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Stolen bases are mostly on the pitcher, so it is possible the pitcher was really bad at controlling the running game as well. It could also be Bernal, but it is hard to know without seeing the live game.
It might be useful to compare SBs allowed by other of the AFL catchers with similar innings behind the plate.
Leonardo Bernal is my #9 prospect as well. He may be no Da Vinci behind the plate, but he will be serviceable IMO and the bat will play. Should be interesting to see if he can improve at Springfield next year.
A fun fact about Bernal…he has 34 career plate appearances against pitchers younger than he is. That is out of a total of 1109 minor league plate appearances.
Should be interesting to see if he can improve at Springfield next year.
I agree. A lot of guys look good in the Texas League and I am anxious to see if Bernal is one of them.
Seems to me that some of you are getting mighty cozy with a young catcher whom is not very accomplished defensively, has not exactly hit the daylights out of the ball at any level…….and seems to be a bit pudgy, even for a catcher. I have Leonardo Abdiel Bernal as our 18th top prospect. I’ll remain loyal to Chen-Wei Lin here at #9.
Baseball Reference has Bernal at 23% Cought Stealing in the AFL. The Desert Dogs are dividing the catching duty evenly between 3 guys. The other two are at 31% and 20%. The guy who is at 31% doesn’t get run on near as much as Bernal and the other guy.
Baseball America just released their Top Ten Prospects for the Cardinals. The most intriguing ranking was for Yairo Padilla, a SS who they ranked at #5! Pretty high ranking for a DSL player!
There’s an article on the TCN homepage which is headlined, “StL. Cardinal Prospect #47-Joshua Baez.” The article contains a photo of what looks to be either a female coach or player wearing a Cardinal batting helmet. Anyone know who she is?
td, the Cardinals have one uniformed female coach and that is not her in the photo. Probably a shaggy bat boy. The female coach, Christina Whilock worked out of the complex this past year. I do not see her name currently on the official web site, but it is sort of garbled right now as to minor league coaches.
Thanks Bling…I vaguely recalled hearing about a female coach in the Cardinal minor leagues and thought it may have been her in the photo. I also guessed it may have been a BB who needed a trim, but it sure does look like a female in the photo. At any rate, I was just curious. I thought maybe my little granddaughter could aspire to replace the current Redbird manager…Haha!
First time hearing of our female coach…….I’m surprised Rat hasn’t been all over this. I wonder if she comps out more in appearance to Mae Mordabito(Madonna) or Marla Hooch from “A League of Their Own” fame? Hopefully not the later.
#9 = Gordan Graceffo
I have concerns about him but that could be said about almost every player in the system. I think this is the year he takes a step forward and contributes to the MLB club for at least part of the year.Graceffo did look good for a while, but to do so required pushing his arm past what it could tolerate. I think that is the common theme with the bum shoulder guys, of which there are several among our notable prospects. Pushing to get over that next hump was just too much. Roby, Robberse, Klof, Bedell. Once they get back on the mound they have to find a way to be effective that their shoulder can tolerate. If they return to what they were doing before, then the same thing happens, and they go down again. There is always the chance they will come up with something and hold it together long enough to be a factor, but I just don’t think the smart money is betting on that. Dakota Harris is, to me, a textbook example of how it goes. Last year I tried arguing that you’re just not likely to make money betting on Roby, but got run down by that bandwagon. Hence is this year’s Roby in my mind. The longer it goes on, the less the chances. Any of these guys might make it, but I am not putting my money on any of them.
Someone like Hjerpe falls into a different category. He’s an elbow guy as far as I can tell. Structural damage in the elbow. That is less ominous because elbows are way more fixable than shoulders. The biggest issue I have with Hjerpe right now is lack of information. Something is going on, but we don’t know what. He had previously had loose bodies removed from his elbow. Loose bodies are debris that results from stress induced wear beyond what the structure can tolerate. So he returned from that and looked good for a while and then went down in July, I believe, and didn’t return. We have heard nothing. In my mind, it is perfectly plausible that he is right now recovering from elbow surgery, but we don’t know. Maybe they are hoping for the best with an extended shutdown. In any event, the past history and lack of present knowledge is just a big risk element that will be present until we find out what is going on and see how he comes back. Of course, with any of these guys we can pretend everything is fine when it is not fine, like we did with Roby last year.
My vote for Ian Petrutz this round was not in jest. He had a slash line at Palm Beach this season of .344/.483/.433/.916. K rate of 8.7%.
More Ws than Ks. He outhit JJ Wetherholt at the same level. I tracked him through U. of Maryland and then at U. of Alabama. He had an OBP this season of .447 with an OPS of .927 in the SEC before being drafted. Plus I read some scouting reports and watched several video interviews. Good guy.The person in the background of the photo is a long-haired teenage bat boy.
I don’t want to derail the voting, but want to point out that we first wrote about Tina Whitlock in the spring of 2020, and several times since. Rats does not subscribe so he probably missed it. But I want to remind everyone that the women working in the system are qualified professionals so please keep the discussion appropriate.
https://thecardinalnation.com/cardinals-name-diverse-2020-minor-league-fourth-coaches/
In 2024, the Cardinals had a number of females in important positions including Manager of Player Development Emily Wiebe and Performance and Strength and Conditioning Coordinator Jackie Gover.
Thanks for touting Petrutz cranny. He is a standout for sure.
We will have to see how his numbers hold up at Peoria. I think he will be on TV there, so those with MiLB TV access will be able to tell us what his defense looks like. That is likely to be an issue since he is a left fielder right out of the box. But we have a ton of lower level prospects who are, at this point, just guys. Petrutz has distinguished himself, which is something. The launch angle crowd will want to heave him over the side, though. I can see the lab coats and clip boards gathered around auctioning off his belongings as we speak.
BB – I’m afraid that Petrutz is going to have to stay at corner outfield.
I just hope he has enough power.Maybe the new regime will remember that a winning team needs a .400 OBP guy at the top of the lineup, and approach his development intelligently. That would be refreshing.
BB – I wonder if the Cards were trying to save money by not having sophisticated tracking equipment and a small amount of roving instructors, or Gary LaRocque just had the game pass him by.
Whoops, looks like there was a mix up in the results department…indeed, our #9 prospect has been decided. It’s Leonardo Bernal, C.
Voting is now open for the #10 prospect, our last single vote. We will set the deadline at noon CT/1 PM ET Tuesday, November 20th. But we can extend it a bit if voting seems to be close.
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