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Fangraphs released their Cardinals prospect lists, and they don’t think too highly of the system which makes sense. We don’t have Star level players as we as an org have been too high in the high floor types.
@blingboy you should be ecstatic what the industry thinks of the Cards. You are always preaching the Cards should focus on command over velocity, and that is what the org has done to a resounding lack of success on the pitching side.A common theme among a lot of the pitchers in this system is that they have deeper than usual arsenals along with a mix of feel and/or deception, and St. Louis also has a lot of soft-tossers who haven’t been able to find more velocity in pro ball.
the Cardinals org has spent years slobbering over the Junior Fernandez types with a hot arm and can’t throw strikes. But people have a short memory. So lets do that again.
Just read the fangraphs article. Ouch.
Our last three 1st round picks are on the list.
2023, Chase Davis, FV 40+. 40 is bench player,45 is low end regular/platoon player
2022, Cooper Hjerpe, FV 45, 45 is 4-5 starter.
2021, McGreevy, 35+, which is somewhere between up and down guy and backend starter.(Which I take to mean good enough to make it on to the 40 man until out of options, after which it gets dicey.)
The Fangraph evaluation is giving up on Davis pretty fast. Anyway, they don’t see anything remotely close to an impact player out of that bunch.
Bling, the Cards have consistently drafted slower throwing more control oriented pitchers in the 1st 3 rounds since Flores took over (and really before as well). I went through our top 3 rounds of draft picks that were pitchers and pulled their noted velocity from the year they were draft along with their projected control. Only 1 has been an above average SP (Gallen) and unfortunately that was after he left our org.
The Cardinals haven’t really taken any SP that would have great stuff overall. The Cards have had some flame throwing RP they have acquired under Flores (Fernandez), but we aren’t drafting them with our top picks for the most part. The industry and prior reports all show that we as an org have focused on pitch to contact types. Even Mo has came out and said they had this approach and are now in 2024 shifting. My question is this; why would we keep going down the route of drafting pitch to contact when we aren’t developing MLB starters? Shouldn’t we try something else?
Year Round OvPck Name Type Velocity Control 2022 1 22 Cooper Hjerpe 4Yr 88-92 35/55 2022 2 59 Brycen Mautz 4Yr 90-94 35/60 2022 3 97 Pete Hansen 4Yr 88-92 35/55 2021 1 18 Michael McGreevy 4Yr 91-94 45/55 2021 3 90 Austin Love 4Yr 92-95 45/55 2020 2 63 Tink Hence HS 90-94 25/55 2020 3 93 Levi Prater 4Yr 88-92 great 2019 1 19 Zack Thompson 4Yr 91-94 45/50 2019 3 96 Tony Locey 4Yr mid 90s weak command 2018 1 43 Griffin Roberts 4Yr 90-93 45/50 2016 1 34 Dakota Hudson 4Yr 92-95 50/45 2016 2 70 Connor Jones 4Yr 90-92 40/50 2016 3 106 Zac Gallen 4Yr 89-93 45/50That is a lot of work Albert. I appreciate it. Are you saying that the velocities of other organizations’s top pitcher picks is higher? I am sure some are, just because there are 30 orgs. Just as an aside, I think that the Cardinals had an affinity for hot arms in the international program also. Nothing came of it. Salas maybe, although he was up and down his whole career due to control problems. He came out of the Mexican League though.
Anyway, my point is I remember when there were a bunch of hard thrower types coming along, Fernandez, as I mentioned, being one. That did not work out in a big way, and got our present pitching woes off to a rousing start from which it has not recovered. But, as I said, people have a short memory, and want to do it over again. I am sorry to say that the problem is not the style of pitchers we draft, and going to harder throwers is not going to produce better results. The answer to everything in pitching is not found in the velocity display of a radar gun, which some people will never accept. No one is going to divine the path forward studying a spreadsheet full of numbers, as such can be so constructed as to show you whatever you want to see.
Is Trevor Bauer still pitching in Mexico?
His accusor is now being charged by the police for lying – i e. he didn’t do it and yet society and MLB punished him before the case played out.
Why hasn’t someone – cough, cough, like the Cardinals – picked him up?
I am confused. Is the perceived problem that the Cardinals are drafting too many high velocity pitchers or not enough of them? Are they taking the wrong guys and trying to turn them into something they are not?
Once the problem is clear, then what should be done about it?
Hard to sort through all the griping about the evils of numbers to understand what they should be DOING DIFFERENTLY other than to fire all the analytics people and take a trip in time back to 1970.
ZTR, its probably fear of the mob and cancel culture, or possibly throwing in with it. Similar to how the Chiefs and most of the Chiefs players are keeping their distance from the kicker who kicked an ant hill. That guy has on line petitions against him now and whatever. Nobody wants to touch that. The Cardinals don’t want to stick their toe in that pond. The right or wrong of that situation would be political and beyond the scope of this board, but I think we can acknowledge that it exists and affects the game as in the case with Bauer. And I am not saying he is or isn’t a bad person or the Cardinals should or shouldn’t stay clear. I am just stating what I think the actual situation is. BDW is not going anywhere near that.
