free agents

karuso · 11-23-2006, 10:40 AM

I am new, and have worked for a minor league team and for the Astros in the office so I know a little bit about the minor leagues. I am looking thru the system and find no third baseman that is even a poor prospect anywhere to be a replacement for Rolen when he retires. To me that is our highest priority in the draft next year, and in looking for players to be named later in trades. The only possible rule 5 I have seen is a player from the Red Sox named Chad Spann. Hopefully we will have an opportunity to draft him. Also interesting is the type A & B picks we get compensation for. Suppan and Belliard are A's, and Mulder, Marquis Weaver and Preston Wilson are B's. If we don't sign them, we will have a lot of picks in supplemental 1 round, a couple in 1st or 2nd round, so we should at least hopefully stock our minors with young players at least.

BleacherBum593 · 11-23-2006, 11:49 AM

Welcome aboard karuso!

What minor league team did you work for?

3B in the organization - probably the only 1 in the organization with a shot at playing in the majors is Travis Hanson. Great year in 2005, but slumped badly when they started him at Memphis in 2006 and he never did get it going. I look for him to start again at Memphis this season.

They did experiment with him at 2B in 2004 and their is the possibility that he might be shifted at some point in the future. He's a good athlete and should be able to make the shift.

Long term - he may end up becoming a Scott Spiezo-type of player. Super Sub.

karuso · 11-25-2006, 01:06 PM

Thankyou. I worked for the Indianapolis Indians during their glory years in the '70s. They had all the great Big Red Machine guys. THen I worked for the Astor in the '80s getting to know Nolan Ryan pretty well, and unfortuantely getting know an even better pitcher, J R Richard, before his stroke. Probably somewhat drug-related. Glad to talk to a bleacher bum. I was part of Lou's bleacher bums in the '70s before moving to Indianpolis to work for the Indians and finish college. Lou even knows me by sight, and waves to me whenever he sees me. Now I am just a gooe friend of Kenny Holtzman's younger sister, so get alot of scouting information at different parties. Unfortunately Hanson was not very highly rated by the scouts even before last year. A Spezio-type I can see. My favorite players in the minors right now are Darrul Jones,of, ready for a breakout season I hope, a 40/40 type guy if he puts it all together, and Tommie Pham, ss

. If Darryl Jones has the kind of season he is capable of they will be saying he came out of nowhere, but he was just a 3 year project who wil be in his make-or-break third year. Pham is a leadoff hitter, an exciting player who the scouts love. He is 18 and Jones 19 years old in 2006.

Kodiak · 11-25-2006, 02:13 PM

Welcome aboard karuso. Glad to have your insights!

karuso · 11-26-2006, 03:57 PM

You guys have more insight on the major league thinking of the Cards, and I hear maybe more about what the other team's scouts are thinkling. One thing that totally frustrates me is the Cards, in 2004 and 2006 drafting "moneyball" All their top draft choices have been college players with great statistics. We are in need of a third baseman to replace Rolen fairly soon. If there is not a college player with great statistics that is a third baseman we won't draft him. Both the best possible impact third basemen this year in a tremendous draft are high school players. If we picka third baseman, he won't be the best available, just the best money ball pick. The only time we deviated was 2005, when we drafted both and we got our best prospects currently. We did get a couple of others in 2006, one, Marti, who was unusual because he had statistics in Cuba, and two that we drafted after our first 8 money ball picks. We got zilch from 2004 unless you can count Lambert, which to me is not a good first rounder. This year, we drafted Hamilton, who can't field, Ottavino, who after hitting Quad Cities they jumped on his changeup, Jay, who is a good hitter, but not much else. Has anyone else on this site been discussing the drafts? To me, this is the biggest problem for the current Cardinals. They don't have much else other than at the bottom in their farm system compared to other teams because the best prospects were drafted in 2005, and partly in 2006. Josh Vitters is an impact hitter this year depending on what kind of season he has in high school ball. There is another one who looks like a good one. And I only get to see about 20 minor league games a year. I do like some of our pitchers, but no hitters above Class A. I go to about 40 games in St Louis a year, with a half a season ticket, am considered an absolute Cardinal fanatic, so I want them to do well but am frustrated with some of their decisions. ANy other people have comments. Thanks for letting me vent.

