In the last post, we reviewed recent Cardinals system minor league won-loss records. Observations included a decline in winning in 2009 over 2008 from over 54 percent to under 49 percent with that latter rate being the second-worst across the system in the last five years.
Here, we will consider another indicator of farm system strength.
All-Star representation down 18%
Following is the quantity of league all-star selections for the nine Cardinals minor league clubs year-to-year. I also included two important elite squads, Team USA and the Futures Game participants, drawn from the same pool of players.
While not every all-star squad is selected in the exact same manner, common threads among voters are that they are those who see these players regularly – peer managers, coaches, league officials and media.
Like placement in top prospect lists, these measurements are certainly not absolute. Yet since their selection criteria are basically the same each year, an annual comparison can be relevant in my view, especially when there is a major difference year upon year.
Note that all-star teams are not the same size across leagues, so comparing the number of representatives between different levels is not valid.
| Cardinals | 2009 | 2008 | YTY | ||||
| All-Stars | Total | Mid-seas | Post-seas | Total | Mid-seas | Post-seas | Chg |
| Team USA | 1 | 2 | -1 | ||||
| Futures Game | 3 | 5 | -2 | ||||
| Pacific Coast | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Texas | 13 | 9 | 4 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 2 |
| Florida State | 3 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 1 | -4 |
| Midwest | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | -2 | ||
| NY-Penn | 3 | 3 | 6 | 6 | -3 | ||
| Appalachian | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Gulf Coast | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -1 | ||
| Dominican | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Venezuelan | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |||
| Total | 32 | 39 | -7 | ||||
| -18% |
As the data indicates, 2009 Cardinals all-star representation was down considerably from 2008 – 18 percent in aggregate.
Does that mean the system as a whole is 18 percent worse than last year? Of course not, but the difference is significant enough that it seems that others are seeing an overall decline in top talent across the organization.
In 2009, four of the eleven categories saw an increase of all-stars, Double-A and short-season rookie levels in the USA and the two overseas academies in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Triple-A remained flat while the other six had a decline in Cardinals participation from as low as one to as many as four fewer selections than last year.
The core of the year-to-year falloff was in A-ball, with a total decline of nine all-stars from last year to this in the Florida State, Midwest and New York-Penn Leagues.
The Cardinals were shut out of the 2009 Gulf Coast League all-star team and had fewer invites to both Team USA and the Futures Game, despite the latter having been played in St. Louis and managed by a pair of Cardinals legends.
Seven of 71 mentions have been traded
While the Cardinals have been busy dealing prospects, it is interesting to note that only three names of traded players appeared a total of seven times among the 71 all-stars represented in the two years of data in the table above.
Jess Todd, dealt to Cleveland in the Mark DeRosa trade, was named four times, Shane Peterson, part of the Matt Holliday deal with Oakland, was a two-time all-star and Luke Gregerson was the other, sent to San Diego for Khalil Greene last winter.
In 2008, Todd was an anomaly in that he was all-star at two different levels and was also named to the Futures Game. The Cardinals had no such triple-category star in 2009.
As the Cardinals continued aggressive promotions in 2009, one might wonder if in-season moves hurt players’ all-star chances, yet it could be a factor every season.
If early performances are memorable enough, they are not forgotten. For example, Daniel Descalso (pictured) was both a mid-season and post-season Texas League all-star in 2009 despite having spent only the first half of the summer in Double-A.
The central point here being that while the Cardinals lost top-end talent via trades, it did not clean out all their best players. The bottom line is that fewer Cardinals minor league players were recognized by knowledgeable outside observers as having stepped up to an all-star level of play this season.
Instructional League canceled
In another less-than positive occurrence, last month the Cardinals announced the cancellation of their 2009 instructional program. The yearly fall camp is designed to help the youngest players in the system become more acclimated to professional play.
The Cardinals believe they can accomplish necessary development activities on an individual basis and made headway with 2009 draftees during the season using roving instructors. Yet coming on the heels of the backslide in winning across the system and the organization’s acknowledged relative youth at every level made this decision a real head-scratcher for me.
It is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that the cancellation was ultimately driven by a desire to cut expenses.
