SB Nation User Blog: lboros

Adam Ottavino scouting report

lboros — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:10:28 -0000

the memphis redbirds are in colorado springs for the first time since 2007, so i drove down to the game on Sunday night to catch the opener. to my great disappointment, former VEB prospect fave trey hearne won’t be pitching out here; he threw a beauty on saturday night in salt lake city and won’t pitch again until friday in memphis. but i did get to see another worthy pitcher, 2006 1st-rounder adam ottavino, in the series opener sunday night. the redbirds won 7-6, and ottavino picked up the win, his 5th in 6 decisions after opening the season 0-9. herewith my impressions:

first things first: is ottavino still a prospect? you might think not; he rarely gets mentioned anymore within the HPGF, with hopes for a homegrown starting pitcher now pinned on garcia, boggs, lance lynn, and even pj walters. if the ghost of chris lambert has possessed any pitcher in the cardinal system, it’s not todd wellemeyer but ottavino, another 1st-round college arm gone bad. after ranking among the organization’s top 5 prospects on the preseason lists for 2007 and 2008, otto fell to about 20th on most lists this spring on account of a jarring transition to the high minors last year — a lambertesque 3-7 record, 5.23 ERA at double A.

but ottavino finished strong last year, posting a (roughly) 2.5 to 1 k/bb ratio over his last 90+ innings, with a FIP in the 4.30 range. and he still has superior stuff — better than any of the pitchers who passed him on the prospect-watch lists. for those reasons, he was promoted to triple A out of spring training this year in the hopes he’d bounce back. he hasn’t, much — after saturday's start, his 22d of the year, ottavino’s line reads 5-10 with a 4.66 ERA and one very ugly peripheral, a walk rate of nearly 6 men per 9 innings. that figure ruins some otherwise decent-looking stats that include a healthy K rate (7.8 per 9 IP), low HR rate (0.8 per 9), and good groundball ratio (43 percent and rising). a little discreet pruning makes ottavino’s line look slightly better; after a stupendously bad first month in triple A (0-3, 7.94 in 4 april starts), otto has gone 5-7, 4.08, over his last 18 starts (97 innings). unfortunately, he still can’t hit the strike zone — even excluding april, ottavino’s bb/9 stands at 5.9.

many’s the hard young thrower who was undone by lack of control, but there are those who get it figured out in time to have a career. ottavino can still be one of those. he’s only 23 years old, and his ability is big-league caliber — as i witnessed in person on sunday night.

ottavino reminds me of wainwright on the mound -- tall and thin and loose of limb. he’s got a smooth, languid delivery with a low kick and medium stride; his knee remains well below the waist throughout, and his elbow stays well below the shoulder. he’s balanced and generally upright; it’s an extremely simple, clean motion. to my eye (and i'm far from an expert in these matters), it seems that ottavino relies overmuch on his arm to generate power -- ie, maybe he's underutilizing his legs. here’s a triptych that illustrates ottavino’s delivery:

ottavino is a fastball-slider pitcher, with a changeup (otto calls it a split-change) for use against lefties. he uses the slider against hitters from both sides of the plate. the fastball ranges from 90 to 94; the pitches in the lower part of that range are probably 2-seamers. the 4-seamer explodes; hitters were putting very late swings on it all day. even matt murton, an above-average major-league hitter, could do no more with the pitch than to foul it off the other way. ottavino’s slider comes in at 79-81 with good movement; the change travels at about 83 mph.

he breezed through the first two innings while throwing about 90 percent fastballs, yielding only a couple of two-out singles. but in the third, protecting a 2-0 lead, he walked the opposing pitcher leading off. he was pissed at himself; you could see it from the stands. ottavino got the next guy on a force, but then gave up a base knock on a one-hop smash that got through descalso. the next two hitters, matt miller and murton, rank 3d and 4th respectively in the PCL batting race and have EQAs in the .250 range -- average big-league hitters, roughly. ottavino attacked miller with sliders, got ahead 0-2, wasted a fastball up, and then struck him out swinging on a slider down and away. beautiful job. but then he walked murton on four pitches, loading the bases for another former big-leaguer, left-handed slugger dan ortmeier. ottavino went right after him, got ahead 0-2 and then froze him with a changeup . . . . but didn’t get the call. he threw a fastball that ortmeier fouled off, then left the next pitch up; ortmeier whacked it into right for a two-run single to tie the game.

