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Here is my draft board for the first 20 picks. No way things go this way, but just the ranking of how much I like certain guys.
Tier 1
1. Roch Cholowsky – SS – College
Take Masyn Winns glove (minus the arm) and then throw on + power projection with great swing decisions and the ability to hit for a good average. By far my favorite player in the class and I think this guy will be a star.Tier 2
2. Grady Emerson – SS – HS
3. Vahn Lackey – C – College
4. Drew Burress – CF – College
These guys are all likely big league starters with more upside in the tank and combine good hit and power along with the ability to play up the middle spots. I have Burress very high. He is undersized, but this guy can play and he hits the ball hard. Harder thanmost in the class despite the size and he lifts the ball too instead of smashing it into the ground.Tier 3
5. Eric Booth – CF – HS
6. Jackson Flora – RHP – College
7. AJ Gracia – CF – College
8. Tyler Spangler – SS – HS
9. Landon Thome – SS – HS
I see some risk in all of these guys, but all of them have upside that allow them to be All Stars if they can put it together. Gracia I feel has untapped power potential with that big frame and will improve over time and he gets really good reads so CF is a possibility for him. Spangler and Thome are two of the more impressive HS guys who both have good power projection while also having good hitting fundamentals with good swing decisions; neither likely stay at SS, but they have the hitting tools to be impact bats. Despite being HS guys I think they are less risky than many of the college players with the quality of their bat control and swing decisions without major holes in their game.Tier 4
10. Tyler Bell – SS – College
11. Christopher Hacopian – 2B – College
12. Ace Reese – 3B – College
These guys all have flaws, but they can be big league regulars albeit average or slightly below averageTier 5
13. Bo Lawrence – 3B – HS
14. Jacob Lombard – SS – HS
15. Sawyer Strosnider – RF – College
16. Cole Carlon – LHP – College
17. Hunter Dietz – LHP – College
18. Gio Rojas – LHP – HS
19. Zion Rose – CF – College
20. Cameron Flukey – RHP – College
These guys all have upside and some like Lombard heaps of it, but they all are quite high risk and are more rough around the edges. In general I really do not like this college pitching group.BA says hitters, hitters, hitters are the only thing they are hearing to the Cardinals at 13.
Fangraphs mocked Grindlinger to the Cards, BA has Helfrick, Sports Illustrated has Tryler Bell, MLB Prospect pipeline last week had Bell as well
LACardfan
Who is going to trade for him?
Teams would give something like a 35+ for him. At the deadline contending teams acquire worse RP than him each year just to take a flier or add depth.
Bullpen blowing it. Fernandez first and the Stanek. I’m tired of seeing Stanek and am excited for for him to be traded so I no longer have to see him pitching for the Cardinals
Checking in on the box score, I am sure 1TD is ecstatic that he is yet again right that Liberatore is allergic to keeping a lead.
Mautz only pitched 2 innings today and I assume it was intentional to save his arm. I’m curious if next time it would be Liberatore if Mautz or Dobbins are pitching in that spot.
Every single game today on Peacock? I guess they don’t like people actually watching the games. I hope they have a record low baseball viewership today.
I still would also give run way for Crooks as it is a building year. Scouts thought his arm was quite good and his receiving was good as well. Give him plenty of time to keep adjusting to the big league game and see what he has this year. Next year he will have a lot more competition between Bernal and by mid year I’m guessing Rainiel potentially as well.
Whether using statcast or DRS, Herrera has been worth -3 runs throwing wise but he has called good games. Those 3 runs are neglible compared to his offensive value. He hasn’t thrown out a runner but SB are more on the pitcher and even the best catchers allow the majority of runners to advance. Herrera does have a bad arm though but it just isn’t negative enough to offset the offensive gains he provides. I am not saying they should catch him every day, but I have no concerns with him catching a couple times a week.
I had noticed the same thing as the linked tweet from Brian. The guys Herrera is catching have been performing the best. He seems to call a good game and I am not left scratching me head. With Pages there have been a few times I was confused on the calls particularly when he ends up catching O’Brien.
I’m surprised they are still playing. You can barely see and anything hit to the OF I don’t know how they will be able to track the ball.
Bling:
Can anyone determine if there was anything different about his mix of pitches thrown, or any other observable difference?
I went and pulled his data form the minors statcast page and then parsed his overall numbers into 3 groups. April/May, June/July, and the single game from last night.
