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So, I actually went to the first Peoria game yesterday with my dad and wanted to give my impressions of some of the key prospects. First off, I didn’t see Herrera play, but out of the guys I saw, Gorman by far looked the best at the plate. Frankly, he already has the physique and approach of a big leaguer.
Out of Nunez and Torres, Nunez looked like the better hitter. They were both really uncomfortable against breaking balls, but Nunez got better as the game went on and appeared to actually be making adjustments. Torres made some nice throws from right field and looked like a plus defender out there.
Delvin Perez was hitting for a much better average than I had expected and drove the ball his first at bat. Maybe he has taken a step? He’s still too skinny for my liking, though.
Brady Whalen looked uncomfortable at the plate and didn’t really impact the game much. While the score was close, the other teams starter was much better than ours as we only mustered three hits. All in all, I had a great time at the game and was impressed by Gorman and Nunez quite a bit. I think Torres will take longer than Nunez to hit in Peoria but his defense already plays well.
Out of the group of utility infielders at Memphis, who projects to be big leaguers next year? I really like Edman for his versatility in the field and at the plate. But is that versatility more valuable to a bench than Urias’s hitting or Sosa’s fielding? Munoz has already demonstrated he can take good at bats against big league pitching but leaves a lot to be desired defensively. Robinson is pretty much the inverse of Munoz. Frankly, with the exception of Edman who seems to be solid all around, every other player from this group has pretty defined strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, the one who makes it next year may be chosen based in part on what the team wants most from a bench player and what the weaknesses of the roster are. I think Edman likely gets the job because he can do pretty much everything fairly well and doesn’t have any glaring problems in his game, though the fact he is a switch hitter may be his biggest asset.
I don’t know if I saw this comment here or somewhere else, but basically this person was skeptical Carlson would remain a switch hitter because he didn’t look as good hitting right-handed in spring training in this person’s eyes. I thought that sounded like a real leap to make considering Carlson has already made it to double A as a switch hitter. Needless to say, hitting a home run off Kershaw while batting right-handed is a good enough reason for me to think Carlson can make it as a switch hitter.
I wonder if anyone here can tell me if Gorman is hitting good breaking balls in his torrid start so far, or is he doing his damage on fastballs primarily? From the little I saw of him in spring training, he could neither lay off a slider nor hit one. I realize he is off to a hot start, but I wouldn’t promote him until he has shown some ability to lay off breaking balls out of the strike zone and hit ones that are in it.
I’d say the Cardinals only take a third baseman if they are certain Elehuris and Gorman won’t make it at 3B. I think the Cards go with a pitcher in the 1st this year
I’ve read that this will be a bad first round for pitchers, as there seems to be a lot more high end position players than pitchers. Frankly, I’d rather the Cardinals go with whomever is highest on their board rather than reaching for need, unless the difference in talent is marginal. What if they had drafted for need and took a pitcher instead of taking Gorman last year? With so many good hitters in the first round, choosing the best available pitcher might mean taking a lesser player.
I wonder how much of the early strikeouts are due to random bad luck, how much is due to the hitters adjusting to Jeff Albert, and how much is due to bad approach/contact skills? For example, I would expect Carpenter and Goldschmidt to improve due to their track record, but Ozuna might not (or take much longer to do so) if he is injured. Guys like Bader and DeJong have always struggled with strikeouts, so they may not improve much. On the other hand, they are still young so maybe they will? I think it’s still too early to overreact but it’s definitely something to monitor.
That was some petty tweeting by Hensley
Not to mention biased and missing the point. The Athletic offers a different type of coverage than the PD. The PD will do a decent job telling the story of a game or giving a peek behind the scenes. The Athletic does that some too, but it’s not their focus. Instead, they do a lot more analysis and incorporating advanced metrics into their articles. Personally, I find that type of writing more valuable than game recaps and behind the scenes looks that the PD does, though admittedly I read it all. It’s just that I only choose to pay for The Athletic. The PD does fairly good work, especially Goold, but the quality isn’t something to be bragging about on Twitter, especially if you feel the need to put down a competitor who is trying to do it differently.