another walked ensued, re-loading the bases and bringing blaise ilsely out for a conference, before ottavino finally ended the frame on a ground out to short. he used up a lot of effort in that inning; 8 men batted, and ottavino threw well over 30 pitches (all but a handful of them out of the stretch). by the end of the frame he’d slowed down considerably, taking a lot of time between pitches.

he got through the 4th on 7 pitches, after the redbirds retook the lead in the top of the inning. he took a 4-2 lead to the mound in the 5th and gave up a double leading off the inning to jonathan herrera, with miller and murton coming up. he struck out miller again, fooling him again w/ sliders; he air-mailed a pitch to the backstop during murton’s at-bat, sending the runner to 3d, but broke off a 2-2 slider to strike murton out swinging and freeze the runner. ortmeier stepped in, and otto got ahead with a change and then heaved another fastball way above the batter’s head. pagnozzi got a mitt on it (barely) and kept it from going to the screen, but the ball trickled away behind his back, just a few feet from home plate on the first-base side. he couldn’t find it, and herrera scored a gift run; ortmeier popped out to center moments later, and ottavino’s outing was over.

the final line: 5 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs (all earned), 3 walks, 4 strikeouts. he induced 6 groundball outs vs 5 flyballs.

i talked to ottavino after he went back to the clubhouse -- the clubhouse guy was kind enough to send back a note. i didn’t have a recorder w/ me, nor a laptop, and thus had to take notes by hand. i didn’t get anything close to a transcription, but i did get enough stuff down to paraphrase.

first i asked ottavino how he felt about the outing, and he said it was frustrating. he was still kicking himself over that walk to the pitcher back in the 3d. he’d pitched very carefully after that and felt he did a lot of things right. he tried to get a double play on the next hitter and succeeded in inducing a groundball, but it was too slowly hit for a dp. he threw three terrific sliders to miller and struck him out; the walk to the next hitter, murton, was an accommodation ottavino decided to make after falling behind 2-0. i couldn’t groove one for him, otto said, he’s to good a hitter; i didn’t want to give up a 3-run homer. he executed his game plan against ortmeier with the sacks jammed and thought he’d struck the guy out on the 0-2 changeup; ottavino claimed that the umpire later admitted that he’d missed the call. the rbi single 2 pitches later came off another changeup. then he lost focus and walked the next guy while still thinking about that missed call on 0-2 . . . . he’s lucky the game didn’t blow up on him right there. ilsely’s trip to the mound was well timed.

ottavino was also angry at himself about the 2 wild pitches. i struck out their 2 best hitters with a guy in scoring position, he told me, and i let him score anyway. he didn’t say it quite this way, but basically he knew that if he could have eliminated the walk to the pitcher and the 2 wild pitches, he’d still be out there working on a shutout instead of watching the 7th inning on the clubhouse tv, and the big-league brass would be getting a report about ottavino’s gem in colorado springs (one of the hitter-friendliest parks in the minors). instead, the results were a mixed bag, and the kid had mostly himself to blame. and he knew it.

he told me he’s been searching all year for command of his fastball; that’s his best pitch, but also the one that gets him into the most trouble. a few starts ago he made an adjustment, moving toward the first-base side of the rubber, in the hopes that this might help; it hasn’t so far. the walks have been coming in bunches, he said. i'll have good location and then i’ll lose it; it comes and goes.