The move, made in concert with the Mets and Marlins that train near the Cardinals facility in Jupiter, Florida, is counter to the vast majority of MLB organizations. Others are putting more emphasis on “instructs”, not less.
The Nationals have sent 2009 number one overall draft pick Steven Strasburg to their Florida fall camp. In Arizona, a new semi-formal fall instructional league was recently founded among the growing number of clubs that train in the Cactus League.
Fewer top prospects?
On the Scout.com Cardinals message board, the yearly community top 50 Cardinals prospect voting is underway. My read is that while excitement over the system in whole remains, there seems to be fewer clear high-end and breakout prospects this season.
With further individual player advancement, another strong season like 2008 is possible next year. If not, the system may remain in its current sub-.500 team won-loss and lower individual recognition neighborhood in 2010.
Team USA and Futures Game members are useful metrics, because these squads are selective, on a prospect basis. Its not encouraging to see these #s fall, though the injury to Garcia can account for one lost selection in the Futures Game.
In contrast, All Star teams for other leagues likely tend to be based on statistics in those leagues and may not so clearly factor upside or experience in the players. Its a less valuable metric, though not without some value. A downward number is not a positive.
In recent years, the Cards have expanded participation in winter leagues in Latin America. They seem to send a few more guys to the Arizona Instructional League. They seem to have larger numbers of guys in Extended Spring Training during April-June than they used to have and this may replace the need for a September session for new signees. If the Mets and Marlins have dropped the fall program too, its not just a cutback by the Cards.
Jumbo, I knew you would try to soften the data and conclusions with suppositions. Here are some corrections to your comments.
Garcia has already been named to the Futures Game twice but since was put on the 40-man roster and made his MLB debut. I don’t believe 40-man players are eligible for the Futures Game. Had Garcia been healthy in 2009, I think by the All-Star break he would have been in St. Louis all right, but with the Cardinals.
The league in Arizona is called the Arizona Fall League. By definition, every organization sends the same number of players. As such, it is irrelevant to this analysis. I guess I could list those AFL players named to their All-Star Game, called Rising Stars Showcase. However, since the 2009 AFL season is still ahead, this year’s data does not yet exist.
I have found three of 30 organizations that canceled fall ball, also called instructional league. The Cardinals are one of them.
I think you have reported that the three teams that have ceased instructional ball are geographically close in Florida. They may have commonly agreed to change. The Mets are high spenders, the Marlins reliant on development. Its possible a budget tightening by the Cards may not be the reason for their ending an instructional team.
Anything is possible since we are only told what they want to tell us. I heard the explanation and have my own suspicions. But the reasons are less important to me than the fact the decision was made. If I had one of the youngest systems, was aggressively pushing players ahead, etc, I would want to provide more instruction, not less.
According to the system matrix, at the onset of the regular season there were 83 lads assigned to Extended Spring Training. The 83 would seem a large contingent in training during April and May. Maybe the Cards are focusing special instruction at this time, for more players, than in the past. They could shift baseball training from fall to spring and tell the lads to do weight-lifting and exercises in the fall.
I am not claiming this, since I have no idea, but it does not sound implausible.
What about the 43 players signed between June and August, Jumbo? You know, the ones who weren’t around in EST and are probably most in need of indoctrination and prep for off-season conditioning? Yeah, I know, they can do it just as well with rovers covering draftees spread across four different levels during the closing weeks of the regular season in between games and travel… Sorry, but it doesn’t pass my sniff test.
Here is what could happen, I am not claiming this is what has happenned.
The Mets or Marlins drop out, so then the Cards are looking at having to field both sides for games in a fall instructional league. Its a turnoff to drive a few hours each way to look for opponents.
The Cards have bolstered the number of kids they teach during the EST period, including kids from the two Latin squads.
The June US signees who are most important to teach are those from high schools and jucos. The Cards could decide to wait to instruct them during the spring, so as to prepare them for a short-season team.
If this were so, the Cards may spend more money on instruction, but now it takes place during spring, on a larger scale.
