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#STLCards top prospect Nolan Gorman has been promoted to High-A Palm Beach from Peoria. He immediately becomes the youngest player in the Florida State League.
— Derek Shore (@D_Shore23) June 20, 2019
Interesting, as he’s not been lighting the league on fire lately. Still, it will be a nice challenge and maybe a confidence boost.
The kid had really been struggling at Peoria lately but I’m sure the brass know something that we don’t.
Interesting words here from the GM. From this, one could draw the erroneous conclusion that the numerous roving coaches aren’t allowed to travel anymore and it isn’t exactly an endorsement of Peoria’s hitting coach. And why would Gorman need more supervision?
“It’s much more about the next step in his progress in the Minor Leagues than his being near the assets we have there,” Girsch said. “It does provide another level of supervision and expertise and the like that we have there, that we don’t have at any other facility.”
https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/daniel-ponce-de-leon-optioned-to-triple-a
It also says it’s about him playing near the teams facility. My guess is the coaching is a little different down in Palm Beach than Peoria. Which I’m sure has several guest instructors (Oquendo) visit.
Oquendo travels. Other than rehab coordinators, they all travel by definition. In fact, when I spoke with Oquendo last month at EST, he said he had just been out at several affiliates. There could be some coaching benefit to a player for being at Palm Beach, but if it is significant, then their system is not working. This is especially the case after EST is over and everyone is spread out at the short-season teams.
My gut says that the plan to promote Gorman at the end of the first half was set a long time ago. The words now are being used to explain that which seems odd at face value – the promotion of a high-profile player who has been struggling for the last month and a half. Maybe he will take off at Palm Beach, but if not, the FSL can also be a hitters’ graveyard. Seems to me that risk is being taken here, but I don’t get why.
Gorman, Nunez and Torres did not exactly light things up in Peoria. It will be very very interesting to see how Gorman fares vs FSL pitching. If he does well, then I think signs point to the need of making some coaching changes in Peoria.
Gorman had a great first month, but batted .199 since. Nunez and Torres showed they were clearly not ready to face more advanced pitching. I would not hang the latter two’s failures on the Peoria coaches at all. IMO, if anyone should be blamed (which I don’t think is fair), it should be the coaches in Florida who were getting them ready – the same guys who we are being led to believe are going to fix Gorman now.
Seriously, hitters take instruction, but it is up to them to perform.
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“For an organization that can be so passive most of the time at the big league level they can sure be aggressive/reckless with their lower minor league promotions. Weird paradox.”
Jekyll and Doolittle. That’s a weirder one.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Seriously though, the one organizational constant during the decline into MLB mediocrity has been the Redbird player development excellence. So in this case I’m going to blandly assume that the braintrust knows what they’re doing. Or at least mostly knows what they’re doing.
Unlike with free agent signings and big time trades, a significant portion of what’s going on with minor league promotions is unseen by our gaze. But yes, as others have said, this is clearly not a standard merit-based promotion. Unless the club gave a lot of weight to my Nolan Gorman home/road remarks of the other day!
Gorman away from Dozer Park: .314/.391/.588. That really would be more than worthy of the bump to Palm Beach.
Anyway, I wouldn’t have promoted him yet, but I’m not gonna fret over it. And I won’t be shocked if he’s an above average hitter in the FSL for the remainder of the season.
Another angle: If you don’t think he can’t hit in Dozer Park, why do you think he can hit in “The Grand Canyon of Roger Dean”, as I’ve heard some call it?
And we won’t even get into the mystery of how/why they refuse to promote Alexander “The Great”! The man is not even remotely being tested in the FSL.
Pugs, you seem to have missed the news…
The organization is known for putting a binky in the mouths of number one picks and using kid gloves when handling them (usually Ps). Although a few get the fast rack treatment. He’s already ahead of DPerez and Plummer. With Mendoza and Montero being mostly silent this season there’s room for him to progress to.
Hell, I hope that they don’t screw up with Gorman.
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