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It least we have the Spikes and the Early-Risers going today.
It’s not a total dark day. Tomorrow we get 6. State College is up in Albany, NY this week and Brooklyn, NY over this weekend…. I’d love to catch at least one of their games.The experts are making me think that we’ll be having another month of the hot stove league this autumn. It may be time to circle the wagons and look at ’18 with more optimism. We certainly need that masher in the middle of the lineup. But let’s face it…. it won’t be a top-tier player. Someone just below that and costing less sounds right.
There have been some major prospect gainers whose stock has gone up so far.
#2 Weaver
#3 Kelly
#5 Bader
#7 Flaherty
#8 Hudson
#9 Sierra
#13 DeJong
#14 Woodford
#16 Arozarena
#23 Helsley
#25 Gallen
#32 MGonzales
#37 DGonzales
#40 Mayersnon Top-50
JAGarcia
Young
Edman
Voit
Mercado (DL)
O’Reilly
NicasioDL problems
#1 AlReyes
ArReyes
#15 Alvarez
#12 Sosa
#38 WickSome top 50 concerns – Stock may be waning.
#4 Perez
#20 Denton
#21 Williams
#22 Plummer
28 JeMartinez
#33 KilichowskiOther non Top 50 concerns
Socolovich
Diaz
JWilson
DobzanskiAt Memphis:
With the addition of Weaver, the Redbirds still have only 11 Ps on their current roster. Because the Cardinals are anticipating Siegrist’s return followed by Duke’s return their present roster has 12 Ps which would leave them with 14 and decisions to made. Brebbia and/or Tuivailala could find themselves back at AAA, which would then balance out MEM’s roster. (Of course, the Cardinals will ALWAYS be the priority)Memphis has one of the soundest rotations in MiLB. Weaver#2-Flaherty#7-MGonzales#32-Gant#19-Mayers#40. Arturo Reyes is near ready to return from the DL and that will bring up another decision to make. They just sent Gallen, Bray and Wick down to Springfield.Springfield now has 15 Ps on their roster, even with the release of McKnight who simply aged out being 26. Chris Ellis#34 might be the odd man out now that their rotation should be Gallen#25-Hudson#8-Alcantara#6-Gomber#10-Pearce#43…. another formidable group.
Palm Beach has their 13 pitchers that they normally go with and Helsley#23-Fernandez#11-Jones#18-Woodford# form the current rotation (DGonzalez very recently has been put on the DL). They can go with 5 by adding Vance or Leitao OR by getting a starter from Peoria.
Peoria presently has a 6-man rotation Hicks-JPerez-O’Reilly-Oxnevad-Kruczynski-Sexton. Sending a starter to PB wouldn’t be a problem because both Castano and Shew may be ready to advance upward.
There are thousands of possibilities to maneuver these rosters but today they are what they are. July 10th brought so many player movements which is normal for the AS break but they are also made in preparation for the MLB trade deadline. The organization may gain a player and/or two and lose a couple. It really depends on who and what the other teams are looking for. There is a lot of pitching talent throughout the affiliates.
From bccran: 1.) The Fowler trade was to lock in a lead off batter so Carp could hit third and swing with power. That failure has really upset the applecart.
What a lousy move the Fowler signing has become. Putting an OF together for the future is greatly effected by having him around and paying him so much. There’s a lot of chatter about acquiring an OF with power to fill the middle of the order. We may need to trade off Piscotty instead. That Fowler money would come in handy in getting us a power bat instead of us doing the usual and winding up with Bourjos. Mozeliak will still be feeling the embarrassment as Fowler’s presence continues to disrupt this team going forward and his skills continue to evaporate.
That’s a good point Cards16….. the trades that are done here usually come out of nowhere. Maybe our new GM will be different but I doubt it with Mozeliak in the same office complex. Sabe.
I’m guessing Brennan Leitao will be PB starter today so that he can continue to be stretched out to enter the rotation on the Beach. Gallen was not replaced and Fernandez is still DLed. I don’t see any other solid options. Leitao is a fairly good replacement and works better as a starter.