Here was the earlier thread.
http://thecardinalnationblog.com/2009/08/23/cardinals-fall-ball-changes-may-not-be-for-the-better/
Mo is not sure “the old model works.” This may be because the Orioles and Dodgers up and left the area. Mo may want to find a new instruction formula.
How much money is saved by cancelling fall ball?
Using the Team USA and Futures game seems to be double counting as a weakness in the league all stars could very likely be repeated there.
A basic concept of process control is random variation. Without more historical data it is impossible to infer anything from this change. A trend? Random variation? A true change in conditions? Who knows from this data. The team records data was sufficient to at least appear that last year was more than random variation, that a true change took place. (you would need a little more data nad analysis to confirm that). This year´s return to a lower level would imply that it was a one year change.
Isn´t Strasburg pitching in the instructs just to get ready for the AFL?
If the Cards have been consistently below .500 in the minors as an organization it may be hard to argue with Mo that the old model wasn´t working. The question is whether they will replace it with something else (eventually) that does work.
Fall ball costs
players: 40 players at $1000 salary each (for 1 month). $500 transportation each. $1000 room and board. = $2500 per player or about $100K total.
Instructors amd trainers: 10 @ $2500 Each + $500 travel ea +$1000 room and board apeice = $4000 each or $40K
Misc travel by Mo, Lunhow, etc $10K
Stadium costs $10K
Misc $10K
I´d put the figure somewhere near this $160K total. (room and board costs might be slightly higher as I dn´t have a good feel for how the Cardinals house these players.) Costs would also be higher if the instructs took place over more than 1 month (6 weeks maybe?) so costs could go as high as $250K
CC, thank you for the comments.
Regarding Team USA and Futures, I considered whether or not to include them, but here is a big reason why I did. The annual PCL all-star team is so small, Memphis seems likely to get one or maybe two spots every year, whether good or bad. The other two measures offer an additional indicator for the high end of the system.
Again, the big YTY difference is not there. It is in A-ball.
I acknowledge the inherent limitations in not providing more than two years of detailed data. I did that purposely here as a follow-on to the 60-games over comparison between 2008 and 2009 in the earlier article. In fact, being totally honest, the two were originally one article that I split up as I added content and the length grew. Another data point that the system is down from last year.
Since a longer-term look will be illustrative as well, I will prepare a multi-year view during this coming week that can perhaps further enlighten us as to what is normal and what may be considered an outlier.
Yes, Strasburg is at instructs in preparation for the AFL. As such, Washington’s camp up the road in Viera will receive a lot of attention this fall. Just offered as another reminder that the vast majority of clubs did not cancel instructs. The new Arizona instructional league is also getting a lot of ink as those organizations tout the value of fall ball.
For the Cardinals, since the only explanation I heard was a continuation of the old model of sending roving instructors to the in-season clubs, I have no idea if they are planning anything new. If they were, it seems they would have taken the high ground in publicizing it.
Once before, the Cardinals scaled back instructs (fewer players, internal games only, shorter camp) before returning to the “old” model the last few years.
There is no new news on instructs this week that we didn’t have last week. The only reason I resurrected it was to suggest the timing seems off given the apparent need to improve at the lower levels. Those are the players that benefit from instructs.
I would have thought the players were on the payroll anyway. Do they work at walmart? Are the instructors not employed in some capacity somewhere in the org or do they also work at walmart. Stadium costs at the complex would be similar whether its being used for instructs or not. The save money hypothesis seems flimsy. This would be part of Lunhow’s fiefdom would it not? There has been some power thing going on there and Jockety’s departure may not have been the last chapter. Maybe L has wrested controll from Mo and Mo’s ‘model’ spin is an attempt to keep a stif upper lip. Conversely, maybe Mo has won out and L is being slapped down.
bb, I will let you and WC get into to the theories. As I said before, the reason is not as important to me as the fact that it happened. What was once believed to be an important part of the development of new players has been cut out with no apparent replacement.
Minor League Players on not on the payroll in the off season. Many coaches are not as well. And Yes, most players work at WalMart or some similar off season job. I´m sure there is groundskeeping (mowing, chalking, etc.) that happens with the diamonds being used for the instructs that doesn´t happen otherwise.