If I had to rank Cardinals writers by quality, I’d go 1. Joe Schwarz, 2. Goold, 3. Miklasz, 4. Ben Clemens, A. E. Schafer from VEB, 5. Saxon and the other PD writers.
While I generally agree, I was curious about the stats on fastball speed and if hitters were noticeably better against slower pitches. Turns out that they’re pretty good against all fastballs, but below average fastballs are feast time for MLB hitters. Now, this doesn’t take into account breaking balls, of course, but speed definitely does seem to matter.
95+ .734 OPS
92-94 .754 OPS
<92 .905 OPSThanks for the interesting article, there was some new info for me in it. That being said, that is a worrying article for people like Wainwright and Gomber. After reading that, I’m even more skeptical Wainwright will make it through half the season as a starter. Similarly, the article makes me wonder if Gomber will ever find sustainable success at the major league level that is not driven by fluky batted ball luck like last year.
This is a good question and something I’ve been wondering about. For pitchers, I would argue Hudson and it’s not close. While I think it would have been unlikely and unwise, there was a chance Hudson could have become pigeonholed as a reliever in the near term with a bad spring. Instead, he grabbed the fifth starter spot and managed to improve his strikeout rate and cut down on the walks. Second pitcher on the list would be Reyes, who was dominating at times and managed to stay healthy and meet the requirements of the team to break camp with the big league club. Third would be Helsley, who had enough good moments and impressive enough stuff to leave a good impression on Shildt and Maddux. The last pitcher who really helped himself was probably Woodford.
As for hitters, maybe the guy who raised his stock the most was Carlson. While he didn’t dominate offensively, he also didn’t look out of place, which is remarkable given his age and experience level. He also really shined defensively at multiple spots. O’Neil played well enough that they couldn’t justify leaving him in Memphis to start the year and seems to have made some strides in pitch recognition, which is huge. I think Edman solidified himself as a bench option for 2020. Arozarena at least distinguished himself from Adolis Garcia, though he still seems more like a fourth outfielder to me. Lane Thomas probably did enough to be the first Memphis outfielder who would get a callup due to injury. It sounds like Montero did well enough on the backfields to start the season at Springfield.
To be fair to Reyes, he struggled with control his first few outings due to excessive adrenaline, which is understandable given his situation. Once he got that under control, he started getting a lot more strikeouts and fewer walks and hard contact.
There’s so much fake news being thrown around. You’re taking a risk trusting any writer who writes in any media. Many writers collude with agents and others in order to manipulate the reader’s thinking, and many of them can’t keep their political bias out of what they write.
I would agree that one should be skeptical of a writer who passes off spin from certain parties as fact-based reporting. Usually it is pretty easy to distinguish with a little critical thinking. But I would also argue that many people are quick to dismiss news they don’t agree with as fake news, no matter if it is corroborated by other sources and comes from reputable reporters, simply because the news paints someone they like in a bad light. If the truth hurts, that doesn’t mean it’s not true anymore. The problem is that too much of news consumption nowadays is done from openly biased sources. Consumers have seemingly prioritized getting their news from organizations they align with ideologically, rather than prioritizing accuracy. In some ways, this has even permeated sports media.
One thing. With Urias, Edman, Edmundo, and Schrock, something’s gotta give. Not nearly enough regular playing time in Triple-A for the entire middle infield quartet, especially once Drew Robinson is sent down, and moreover if/when Evan Mendoza arrives at Memphis to play 3rd base. (They can’t possibly take Robinson north over Munoz, right? Not when Munoz is the one with an actual MLB track record of batting success, and he’s outhitting Robinson by 200 OPS points this spring, and he’s years younger than the erstwhile Ranger.)