This is a very good piece by UCC. I enjoyed reading about the bargain basement (except Tewes) hurlers that are doing well. Castano and Shew have been especially successful in the early goings. Mulford has improved in each start. The grinding travel of the NYP League generally keeps rehabers away so that the rotation can operate smoothly throughout the season. The rotation of the ’16 version of the Spikes (Farinaro-Williams-Dobzanski-Cross and later DPerez-Hicks-Kilichowski) held together well right into the play-offs, which SC won in three games. (Dobzanski-Hicks and Cross the clincher). It’s somewhat surprising that only Hicks has been able to progress this season.
Memphis is also going into their AS break and the up and down John Gant was up for this one (GS=68) but wasn’t around to get the win in a Redbird 3-2 squeaker. In the ninth, Wisdom and Cunningham singled and both scored on a Breyvic Valera double putting us up by one.(it was his 1st game in ’17 leading off) Mark Montgomery nailed it down after some nail-biting Oh-ish save-gyrations. That’s what this team has been doing all season to build up its’ large first-place lead. More good news…. Artie Reyes has been sent to the GCL Cards for rehab.
The Springfield Cards got 2 HRs from AGarcia in a 11-4 romp last night. Andrew Knizner and Tommy Edman both went 2-4 and 2R each and raised their AVRs over .200. Hopefully these two start cooking and putting up some good numbers the rest of the season.
2-5? I counted 1up-6down. Castano has been huge for the Spikes and although the locals in Pa. might be excited, DC will get little attention as far as his prospect ranking….. because he doesn’t throw 100mph and he doesn’t strike our 1.5/inn. (see Matt Pearce)
Regarding O’Reilly, I was referring to the selections of the poll here before the season started. I know he came up on the radar in May.
As for Billings…. .393BA OBP.462 OPS.979 51AB 5-2B 1-3B 8BB 6K. Those numbers impress me. It will be interesting to see if Billings shows up sometime, somewhere on someone’s list. With so many others struggling at PB he is thriving. Like I said last year he was just an ordinary outfielder on a championship team.Sometimes moving up is due to another player’s injury at a higher level. The prospects have to except that and should always be prepared for that situation. “Ready or not here I come”.
These players are human and, accordingly, each one is different. Different motivation factors are important. The skill sets are different also. These guys have to be able to produce at the level they are set at and continue to progress. Age becomes a factor at a certain point and if they haven’t kept up, it becomes problematic for the organization to allow a roster space to be unfulfilled.
No doubt there will be minor league “lifers”, those taken low down in the draft are good candidates for that fate. Occasionally one will fool the experts and produce well above expectations. There are thousands of minor league players trying to grab the golden ring. The ones that do are those with a superior set of skills, those highly motivated, those with perseverance, patience and a lot of faith in themselves. There is a lot of competition and pressure to satisfy expectations. I tend to use production as a good measuring stick as to where they stand. (continued)
That’s a good batch of arms going in today’s games.
I guess I’m as guilty as the rest of the die-hard prospect watchers around here of perhaps over-rating our prospects. The truth is there’s 29 other MLB team followers that do the same thing. The experts put out a ranking of all the prospects and we’d like to see our guys closer to the top.
With all the MiLB teams now underway it may be wise to check out the league leaders as that is a good way to see just how well the players stand in their own level. We have some young players that are having terrific seasons and that’s called production. Other highly rated prospects may have been challenged to levels that they are having difficulty with. Sink or swim? Maybe. Promoting prospects is part of the growing process. There’s people trained to know if a certain prospect is physically, mentally and mature enough to advance up the chain. Over expectations sometimes aren’t the answer.(continued)
Well if that’s the case you really know your prospects! We’ll be waiting for an updated prospect ranking soon. I always respect your acumen despite my last comment. As witnessed in the pre-season poll here so many fans have so many opinions. There’s so may players exceeding expectations and some have been struggling…. and a few badly.
last night some of our prospect’s that are struggling at the plate, mostly due to promotions, had good some good games.
Springfield’s Andrew Knizner was 2-4, 2RBI up to .167 and Tommy Edman 3-4 .200 in a 5-3 win.
At Palm Beach, Andy Young was 2-4 with a HR .222 and Jeremy Martinez 1-3 2B RBI BB .174 in a 3-2 win.