Brian, my position is that the Cardinals have acquired plenty of high velo pitchers in the past, and the results were not good. People remember what they want, and jump on the currently popular bandwagon. So the assumption is the org will do better at developing pitchers if they go all in for hard throwers. This even though the hard throwers they have acquired in the past have not worked out any better than the pitchability types. The problem is that the org cannot develop any of them.
I am confused. Is the perceived problem that the Cardinals are drafting too many high velocity pitchers or not enough of them? Are they taking the wrong guys and trying to turn them into something they are not?
I think we are conflating issues. When Bling is referring to the high velocity guys – Fernandez, Hicks, Alcantara, Reyes – these are international signings. With Hicks and Alcantara, the Cardinals could not teach them to pitch, so they just told them to throw hard. Both those players did much better once they left the Cardinals organization.
With respect to drafting, the Cardinals too often go for players they perceive as “safe” picks to make the show in the first round. I am talking about pitchers, of course. The only ones that I recall being on the college leaderboard in terms of strikeouts the years they were drafted were Hjerpe & Mautz. Maybe Roberts. I think Hansen, Locey and Gallen all may have been on the leaderboard, but much, much lower.
Finally, to your last point, Brian. The last few years, we’ve been hearing how the Cardinals send their draftees home with things to work on in the offseason. Usually, it was to work out and add more MPH to their fastball. Graceffo had tremendous results his first year, blew out the shoulder or arm the second. It seemed for awhile that this was emblematic of their approach – just throw harder.
This past offseason, it seemed they were having guys experiment with new pitches and pitch shapes. Which would be more of a focus on pitching than velocity.
My question is, why is Flaherty suddenly a great pitcher again? You are seeing that more and more. Players “suddenly” can play once they leave St Louis. Do the Red Sox have a better pitching coach? Better manager? Flaherty has floundered how many years now, and suddenly he’s Sandy Koufax?
The problem is within the orgsnization. Be it coaching, managing,overseeing player development, people rating the talent that we pick. Too many decisions are left to figures and stat sheets. This organization needs a total shakeup. There are people that could come in and do better but they arent yes men so i dont see it happening with ownership as is.
Are you saying that the velocities of other organizations’s top pitcher picks is higher?
Yes other teams are drafting pitchers more based off of stuff rather than command and then trying to teach those pitchers to well, pitch. This is risky but with good upside. The Cardinals draft safe control focused pitchers that don’t have above average stuff, which is safer with high floors of being MLB players, but not as much payoff of developing #3 types or higher. Velocity isn’t the only determining factor though as you can have above average stuff while throwing any velo. But generally as velo goes up, stuff does go up as it means less time for the hitter to react. Other orgs are targeting high. Spin rates and deception are another part of stuff that can be targeted.
I’m not going to do a full comparison of the drafts, but I’ll have selection bias of the Mariners who have been a pitching factory as of late. I’m only picking players that have reached the majors and look like #4 or better starters to save myself some time. It isn’t completely apples to apples as they had some picks higher than us, but they also found some good SP in rounds 4 and 6 lately. I also don’t know how George Kirby lasted that long with the stuff he had and that amazing control. I guess it was he was from a smaller school, but he certainly looks like a front line starter now.
Year Round OvPck Name Type Velocity Control 2021 4 113 Bryce Miller 4Yr 94-97 30/45 2021 6 174 Bryan Woo 4Yr 93-96 30/40 2020 1 6 Emerson Hancock 4Yr 93-96 35/55 2019 1 20 George Kirby 4Yr 91-96 55/70 2018 1 14 Logan Gilbert 4Yr 94-97 44/55I am confused. Is the perceived problem that the Cardinals are drafting too many high velocity pitchers or not enough of them? Are they taking the wrong guys and trying to turn them into something they are not?
Once the problem is clear, then what should be done about it?
I would like to see the Cards try and steal some front office people from Seattle to get an injection of good ideas into the org on the pitching side. As far as draft strategies, I think the Cards could do a better job of targeting upside players with our top draft picks. The org has done an exceptional job of turning the mid round position player draft picks into MLB starters, so they are doing something right. The consistency of the org of finding MLB starters later though to me means they have more luxury to take upside picks at the top of the draft. Some will bust but they can hopefully find some stars. The 2020 draft they certainly took upside with Walker, Hence, and Winn, and those 3 have the potential to be homegrown All-Stars, but time will tell. Our pitcher draft choices have seem extra conservative and we are not developing our own SP as even these floor picks aren’t developing enough to be MLB SP. We aren’t developing #5 SPs, let alone #3 and above. I would like to target pitchers with more upside with bigger stuff and trying to teach them to pitch.
EDIT: To add on, I do want to say I would stick with Flores as the Scouting Director. He has had some good choices and whatever he is doing to find solid mid rounders, we need to continue. I think having some new ideas injected into the pitching philosophy could help us turn around our pitching selections and development. I would be in favor of replacing some people in the development side of the organization though.
