A quick look at several St. Louis Cardinals prospect-related items.
At TheCardinalNation.com
Over at Scout.com, I still have a few more interviews and recap articles on the St. Louis Cardinals prospects that competed in the 2009 Arizona Fall League yet to run.
Wednesday’s piece is I think my tenth interview from there. This one is with Scott Gorgen (for subscribers only). Most recently prior to that, I ran a free summary of the four position players. Don’t read it if you are squeamish.
AFL velocities
Just this morning, I came across several other items of interest. With the Pitch F/X capability installed at several of the AFL venues, some very detailed information was gathered. Baseball America has summarized both the maximum fastball velocity and average fastball velocity of 120 pitchers that competed in the league this fall.
Not surprisingly, number one draft pick Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals was the top in throwing at least one 100.5 mph pitch. He was also first in average at 96.78.
Of course there is more to pitching than velocity, but it is one important indicator. Here is how the four Cardinals pitchers fared.
| Max mph | # of 120 | Avg mph | # of 120 | |
| Adam Reifer | 96.1 | 19 | 94.05 | 12 |
| Gary Daley | 94.5 | 41 | 93.08 | 22 |
| Mike Parisi | 93.3 | 61 | 90.24 | 76 |
| Scott Gorgen | 92.1 | 78 | 90.32 | 74 |
Not surprisingly, Adam Reifer and Gary Daley, Jr. were among the harder throwers while Mike Parisi and Gorgen were less so. Note the difference of less than 1.5 mph between Daley’s maximum and average.
Prospect videos
I ran across a great site with prospect videos called ProspectTube.com. Here is one of Daryl Jones being retired on a comebacker to Strasburg in the AFL. There is much more than AFL content there, though you might have to do a bit of searching. Definitely worth checking out.
Cardinals top prospect lists
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I will be sprucing up my input to the annual top 40 Cardinals prospect list to be unveiled at Scout.com starting on December 5. We will again run a countdown from number 40 to number one at the rate of one prospect per day. The final list will be weighted one-third each by my picks, Dustin Mattison’s and our message board community, represented by CariocaCardinal and Gagliano, two of our most knowledgeable members.
The Baseball America Cardinals top ten prospect list has been released. Those who subscribe can read Derrick Goold’s writeups of the ten, ranked jointly by Derrick and the BA staff.
Happy Thanksgiving
I will probably post on Thursday because that is what I do, but it doesn’t hurt to get an early start. Thank you all for reading and especially to the subset who have the interest and take the time to comment. Here is hoping everyone has a great holiday weekend.
It goes without saying Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. We’ve got a 24 pound bird this year and cooking it is my job, at least until my sons and dad and I get into the beer too much. All five kids still live in town and we will have four generations present. Man, that’s living. Thanks Brian, everybody, have a nice holiday.
Have a good day everyone……..BB, be sure to give your turkey a name, and offer a prayer of some sort……….good to be save.
We can see why Daley is in Arizona, though he has not enjoyed much success as a starting pitcher in the minors: arm strength. He must not have a breaking pitch that he can reliably control, hence the Cards are going to try him as a reliever.
Reifer was injured his junior season of college, hence fell in the draft to the 11th round as a rehab play.
In his free Scout article, Brian looks at the 4 hitters in Arizona: Henley; Descalso; Jones; and Anderson.
He compares Henley to Gorecki, which I would not do. Gorecki played 4 years of college and swings right. He had 2.5 minor league seasons before going to Arizona. Henley has the matchup advantage of swining left. He has a full year at AA behind him already, after 2 minor league seasons. Henley is in good shape as a hitter and is ready for Memphis in 2010. He is a 4th OF type, who can play all the OF positions, a bit like Jon Jay and Darryl Jones.
Descalso will also play at Memphis.
Darryl Jones has been saddled by high expectations. He should return to Springfield and work on becoming a steady hitter at this level.
Anderson had a bit of a down 2009 as a hitter, followed by a shoulder injury. He should return to Memphis in 2010, work on rehabbing his shoulder, getting his stroke back, and on defense.
Jarrett Hoffpaiur needed 2.5 seasons at Memphis to become a ML ready candidate. It takes time and reps. Descalso will need at least 1+ seasons at AAA to reach the same level of development.
I compared Henley to Gorecki because they both came to the AFL as taxi squad outfielders at comparable ages and stage of their careers and fared well. People were also very optimistic once about Gorecki, the former organization Player of the Year.
With Rasmus apparently set in center for the next five years at least, the system has a bunch of smallish outfielders at the upper levels that lack power and don’t profile all that well in the corners. Perhaps Henley will continue to progress. Maybe Craig will get a chance, but the post-Colby impact player pipeline looks pretty dry.
I guess Anderson could have been lying, but he insisted to me that his shoulder is 100 percent.
Hoffpauir is still not MLB-ready defensively, which is part of the reason why he is elsewhere. So far, Descalso is patterning himself after Shane Robinson, who had a monster first half of 2008 with Springfield and then went nowhere. Here is hoping Descalso turns it around.
I thought Gorecki was terribly fringy. His popularity may have been indicative of the lack of talent in the system. Gorecki played 4 years at U Delaware. Given that background, his hitting performance in the Midwest League was not encouraging.
Gorecki can play defense, a good thing, but as a light hitting right swining CF, he was a platoon CF candidate at best. Robinson can fill this role better, because a contact hitter.
Henley played 3 years at Rice, a much better program. He has the physical matchup advantage of a left swinger. Played running back in Dallas area high school football. Hes a tough kid. I like his chanced to be a useful ML 4th OF.
We have a few guys with similar profiles, in Jay, Henley, Jones, because we invested in them and they have been pretty good personnel decisions. Some can be traded (eg Peterson).
I like Descalso and Shane Robinson. They just need reps at AAA. Its a funny thing that the closer prospects get to the majors, the harder the game gets, and the sooner some fans start to pan them, until they make adjustments and its a surprise.
As a 1B, failed 3b type LF, Craig is unlike Gorecki, Robinson, Henley, etc., because he cannot play CF.
A healthy Joe Mather could provide some power. Not sure if and when his pop will return.
After 4 college seasons, Gorecki’s first full pro season was at low A (Peoria). This helps illustrate the more aggressive promotions the Cards now follow. Henley started his first full pro season (2008) at a higher rung After two seasons, Henley has completed AA. Not a surprise Henley would continue to hit well in the Arizona fall league.
Darryl Jones is a bit more athletic and may have more long term potential, but Henley is more skilled with the bat right now.
Brian, I’m pretty sure Gorecki was rated so high in our system for lack of anything else better. Luhnow has thankfully changed all of that.
I like Scott Gorgen and I think he will be our break through pitcher in 2010. I like Tyler Henley and Kyle Conley to raise their value considerably too, but what I really want to see is if Matt Adams can become that big masher our system has lacked since Albert.