Ewttexas · 11-26-2006, 05:32 PM

Hi, Karuso. Welcome aboard. Most posters that I've read don't have a grasp of the Card's philosophy in drafting. TLR, Duncan and WJ seem to prefer veteran players. The draft is used, partially, to obtain those players. You'll see them draft more pitchers than position players because they are more valuable as trade bait later on. All teams need pitching. Larry Walker was gotten for Narveson, Mulder for Haren, etc. I have trouble hearing the rants of posters when the Cards trade the above since that was why they were signed. When Mo came on board, the philosophy changed to some degree but when you start from zero, it takes time for results to become obvious. The Cards wouldn't have taken it all without Duncan, Kinney, TJ, Reyes and Wainwright.Our BP is strong because of our minor league system. Of course. Albert came from the ranks as well. Randy Flores and Josh Kinney were signed from the independent league. Wainwright came from Atl in the Drew deal. A lot of money has been spent on programs in Central and South America. We should start seeing results soon. I wouldn't be surprised to see Lambert, Flores and Pomeranz used as trade bait. We have a lot of good pitching in the system now. There are some OFers who will be available soon. Marti, Schumaker, Rasmus, etc. We are short on infield prospects but to answer the 3rd base question, Cody Haerther started there. I've been pushing for him to try 2nd but I believe that he's better than Hanson. I go to most of the minor league games when Springfield and Memphis are in San Antonio and Round Rock. I go to Minute Maid for the Card games and have been a Cardinal fan since 1958. At least I have seniority in one aspect. I'm probably the oldest poster here. Stick around, Karuso. We're about to get back to normal and that's the most fun you can have in the off season.

NianguaToad · 11-26-2006, 06:59 PM

Ewt raises several key points, two of which I'll focus on with this post: 1) Agreed in that Karuso is a valuable contributor to conversations, and I too hope he opts to continue with stick with this board; and 2) Ewt the oldest? Maybe, maybe not. August of 1953 here.

Kodiak · 11-27-2006, 04:03 AM

The problem that comes with drafting players with the knowledge that you will probably trade the more succesful players in that given draft is that you are under immense pressure to consistently draft strong enough prospects that are good enough trade bait, furthermore you have to keep just enough of the stronger prospects so that they may be used in the majors as needed throughout the marathon MLB season.

It is a strategy that can be used far more effectively in the larger market teams that can afford to trade pretty much any decent prospect in their organization for high priced big league talent because even when they run out of prospects that can always pick up someone via free agency. The Yankees and Red Sox are prime examples in this case and it looks like the Cubs are heading that way. The problem of course is that this method is EXPENSIVE...for both the club and their fans.

Small market teams like Oakland and Florida must rely solely on their farm and drafts to consistently bring up fresh new talent as the "seasoned" (aka "expensive") veterans become free agents and undoubtedly move on to bigger and better things (ala Soriano, Vlad Guerrero a few years back, pretty much any Marlin, ditto the A's, and again ditto for pretty much any Expo of the mid-late 90's).

Is the best answer, as is most usually the case, in between these two extremes? I don't know. IMO this is where the Cardinals lay in the spectrum and it has brought as a very succesfull decade so far....and that World Series Championship. But the Marlins and Yankees/Red Sox have also won somewhat recently which suggests that the middle ground isn't always the correct solution.

But as long as the Cubs continue to be completely useless by September then all will be well :-) (Sorry, had to fill my weekly Cub bashing quota)

GoCrazyFolks · 11-27-2006, 11:18 AM

I have many of the same concerns about the draft/player developement. I'm also with Kodiak about not knowing which approach is the most affective. I always tend to lean toward the middle ground. The Cards are in that middle ground, but they are closer to the Buyers than they are the builders.