Something that seems to make no sence is always intriguing. There is always some kind of reason. If it’s not on the surface then it must be burried in the layers. The Mateo debacle, poor minor leage results, cancelling instructs, offloading top prospects, failure to call up anyone who might have an impact on the dead heat race for home field advantage (or admitting that no impact is there to be had). All coincidence? Maybe, but none could be making Luhnow happy. Maybe what Mo really meant was that ‘Luhnows model isnt working’. If so, we should see the new improved model rolled out this wnter.
Thanks for the info CC
BB, or this. Maybe the emphasis on the farm system development program was just a ruse. Maybe BD has been doing something differently all along. Maybe the real risk in the Holiday, DeRosa splurge has exposed some incongruities in Managements propaganda. Maybe thats BD’s ass that has been momentarily exposed, and you just thought is was some shy beast. Maybe.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/5D90AB8EC7A696698625763F0011CABE?OpenDocument#tp_newCommentAnchor
This is a complete white wash. Pujols, the man of many running speeds, elected full speed with head down, trying to take back face on a poor play and a mediocre day at the plate. It wasn’t his play. It was Ryan’s sacrifice. He may have been the out at second or first, but the run scores. Lugo stopped and started because Albert was running anyway. It is becoming more and more complicated to protect Albert’s distraction. The way to deal with it is accountability, not polished explanations about “thats winning baseball in my world”. Watch how Torrey deals with this.
Westie, playing for the tie on the road falls into the same circular file as sacrificing, hitting behind the runner, hit and run, etc. It’s just not what this team is about. Given the importance of home field, the next 6 games are key. We have just seen an example of the use to be made of a righty swinging 4th outfielder and bat off the bench. It will be less ‘flippant’ and more assinine from here on out. Post season will present key at bats where a PH is needed. We will look like jackasses sending a near mendoza line guy up there with his knitting basket instead of a bat.
That too BB……………………. How about this…….” hey, I took a gamble. My bad. Somebody pick me up.” Tony chiming in means that he is now managing another “emotional problem”.
Big plus for me yesterday was Lohse in the second. He left the first with a tiny quivering lip, and moist eyes. The warriors Carpenter and Wainwright picked him up brushed him off, gave him a fresh lip of snoose, and he went out and beat an old enemy. By God, thats the magic of 130 pitches. Thats like a sun dance ritual. Wainwright is now a holy man.
Not all sunshine there. A clubhouse characterized by hero worship is a dangerous place.
As I said yesterday after it happened, “good time for some humility”. I empathize with Albert Pujols. It is difficult to aspire to great things with out a great motivation, or motivator. His challenge is to understand the true nature of this. Dedicating your gifts and performance to the sacrifices made by the Rabbi means that you better drag that cross now and then to be reminded of its consequence. Good old love of the game and your teammates is good enough for me. Best leave the kneeling for his sanctuaries……………………….. Thats my advice………. and yes, who am I giving advice to Albert Pujols…………………..this tiny keyboard that I use so poorly, looks allot like someones cross to me sometimes.
Down by the Riverside
Sister Sophie is teaching that to guide a stone along a path to enlightenment, one must be prepared to do more than just bark. If our motivation, our need, is only to be recognized by the stones to whom we preach, we will forever be standing in a froth of muddied water, fools gold glistening on our nose and chin. She teaches that to know our true self only through the praise and progress of a stone, we would need to be very patient indeed.
I asked her this recently, “My dearest sage-ette, do you feel pretty, oh so pretty, with golden dust on your chin and nose”. “Father dearest”, barked she, ”God creates and explores this Universe, all with the same grand gesture. Creation defines the self through the reflected beauty of this process. Are we not that creation? Am I not the beauty of this truth? Are my stone disciples unworthy of hearing this truth? If I must lie down among these stones at my ending father, I would have them know the truth of this, so that even after my “Sophie-ness“ is forgotten, I will share in the hope of resurrection that I know lays washed and clean within their crumbling hearts”.