when i asked where he thinks he has made the most progress in his game this year, he said without hesitation that his slider is vastly improved. that was his primary goal in the off-season -- to tighten up the break and gain better command. i feel really confident throwing it now, he says; i’ll throw it from behind in the count, i'll throw it on 3-2. i know i can throw it for a strike. he also bulked up over the off-season, at the behest of the development team (who thought he was too thin last year and thus prone to fatigue). he said he has a ton of confidence in all his pitches, which is a big change over last season, when he was tentative and searching for himself. last year, he said, he hurt his shoulder in the batting cage during the spring and then tried to pitch through it; after about 30 innings (and 20 walks) he went onto the dl, and although he pitched much better after he came back ottavino never felt comfortable. he was toying with his delivery -- he eliminated a sharp stop at the bottom of his motion, where he’d freeze his arm briefly before starting it forward for the pitch -- and as a result he was always thinking about his mechanics while on the mound. now i’m not thinking about it, he says. my motion is much more natural. it’s not the motion i had in college, but it must be natural because i don’t have to think about it. and that means i can think about other things while i'm out there.

i asked how the recent spate of trades had gone down in the memphis clubhouse, and he said it was kind of a shock. ottavino was good friends with chris perez; the two were drafted the same year and came up through the system more or less together. we thought we’d pitch together in st louis for years, he told me. mort and jess were friends of mine too; we kept hearing that jess might be the second player in the trade, and it was hard knowing he might be gone any day. at the same time, ottavino admitted (at my prompting) that the deals have created greater opportunity for the pitchers who are left. i asked ottavino if he felt, given the sudden exodus of relief pitchers from the system, that he might eventually be converted to a reliever himself. that fastball-slider combination might get you some mileage in a big-league bullpen, i suggested. he gave the obligatory responses -- "i'll do whatever they want me to do," and "i've always been a starting pitcher and that’s how i view myself" -- while adding that he, and all the other memphis players, are dying to be a part of the pennant race in st louis. blake hawksworth’s success in the cardinal bullpen so far has not escaped notice down in memphis; if that’s the ticket to the big leagues, ottavino would gladly take it. but he knows he’s not gonna get called up until he gets command of his fastball, and that’s what is foremost in his mind -- not a callup.

i came away encouraged by what i'd seen, and heard, out of adam ottavino. he has two big-league pitches and an intelligent approach to the game; he seems able to identify his weaknesses and work hard on shoring them up. plenty of guys have fashioned careers out of less. he essentially has one problem left to solve -- stop walking people -- before he becomes a viable option in st louis. unfortunately, it’s not a small problem. there have been glimmers of improvement -- after walking 6.3 men per 9 in the first three months of the year, he has walked 5.0 men per 9 since july 1 . . . . . like i said, "glimmers" of improvement. he’s still got to do better. i'd like to see him cut his walk rate to the vicinity of 3.0 bb/9 by this time next year.

a final thought about my trip to colorado springs: the memphis hitter who most caught my eye was mark hamilton, the first baseman. why is this guy no longer considered a prospect by anyone? at the time the cards selected him (number 76 overall in 2006), draft experts were gushing; kevin goldstein wrote, "The Cardinals got one of the steals in the 2006 draft with Hamilton in the supplemental second round." as late as july 2007, goldstein had hamilton ranked as the 9th-best first-base prospect in the minors, on a list that also included daric barton and joey votto. "Hamilton’s power ranked with that of anyone else in last year’s draft," goldstein wrote then.

after his promotion to double A in mid-2007, hamilton struggled for a year and a half -- only 14 homers and a .383 slugging average in roughly 500 plate appearances, although he retained a decent batting eye (about a 10 percent walk rate). this year hamilton has returned to mashing. he’s slugging .542 in 227 at-bats split between double A and triple A and seeing the ball very well, with a walk rate above 13 percent. this guy is as big and powerful as chris duncan but has a much shorter, more direct swing. he just turned 25 years old a couple weeks ago; probably wouldn’t hit for average in the big leagues, but would draw walks and hit for power.

if it were up to me, i'd find a way to call hamilton up to the cardinals before august 31 and see what he can do. the cardinals need a good left-handed bat on the bench; hamilton could be it. the problem is that he only plays one position, first base -- in other words, hamilton would be strictly a pinch-hitter, because there’s nowhere to put him in the field. but with khalil greene, julio lugo, mark derosa, and skip schumaker all on the roster, the cards have plenty of flexibility. i still wouldn’t dump joe thurston (unlike most of you); if you dump superjoe and hamilton doesn’t pan out, then your next best option for an lh bench bat is john jay. i do like jay, but i'm not convinced he offers more than thurston does in the short run. so i'd drop the pitching staff to 11 pitchers for a day or two to get hamilton onto the roster and qualified for the postseason; after sept 1 there’s plenty of room for him.

allen craig had 4 hits in the game, and i like his swing too; he looks like a big-league hitter to me. too bad he doesn’t play a decent 3b, he could make everyone stop lamenting the trade of brett wallace.

