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My expectations of Gorman defensively are 100% based on Jose Oquendos opinion.
“He will be an above average defensive second baseman”.
That’s what I’m going on too, jj. I think he will be at least average, and we got generally positive reports about how he handled the move this year. It seems like Fangraphs got the only negative look at him and decided he was a “30 grade defender,” which to me is like playing Matt Carpenter, the late career version, at 2B. I can’t imagine that 22 year old Gorman would be that bad.
Remember when we played Skip Schumaker at 2B? That was hilarious. Unfair to Skip too but he wasn’t going to turn it down.
Well, what is Oquendo supposed to say? He’s not going to say Gorman is a 30 grade defender no matter if he is or isn’t.
It seems reasonable to expect it will be somewhere between above average and 30 grade. Hopefully average, since we will end up seeing him out there a lot. Assuming Yepez gets most of the DH turns. Edman fighting for time and maybe sticking pins in a Gorman doll.
Why would you assume Yepez would get most of the DH turns and not Gorman with Yepez being able to play multiple positions?
My take is they want Gorman to play 2B if he can. Besides that, who would Yepez bump? One of the outfielders presumably. I don’t see that happening.
If Gorman is at least passable at 2B, that is huge for the Cards the next 6-7 years. Then they wouldn’t have as much of a need to add a LH DH. I get the feeling I value the LH bat more than most, but having him in a 2-6 spot in the lineup.
That being said, very doubtful this happens, but I’m still on the “Sign Schwarber to DH” bandwagon, even if I’m all alone on it! hah I don’t remember going to a Cubs game where he didn’t hit a big HR…..
Last year we had way too many lineups with too many .200ish hitters. It will be profoundly huge if Gorman and Yepez both work out. Hopefully Nootbaar and his LH bat will build on last year also.
I can’t imagine Mo signing a money DH unless he trades a top tier hitter for a starter. I can’t really see him doing that either.
Bling, you’re likely right.
At this point, I just hope we have something to cheer (or complain) about in 2022….
I have a question about Fangraphs Roster Resource – Depth Charts. Looking at the current Cardinals chart, I see players listed on different teams than they were at the end of last year. Is this their guess or do they have some inside information about players being promoted? Also, some players weren’t even listed (ie. Tommy Jew). Thanks for any help on this!
cf64, it is all their opinion including who they list and don’t. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good resource, but one has to be aware of the limitations.
4 #stlcards landed in Fangraphs top 100 prospects list.
Jordan Walker – #12
Masyn Winn – #44
Gordon Graceffo – #69
Tink Hence – #75Matthew Liberatore just missed the top 100 and ranks #107. https://t.co/hkzPejr1Jf
— Blake Newberry (@bt_newberry) February 22, 2023
Most recent Fangraphs rankings.
St. Louis Cardinals Top 32 Prospects https://t.co/wBheNzyNDM
— FanGraphs Baseball (@fangraphs) May 26, 2023
Just another reminder that the self-proclaimed “experts” like Eric and Tess over at FanGraphs lead the league in “fake news”. They’re more to be pitied than laughed at.
Bumping up this thread. This was posted on another thread.
Thanks for finding this thread, it was fun reading back the comments from several years ago. Angel Rondon was all the rage and was gone in a flash is seems like. I don’t remember the particulars, but probably just couldn’t throw strikes, or at least strikes that didn’t get smacked by ML hitters.
The other thing that caught my eye was Fangraphs didn’t think much of the trade that landed Liberatore.
Yes thanks Brian as I couldn’t seem to find this with a search when posting on mobile.
Fangraphs definitely seems low on fielding grades quite often, although admittedly there is much less video of fielding for scouts to get a hold of on minors players. One I found striking was the older report on Nootbaar that he was a power only bat that couldn’t field enough and would be destined to 1B.
For the current Cards, I was a little surprised to see him Roby projected as a RP, although he does state mechanical issues and the blurp states Roby has mid rotation upside. To me, the interesting part is getting to compare various outlets on individual players. Blake and MLB.com have Roby as a 55 command potential, while Fangraphs has him at 40
Winn with a 50 power projection and statements of thinking he will grow into power are exciting. With his glove (I’m personally higher on Winn’s potential with the glove than 50) and arm, he would likely have some 5+ WAR seasons if he can get to 20 HRs like he projects.