This team needs relief pitching so badly, and it has upper minors middle infielders (and outfielders) coming out of its ears. There must be a trade to make, somehow, for an honest-to-goodness bullpen arm. Get it done, Mo!
You know, I’ve been thinking about the middle infield logjam at Memphis, too. I thought they might try another trade like the Mercado trade to see if they could find another Jhon Torres who plays shortstop. But I would actually prefer your idea if it got them a lefty reliever who is actually good because outside of Miller we have none currently. Maybe with more development at Memphis, Cabrera becomes that guy but he had an awful spring training thus far and doesn’t appear close to being ready.
Brian, you made a pretty compelling case for depth over bringing your best 25 north. How do you feel about Shildt’s decision to declare Fowler the starter irrespective of his spring performance and awful season last year? To be honest, I can see the argument for handling it this way if the Cardinals really do think last year’s performance was due to Fowler’s mood and relationship with Matheny and the fans, ie the depression explanation. But if he really has declined due to age and injuries, then giving him the starting job and seeing him repeat last year’s performance for a large enough sample to be certain, will likely cost you games and that could be the difference between making the playoffs and not in what should be baseballs most competitive division.
I suspect Shildt will give Fowler too much rope and if he ultimately hangs himself with it, people will have some difficult questions for him if we miss the playoffs for a fourth straight year. This is a tricky situation for an inexperienced big league manager to be in. I would hope Mozeliak would step in before too much damage is done, but that would essentially require Mo to admit he made an expensive mistake and he hasn’t been willing to move on from Brett Cecil whose contract isn’t even half of Fowler’s and he’s been awful for two years.
Frankly, I’d feel a lot better about the situation if Fowler came into camp having to earn his spot because it would make it easier for Shildt to move Fowler into a bench role if that’s what his play warranted. Instead, I have to read quotes from Shildt about how hard Fowler is hitting the ball and take him at his word, despite Fowler having one extra base hit this spring. I know that spring training numbers aren’t necessarily indicative of future performance, but Fowler hasn’t really looked good by the eye test either in the games I’ve seen on TV. Whereas Tyler O’Neil has by all accounts had a good spring and demonstrated improved plate discipline.
Brian, in regards to the bullpen, who do you think makes it as the second lefty? To my knowledge, all of the available options look bad, but I don’t know if they’ve been fairly equally bad. Also, do you think it’s possible they head north with just Andrew Miller as the only lefty in the pen? It might make sense if you have a big enough difference in quality between the last rhp to make it and whomever your second best lefty is. For example, if the difference between Mayers and Chasen Shreve was big enough to overcome the utility of having two lefties.
No track record of success before 2018. That’s pretty much it.
In 2014 he slugged .382 in the Gulf Coast League.
In 2015 he slugged .391 in the Northwest League.
In 2016 he slugged .348 in the Midwest League.
In 2017 he slugged .383 in the Florida State League.That’s not enough pop for any outfielder, in any league, unless he runs like Vince Coleman. The batting averages weren’t much better either, ranging from .216 to .260. Basically Lane Thomas didn’t have diddly to recommend him until last year — when he was fully healthy for the first time, it must be said. And by the way, his NAPS number is .441, which isn’t bad at all. Functionally identical to fellow outfielder and consensus uber-prospect Taylor Trammell (.444).
He’s clearly a guy worth watching now. And we couldn’t even say that twelve months ago. (And please, call me Bob. And gracias for the kind words, dac.)
Wow Bob, you put in even more work into this than I thought. I didn’t realize the model you used looked at each player’s entire body of work, though if someone was going to do it right, that is obviously how they should do it. Do you know if the model has any built in biases, such as weighing performances against higher levels of competition as more important, or if it gives more importance to guys who both perform well and are young for their league, like Carlson and Gorman?
Rob, I find your work very interesting and thought provoking. Looking back over your list, I was surprised not to see Lane Thomas. I was wondering what factor or factors led to him missing the cut? Age, obp, or something else I’m not thinking about?