FSN Midwest's superior camera angle

lboros — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:14:35 -0000

FSN Midwest's superior camera angle

the dead-on centerfield view rocks

Game 62 overflow

lboros — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:58:33 -0000

gogogogogogogogogogogogogogogogogogo . . . . .

Game 62 Open Thread: June 12 2009

lboros — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:55:48 -0000


pineiro	huff
5-6, 3.97	1-2, 8.71

huff, a supplemental 1st-rounder out of ucla in 2006 (chosen between adam ottavino and chris perez), cruised comfortably through the minors and got called up last month. he's a command-type lefty, ie he survives by hitting the corners and staying ahead in the count. Indians Prospect Insider ranked him as the #5 prospect in the cleveland system this season: their preseason scouting report:

[Huff's] fastball plays up because of his devastating plus changeup. His changeup is his money pitch and a legitimate weapon against lefties and righties. He displays just as much confidence in his changeup as he does his fastball, and is able to throw it in any count or situation. Last year his slider developed into an effective breaking pitch he can use against left-handers. The slider is firm with good depth and is now the third plus pitch in his arsenal and a potential out pitch at the next level. He mixes in a 12-6 curveball which is real sharp and has a lot of depth to it, but is mostly used as a show-me pitch.
Huff has a veteran attack plan and is all about command, movement and velocity. While he does not overpower hitters, he has unbelievable confidence and a very good feel for his fastball which he commands well to both sides of the plate and to the corners on all four quadrants. He is aggressive and attacks hitters, and he has a great, athletic delivery which deceives hitters and he repeats very well. He is a pitcher you like to watch pitch because he is smart and knows how to pitch by moving the ball around in and out, gets the breaking ball and changeup over and knows how to use them, and he constantly makes adjustments to hitters in game by reading their swings. He also does a good job of being consistent around the zone. He is a very polished, confident mentally tough pitcher who has answered every challenge and has shown the ability to pitch in big games and pitch out of tight situations.

sounds like the type of guy who'll eat the cardinals alive . . . .

talking trade

lboros — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:24:56 -0000

More photos » by Hector Mata - AP

Doug Davis wouldn't look bad in the Cardinal rotation.

Browse more photos »

here are some random trade musings for friday morning; danup returns to the chair next tuesday.

miguel tejada?: joe strauss snuck that name into a notes column yesterday -- at the very bottom, where we might not notice it. strikes me as exceedingly unlikely to happen -- the astros (like most teams) don’t make deals within their division, and moreover they don’t view themselves as out of the race. why should they? they’re only 5 games behind the cards, just 5.5 games out of first place. if we’re in the race, so are the ’stros. . . . . but let’s just pretend this were possible; how helpful would such an acquisition be?

tejada leads the league in hitting so far this year, but that almost surely won’t continue; once the BA heads back toward the mean, what’s left? tejada still hits a lot of doubles, but since coming to the nl a year and a half ago he has only gone yard 5 times away from the astros’ cozy home park (including 0 times this season); he’s basically a gap-power hitter at this point. kinda like joe thurston. of greater concern, tejada’s defense is atrocious. according to his UZR values at fangraphs, he’s been costing his teams runs for several years and this season is at -19 runs per 150 games. presumably the cardinals envision him at 3b initially, a position he has never played in the big leagues before (although i'll grant that it’s an easy shift from ss to 3b). he might rise to the level of league-averageness at the hot corner, but if glaus does return, then tejada probably gets the everyday ss job -- and that hurts the team. over the course of two months, he’d be about 10 runs worse with the glove than brendan ryan / tyler greene; i don’t think his bat is good enough anymore to overcome that fielding deficit. tejada had a .701 ops away from houston last season, with isolated power of .087; this year his ops away from houston is .805, not all that much better than thurston’s .748.