As for drafting, the 2005 draft will probably hash out to be one of our best drafts in a very long time, but you have to preface that distinction by acknowledging that we had the extra picks (wasn't it 7 in the first two rounds?) from losing Womack, Renterria, Morris, Matheny, etc. If we hadn't of had those picks, it might look a lot different.
Also of note in that draft, WJ openly stated after it was complete that they had targeted HS players early because the trend was for most teams to look at college players early and HS players late. They thought they could steal some great HS prospects by going against the trend. The also rolled out psychologoical screening of prospects (especially HS prospects) prior to the 2005 draft.

tulcard · 11-28-2006, 07:00 PM

Toad....September of '52 here....but I'm confident we're still trying to catch Ewt....

Ewttexas · 11-28-2006, 07:37 PM

karuso · 12-05-2006, 03:31 PM

By the way I am older than both of you, February of 1951, been watching Cardinals games since 1960, actually since 1958 except don't remember much of game.

bccran · 12-22-2006, 02:59 PM

Sorry guys - I may be the elder Statesman here. Born in '43.

NianguaToad · 12-22-2006, 07:31 PM

It's nice to be part of the greybeard community of Cardinal fans, but also to not have to endure the pap of bandwagoneer children in order to have a conversation about my favorite team as is the case on many (most?) other message boards.

I'll count the formation of this online community among the blessings of Calendar 2006.

karuso · 12-22-2006, 08:53 PM

BCC when did you first go to a Cards game. I went to the 2 most famous non-world series games, the Musial 2 ball trick in 1958(except I was a little kid and don't remember, my father told me what happened later0 and Walter Alston's non-time out game in I think 1971. Crazy things just happen when I used to go to less games during the year. Obviously I was at Brock's 105, and Gibson'e 18 SO WS

games, but that was when I was going to more games, so I obviously would have been at those games, they were planned as important games.

11-23-2006, 10:40 AM	#1 (permalink)
karuso Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 16	free agents I am new, and have worked for a minor league team and for the Astros in the office so I know a little bit about the minor leagues. I am looking thru the system and find no third baseman that is even a poor prospect anywhere to be a replacement for Rolen when he retires. To me that is our highest priority in the draft next year, and in looking for players to be named later in trades. The only possible rule 5 I have seen is a player from the Red Sox named Chad Spann. Hopefully we will have an opportunity to draft him. Also interesting is the type A & B picks we get compensation for. Suppan and Belliard are A's, and Mulder, Marquis Weaver and Preston Wilson are B's. If we don't sign them, we will have a lot of picks in supplemental 1 round, a couple in 1st or 2nd round, so we should at least hopefully stock our minors with young players at least.

11-25-2006, 01:06 PM	#3 (permalink)
karuso Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 16	free agents Thankyou. I worked for the Indianapolis Indians during their glory years in the '70s. They had all the great Big Red Machine guys. THen I worked for the Astor in the '80s getting to know Nolan Ryan pretty well, and unfortuantely getting know an even better pitcher, J R Richard, before his stroke. Probably somewhat drug-related. Glad to talk to a bleacher bum. I was part of Lou's bleacher bums in the '70s before moving to Indianpolis to work for the Indians and finish college. Lou even knows me by sight, and waves to me whenever he sees me. Now I am just a gooe friend of Kenny Holtzman's younger sister, so get alot of scouting information at different parties. Unfortunately Hanson was not very highly rated by the scouts even before last year. A Spezio-type I can see. My favorite players in the minors right now are Darrul Jones,of, ready for a breakout season I hope, a 40/40 type guy if he puts it all together, and Tommie Pham, ss . If Darryl Jones has the kind of season he is capable of they will be saying he came out of nowhere, but he was just a 3 year project who wil be in his make-or-break third year. Pham is a leadoff hitter, an exciting player who the scouts love. He is 18 and Jones 19 years old in 2006.