As I continue in this reverie, contemplating such wisdom, I look upon the crystalline water, which now reflects both rock soul and darkening sky. As I watch Sophie, her red white and gold magic still barking out the rhythm of eternity, it suddenly occurs to me, “hey Bonnie, bring me that stick honey”.
(Sophie and Bonnie are my Australian Shepherds)
Westy, one of these days the heavens will part with an almighty peal of thunder, a sunbeam will shine upon my upturned face. Trumpets will sound and a host of cherubs will sing the halleluiah chorus as I rise to that higher plane of conciousness. Until than I have only faith. You know what the hell you are talking about….right?
The trumpets were playing when your little head popped out BB. I dare say you’ve heard the thunder, felt the sunbeams, and yes, listened to the hallelujah chorus.
I dare say if your looking at a cunning and vicious slider, its best to narrow your focus a bit if you are concerned by its nature, or confused by its intension. If you do understand its nature , by understanding your own, it has already left the park.
The Babe must have been a deep thinker then. Kind of a lama of baseball. I always thought he was just into booze and chicks.
Could it be an inter-organizational decision ? Is Baltimore still down there?
It kind of sounds like those are the only three teams that gave up Fall Instructs, I’m with you Brian,
the more instruction the better.
Interesting to track the all star selections, maybe 2008 was a spike.
The aggressive promotions seemed to backfire this season but I am still excited about the future and what looks to be a steady supply of useful ballplayers.
When Mo said that he is unsure the “old model” works, he has a specific meaning. He is saying fall instructs for newly signed players may not be a productive investment for the Cards, given how circumstances have changed.
The trigger for this realization may be the departure of the Orioles and Dodgers to Arizona, reducing the teams near Jupiter to scrimmage against. But there may be good reason to drop fall instructs.
Something to bear in mind, and I mean this as a joke, we held instructs last fall and the A level squads declined in 2009. Therefore, it could be argued that the instructs may have caused this decline. (This would not be true, but it does point out that it is easy to overinterpret the fall instructs.)
One big way the Cards have changed is they have built up an 11 team minor league system. I get this number from the two Latin squads, the recent Gulf Coast League team, the six other US teams (JC, Batavia, QC, PB, Spr, Memphis). This adds up to 9 teams. The other two are the 80+ lads in Extended Spring Training during April through early June. EST is the “spring instructs” for guys who are not ready for full season competiton. The Cards have really increased players at EST the past couple of springs.
When we have 80+ guys in house, then we have the internal manpower to run our own scrimmages, without busing players all over Florida.
It could easily be a low Return on Investment to continue the old tradition of fall instructs. We are already teaching young players during spring training, EST, and short season teams, March through August, 6 months. Good for guys to take some time off, go home, get refreshed, work out, and have an off-season.
Minor league success hinges on many factors, not just one, in isolation. It depends on scouting; how much a team invests in bonuses; coaching; conditioning; individual development plans; etc. It does not hinge on just fall instructs, in isolation from many other factors.
Mo and Luhnow are responsible for thinking how to best spend their resources, in a holistic sense. If an “old” model of fall instructs is not productive, maybe they would rather invest in more scouting or bonuses or training at other times. They ought to do what makes sense to them, based on their available choices.
In the table of all stars above, Quad Cities had one at mid season, none for the second half.
The sole honoree was probably the catcher, Cutler.
Casey Mulligan would have qualified for a first half all star, but he got promoted in late May and ended the season at Springfield. He had a great year, but probably did not make any all start teams, owing to two promotions. The aggressive promotion policy of the Cards makes it hard to qualify for an all star team.
I see a lot of 1’s in the table. Do any of these leagues have the policy of each team getting one man on the all-star squad automatically. That would likely mean the situation is grimm indeed.
bb, generally for the in-season all-star games, the answer is yes. Since there are usually two division squads, they can have all teams represented. On the post-season squads, I think not as they are usually league-wide. Thanks for bringing that up as I should have mentioned it so folks do not inadvertently try to compare mid-season vs. post-season numbers.
Jumbo, I acknowledged in the article that aggressive promotions could hurt and could help. Jess Todd was an all-star at two levels last year. Daniel Descalso was a Texas League post-season all-star despite not having played there in the second half. And again, since this was a YTY comparison, what evidence do we have that promotions were more aggressive this year than last?