Hjerpe’s report is actually more exciting to me than I thought it would be given his command problems. I was glad to see his stuff is above average given his deception and a deadly slider. Let’s hope he can put it together.
Other exciting things for me were the reports on Quinn Matthews and Chen-Wei Lin. I assumed Matthews velocity was up given his results, but it was great to read it has been mid 90s. Lin’s upside seems great if he can learn to control that big body. I was also really glad to hear he throws a splitter and it has plus potential.
We do really look to be lacking on the hitting side after some recent graduations. I think we are okay given the youth on our MLB roster for a while, but it would be nice to restock there. Davis’s having really bad swing and miss problems doesn’t help there. We have a few utility types like Saggesse/Prieto and then a bunch of C’s and not a whole lot of upside on batters. I’m still excited about Jonathan Meija and his ceiling; I’m admittedly a sucker for up the middle players though with the potential to have an average bat at least with some power.
Yeah Albert. On the position side we are extremely weak.
We are really deep at catcher. Crooks, Bernal, Sammy Hernandez, and Pages all have promise. But that’s where our talent on the position side mostly stops.
Outfield may be next best. We’ve got Victor Scott. But after him, we have a lot of guys in 2 categories. Either they are potential 4th/5th outfielders like Koperniak, Church, or Iadisernia. Or, they are guys with hyped up promise but who haven’t really met expectations yet or are a long ways off like Baez, Cho, or Davis. There is Zack Levenson who I like. I still like Cho too but he’s struggling.
At first base there’s still Baker who might be just as good as Goldschmidt at this point. You have a scattering of others, but all don’t have much chance of being major leaguers. This applies to 3B as well.
For 2B/SS guys, there’s also not many high potential prospects. Mostly utility types unless Saggese can find another level of hitting.
But we are deep with pitching now. We just have to develop 4-6 of them into high quality guys.
I also want to throw something else out there. We seem to have really messed up with several outfielders in the drafts lately.
In 2019, the Cards took Tre Fletcher in the 2nd round. He never got above low A and at one point he had struck out over 20 times in a row. That doesn’t even seem possible, and yet it happened.
In 2021, the Cards took Ryan Holgate as their last (maybe ever) competitive balance round pick at the end of round 2. He lasted just one full season before he was cut, which was remarkably quick. They also took Baez as their regular 2nd round pick and paid him a first round bonus to get him. He’s never hit for much of an average and strikes out a ton. He does occasionally demonstrate serious power, but it is few and far between. He is now at Peoria and struggling somewhat. I don’t really enjoy watching him hit. It’s ugly.
Then in 2023, the Cards took Chase Davis in round 1. He’s still in the FCL and like Baez, can’t hit for average and strikes out a lot. I believe Davis has a better chance of being fixed but it doesn’t look good now. Then, in the 3rd round (and their 2nd pick), the Cards took Travis Honeyman. He has an injury history in college and thus far hasn’t played a single minor league game.
That was 5 big bets in a 5 year span that all don’t look good right now.
I know he may only be a 4th OF type but I do like Mike Antico. He is tearing up AA right now at age 26. He needs to get a promotion to Memphis soon before he completely runs out of runway.
@jnevel Interesting observations on the OF. The jury is still out on Davis, but he hasn’t looked good so far.
At first base there’s still Baker who might be just as good as Goldschmidt at this point
I don’t think this is even close to accurate despite Goldy’s struggles the first 6 weeks.
The Athletic had an interesting article the other day that the gap between AAA and MLB pitchers is really growing, which means a lot of hitters look really good in AAA, but fail in MLB. Some reasons they think after analysis and talking to players like Matt Carpenter are the increasing levels of quality stuff in the majors, more analytics in the majors for pitchers to gameplay hitters, and a reduction in the org roster size meaning more AAAA types are being dropped.
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