a tejada trade would be the type of move that would satisfy la russa’s (and pujols’s) yen to add a brand-name player, but i question whether it would really make the cards better. in spite of the marquee name, i don’t see tejada as more than a modest improvement over the status quo -- and only if he stays at 3b. if he ends up playing shortstop every day, i think he makes the team worse. in the very unlikely event the astros were willing to make tejada available to a detested nl central rival, they’d surely demand premium talent in return . . . . pass.

felipe lopez?: the cards saved the guy’s career last season; maybe he could return the favor this year and bail out the cards’ flagging offense. the dbacks are 9 games under .500 and 14 games out of first; brandon webb has been disabled all year with a sore shoulder. only the washington nationals’ season is more dead than the dbacks’. lopez is on a one-year deal and would only cost the cards about $2m in additional payroll, plus a modest (and expandable) prospect. although he’s not a markedly better hitter than what we’ve seen from joe thurston, lopez is a switch hitter who punishes left-handers. his career UZR/150 at 3b is +6 runs (including +18 in his 13 games at the position for st louis last year), and he’s an average defender at 2b. he’s a more likely "get" than tejada -- and also, imho, a better fit for the cardinals.

doug davis?: this lefty starter, also dead weight on the sinking diamondback roster, might have a bigger positive impact than any 3b on the market right now. i know the cards are supposed to be looking for a hitter, not a pitcher . . . . but with lohse out and wellemeyer sucking, adding a reliable starting pitcher surely couldn’t hurt this team. davis is a pending free agent with an $8.5m salary this year and sports a 3.42 ERA; his FIP is only 4.79, but davis (like tom glavine, a similar pitcher) has a history of posting ERAs that are better than his FIP. in the st louis ballpark, i'd feel safe in projecting 6+ ip per start with a 4.00 ERA; his k rate is still good, and he’s the type of pitcher (veteran, groundballer) who tends to work well w/ dave duncan. it would probably cost the cardinals at least one young arm, and not an inconsequential one -- wave bye-bye to one or two of boggs, motte, perez, todd, etc. steep price for a rental, but given that the cards have a deep stockpile of such arms, i’d give very serious consideration to that type of a deal.

jarrod washburn?: another expensive pending free-agent lefty on a dead-end team. the mariners are playing .500 and are only about 5 games out of first, but who are they kidding? the cards reportedly made inquiries on washburn last year, and i heartily endorsed that idea; i still do. washburn is pitching for a new contract and having a fine season; he wouldn’t cost nearly as much in talent terms as his teammate erik bedard (also a pending FA), but like davis he’d bolster the rotation and give the cards a southpaw option. probably would cost at least as much as davis in talent terms.

Poll

Which player would you most like the Cards to deal for?

Miguel Tejada

205 votes

Felipe Lopez

110 votes

Doug Davis

244 votes

Jarrod Washburn

233 votes

none of the above

644 votes

1436 votes | Poll has closed

Game 59 Overflow

lboros — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:41:59 -0000

identify this quote:

"please baby please baby please baby please baby please . . . "

. . . . . like, please win a damn game.

Game 59 Open Thread: June 9, 2009

lboros — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:01:24 -0000


carpenter	johnson
4-0, 0.71	5-1, 2.63

draft thread is directly below the game thread. overflow game thread scheduled for ~ 7:30 pm st louis time.

since he smashed face-first into that wall, rick ankiel has struck out once for every 3 plate appearances; prior to getting hurt, he only fanned once per 5 PA. ryan ludwick's numbers are considerably more stable ---- 6 PA/K before he got hurt, and 5 PA/K afterward. seems like maybe he's just got to get his timing back, whereas ankiel ain't seeing the ball at all . . . ..

anyway, ludwick's sitting tonight and ankiel is hitting 5th. rasmus bats cleanup. oh hell, here are the full lineups:

STL	FLA
schu 2b	coghlan lf
dunc lf	bonifacio 3b
hombre 1b	hanley ss
rasmus cf	cantu 1b
ankiel rf	hermida rf
yadi c	ugga 2b
t greene 3b	baker c
carp p	ross cf
ryan ss	johnson p

2009 Draft Open Thread

lboros — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:34:20 -0000

the game thread's directly above. i won't be here to update the picks &c., but hopefully somebody will do that. elsewhere, Future Redbirds has got a live draft chat going ---- cool stuff, check it out --- and i think (not sure) the red baron will be holding forth at The Rundown.

