The St. Louis Cardinals have only six minor league free agents this year. What might that tell us?
This is the time of year when those players not currently on Major League 40-man rosters with at least six years of experience or have been a free agent previously have the right to declare free agency. Baseball America has documented the names of all 533 eligible players across the 30 organizations.
The St. Louis Cardinals have just six of these free agents, by far the fewest across an MLB population that averages 18. I previously outlined St. Louis’ group back on October 5 for The Cardinal Nation subscribers. They are pitchers Oneli Perez, Matt Scherer, Josh Kinney and Rich Rundles and infielder Ruben Gotay. The sixth Cardinals player was added to the group late last week when catcher Matt Pagnozzi was outrighted.
The full list of 533 is a bit of a curiosity, fun to scan in hopes the next Ryan Ludwick can be discovered. The reality is that most of these players will land somewhere next season, but few if any will become future stars.
The reason I am writing about this list today is because of the numbers and what they might tell us. Here is the breakdown by organization.
| MiLB FAs | |||
| 31 | Florida | ||
| 27 | Washington | ||
| 26 | Philadelphia | Seattle | |
| 24 | Dodgers | Mets | Oakland |
| 22 | Baltimore | San Francisco | |
| 21 | Colorado | Tampa Bay | |
| 20 | Houston | Yankees | |
| 19 | Angels | Pittsburgh | |
| 18 | MLB average | Texas | |
| 17 | White Sox | Milwaukee | Toronto |
| 14 | Cleveland | San Diego | |
| 13 | Boston | ||
| 11 | Arizona | Cincinnati | Kansas City |
| 10 | Atlanta | Detroit | Minnesota |
| 8 | Cubs | ||
| 6 | St. Louis |
It should be noted that this list is not all-encompassing. Like some other organizations, late in the season, the Cardinals released players not on this list (Nate Robertson, Renyel Pinto, Kevin Howard) or granted free agency via other avenues (Evan MacLane).
Still, what might the count tell us? Why do the Cardinals have so few and is that good or bad?
Remember that this list is a mix of home-grown players and journeymen who began their careers elsewhere. Of the Cardinals’ six, only Scherer and Pags were originally drafted by St. Louis. Further, the Cardinals’ count has dropped steadily over the past four years, from 26 free agents to 15 to nine and now, six.
Critics of the organization are all over the map on the subject of minor league free agents. Here are three of the related concerns I have heard with my commentary following.
“The organization needs to sign more minor league free agents because their prospect pipeline is thin and the major league team may need ready help.”
One fallacy of this line of thinking is an inherent assumption that there are major league impact players lurking somewhere on this free agent list, waiting to be discovered. Gotay having sat all season in Memphis despite an obvious need at third base in St. Louis is a good reminder of the weakness of this argument.
While the organization could go all-out signing veterans, that would limit the at-bats and innings available for prospects who might have at least some additional chance for career upside.
“The system is weak across the board due to recent bad drafts and needs veterans from the outside to shore it up.”
This does point back to the 2004 (Scherer) draft and to a lesser extent, the 2003 (Pagnozzi) class, with the former especially having been among the Cardinals’ poorest in recent years. Many of the players from those years have already been whittled away (the entire remainder of the 2004 class) or have already made it (Daric Barton, Brendan Ryan and Jason Motte from 2003).
The poor 2004 draft is likely at least partially why the Cardinals’ current free agent count is so low. However, as noted elsewhere, subsequent drafts, especially 2005, helped to compensate from the systemwide depth perspective. From that class alone came Colby Rasmus, Tyler Greene, Mitchell Boggs, Nick Stavinoha and Jaime Garcia.
“The organization is overly-focused on winning at the expense of player development.”
In apparent direct conflict with the earlier contentions, one implication of this statement is that the Cardinals already sign more minor league free agents to ensure the upper levels of their system are competitive on the field.
The facts seem to blow away this straw man.
57.3 percent of the 533 are Triple-A players with 26.6 percent from Double-A, or about 84 percent of the total. Without this kind of large influx of minor league free agents, Memphis reached the playoffs for the second consecutive year. Double-A Springfield made it, too.
On the positive side, it seems to indicate that as a whole, the players drafted and originally signed into the system can play competitive team baseball.
Without the volume of players considered future impact MLBers compared to other organizations, this could also reinforce the “quantity versus high upside” concerns over recent Cardinals drafts, however. In other words, the theory goes that the Cardinals did an above-average job in filling the ranks with good players, but a relative too few are projected to be destined for greatness.
Though this free agent data is perhaps a better indicator of quantity rather than quality, it is a concern that may have merit.
What do you think?
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The Cards have gotten away from the reliance of minor league FAs.That said every team needs experienced help at some time every year unless they are extremely lucky and injury free.Having a player in AAA who has big league time and can come up and provide a short term spark is a good thing to have.Plus some players develop late in their careers into valuable reserves and spot starters.A wise team thinks ahead and provides the manager several backup options.
Hard to argue with your point that a team needs some vets, Bw52. Isn’t the real question the optimal level, though?
Better options starting at the top level.How often can the Cards get lucky and find a Ryan Ludwick and Randy Flores 2 guys who where minor league FAs and provided much help .
As you say Brian..will the quality get better when both sides of the player development side (old school-New stats basesd) start working better together.
You have to have quanity and quality to survive.Thers nothing wrong with taking some chances on high risk-high upside guys.Yet you still need solid steady types.