Brian, what evidence is there that promotions, trades, injuries, drug busts, etc in 09 were exactly the same as in 08?
We at least know more holes opened in the system during 2009 owing to trades. That had a diluting effect on talent.
When Khalil had his issue, T Greene, Solano, and Kozma were promoted a level. Kozma might have been an all star in the FSL had he stayed, at AA just two years out of high school, he was not.
No one used the word “exactly” except you, Jumbo. We can exchange examples all night long, but the only hard numbers we have are the ones in the article above.
One of the 2008 Quad Cities “all stars” was Kingrey. He was a college senior, a ringer for low A and not an elite prospect, because not speedy for OF. When Mr. Kingrey got off to a slow start in 2009 at Palm Beach, the Cards let him go.
Another 08 QC all star was Kozma. He is a better prospect.
I draw a blank on the 3rd QC 08 star. Additon had a fine season there, but may not have gotten an all star nod.
If I compare year to year, Kozma is a better prospect than Cutler. Additon had a fine 2008 at QC. Kingrey was an all star but a modest prospect, now released.
In 2009, Quad Cities also had Casey Mulligan, who excelled, but got promoted so he did not get an all star berth. Archimedes Nieto got promoted and is promising. Castellano and Garcia earned promotions and have speed. Stidham and Schneider were 09 draftees who played well. So at least 6 guys showed promise but were not honored as all stars.
At Batavia, in 2008, the all stars were Shane Peterson (2nd rounder), closer Adam Reifer, pitcher Archimedes Nieto, 5th rd Jaime Curtis, CF Parejo, and IF Colt Sedbrook.
Sedbrook was a senior 22nd round from the Univ of Arizona and given his experience did well at this level, but a marginal prospect who did not do much in 2009, unsurprisingly.
Curtis and Parejo are both right swingers who do not have power or base-stealing. Curtis might have promise as a platoon 2Bman, Parejo is going to need to lift his batting average and play good defense in CF. They have not emerged as strong prospects yet.
Peterson is good, so got traded toward Holliday. Reifer is a high upside guy who struggled at PB. Nieto had a solid season.
The 2009 all stars were 3. De la Cruz, a strong defense young catcher, who will need to improve with the stick. Ahmady, a non power hitting 1Bman, a marginal prospect. Santo Maertz, a 2008 low round reliever out of a small college near New York, not an exciting prospect at this point; the Cards did not have room for him at QC.
Conley and Adams hit well and seem prospects, but were not selected. There were a number of pitchers who might have been selected, but were not.
Pags is an example of a player that has been in the system 7 years even though he isn’t really a MLB prospect. His defense is supposedly good, but he hit .200 in the NYPL in ‘03 and has stayed right about there. Reserve catchers are not really in short supply. I know Anderson was injured but I don’t get it. Why are roster spots not used to give legit prospects playing time. It would have been nice to be able to call up a 3rd catcher who might be useful off the bench, that would seem a bigger need right now that defense.
bb, other than Anderson, the Cards don’t really have any catching prospects near the big leagues. Besides, the third catcher is pretty much irrelevant. He is only called up when rosters expand to sit on the bench and be ready for an emergency (LaRue’s regular gig) while Molina and LaRue get ready for the playoffs.
Why are Sedbrook and Maertz selected as all stars? Because they played the full half season at this level and they did the job, their selection seems fair. The voters do not want to age disriminate against them. But they may not be premium prospects, though all stars at this level.
How about Parejo and De la Cruz? Parejo must be a good defensive CF and he is young and his hitting might improve. De la Cruz must be a great defensive catcher who could develop a contact swing like Molina and become a ML starter. These are guys with some tools and might be able to improve the hitting skill.
On the topic of critizing or defending the team…..
Brian has questioned the signing of Matt Clement. His pessimism was sustained.
Brian questioned early optimistic projections about Troy Glaus in 09. He won that one, too, while Mo looked uninformed.
I was dubious about Chris Duncan playing in 08 and the celebration of pain. Unfortunately, my doubts were sustained.
