Minor League Game Thread – Week of April 12-18

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  • #182558
    blingboy
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    McGreevy and Graceffo (and Liberatore) aren’t walking anybody. Hopefully the whole system will be much improved in that area from early last year.

    I am hoping maybe Tommy Parsons might do well enough to get a cuppa with somebody before his time is up. Its a longshot, but I pull for NDFAs who have kept at it.

    #182576
    Bob Reed
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    “Can anyone remember a position pipeline better than Gorman, Yepez, Donovan, Burleson, Walker, Winn, Herrera, and Baez?”

    Very good question, cranny. Don’t forget Malcom Nunez either. And something tells me Won-Bin Cho will be a top 10 Redbird prospect by year’s end. I just wish I could share your enthusiasm for young Mr. Baez.

    But getting back to the original question, let’s take a look at the Cardinal position prospects of three years ago. Many of them were the same as now: Gorman, Herrera, Nunez, Yepez, Donovan. So we need to compare Burleson, Walker, and Winn to the guys who graduated from the 2019 list. Namely, Dylan Carlson, Randy Arozarena, and Tommy Edman. If Walker moves to a corner outfield as I expect, and becomes Arozarena or Carlson (take your pick) that would be a generally positive outcome. A smidge disappointing, but generally positive. Then if Burleson becomes the other guy, Randy or Dylan, that would in fact be a VERY positive development.

    And that brings us to Masyn Winn. If he becomes Tommy Edman — the overall MLB career performer, not the 2022 slugger or 2021 disappointment — that would make Masyn Winn a 3-4 WAR regular, and we would have to be overjoyed with that, right? So it’s a close call; I think I would lean toward the 2019 list for now.

    But in case we need a tie-breaker, the 2019 list also had 3rd baseman Elehuris Montero. And after his dreadful age-20 season in AA, and the missing Covid campaign, he has bounced back marvelously well. Last year he fairly clobbered AA at age 22 (.280 with 28 HR in 120 games), and now he’s absolutely killing it in AAA. He’s no Arenado of course, but the Rockies didn’t do as badly for themselves as some folks made out at the time. I should probably mention that the Cards also had Andrew Knizner, Edmundo Sosa and Adolis Garcia for sweeteners back then. No big deal, but worth citing for sure.

    So once again we see how surprisingly, almost shockingly productive the “mediocre” Cardinal farm system has been. I say “mediocre” because as Mr. Walton quite correctly pointed out in a recent podcast, the Birds have mistakenly been ranked middle-of-the-pack by mainstream prognosticators for many consecutive years. Well, I say mistakenly. Brian was much too diplomatic to say so. (Glancing at the Fangraphs grades from three years back, here’s how they saw St. Louis prospects: Knizner and Gorman, MLB regulars. Carlson, good bench player. Montero, marginal bench guy. And among the myriad names mentioned above, everyone else completely inconsequential, outside the top 300, which translates to less than 1 total expected career WAR.)

    #182583
    bccran
    Participant

    Sure hope they don’t trade Winn. He’s extra special.

    #182613
    mudville
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    Winn does look like something extra special. The only trouble is that we already have Dejong, Edman (Edman’s natural position is SS and he might be good enough defensively to win a Gold Glove there), and Sosa to play short. With that and all the talent in the pipeline, and a pretty young lineup at the major league level, it looks like we have plenty of dry powder for acquiring a top of rotation pitcher. The problem is, as always, every potential trade partner thinks their prospects are future HOFers. It would be painful to waste any of our top prospects in a trade that didn’t benefit the Cardinals. Good luck to MO and the front office.

    #182616
    CariocaCardinal
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    Bob Reed, any thoughts on Tovalin at PB? I get the impression this guy is going tô Just hit and hit and hit.

    #182618
    Cardinals27
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    Wow, I posted this in wrong weeks thread. I had to repost this. I could not believe what I saw.

    What a wild game in Peoria. The game featured 2 ejections, a truck and trailer on the field hat delayed the game 5 minutes, substitution delays, and much more. The 11th inning went as follows, ghost runner at second, walk, walk, double, walk, hit by pitch allowing 3 runs to score for the visitors. The score is 5-2, and the game is lost, right? WRONG. In the bottom of the 11th Peoria started with the ghost runner followed by walk, strikeout, error, walk, walk, hit by pitch, game winning sac fly by Antonini. So 7 runs were scored by both teams, with only 1 hit. One of the craziest games I have EVER seen.

    #182619
    Cardinals27
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    I hope the Cards don’t have a long leash on Leahy and Zeuch. Leahy hasn’t pitched well since 2019, and while Zeuch’s first outing was good, he still gave up 6 hits and 2 walks while giving up only 1 run.

    #182623
    Brian Walton
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    #182624
    Brian Walton
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    #182636
    Mrperkins
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    Moises Gomez certainly has a live bat but I think he is going to have to work on his atricious bb/k ratio before he becomes a factor in Cardinals plans. Or the Rangers can pluck him away like Garcia and all the idiots can proclaim him a star for a hot start and then terrible 2nd half.

    #182704
    stlcard25
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    Gorman is going oppo again. He has an impressive swing.

    #182720
    Brian Walton
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    #182729
    PadsFS
    Participant

    Between what we’ve given up and hit, AAA-Memphis has to be on pace for the most homeruns ever in a season at this point.

    #182730
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

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    I can’t speak to pace, but the Memphis offense leads Triple-A with 23 home runs in 12 games. Their pitching is second with 21 yielded.

    #182736
    Brian Walton
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    #182737
    PugsleyAddams
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    Moises Manuel Gomez.,….. besides being on RatsBuddy’s preseason radar, I don’t recall anyone else touting this high flying Venezuelan. He looks to have a similar build as “The Toy Cannon”.

    #182775
    PadsFS
    Participant

    PugsleyAddams

    Moises Manuel Gomez.,….. besides being on RatsBuddy’s preseason radar, I don’t recall anyone else touting this high flying Venezuelan. He looks to have a similar build as “The Toy Cannon”.

    He was only signed this off-season, used to be with Tampa:

    11/11: FA OF Moises Gomez signed to minors contract, assigned to Spr. Mem C/OF Clint Coulter re-signed, given non-roster spring camp invitation. New organization total: 251 players.

    #182780
    Bob Reed
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    “Bob Reed, any thoughts on Tovalin at PB? I get the impression this guy is going tô just hit and hit and hit.”

    You could be right, CC. I’m withholding my endorsement until he does so at a higher level, though.

    The thing about Tovalin, listed at 6’2″ and 230, he has little or no defensive or baserunning value (9 errors in 36 pro starts at the hot corner), so he’ll have to really clobber the ball to contribute against MLB opposition. And that is such a tough standard.

    I was highly intrigued when he was drafted, mind you. Anybody who slugs .700+ in college while fanning less than 10 percent of the time…well, that gets my attention. But upon further investigation, it became quickly clear that Azusa Pacific had a LOT of big bats in their lineup — seven AP hitters had an OPS north of 1.000 during Osvaldo’s senior season (min. 100 PA’s). So those gaudy collegiate numbers just aren’t that impressive after all.

    Anyway, the guy is 22 in Low-A (and kinda flunked his first trial there last year, with that atrocious BB/K combo) so he pretty much needs to be succeeding in AA by the end of 2023, for me to consider him a potential bench contributor or longshot for DH. And maybe he will. He has certainly shown massive improvement so far at Palm Beach.

    Maybe this makes me a killjoy, but I’d probably have him somewhere in the mid-to-upper 20’s, as far as Redbird prospect rankings go.

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