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Despite 2021 being his 6th year in The Cardinal Nation’s Top 50 prospect rankings, no. 15 Junior Fernandez still has ample time to complete his development into a back-end reliever for the #stlcards. @mdthompFWFB dig into the RHP's past and future. (FREE) https://t.co/3UPJxqbGXl pic.twitter.com/AlSHHDnN1b
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 8, 2020
25 – I’m looking for quality over quantity. That’s IMHO where we’re short in the OF. Love the queue at 3B with Gorman, Montero, Nunez (maybe), and Walker. Wish we had that type of queue in the OF. The Toerners and Nootbaars don’t win World Championships for you.
25 – I’m looking for quality over quantity.
Agreed. You’d like to have some potential superstars out there. I think Fletcher is one. Barring that, you’d like to have guys who could be above average. Torres is that guy. We could use something better. Perhaps the team is resigned to having to sign or trade for that quality of player next year. Depending on how 2021 goes, I could see it playing out. It would be nice if Carlson and O’Neill emerged into what they could be next year to either lock down or show that the OF upgrade is needed.
Fwiw, at his best I could see Toerner being an early career Matt Carpenter type. Good average and OBP with lots of doubles and solid defense in CF. He will probably be at Memphis next year so we will get to see whether he’s got a chance to be a big leaguer.
Our outfielders full season (compiled if they played at multiple MILB levels) minor league OPS in 2019 –
Thomas – .807
O’Neill – .816
Williams – .858
Carlson – .909Capel – .682
Hurst – .586
Pinder – .560
Toerner – .752
Nootbaar – .712
Denton – .540
Plummer – .606
Cedeno – .707
Machado – .690
Benson – .471
Vinsky – .711
Espinal – .734
Fuller – .708
Warner – .819
Fletcher – .666
Garcia – .655
Torres – .747
Montano – .561
Romeri – .809
Jimenez – .845
Burgos – .999 (mostly in the DSL)Arozarena, Mieses, Riley, Ynfante, Solere, and Del Rio are no longer with the organization, so I’ve omitted them.
This is not meant to be negative, 25. Just factual on why we need to add several high ceiling OF bodies at the higher levels. O’Neill type trades.
Thomas – trade
O’Neill – trade
Williams – trade
Carlson – 1stCapel – trade
Hurst – 3rd
Pinder – 7th
Toerner – 28th
Nootbaar – 8th
Denton – 2nd
Plummer – 1st
Cedeno – IFA
Machado – IFA
Benson – 20th
Vinsky – 15th
Espinal – Trade (released in March according to MLB.com)
Fuller – 15th
Warner – 40th
Fletcher – 2nd
Garcia – IFA
Torres – trade
Montano – .561
Romeri – 12th
Jimenez – IFA
Burgos – IFA (traded to Marlins for Austin Dean)bcc, the Cardinals have traded off Arozarena and Voit. They have acquired O’Neill, Thomas, Williams, Dean and Capel through trades. You have run down most of the OFs in the system. Now you want them to trade for some more OFs. Are you sure they will be able to identify the right one(s)?
Yes. If person being traded for is a former high draft pick who has produced consistently all the up the ladder in the minors. And at AAA has had a .300+ BA, .350+ OBP, and a .850+ OPS.
BC, who are you willing to trade to get said players? Most teams covet those players themselves and thus they are hard to pry away. As much as I’d love to trade for some of the upper minors guys I think will perform, we have to be realistic and say that we don’t have many trade chips that would bring back a top 50 position player. In fact, we may only have three players who could do that and two are prospects (Carlson and Gorman), leaving only Jack Flaherty as an option. Unless we wanted to trade both Liberatore and Thompson or Oviedo too.
With all due respect, bccran, how many outfielders have put up those kind of numbers at Triple-A and aren’t already in the majors?
And for a hitting prospect of that quality, are you willing to trade a Liberatore or Thompson to get him?
P.S. O’Neill would have fallen far short of your lofty criteria in all areas.
Well that should narrow it down to very few possibilities. Most of the ones who fall into those stats will cost a lot. Higher than the Cardinals have done, traditionally. Or, they are the superstar prospects who are untouchable.
Even Randy does not measure up… So that totally explains why the Cardinals traded him. He wasn’t good enough. The mystery is finally solved. What an eye-opener!!! 😉
Just for the fun of it, I looked up all the AAA players who had a batting average of .300 or above and an OPS of .800 or above in 2019. Here is the list:
Ryan LaMarre – released
Mason Williams – released
Daniel Johnson – Indians #18 prospect
Yonathan Daza – Rockies #11 prospect
Mark Payton – 29 year old Reds unranked prospect
Yadiel Hernandez – 33 year old Nationals unranked prospect
Mike Gerber – free agent
Yasmany Tomas – 30 year old with over 1100 major league ABs
Jim Adduci – 35 year old free agent
Connor Joe – 28 year old Rockies unranked prospectI guess it really shows that most players that fit within bccran’s guideline in AAA are journeymen.