11-28-2006, 07:37 PM	#11 (permalink)
Ewttexas Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 686	Yup

11-23-2006, 11:49 AM	#2 (permalink)
BleacherBum593 Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: St Louis (LF Bleachers) Posts: 1,862	Welcome aboard karuso! What minor league team did you work for? 3B in the organization - probably the only 1 in the organization with a shot at playing in the majors is Travis Hanson. Great year in 2005, but slumped badly when they started him at Memphis in 2006 and he never did get it going. I look for him to start again at Memphis this season. They did experiment with him at 2B in 2004 and their is the possibility that he might be shifted at some point in the future. He's a good athlete and should be able to make the shift. Long term - he may end up becoming a Scott Spiezo-type of player. Super Sub.

11-25-2006, 02:13 PM	#4 (permalink)
Kodiak Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 746	Welcome aboard karuso. Glad to have your insights!

11-26-2006, 03:57 PM	#5 (permalink)
karuso Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 16	You guys have more insight on the major league thinking of the Cards, and I hear maybe more about what the other team's scouts are thinkling. One thing that totally frustrates me is the Cards, in 2004 and 2006 drafting "moneyball" All their top draft choices have been college players with great statistics. We are in need of a third baseman to replace Rolen fairly soon. If there is not a college player with great statistics that is a third baseman we won't draft him. Both the best possible impact third basemen this year in a tremendous draft are high school players. If we picka third baseman, he won't be the best available, just the best money ball pick. The only time we deviated was 2005, when we drafted both and we got our best prospects currently. We did get a couple of others in 2006, one, Marti, who was unusual because he had statistics in Cuba, and two that we drafted after our first 8 money ball picks. We got zilch from 2004 unless you can count Lambert, which to me is not a good first rounder. This year, we drafted Hamilton, who can't field, Ottavino, who after hitting Quad Cities they jumped on his changeup, Jay, who is a good hitter, but not much else. Has anyone else on this site been discussing the drafts? To me, this is the biggest problem for the current Cardinals. They don't have much else other than at the bottom in their farm system compared to other teams because the best prospects were drafted in 2005, and partly in 2006. Josh Vitters is an impact hitter this year depending on what kind of season he has in high school ball. There is another one who looks like a good one. And I only get to see about 20 minor league games a year. I do like some of our pitchers, but no hitters above Class A. I go to about 40 games in St Louis a year, with a half a season ticket, am considered an absolute Cardinal fanatic, so I want them to do well but am frustrated with some of their decisions. ANy other people have comments. Thanks for letting me vent.

11-26-2006, 05:32 PM	#6 (permalink)
Ewttexas Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 686	Hi, Karuso. Welcome aboard. Most posters that I've read don't have a grasp of the Card's philosophy in drafting. TLR, Duncan and WJ seem to prefer veteran players. The draft is used, partially, to obtain those players. You'll see them draft more pitchers than position players because they are more valuable as trade bait later on. All teams need pitching. Larry Walker was gotten for Narveson, Mulder for Haren, etc. I have trouble hearing the rants of posters when the Cards trade the above since that was why they were signed. When Mo came on board, the philosophy changed to some degree but when you start from zero, it takes time for results to become obvious. The Cards wouldn't have taken it all without Duncan, Kinney, TJ, Reyes and Wainwright.Our BP is strong because of our minor league system. Of course. Albert came from the ranks as well. Randy Flores and Josh Kinney were signed from the independent league. Wainwright came from Atl in the Drew deal. A lot of money has been spent on programs in Central and South America. We should start seeing results soon. I wouldn't be surprised to see Lambert, Flores and Pomeranz used as trade bait. We have a lot of good pitching in the system now. There are some OFers who will be available soon. Marti, Schumaker, Rasmus, etc. We are short on infield prospects but to answer the 3rd base question, Cody Haerther started there. I've been pushing for him to try 2nd but I believe that he's better than Hanson. I go to most of the minor league games when Springfield and Memphis are in San Antonio and Round Rock. I go to Minute Maid for the Card games and have been a Cardinal fan since 1958. At least I have seniority in one aspect. I'm probably the oldest poster here. Stick around, Karuso. We're about to get back to normal and that's the most fun you can have in the off season.