Brian, I think the context was in having Carlson get more starts in center field this season, which they had kind of gone away from last season as your numbers show. Maybe they were hinting at Carlson being able to break into the big leagues faster if he can play all outfield spots competently, as opposed to just the corners? Either way, I doubt they really thought it could be the difference in him getting a call this season unless the bat comes along in a spectacular way this year. It also might be foreshadowing that at least when Carlson initially ends up making the big leagues, it will be as a bench player (much like Tyler O’Neil this year). If that is the case, being able to play all three outfield spots and some first base in a pinch, along with his switch hitting and ability to take quality at bats, could help make him a very useful bench player until he proved deserving of a bigger role or an opportunity arises.
Yeah, I saw that too, Willie. The Redbird bullpen looks scary bad right now, especially with the bloom entirely off the Genesis Cabrera winterball rose. All thorns and no nice aroma right now. The Cards simply cannot go north with the current bullpen. It’s a recipe for heartache.
I say the club should trade for Detroit’s Joe Jimenez, even if it means taking 75-80% of Jordan Zimmermann’s contract ($50M total for the next two years). Heck, the way Z has thrown this spring, he’d be in the mix for the Cardinal rotation right now. Joe Jimenez looks like the next Edwin Diaz, to me.
The relief corps needed an offseason overhaul, and instead it was almost entirely overlooked. This needs to be remedied and real soon.
Boy has Cabrera been disappointing for me. His motion looks really convoluted and hard to repeat, leading to the control issues. Additionally, his secondary pitches looked mediocre and his fastball isn’t good enough on it’s own to get by major league hitters without at least a decent breaking ball. I had hopes he might make the team out of spring training with a stellar camp, but it’s clear he needs more development in the minors. Of the two, I think Helsley is closer to contributing at the major league level but both need more time at Memphis.
I wish I felt more comfortable with the choices Shildt has for a second lefty. I’m not high on Gomber as a starter or reliever, but he may be our best lefty not named Andrew Miller. Gant would probably be fine as the long man, as I think Hudson will win the starter-in-place-of-Martinez spot. I’d like to piggyback Reyes onto Wainwright’s starts, keeping Reyes on a starters schedule and having him pitch multiple innings, while also shielding Wainwright from facing a lineup three times through unless he’s feeling it. Based on performances thus far, track record, and options, my bullpen would be Miller, Gomber, Hicks, Leone, Reyes, Gant, and Brebbia. Maybe it would be bad asset management to let Mayers and Shreve go, but we’ve got a lot of early games against the Brewers and can’t afford to blow them because we didn’t head north with our best bullpen. I don’t think Mayers or Shreve are guys worth keeping anyways, especially if it will cost you wins to do so when we have so little margin for error in this division.
It was nice to see Elehuris Montero get a little playing time against Houston. He made one play in the field and Drew a walk in his only plate appearance.
What I find encouraging about our system is that we have multiple guys of two very useful player archetypes: guys with elite power like O’Neil and Gorman, who won’t hit for a high average but should rack up a lot of homers, and guys like Montero, Torres, and Nunez, who may hit for both power and average.
This has been a promising spring for Tyler O’Neil, as he has shown improved plate discipline along with his elite power. Coincidentally, I read today in a Rick Hummel article that Nunez homered off Tyler Webb in a squad game. I’d love to know if it was on a breaking ball, as the ability to hit breaking balls is Nunez’s next big test. Still, it’s impressive that Nunez homered off a guy who is at least a fringe major leaguer.
Fair point, but I am neither surprised nor concerned that young guys like Cabrera and Helsley may not be immediately ready.
Brian, are you concerned at all about the hitters thus far? Outside of Goldy and maybe Carp, the guys who are projected to be part of our regular lineup all have abysmal batting averages right now. On the radio today Brad Thompson was concerned with Fowler’s bat speed and Ozuna doesn’t even have a hit yet and may be out of shape. The one guy who has been a pleasant surprise is O’Neil, who is striking out less and walking more. I think it’s fair to say Tyler has shown improved plate discipline, though his batting average could be higher. Really, outside of Goldy, I think the only hitters batting .300 are all going to start the year at Memphis.