(This is from MiLB.com. After further review, it only shows hitters who had 2.7 ABs/league game. That will narrow the scope quite a bit.)
That’s beneath you, Brian. It’s one thing to be condescending. It’s another to be wrong on top of it.
For your edification, Arozarena had the following slash line at Memphis –
.358/.435/.593/1.028
bccran, does his lines for 2017 and 2018 qualify as producing all the way up the ladder?
2017 – .266/.346/.437/.783
2018 – .274/.359/.433/.792Okay, Forsch. Let’s play a game. How about Daniel Johnson from the Indians. The former New Mexico State Aggie. What would it take to get him? Maybe Rondon, Whitley, and Woodford? Or is that too much?
According to Baseball Reference, there were 82 players (OF, INF and C) with at least 102 at bats in the PCL in 2019 that hit at least .300. Justin Williams was #15 and fits bccran’s slash line requirements. Austin Dean was #21 and also fit the requirements.
Forsch, I said produced all the way up the ladder, and then set the AAA slash line I would like to see. Read it again.
bccran, I really don’t care to acquire him. He is basically the same player as Justin Williams. Why would we want to acquire another one? I thought the idea was to upgrade.
bccran, why don’t you re-read my question. I asked if his slash lines qualified as producing all the way up the ladder. It’s hard to come up with what you are looking for if you are going to leave the criteria vague enough to change them when you want.
Why do you want to argue, Forsch? It’s a waste of time and energy. And playing around with semantics is boring.
You are the one who wants to “play a game” and you are asking me about arguing??? I have seen far too many times that you make statements about who to acquire or how someone is not good enough and then try to change the direction of the discussion when confronted with facts that are different than what your beliefs are. What is wrong with me trying to clarify what, exactly, you are trying to look for in a player?? It’s hard to discuss points that are vague.
bccran said:
That’s beneath you, Brian. It’s one thing to be condescending. It’s another to be wrong on top of it.
For your edification, Arozarena had the following slash line at Memphis –
.358/.435/.593/1.028
So you are only cherry picking the BEST year of the player at Triple-A? How convenient to your point.
Per MiLB.com, Randy’s CAREER line at Triple-A is .285/.372/.454/.826. That falls short in two of your three criteria.
P.S. The topic of being wrong is one you should probably avoid…
No, Brian, I’m looking at the AAA year just before being called up. When the player is ready to make the big step. It’s not cherry picking, it what I meant all along. Are you calling a poster “wrong” and being confrontational in the role of a poster or as our leader/moderator? Which hat are you wearing when you jump on someone? Do you want posters to always have to be concerned about being “called out” on this recreational forum? Or do you want it to be a fun place to be?
You should expect to be called out when you are wrong. As far as the recreational aspect, some enjoy not having to read about their favorite team’s players being put down constantly.
As far as what you are looking for, bccran, it seems obvious that you desire is to reverse engineer the Arozarena trade. Given the unpredictable aspect of minor leaguers, wouldn’t it be a huge risk to make another reactionary trade of a Liberatore or a Thompson to get a position prospect that may or may not pan out? If one of those two is playing well in 2022 and we got another middling player, you’d skewer Mo again for making such a bad trade.
Okay, Forsch, instead of being picky, picky about the arbitrary qualifications set forth by a poster, why not just say a really good all around outfielder both on the field and at the plate who’s now major league ready. Whom you can trade for and pay him the minimum as he’s brought up and starts his MLB career. Tyler O’Neill had shown a lot of power at Jackson and Tacoma before the Cards traded Marco for him. What player in the middle to upper minors in the Cards system has O’Neill’s ceiling, if he can cut down on his Ks? And no one shed a lot of tears when Marco was traded.
To further a discussion point that bccran always uses, that the Cards use their pitching depth to acquire hitting help, he is at least partially right. I’d also argue that typically, the Cards have not had the same upside of talent in the OF that they do now. Since the death of Oscar Taveras, they’ve had a mix of veterans with high floors (Moss, Jay), young guys who were non top prospects (Grichuk, Piscotty, Pham), and two attempted splash moves that didn’t work out particularly great (one year of good Heyward who then left and two years of average Ozuna).
What they didn’t have at any of those points, IMO, was the talent that’s in the OF currently. They have not had a Dylan Carlson type since Taveras who was a top 20 prospect and has the tools to be a star. They did not have a Tyler O’Neill, top 50 prospect who has shown great power and Gold Glove defense (Grichuk was never even close to as good a defender). Bader has proven to be an elite glove in CF who is good for at least 2 WAR/year in the proper role. Who else have the Cards had with that attribute since Jim Edmonds roamed CF? Then there’s Lane Thomas, who had an excellent breakout in Springfield in 2018 when healthy for the first time and had a hot finish to 2019 in St Louis. I think Thomas can be at least a Piscotty like player for the Cards.
So yeah, they have some unproven potential there…but it’s better potential than at any point since the Oscar Taveras days. That’s why the Cards should be hesitant to go trading for a starter to plug up the system for those guys.
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