couple of years.

I know he’s only pitched a grand total of four minor league innings, but I’ve had a growing fascination with 2nd round pick David Kopp as of late.

Background:

Background is about all we have on Kopp right now. He lettered four times in baseball at Coral Springs High School in FL. Baseball America ranked him the 76th best high school prospect in 2004 and he signed with Clemson. They also had this blurb-

“Clemson signee RHP David Kopp has shown one of the state’s better breaking balls, a sweeping slider that handcuffs lefthanded hitters. His 87-89 mph fastball, three-quarters slot and projectable 6-foot-3, 185-pound frame reminds some of Cardinals starter Jason Marquis.”

Not a Bipolar Betty comparison! Marquis actually was a top 100 prospect once, so don’t get your Superoos in a bunch.

Scouting:

BA rated Kopp the 81st best national prospect going into the 2007 draft. Here’s his scouting report from BA:

…Somewhat enigmatic, Kopp has been inconsistent with his control and velocity, but at his best he flashed middle-of-the-rotation stuff. He stayed behind and on top of the ball better during his delivery this spring and improved his direction to the plate. His fastball ranges from 91-96 mph, sitting at 92. He gets sink and run from his three-quarters arm slot, though he doesn’t repeat his release point. His changeup is a weapon, but his 81-83 mph slider shows potential of becoming a legitimate put-away pitch. He needs to improve his mental approach and confidence, especially in tight situations. Kopp has more upside than the typical college righthander…

and here’s the one from MiLB.com (w/video)

Kopp throws his fastball in the 89-93 mph range and can sit comfortably at 92 mph. Kopp’s slider is average right now, but projects to be an above-average pitch. Like the slide, the changeup is average now with the chance to be better in the future. His command, especially of his fastball is below-average. He’s got average makeup. He pitches backwards at times — which isn’t his fault — but he’s improved with that over time. Kopp has a Steve Trachsel body type with some room to grow. Kopp doesn’t get much attention because of teammate Daniel Moskos, but he does have the possibility of three very good Major League offerings. His command and delivery have been a mess in the past, but he’s improved on the delivery and has shown the ability to get better over time. Moskos clearly will be the first Clemson pitcher selected, but teams would do well not to look past the second.

Aaron Fitt also had this snippet in a recent chat of his:

His stuff at Clemson was very good…[he] runs his fastball up to 94 mph, and it’s effortless. He never completely put it together in college, but he could take off in pro ball if he can stay healthy.

Pitching mechanics guru Chris O’Leary was kind enough share a frame by frame look at Kopp’s delivery, check it out. Any of you coaches or ex-players can feel free to weigh in.

The lack of fastball command an obvious strike on his resume, but the the possibility of possessing three above average offerings is intriguing. I’m giving Kopp this profile is that like Clayton Mortensen, Kopp has some unevenness with performance and what his upside. The Cardinals obviously were impressed with his mechanics and stuff, taking him in the 2nd round. Also like Mortensen, Kopp is a groundball machine.

Performance:

Here are some of his college numbers.

His unimpressive strikeout rate caused me to howl some on draft day, but that’s a pretty outstanding ground out to fly out ratio. In 4 innings with Batavia Kopp walked three, struck out three and only 10% of the balls he allowed in play were not grounders.

Be sure to also check out his collegesplits stat page.

The Future:

I also asked O’Leary of what he thought of Kopp, and he summed it well, saying, “It’s impossible to guarantee that a pitcher is going to be successful, because there are so many variables involved. However, David Kopp has two things going for him that I think increase the odds he will be successful. First, he has classic mechanics that resemble those of Greg Maddux and Justin Verlander. Second, he has tremendous tailing movement on his fastball. Now, let’s see if he can pull everything else into place.”

The axiomatic answer is we’ll know a lot more after this season. He suffered an ankle injury and that’s why he was limited to just 4 innings. I’m going out on a limb and will forecast that he’ll our top 15 going into 2009. On the other hand, the Marquis comparisons and enigmatic label make me a little squirmish about that prediction.

It’s both interesting and difficult to evaluate a 20-year old in AA. Colby Rasmus makes it all seem so simple by living up to projections and mashing baseballs. Bryan Anderson represents a more complex case that sits in that middle zone of not yet having come to fruition but still showing some measurable skills and projection. Fear not! I’ll be your guide today to the #2 position prospect in the system.

The Draft

Selected in the 4th round of the 2005 draft, Bryan Anderson was the highest Cardinal draft of a catcher since Daric Barton in 2003. He signed out of Simi Valley High School in California for $250K. Here’s what Baseball America had to say heading into the draft:

Lefthanded-hitting C Bryan Anderson, an Arizona recruit, had expectations of going in the top five rounds, but his offensive production fell off as he had little protection in the Simi Valley High lineup. Scouts say his throwing mechanics also regressed this spring—even as he threw out almost every basestealer. Anderson can swing the bat well enough if a position switch is in order, but his lack of speed may limit his options.

From MLB’s draft tracker:

Aggressive hitter w/ good bat speed. Loft in swing w/ home run potential. Sure-handed receiver w/ quick release. Solid defensive tools w/ chance to hit for power.

While I think it’s fun to look back at pre-draft comments, I’m not sure how truly informative it is. Still the consensus was that Anderson was a good hitter from the left side of the plate who appeared like he would stick at a position where offense is a bonus.