While one could make the argument that it’s too early to be worried, I would argue the season starts at the end of this month and guys need to start showing signs of progress.
Rob, are we sure Hudson’s reluctance to pitch up in the zone is at the direction of Mike Maddux and not a result of Hudson’s personal preference? Or are you suggesting that as the pitching coach, Mike Maddux should have made that suggestion by now? I agree with you that Hudson should mix in more fourseam fastballs up in the zone because he just doesn’t generate enough strikeouts as is. I know they’re all young and still have time to improve, but the main reason I am more optimistic about Flaherty than Hudson or Hicks is that Flaherty uses the whole strike zone and can throw his secondary pitches for strikes reliably. In contrast, last season Hicks and Hudson were too in love with the sinker and neither could consistently throw a breaking ball for a strike. As a result, hitters would sit on their sinkers and it made their sinkers less effective despite excellent velocity and movement. While they generated a lot of weak contact, they also had far fewer strikeouts than one would expect based on their stuff.
Thankfully, Hicks seems to have addressed these concerns in the off-season. Thus far in Spring Training, he has been able to throw his slider for strikes reliably and has mixed in a fourseam fastball to hitters. Unfortunately, Hudson seems to be the same pitcher he was last year.
Since this thread seems to be as appropriate spot as any, what did everyone think about Baseball Prospectus calling Mozeliak’s Fowler criticism from last year “implicitly racist” in their book, only to recently issue a half-hearted retraction. They basically changed their stance to saying Mozeliak’s comments remind them of racist comments often made about players who are a minority, but they stopped short of saying Mozeliak was racist due to comments he made in the future walking back his initial comments.
Frankly, I found Baseball Prospectus to be pretty reckless in the accusation made in their book. If you are a respectable and responsible publication, you ought to be 100% sure someone is racist if you are willing to put it in print. On top of that, they basically explained away Fowler’s poor play last year as being due to mismanagement by the Cardinals and freeing Fowler from any culpability. To me, that is just as extreme and wrong as the opinions who place all of the blame on Fowler, sometimes for racist reasons. The truth is the blame should be shared by Fowler and Matheny. Playing a new position and having a toxic relationship with your boss will undoubtedly hurt your numbers defensively and offensively to a degree, but it won’t cause you to hit .180. Being severely depressed might, but Fowler still hit awful under Shildt who he had a much better relationship with. I think the most likely explanation is a combination of depression and a deterioration of skills due to injuries and age.
There were some pretty interesting tidbits in those profiles, you can tell a lot of work was done scouting even the lower level guys. Compared to Fangraphs, Mlb pipeline gives our players higher overall grades. For example, you have to go to our 26th overall prospect in Jake Woodford to find an overall grade lower than 45. In contrast, Fangraphs didn’t even give Elehuris Montero a 45 overall and I believe he was ranked in our top five by them. Maybe Fangraphs are tougher graders than Mlb pipeline?
Flaherty is a really interesting guy to project going forward. When he was in the minors, it didn’t seem like any scouting services had him pegged as a potential top of the rotation player. At best he was seen as a good #3 or #4 type of guy with a few good pitches but not dominating stuff outside of his slider. While the reports of his stuff seemed to have been accurate, the slider has been so good that Flaherty is getting a ton of strikeouts. Add to that the intangibles Flaherty has by the boatload, and you get a pitcher with a true out pitch who can dominate a good lineup even if his other offerings are probably average. It really gives me more hope for Griffin Roberts making it as a starter. That being said, is having one elite pitch and great intangibles enough to make Flaherty an ace, or will his other offerings have to improve? I could see him topping out as a nice #2 or riding his intangibles to beat the projections and become a true ace. At the very least, I think his slider and intangibles will make him a very effective starter and a key player for the Cardinals going forward.