There are actually several types of minor league FA’s. There are MLB veterans who are coming off of down years or injuries. There are AAAA guys who may or may not have had a big league cup of coffee. There are guys like Scherer who just never really got a chance to advance in their organization. There are minor league guys who have suffered injuries and never advanced enough due to those injuries but if they get lucky and get their health back might actually turn into something. And there are becoming more and more 23-24 y.o. LAtin guys who signed at 16 and who haven’t shown enough to get on the 40 man roster who might still have some development remaining.
I would say teams also sign minor league FA’s for several different reasons. Has a guy who could possibly win a job in the Spring. As a guy who is merely filling in for orgnizational depth who the club has no real hope of him being a big league contributor. And there are guys the organization thinks have some development left in them (possibly due to prior injury) who at some point in the year might be ready to contribute.
I guess my point is that organization’s need to know what type of player they are signing and what they are signing him for and make sure those match.
They also need to know what they are getting. I think Gotay was signed with an expectation he might win a job in ST or contribute during the season. He certainly performed well enough offensively to merit that look during the season. Word was they didn’t like his defensive range. Shouldn’t they have know that issue before they signed him?
stl draftees seem to have lessened the need to add minors vets, and can nearly fill a contending roster, making our call-ups just as valuable as their’s for back-up duty.
emphasis on back-up duty, because most clubs don’t get any more than that from minors vets, even though a few ludwick / garrett jones types land starting roles.
the AAA tacoma / memphis series was an example of quality, over quantity of farmhands.
memphis got to the series, but was exposed in having quantity of back-up depth, not quality starter depth.
CC, Gotay is a second baseman who was asked to play third. They probably had little to no idea of his defensive skills at third in advance. Everyone knows he certainly doesn’t have a third base bat (career MLB OPS of .685).
Most importantly, Gotay was signed before both Miles and Lopez, both considered better options at second, so you must also take into account the timing.
They didn’t take strong enough action to shore up third. Kevin Howard was their apparent answer and that wasn’t good enough. They tried Andrew Brown for awhile at third, but he was hurt and they gave that idea up. Carpenter wasn’t yet ready. An exposure.
I was referring more to Gotay as a 2B man. Don’t think he was brought in to play 3B.
You mentioned the range concern and said the Cardinals should have known that in advance. My point is that the issues I heard regarding Gotay’s range was at third, the only place the Cardinals could have realistically used him as the season unfolded. Since third base was not his primary position, the org likely would not have known at the time he was signed about his defense at that position or even been thinking about it.
Well, I would have to think that having fewer older guys clogging up the system would be a very good thing. The older guys always have the possibility of breaking through, but younger players are understood to have more upside in general. How did the Marlins find roster spots for 31 guys who were about to hit free agency? My initial impression with that number is that they must not have been shedding their dead weight well.
On another topic, I’d feel a lot better about Pujols and Molina winning their gold gloves if Mr. Jeter’s award didn’t make an utter mockery of the entire process. It’s not quite a Palmeiro level sham, but I’m not sure why anyone would even bother wiping their rear with a gold glove nowadays.
I wonder if this might be the ‘Luhnow Effect’, a consequence of having one man at the head of both scouting/drafting and running the minor leagues. (At least that was true until John Vuch was named head of player development at the end of this season).
Seems that having one head over both functions, instead of keeping them separate as most clubs do, might introduce a bias for internal candidates/talent acquired through the draft over those acquired through other avenues.
In the same way, maybe the relative dearth of older players in the minors is evidence of a bias for talent/prospects drafted under the current regime as opposed to those who were drafted previous to it.
I’ve no evidence of any of this… just brainstorming and offering it for discussion.
Nutlaw — Agree with you on Jeter but we shouldn’t let that taint the awards for Yadi & Albert, who were both undoubtedly deserving of their recognition.
So maybe I would wipe my rear end with JETER’s GG…
The idea of having a soon to be FA below the AAA level doesn’t make much sense imo. And I would think most are in AAA. So some of the orgs must have half or more of their AAA squad consisting of these failure to launch types.
“. . . DePodesta said he was eager to combine some of his techniques with the financial resources of a major-market team like the Mets. . . . Moneyball with money,” he said. . . .”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/sports/baseball/10mets.html?_r=1&ref=baseball
LOL! Apparently, either the Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t considered a major-market team or DePo exorcised his two-season GM stint there from his memory…
I dont see us with any more FA’s in the minors than last year. Possibly 1-2 pitchers and 1-2 MI across AAA/AA. Possibly one AAA OF type with a shot to make the big club.
Some teams with a lot of minor league free agents, it probably reflects an effort to discover good value, cheap. The Marlins found Dan Uggla. The Athletics similarly are a moderate spending team that aggressively churns through a lot of low cost players.
The Phillies are different. In general, they pursue high ceiling raw talent and have been rewarded with some stars. The Phils must fill in AAA gaps with retreads.
Toward the bottom of the list, the Braves and Twins produce a good rookie flow into the majors. They must not have capacity for a lot of retreads.
It seems a generally good sign to develop home-grown talent. Its surprising the Cards have so few free agents, given that their AAA team has not much benefitted from homegrown Latin players as yet.
But individuals are what ultimately matter. A Ryan Ludwick or Uggla are good, even if retreads. Homegrown Mike Ferris reached AAA, but who cares?
A minor point perhaps, but Uggla was a Rule 5 pick, not a minor league free agent.
Some minor league free agents who have enjoyed eventual ML success include Carlos Pena (1B-Tampa), Jack Cust (DH/1B-Oakland), and Garrett Jones (should be 1b, Pittsburg). Three left swinging sluggers.
Ryan Ludwick was unusual as a minor league free agent, because a good defensive OF. A minor league free agent who is both a good hitter and defender must be rare.