As has been already been discussed here, the primary reason the Springfield Cardinals are tied for first place in the North Division of the Texas League is their offense, led by utilityman Steven Hill.
All Hill did on Tuesday night for the Double-A club was go 5-for-5, including three doubles and a final at-bat home run for 11 total bases. The 24-year-old scored three times in a 7-4 Springfield win at Midland. The night before, he slammed a pair of home runs.
For the season, which is now 12 games long for the 7-5 Cardinals, Hill has played in ten. The right-handed hitter hit safely in eight of those games. He is carrying a seven-game hitting streak, with multiple hits in five of those contests.
Through Tuesday, Hill is 18-for-38 at the dish, with half of his safeties having gone for extra bases (five doubles and four home runs). He has scored 11 times and driven in 11. Hill has drawn four walks and fanned eight times, though five of the strikeouts were in his first four games.
Behold the majestic batting line when this is all put together: .474/.523/.921/1.444 (BA/OBP/SLG/OPS).
In terms of the Texas League offensive rankings, Hill is first in batting average, slugging and OPS. He trails only Corpus Christi outfield James Van Ostrand in on-base percentage, .523 to .541.
Taken in the 13th round of the 2007 First-Year Player Draft from Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, Hill came into this season with a career line of .307/.345/.528/.873.
He began 2008 at A-Advanced Palm Beach, but the pitcher-friendly Florida State League was no problem. After hitting .341 in April, he was promoted to Springfield on May 10. Through 26 games, he was hitting .303/.330/.505/.835 with five home runs and nine RBI.
Defensively, Hill is a nomad. He spent most of his Double-A debut at first base (12 games), but also made nine appearances as a corner outfielder. At his most intriguing position defensively, catcher, Hill played in just four games.
Then on June 10, he was hit by a pitch, causing a fracture to the pinkie finger on his left hand. After missing two months, Hill returned for four rehab games in the Gulf Coast League before finishing with Palm Beach.
Hill was sent to the Arizona Fall League where he shined offensively. He hit safely in 11 of his 13 games and his OPS of .991 (in just 46 at-bats) was the best of all Cardinals prospects in the AFL, including top prospect, third baseman Brett Wallace.
The not-so-good includes the fact that Hill played over half his AFL games at designated hitter, not all that useful in St. Louis. He appeared in just four contests behind the plate during the two months, including just one in the final month (November).
There, I spoke with several scouts who like Hill’s bat but feel his release is slow. To wit, in those four AFL games he caught, opponents attempted nine steals against him, and were successful six times.
Coming into the season, his AFL and Springfield manager Pop Warner was quoted as saying that Hill would start behind the plate in 30% of his club’s contests. To date, that is being followed and in fact, slightly exceeded. So far in 2009, Hill has no appearances at first base, three in the outfield, three at designated hitter and four behind the plate.
With two more experienced first baseman on the roster, Mark Hamilton and Andrew Brown, it is not surprising Hill isn’t seeing time at first. Despite the majority of Springfield’s catching load being borne by another converted infielder, Tony Cruz, Hill’s time there has been ample.
The results have been mixed, however. While the Cardinals won all four games, Hill has one passed ball and enemy baserunners are 4-for-4 in stolen base attempts while he has been behind the dish.
Yet it is impossible not to come back to Hill’s hitting.
Through his first 36 games at the Double-A level, 137 at-bats, he has nine home runs and 20 RBI. Over the two partial seasons, Hill’s combined Texas League line is .350/.382/.620/1.002.
It is hard to believe that Triple-A Memphis won’t soon come calling if Hill continues to inflict offensive damage like this.
Programming note: I will be joining friends and National League Tout Wars competitors Lenny Melnick and Paul Greco on “Talking Baseball Live” on BlogTalkRadio Wednesday evening at 8:10 p.m. Eastern/7:10 p.m. Central. The focus will be fantasy, but the Cardinals will surely come up in the discussion. Call-ins are accepted.
Hill played high school ball in the Houston area. Then he spent a freshman year at San Jacinto College – North, a juco that includes Andy Pettite and Nick Stavinoha among its past players. Then Hill spent a year at a juco near Dallas. Then two years at Stephen Austin State. He was Southland Conference player of the year as a senior.