The Stats

I don’t trust minor league stats below low-A so I’ll just make brief mention of the 2005 campaign at Johnson City. In 51 games there, Anderson hit .331/.383/.513/.896 — close to a .900 OPS is impressive from the catchers position but it’s predicated on that batting average and a BABIP close to .380, which obviously isn’t sustainable.

Moving forward to 2006, the Cardinals displayed a new aggressive plan with their top prospects from the 2005 draft promoting Anderson to full-season ball at Quad Cities.

Love the walk rate. You should all know by now how important that is to me. The BABIP looks high and while the ISO isn’t great it’s certainly respectable for a 19-year-old in a pitchers park. There’s not a single stat that jumps out at me from this season but the collection shows a player who is advanced for their age and doesn’t have any major flaws to the offensive portion of the game.

Baseball America ranked him as the 13th best prospect in the Midwest league. Here’s what they had to say:

Anderson is a teenage catcher who provides offense, hits lefthanded as a bonus and shows some promise on defense. But more than any of his tools, what stood out the most was the way he ran an older Quad Cities pitching staff.

Anderson has more offensive potential than Matheny, hitting for average, controlling the strike zone very well and providing gap power. His arm strength is average at best, though he makes accurate throws and erased 36 percent of basestealers this year. He receives well but is working on improving his blocking skills.

Kevin Goldstein had him as the 4th best prospect in the system following 2006 with the following remarks:

The Good: Offensive-minded catcher with quick, compact swing. Knows how to wait for his pitch and then laces line drives to all fields. Rarely strikes out and has no platoon issues. Praised for his on-field leadership. Strong arm.
The Bad: Level swing and contact-oriented mechanics leave limited power ceiling. Not a great athlete and a below-average receiver, leading the Midwest League with 17 passed balls.

His perfect world comparison was to Jason Kendall, which I would be thrilled with. Take a look at the OBPs that Kendall posted early in his career - fantastic for a catcher. I think that’s an awfully lofty comparison and not one I’m comfortable drawing (although I’ll continue to draw Rasmus to All-Star CF comparisons).

2007 sees Anderson skip High-A and move on to the hitter friendly Double A Springfield.

There’s not a single stat that jumps out at me from this season but the collection shows a player who is advanced for their age and doesn’t have any major flaws to the offensive portion of the game. Wait, did I say that already. Ok, well that’s where the good stuff ends. There’s not a single statistic that moves in a significantly positive direction. That really concerns me. He’s a year older in a better league for hitters and he struggled to hold his ground in every aspect except for his batting average.

At mid-season he looked like he was headed for another repeat of 2006 posting .316/.370/.421 after 66 games. That led Kevin Goldstein to rank him as the second best catching prospect back in July. At the end of the season Bryan Smith, echoed a lot of what Goldstein had said:

Like Rasmus, Anderson handled an aggressive jump to Double-A well in 2007, hitting .298/.350/.388 as a 21-year-old. That seasonal line doesn’t capture that Anderson subsequently struggled against southpaws and withered in the season’s later months, but at the break this was a guy hitting .328/.387/.460. The first-half line represents Anderson’s potential future, certainly as a better player than Yadier Molina if all breaks right. However, the presence of the latter will give Anderson the time to properly develop.

I really want to believe that he’s going to post OBPs that high in the majors but I’m starting to get scared off a bit. There’s always tepid remarks to be found about his defense as well. He was the 17th best prospect out of the Texas League last season by Baseball America. Scouts wonder about his ability to stay behind the plate long term and I wonder about scouts obsession with defensively minded catchers. At 20, Anderson still has time to brush up those defensive skills although he receives consistently good marks for game calling (another intangible I’m not fond of).

The Question

The question isn’t whether Anderson is capable of staying behind the plate; the real question is whether the organization will maintain both the patience and presence of mind to keep him there. Any discussion of him switching positions is both premature and foolhardy. Much as I wrote with Allen Craig, he’s an above average catching prospect but the bat doesn’t play as well at other positions. The defensive skillset for catchers is so unique as well that I don’t see how any transition away from the plate is going to be an easy one.

The Future

Dan over at GetUpBaby summarizes Anderson very nicely:

As good as Anderson has been to this point, we’re still dealing with a guy whose primary asset is his youth, whose .738 OPS in AA is only impressive because he was 20. He’s a few years away by the most optimistic estimation, and his development is far from assured.

Anderson is still a lot of projection in that his statistics are trending the wrong way but because of his youth many, myself included, are willing to bet on that projection that could take his game from average backstop to all-star production for a catcher. I’m still envisioning a player who posts a line something like .300/.365/.420 but when reading over the numerous blurbs from different sites, I wonder if I’m not just getting gun shy. He’s making all the appropriate “Top Prospect Lists” and I ranked him number #3 among Cardinal prospects — maybe I’m just getting cold feet.

At this point it’s largely academic since Molina should be sticking around for at least 2 more years. I’d like to see Anderson repeat Springfield since he was one of the youngest players in the league and his performance wasn’t terribly impressive in and of itself. It’s hard for me not to look forward to the day when the Cardinals employ someone who isn’t fawned over for their defensive skills but rather for their offensive skills. While Colby Rasmus has responded at each level, there’s nothing wrong with slowing down the pace set for Anderson and seeing if staying at some familiar confines with a familiar coaching staff doesn’t help him take his game to the next level.