With respect to drafting, the Cardinals too often go for players they perceive as “safe” picks to make the show in the first round. I am talking about pitchers, of course.
Yep this is what my thoughts are on our pitching draft choices.
My question is, why is Flaherty suddenly a great pitcher again? You are seeing that more and more. Players “suddenly” can play once they leave St Louis. Do the Red Sox have a better pitching coach? Better manager?
Yeah I think other teams have better pitching coaches and a better pitching philosophy that make much better use of analytics than we do while also tailoring the adjustments to the individual pitcher and their biomechanics. That is why I would like to bring in someone from Seattle or some other good pitching org to see what they are doing different.
Flaherty’s 0-3 with an ERA a little under 4.00 in 8 GS. His best turn was against his former Cardinal team who are near dead last in the Big Leagues in runs scored. Jack’s the same pitcher.
Yes other teams are drafting pitchers more based off of stuff rather than command and then trying to teach those pitchers to well, pitch.
The Cardinals have acquired plenty of ‘stuff’ guys with very little success. This idea that they are late to catch on to the wonder of drafting hard throwers is just another smoke screen. The fact is the Cardinals org has not been successful developing those, or any other type of pitchers for many years. My fear is the short attention span crowd have forgetten all about the past failures with the ‘stuff’ types, and buy into this latest red herring, with the results that the current regime lives on, and all the new hard throwers turn out like the old hard throwers. Then there will be another wonderous new discovery, and everyone will pile on that bandwagon.
My fear is the short attention span crowd have forgetten all about the past failures with the ‘stuff’ types, and buy into this latest red herring, with the results that the current regime lives on, and all the new hard throwers turn out like the old hard throwers.
My fear is people fabricating the Cardinals focus on ‘stuff’ and also assuming the pitch to contact types have been our successful pitchers. Every public organization that analyzes MLB teams have long noted the Cards pitch to contact approach on player acquisitions; the Cardinals FO itself has came out and said they had this approach as well. Despite all the evidence pointing to the Cards being a pitch to contact org, how do people think we have prioritized stuff as an org?
What actual players at the top of the MLB draft have the Cards taken that have been stuff over command types? Tink Hence who is one of our 2 pitchers that looks to have #3 starter or better potential with Roby being the other and he is also a stuff guy. Why aren’t all of these pitch to contact types like McGreevy succeeding to be our front line starters? We have taken some players in IAFA that have had great stuff like Alex Reyes, and the unfortunate part of good stuff is the increased injury risk and it wreaked him. Jordan Hicks is another stuff guy and our pitching coaching was horrible and now we are watching him excel in SF throwing still with an average FB of 97.2.
Hard throwers from whatever source are hard throwers, and the Cardinals have been unsuccessful developing them. If you want to distinguish how they came into the system, and further distinguish by what round, go on ahead. Whatever results in a data set you like, I get it. None of it gets around the fact that they have tried with that type plenty of times without any better results than with the pitchability types. The Cardinals failure to develop pitchers has nothing to do with that, their system does not work however hard a prospect throws. But, I won’t try to get you off the bandwagon, the herd has stampeded off that direction and its where to be at the moment. Buckle your seatbelt and go for a ride.
Just because we can cherry pick just about anything . . . Today I’m going to trash the Atlanta Braves . . .
2017 top 5 picks: Kyle Wright, Drew Waters, Freddie Tarnok, Troy Bacon, Bruce Zimmerman. What were they thinking with any of these guys? Clearly the Braves cannot develop players.
2018 top 5 picks: Carter Stewart, Greyson Jenista, Tristan Beck, Trey Riley, Andrew Moritz. Again, clearly poor at drafting and developing talent. The Braves suck. Never going to be anything.
Let’s skip to 2020 when a team like the Cardinals was selecting Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, and Tink Hence in the first couple rounds, the Braves managed to select Jared Shuster and Jesse Franklin. They did manage to pick Spencer Strider in the 3rd round. Everyone gets lucky sometimes, right? But then they wasted their last pick in the 4th round on future middle reliever Bryce Elder.
Let’s just stop there because it’s hopeless. Then they go and trade away William Contreras, who is now the best hitting catcher in baseball. How could they not see that coming? They had him and they decided they didn’t want him and practically gave him away to get a downgrade at catcher in Sean Murphy. So stupid. But what can we expect from this organization?
Clearly the evidence shows the Braves are terrible at drafting and developing players and they are prone to making stupid trades. Fire their GM. (and maybe hire him for the Cardinals).
Bling, we will have to disagree.
But, I won’t try to get you off the bandwagon, the herd has stampeded off that direction and its where to be at the moment.
Haha well I would rather be with the times than refusing to adapt and going to the way of dodo. What works at one point won’t work when the environment around you changes. You don’t pass the herd by refusing to change. You pass the herd by taking the good that the leaders of the herd are doing and innovating with further improvements.
If I wanted to defend the Cardinal front office I wouldn’t compare them to the Braves, who have won their division six years in a row. Clearly they are doing something right.
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