ML teams passed over Hil in the draft 4 times (high school, juco 1 year, juco 2, junior year), before finally drafted after being the best hitter in the Southland conference as a senior. Even then Hill lasted to the 13th round. The reason would be the position question.
How many right swinging 5’11, 205 first basemen are there in MLB? Not many. Dodgers 1Bman in the 1970s, Steve Garvey was 5’10″, IIRC. Garvey shows it can be done.
The Cards value college stars and are open-minded about size (e.g., Jess Todd and Gorgen are sub-6′ RHPs, OF Shane Robinson, SS David Eckstein). Its not a surprise the Cards would sign Hill. It is a good thing they are giving him playing time at catcher to add to his possibilities.
1Bman Ryan Garko with the Indians is rated 6’1″, 220. Garko is an example of a 1Bman who is a right swinger not much taller than Hill. At 1B, teams like tall targets with lot of reach to snag throws, like Lee the firstbaseman with the Cubs, who is 6’5″. If a 1bman is not large, he will often be a lefty swinger, such as Youklis, Keith Hernandez, and Mark Grace. Its tough odds to make the majors as a non-large right swinging 1Bman.
I find the Garko comparison to be interesting.
Garko had never played professionally anywhere but 1B, C, and DH…until this year…when he started one game in RF (something Wedge has said he will be doing more often).
2B descalso batting 5th behind hill, and hill goes 5 for 5, lovin’ this.
anyone seeing that solano/descalso middle infield with regularity? i’ve got one solid eyeball report that descalso is a dandy with the glove.
Springfield has Brown, Hamilton, and Hill. All played prep ball in the Houston area. All 1Bman/DH types, though Brown and Hill can be stationed in a corner OF slot.
The Cards used to have modest sized right swinging 1B John Gall, 11th rounder. Gall has endured a lot of time at AAAA. It is very hard to reach the majors and many very fine players plateau at AA or AAA, with no opportunity for them above.
Hill could be a little bit better hitter than Gall. If Hill can catch well enough to serve as offensively oriented backup catcher, then Hill could find his way onto a ML roster.
If you like Hill, you may also enjoy 5’10″, 210 pound rated, right swinging Palm Beach 1Bman Curt Smith. Or, you might like Xavier Scruggs, a 6’1″ right swinging 1Bman at EST.
Smith was circa round 39, Scruggs circa 19. They were still available in the draft at these rounds because not physically prototypical 1Bmen. The Cards look at their college batting stats and must have thought they could turn out to be useful in pro ball.
This is a bit off-topic, but since we’re discussing minor leaguers, I thought I’d mention the fantastic upgrade at baseball-reference.com. They now have minor league records going back forever, it seems.
The first minor league game(s) I ever saw was a 1957 double-header, the Reno Silver Sox vs. the Visalia Redlegs in Visalia, CA. My uncle was a huge fan of the Reds and Vada Pinson was on that team, as was my grandfather’s next door neighbor’s son, Bennie Renicker. Sure enough, there’s Bennie with his 11-5 record and Vada with 40 doubles, 20 triples and 20 home runs.
Joe Gaines was also on that team and looked like a future star until he broke his leg the next year and never quite regained his speed, etc.
Reno was a Dodgers affiliate and had several future major leaguers on that team, including Charlie Smith, later traded by the Mets to the Cards for Kenny Boyer.
I’m liable to spend hours going through all this info.
In general, the totality of a player’s “history” across years is suggestive of his future. Amateur (especially Division 1) and minor league statistics can provide reasonable grounds for projecting ML performance, though still distorted of course by “interference” from factors like injuries. Its nice if data bases on minor league results are getting better.
Here is an example of non-predictability, however. In 2008, the Cards signed a left swinging OF from a Division 2 school, Univ. of Tampa, the school that gave the world Tino Martinez. Paul Cruz, round 40, was a senior. He played at Johnson City and had a rough time, hit under .200, nothing special in his offensive stats. The Cards could have released Cruz after one half-season. A college senior who cannot play well at Johnson City does not sound promising. Playing time is precious and needs to be focused on the best prospects. But the Cards kept him around and gave him a shot on the initial QC roster, probably because he is older. Its small “n”, but so far Cruz has one of the higher batting averages at Quad Cities. Some people have a hard time moving from JC up to QC, yet Cruz is improving. Maybe a coach improved his approach last Sept-October, during the post-season training for first year players. Or maybe Cruz finds it easier to play when it is cold and wet during April in the Midwest League.