Hey, y'all. Baron here. The Cards' first pick is Shelby Miller, a high school righty out of Texas. Throws really, really hard. Love love love this pick. The Cards finally leveraged that depth into a high-upside, possible core player. Good stuff.

Here's a report.

The Cards take Robert Stock out of USC with their second round pick. Stock, you may remember, is the kid who left high school at 16 to go to USC, and he's only 19 now. He's more of a pitcher now, with velocity up into the mid 90s. Creative, and interesting, at the very least. In the 3rd round, the Cardinals go with Joe Kelly, and make me look all kinds of prescient after saying they've had a lot of success lately taking a lot of strong-armed college relievers the past few drafts.

choosing up sides

lboros — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:51:32 -0000

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

jeff luhnow's first selection in the amateur draft was also his best so far.

Browse more photos »

howdy gang; i'll be sitting in today and friday while danup takes his annual leave of the pixels. i got nothing to say about the team this morning that you don’t already know; start hitting soon, boys. please?

the amateur draft starts tonight with rounds 1 through 3, plus a couple of sandwich rounds; i’ll post a comment thread for that, and a concurrent one for the baseball game against florida. i won’t be on hand tonight to update the picks on the front page as they’re made, so if anybody with keys to the blog has a chance to do that, go for it. and thank you.

this will be the 5th luhnow-run draft; that’s a lot of drafts for one guy. according to Baseball America’s executive database, only three scouting directors have run more drafts for the cardinal franchise -- marty maier, fred mcalister (rip), and george silvey. and maier’s were non-consecutive, which leaves silvey and mcalister -- both franchise legends -- as the only two men with longer uninterrupted stints than luhnow at the head of the draft.

there’s still plenty of room for argument about how effectively luhnow has drafted. he’s already had 10 draftees get to the majors -- rasmus, greene, boggs, stavinoha, and garcia from the 2005 draft; perez, walters, luke gregerson, and sugar shane from ’06; todd from ’07 -- but none has been around long enough to establish how good a big-leaguer he will be. the pundits give luhnow good marks -- since he started drafting, the cardinals’ farm system ranking (according to the likes of baseball america, keith law, and kevin goldstein) has jumped from at or near the bottom in 2005 to the top 10 this year. but there are a lot of doubters too, as joe strauss documented in his p-d article on sunday:

.[N]umerous holdovers from Jocketty's regime remain skeptical of a process they believe has amassed plenty of complementary "bat guys" and bullpen arms but few starting pitchers or "impact" players.

Late to the organization's greater emphasis on quantitative analysis, manager Tony La Russa openly has questioned the level of "experimentation" within player development and scouting under Luhnow.

Said La Russa: "What you can look at is: Who did you take? Who did you have the chance to take? What guys get to the big leagues? And of the guys who reach the big leagues, who are impressive? They're fair questions to ask."

Another organization member is blunter still: "There is very little down there, very little. We haven't drafted players you build a team around. We draft guys who may one day help. That's not opinion; that's fact."

anybody want to guess who the anonymous speaker of the last quote is? i'll bet you a number-one draft pick it’s dave duncan . . . . whichever "jocketty holdover" did say it, that comment made me laugh. in the years immediately before luhnow took over, the cardinals didn’t draft players you could build a triple A team around, much less a big-league club. during the dying days of jocketty’s tenure, he’d look down at the memphis roster for a short-term fill-in and his best options would be washed-out 30ish hitters like scott seabol, brian daubach, or timo perez, or mound journeymen like brian falkenborg and kelvin jimenez. the top "prospects" drafted late on jocketty’s watch, such as travis hanson and reid gorecki, didn’t even rise to the level of replacement players.