April / May
+------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Pitch Type | Usage % | Zone% | Velocity | SwStr% | Whiff% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | 4-Seam Fastball | 43.0% | 46.0% | 93.8 | 8.9% | 23.8% | | Slider | 21.6% | 39.0% | 84.4 | 18.3% | 40.0% | | Changeup | 16.2% | 33.3% | 82.2 | 16.3% | 33.9% | | Curveball | 10.9% | 26.5% | 76.0 | 12.0% | 40.0% | | Sinker | 8.2% | 50.0% | 93.8 | 8.1% | 17.9% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Total | | 40.6% | | 12.4% | 30.4% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+June / July
+------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Pitch Type | Usage % | Zone% | Velocity | SwStr% | Whiff% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | 4-Seam Fastball | 40.0% | 55.2% | 93.8 | 7.7% | 20.5% | | Slider | 23.5% | 43.9% | 85.8 | 21.1% | 38.7% | | Changeup | 17.1% | 33.7% | 82.5 | 19.3% | 44.4% | | Curveball | 11.5% | 42.9% | 75.9 | 1.8% | 6.3% | | Sinker | 7.8% | 57.9% | 94.3 | 5.3% | 18.2% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Total | | 47.6% | | 12.0% | 29.3% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+July 3rd
+------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Pitch Type | Usage % | Zone% | Velocity | SwStr% | Whiff% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Slider | 28.1% | 60.0% | 86.3 | 8.0% | 15.4% | | Sinker | 22.5% | 55.0% | 94.6 | 0.0% | 0.0% | | 4-Seam Fastball | 19.1% | 58.8% | 95.2 | 0.0% | 0.0% | | Changeup | 15.7% | 42.9% | 82.3 | 28.6% | 57.1% | | Curveball | 14.6% | 69.2% | 76.5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+ | Total | | 57.3% | | 6.7% | 17.1% | +------------------+---------+-------+----------+--------+--------+Last night he dropped his 4 seam rate a good amount and replaced it with a sinker and traded whiff for contact on his results. Overall his Zone% was much higher yesterday. His numbers from June/July are a really big improvement over his early season zone %.
I’m actually more interested in who is named reserves than the results of the fan vote. JJ deserves an All Star appearance. Him and Walker are the two who deserve it in my opinion.
Everyone has bad nights and Kade is an MLB ready pitcher. If called up today, Kade would immediately be better than any pitcher for the Cardinals. The Mariners give guys maybe 1 or 2 AAA starts before an MLB promotion. They are maybe going to trade from pitching depth this year to free up a rotation spot for Kade in a few weeks as well.
Mathews would be my player of the day solely for the improvement on command. He had a 71.9% strike rate which is a major improvement for him. Also a major improvement was a 66.7% first pitch strike rate. He was 50% the first 4 innings and the last 2 worked ahead in the count to every batter.
I’ll piggyback off of Bob. Rainiel has been playing very well after making some adjustments. That is one thing I really like about him. He has struggled initially on promotion to new levels, but not for long as he very quickly adjusts and ups his game.
I enjoyed the interview Steffen. I like hearing that Flores at least does have some things he said he is working on. Every player has things to improve and interesting to hear specifically those items. For him it sounds like rounding out his defensive skills. I’m surprised he didn’t mention anything about bat control as that is by far the area he needs to improve on most offensively.
I took a look at the All Star voting update. Wow the fan vote process is horrible. The AL is basically just Canada voting strong for Blue Jays. Ernie Clement as the highest vote getter in the AL? He isn’t even deserving of a spot on the roster. Highest vote getter should easily have been Bobby Witt Jr. I don’t know how you could cast a ballot of not have that guy written in with ink as the AL SD selection.
Good to see Walker with a HR. He has been in a slump lately and maybe he is starting to come out of it
That seems impatient to me. He hasn’t even needed to be added to the 40-man yet, so he wouldn’t exhaust his options until the end of the 2028 season at the very earliest. Time is on his side.
Maybe. But the 40 man timeline is the same for college juniors and seniors like Mathews. Mathews is in his 3rd calendar year at Memphis albeit just 1 month there in 24 and a half injured year last year. The Cardinals to me are snail pace on challenging pitchers and promoting them. I say that and Doyle to AA to start the year was the exception and I wouldn’t have done that one.
Yeah Dobbins is low upside though and maybe a back of the rotation guy. If we aren’t trying to make the playoffs, I am fishing for upside for the future and at least putting Mathews to the test. If he fails, it is okay to me as Mathews is 25 years old and is at the point it is put up or shut up.
We need starting pitching for the future. With the way things have been lately, I think the Cards FO is going to commit to selling and May, Romero, and Stanek will be gone. Maybe they could resign May in FA as I do like him but at least for this year the rotation should start becoming about building experience for young guys.
I think whether Mathews is performing well or not by the time May is traded, I call him up and pitch him every 5th day the rest of the year. It can’t hurt and gets him experience and tests him.