Perhaps he just hit line drives at people during games and smoked the ball during BP enough to show promise.
The little line of stats we see from a game played in the Appy League doesn’t really tell us how a guy looks.
I watched Garret Atkins take an ohfer the other day when a shot he ripped inside third was turned into a double play instead of an RBI double and then the Dodgers CF took away a possible home run.
Yes, tools/skills/technique matter. However, so do results, even over brief time periods. The Cards (and other teams) will make there best decisions, based on limited play, because they have more players than roster slots. Colby Rasmus’ dad got circa 50 at bats in the Midwest League and was sent home. (Boras, I have read, prefers not to use the expression, “baseball career”, because for many athletes, it is not long, such that the word “career” is misleading.)
Pitching statistics will vary much more than hitting, pitchers being more prone to injuries. It would be my impression it would be rare for a college senior to hit poorly at Johnson City and then last for long in the Midwest League. Happily for him, however, Cruz is doing what is needed to stay in the game, treat each at bat like your last one and give it your best shot.
BABIP can have a huge range over a short season such as the Appy League. I don’t want to get into a prolonged discussion about stats vs. scouts. The organization has “eyes” watching and reporting on what guys do, not just reading their lines of stats.
Ball in Play,
over at Future Redbirds one of the comments says that Descalso has an iron skillet for a glove,
but only 3 games observed in person and could have just been off his feed those times.
FWIW
Usually, when low round guys perform weakly, a team does not have playing time to keep investing in them. My guess is Luhnow likes signing baseball players and is reluctant to give up quickly, even on long-shots. Perhaps partly as a result, the Cards have a stockpile of players at EST. In the Jocketty era, the team seemed to want to winnow out more at low A. In any event, Cruz hit another HR tonight.
Ryde Rodriguez is 1 for 24 at the Quad. In fairness, he should play this summer at Johnson City or Batavia. The Cards are giving Ryde a little familiarization with the Midwest League for now.
RHP Steve Thomas now has 10 shutout innings. He comes from the same school, as uber minor leaguer, Steve Hill. Hope we sign every senior from the Stephen Austin baseball team this June.
A kudo to Brian for the memorable headline: Hill the Homeless Hitman. Terrific!!
Right up there with the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
Paul Cruz played high school ball in Brandon, Florida, next to Tampa. There have been some ML players from Brandon, one being Chone Figgins with the Angels. Cruz went to nearby juco Hillsborough Community; its most illustrious baseball alum is Wade Boggs, who wound up his career playing for Tampa. Other than Tino, the University of Tampa has produced one a few Major Leaguers. Another is Charlie Manning, released by the woeful Nationals and now a loogy for Memphis. Sweet Lou Piniella is another.
When drafted, the Cards disclosed Cruz is 5’10″. His height has now spurted upwards 2 inches, according to his profile at MiLB. Why be so modest? Why don’t they just admit Cruz has become 6’5″ thanks to playing on the same team with Jon Edwards?
Cruz comes from a baseball hotbed, the Tampa area. He is probably not an especially fast runner or he might have been drafted in any of the 4 years before 2008. Chone Figgins got signed early. Cruz is dedicated to playing ball, so did so at a nearby junior college. Though it once produced Wade Boggs, Hillsborough has not produced many other ML players. He may not have gotten recruited by a Division 1 college after juco and went to the local Division 2 college, UTampa. It does not play an elite opponents. In his senior year, Cruz probaly hit well for average. The Cards chose to invest a 40th round pick in a kid who worked hard, swings lefty, and enjoyed success at Division 2. When he got to the Appalachian league, the combination of wood bats and better pitching resulted in a low OPS around 520.
Though they have a lot of OFs this year stockpiled in EST, the Cards decided to give Cruz a chance at Quad Cities, at least to begin the season. Its cold and wet in the Midwest league in April, not great hitting conditions. We may send some of our older eligibles out to battle opponents and the elements early in the year. So far, Cruz is doing what he has to do to stay in the business, produce hits. Good job.