The Cards wooed Wagner Mateo and wanted him badly as a building block for their future. They suffered a setback when they found out about his eye injury. They will try to prevent that problem from happenning again. The Latin amateur market has a lot of pitfalls. Its hard to say that mistakes were made, because ultimately the Cards caught the problem, but it is still a temporary setback.
looks like some teams ar going the other direction on terms of instructional leagues and actually increasing them.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/winter-baseball/winter-wonders/2009/268925.html
The BA article is 1) about Arizona and about 2) 2nd or 3rd year pros who might otherwise have gone to Arizona.
The Cards send 2nd/3rd years to Latin America in the winter. We deal with the first years now in EST. Its the new model. Someday other teams may see what we are doing and catch up. For now, lets not tell them.
Oops, for Arizona, read Hawaii.
Oops, for the second mention of Arizona, read Hawaii. For the first mention of Arizona, read Arizona.
Going back to the thread topic about all star selections….. Upside is based on two things, tools and skills. This is why the Cards have a computer program called St-out. It blends stats (results) plus tools. Tools rule, though a guy with tools but no results is iffy.
In 2004, the Cards signed a 14th round 2bman out of Univ. of Nebraska, a senior, right swinger, Jake Mullinax. We like those Cornhuskers, as Brian knows. Mullinax went to the NY-Pa league, played 3B, got saluted by Baseball America as the 18th best prospect. Mullinax spent 05 in the Midwest League as a light-hitting 3Bman and retired. He was not a big enough hitter to meet the OPS needs of 3B, so he had fun for a couple of summers and did the smart thing.
This year the Cards signed Kyle Conley as a senior out of Univ of Washington. Big guy, right fielder, in the long run might be best at 1B. He started slow at Quad Cities, so they bumped him down to Batavia and he pounded the ball during August. Conley like Mullinax made the Top 20 list of BA (I dont have a subscription so have not read his scouting report). The good news is Conley was a stud at Batavia, so can probably jump to Palm Beach next spring. He did not make a league All Star team, but did get saluted by a good publication. But sometimes seniors who get saluted as rookie league all stars do not rise too many levels, as shown by Mullinax.
Luis De la Cruz was saluted by BA in 2007 for play in the Gulf Coast League. He is probably a strong long term propsect, since an elite defensive catcher. He has now been saluted for play in two different leagues.
And our players that would have gone to Hawaii are where this year?
You think other teams don´t have a lot o guys in EST?
What about the guys like Miller, Stock, and another 15 or so guys who will start next year on full year teams – where is there Instructional League since they will have no EST?
Carioca, do you have evidence that demonstrates fall instructs are a good ROI or do you just like “old models” (and I am not implying Christie Brinkley)?
You offer a new topic when you refer to training in Hawaii. Can you provide more context, please?
Jumbo, there was a league in Hawaii called Hawaii Winter Baseball to which the Cardinals sent three players from the A-Advanced/Double-A level last year. The league folded in 2009 and MLB announced plans to replace it with a similar league in Arizona. They couldn’t pull it together with a year’s notice but say they will get it done next year. Think of it as a similar league to the Arizona Fall League except for lower-level players. The AFL is mostly Double-A/Triple-A players.
Brian, I have no idea how you can write all these columns, plus cover off for Carioca too. We are all mightily obliged to your efforts.
I get little sleep and my house needs painting.
Jumbo, you don´t read what you write? Above you refer to training in Hawaii – that would make one assume you knew about the Hawaiin league last year.
I don´t have enough evidence to say that the instructs are good ROI or not. However, you have offered that EST is the substitute for the Instructs and I am merely pointing out that that doesn´t work as a substitute for all players as some players don´t end up there.
The players sent to Hawaii (with a year or two of A ball) were not the guys who went to fall instructs (June signs). So I could not see the topic linkage.
I propose EST could be an alternative way of training high school and jucos signed the preceding June. Most will not qualify for Quad Cities in April, even if they get fall instructional training. I do not claim this is known to be the new model, because we have to wait for the Cards to disclose a new model. But it seems they have greatly expanded the headcount at EST, so this could be the new model.