so it’s a fact -- not an opinion -- that the farm system is stocked with vastly more promise than it was when luhnow took over. he’s been procuring players for four years now, and in that time he’s brought into the organization two likely major-league regulars (colby rasmus and brett wallace), several others who are possible regulars or semi-regulars (daryl jones, pete kozma, tyler greene, bryan anderson), a bunch of others who have bench-player potential (most notably allen craig, john jay, tyler henley, daniel descalso), and a passel of guys with a good chance to stick somewhere as a reliever or mid- to back-rotation starter (mitch boggs, jaime garcia, lance lynn, clay mortensen, chris perez, jess todd, luke gregerson, francisco samuel, fernando salas). that’s not including anybody who’s presently at class A or below (ie, nearly the entire 2008 draft class), nor toolsy caribbean signees like roberto de la cruz and eduardo sanchez and gerardo mannbel.

let’s place that haul alongside the production of previous four-year spans:

	2005-08	2001-04	1997-00	1993-96
STARS	????	dan haren	albert pujols jd drew	matt morris
REGULARS	probably 3 to 5	skip schumaker	adam kennedy yadi molina jack wilson chris duncan coco crisp rick ankiel	placido polanco alan benes braden looper
PART-TIMERS	possibly 8 to 10	kyle mclellan joe mather brad thompson daric barton brendan ryan anthony reyes jason motte	bud smith mike crudale pablo ozuna	eli marrero jay witasick cliff polite britt reames chris richard kerry robinson brent butler

in this chart, the "regulars" category includes starting pitchers who earne a regular rotation spot, plus closers; "part-timers" includes non-closers in the bullpen. i didn’t bother to list replacement-level players (such as stavinoha and shane robinson), who are legion in all the 4-year periods and of absolutely no interest.

what immediately jumps out at me is that the cardinals drafted their asses off in the late 1990s -- and thereby set up the dynasty of the 2000s. between 1997 and 2000 they brought 8 everyday players into the organization, or 2 per year. they drafted an entire up-the-middle core -- yadi behind the plate; kennedy and wilson in the middle infield; crisp in center -- plus a pitcher with ace potential (ankiel) and two mvp-type hitters (pujols and drew). even though they squandered some of the talent (crisp and wilson were both dealt for half-season rentals, and ankiel you know about), the cardinals added an extraordinary amount of value to their portfolio during those years. we don’t think of the 2000s dynasty as being draft-built, but it really was -- their good drafts in the last half of the 1990s yielded albert pujols and matt morris plus (via trade) edgar renteria, jim edmonds, and scott rolen.

could the 2005-08 draft cohort turn out to be as productive as 97-00? not likely, but not impossible. if we’re lucky, rasmus and/or wallace might eventually fit into the "star" category; they might be the two most promising position players the cardinals have drafted since pujols (although wallace’s early showing at memphis -- 4 walks, 21 strikeouts, .088 isolated power in 91 at-bats -- does give me slight pause). daryl jones could turn into coco crisp, and pete kozma could grow up to be jack wilson (a player he was compared to at the time he was drafted); so could tyler greene, for that matter. there might be a closer (perez) and/or a rotation regular or two in the group. . . . in an extremely lucky scenario, there might be 8 everyday players (including a star or two) to come out of luhnow’s first four drafts. more likely the group will produce 3 to 5 regulars plus some bench depth; a good, not great, haul.

will the cardinals be able to build a contending team around these guys? too soon to tell; ask me again when luhnow’s preparing for his 8th or 9th draft . . . . .

Red Baron Note: Hey, gang, Aaron here. I'm going to be covering the draft as it happens over at the RFT, and I'll try to keep the draft thread here updated too whenever a pick is made. I'll probably save the heavy analysis, but I will make sure at least the names and maybe a link or a couple of sentences is put up.

Also, I know Erik is doing a liveblog over at FR via the CoverItLive software, so be sure to check that out as well. Lord, I love draft day.

Game 24 overflow

lboros — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:44:24 -0000

pour it on, birdos. pour it on.