At Peoria, Matt Fiedler was 1-3 HR BB his homer was the only score of the Chiefs 1-0 win behind O’Reilly.
At State College, it was our 3rd rd pick ’17 Steve Hurst going 2-5 .150.Here’s hoping that these guys continue to settle in and make some solid progress in ’17.
We know that we overlooked Mike O’Reilly as being a solid prospect. His name wasn’t even mentioned in the chatter about our prospects. He’s 7-2 for Peoria (A). His ERA (1.76) is 2nd in the Midwest League and his WHIP leads the league at 0.74. Seriously, O’Reilly has made 10 starts now and he continues to dazzle. The question is do we have a good prospect here? The Redbird Daily is doing an updated prospect ranking and put O’Reilly at #29, that’s up from nowhere.
Another prospect I want to bring up is Shane Billings (22 y.o 5’11”-190) at Palm Beach (adv-A). He was a 16th rd. pick last season and got through a rather modest season at Johnson City (R) in ’16. He started this season at Peoria and hit .310 before moving up. Despite being at PB his average has increased. Has he been overlooked as a solid prospect as well? Our full-season minor league teams are well into their second half and these guy’s numbers haven’t slipped a bit.Sierra is ready, Bader is very close to ready, Mercado still DLed(needs to be watched), JAGarcis and Arozarena are at least one year away. The guy to keep an eye on is 18 year old Dylan Carlson, who the organization challenged with a position at Peoria. He started slow but is now showing some good positive numbers and patience at the plate. I give him possibly ’20 as ETA in St.Louis.
I usually don’t comment on trades but I think the Cards should go big on acquiring Donaldson IF and only IF the F.O. feels that they can maintain him past ’18. They would probably have to start with Gyorko and Wong and Delvin Perez plus a young P …. Woodford, Seijas, Alcantara or DGonzalez. With a TOR prospect coming back.
Memphis continues to win and they have the best record in the Pacific Coast League (52-32). Home, away it doesn’t matter: home=26-16, away26-16. !st in ERA (3.77) 2nd in Ks (702) 2nd least BBs (227) 1st in Whip (1.26). Weaver was 7-1, but where are the other wins coming from? Well, it seems the Redbirds have winning late in the games. If you combine the relievers; Lucas,Herget,Sherriff,Montgomery,and Neilsen their W-L is 13-0. Repete 13-0.
Juan Perez is a guy that’s tough to figure out. He started in season in the Palm Beach bullpen pitching in 20 games with decent results. He had always been a starter before in his career, but Palm Beach is stoked with starters and Perez is only 21. So someone made the perfect decision to put him in Peoria where the rotation was coming apart at the seams. Perez has been great in his three starts (2.08ERA – 0.79WHIP) after a modified start on 6-16. He should be the first starter up if there’s an opening at PB. Yep, ahead of Hicks.
At State College, Andy Shew (23) continues to shine. After a ill-conceived relief appearance at PB earlier in the season, Shew was sent to SC as their season opened. In his first three starts his game scores have been 71-69-65 and an ERA of 2.08 and a WHIP of 0.81. This is a guy that needs to be moved up for a challenge. His teammate Steven Farinaro, who pretty much failed in a starter-role at Peoria, continues to struggle at SC. Last season he lead the Spikes to a League Championship as their winningest pitcher. Something isn’t adding up there.
Some impressive pitching performances last night:
For State College, Colton Thomson in relief of Paul Balestrieri pitched 3.0inn. although he gave up 2 runs he did strike out 8.
For Johnson City, Jacob Schlesener, in his 2nd start, 5.0inn 2R 2H 4 BB and 9 strike outs.
For GC-Cards, Rowan Wick rehabbing 1.0inn and 3Ks. 3 up 3 down. It’ll be good to see him at Memphis again.And it’ll will be good to see some replies on this Topic…. there’s a lot going on down on the farm teams. I used to hate the All-Star break, but now I also follow the whole organization and it’s not so bad anymore. Actually keeping up with the prospects can be entertaining and watching who’s hot and who’s not is very interesting. Some prospects are having great seasons and will be changing their rankings to the positive side.