11-26-2006, 06:59 PM	#7 (permalink)
NianguaToad Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Wardsville, MO Posts: 31	Ewt raises several key points, two of which I'll focus on with this post: 1) Agreed in that Karuso is a valuable contributor to conversations, and I too hope he opts to continue with stick with this board; and 2) Ewt the oldest? Maybe, maybe not. August of 1953 here.

11-27-2006, 04:03 AM	#8 (permalink)
Kodiak Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 746	The problem that comes with drafting players with the knowledge that you will probably trade the more succesful players in that given draft is that you are under immense pressure to consistently draft strong enough prospects that are good enough trade bait, furthermore you have to keep just enough of the stronger prospects so that they may be used in the majors as needed throughout the marathon MLB season. It is a strategy that can be used far more effectively in the larger market teams that can afford to trade pretty much any decent prospect in their organization for high priced big league talent because even when they run out of prospects that can always pick up someone via free agency. The Yankees and Red Sox are prime examples in this case and it looks like the Cubs are heading that way. The problem of course is that this method is EXPENSIVE...for both the club and their fans. Small market teams like Oakland and Florida must rely solely on their farm and drafts to consistently bring up fresh new talent as the "seasoned" (aka "expensive") veterans become free agents and undoubtedly move on to bigger and better things (ala Soriano, Vlad Guerrero a few years back, pretty much any Marlin, ditto the A's, and again ditto for pretty much any Expo of the mid-late 90's). Is the best answer, as is most usually the case, in between these two extremes? I don't know. IMO this is where the Cardinals lay in the spectrum and it has brought as a very succesfull decade so far....and that World Series Championship. But the Marlins and Yankees/Red Sox have also won somewhat recently which suggests that the middle ground isn't always the correct solution. But as long as the Cubs continue to be completely useless by September then all will be well :-) (Sorry, had to fill my weekly Cub bashing quota)

11-27-2006, 11:18 AM	#9 (permalink)
GoCrazyFolks Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 167	I have many of the same concerns about the draft/player developement. I'm also with Kodiak about not knowing which approach is the most affective. I always tend to lean toward the middle ground. The Cards are in that middle ground, but they are closer to the Buyers than they are the builders. As for drafting, the 2005 draft will probably hash out to be one of our best drafts in a very long time, but you have to preface that distinction by acknowledging that we had the extra picks (wasn't it 7 in the first two rounds?) from losing Womack, Renterria, Morris, Matheny, etc. If we hadn't of had those picks, it might look a lot different. Also of note in that draft, WJ openly stated after it was complete that they had targeted HS players early because the trend was for most teams to look at college players early and HS players late. They thought they could steal some great HS prospects by going against the trend. The also rolled out psychologoical screening of prospects (especially HS prospects) prior to the 2005 draft.

11-28-2006, 07:00 PM	#10 (permalink)
tulcard Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 863	Toad....September of '52 here....but I'm confident we're still trying to catch Ewt....

12-05-2006, 03:31 PM	#12 (permalink)
karuso Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 16	By the way I am older than both of you, February of 1951, been watching Cardinals games since 1960, actually since 1958 except don't remember much of game.

12-22-2006, 02:59 PM	#13 (permalink)
bccran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 40	Sorry guys - I may be the elder Statesman here. Born in '43.

12-22-2006, 07:31 PM	#14 (permalink)
NianguaToad Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Wardsville, MO Posts: 31	It's nice to be part of the greybeard community of Cardinal fans, but also to not have to endure the pap of bandwagoneer children in order to have a conversation about my favorite team as is the case on many (most?) other message boards. I'll count the formation of this online community among the blessings of Calendar 2006.

12-22-2006, 08:53 PM	#15 (permalink)
karuso Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 16	BCC when did you first go to a Cards game. I went to the 2 most famous non-world series games, the Musial 2 ball trick in 1958(except I was a little kid and don't remember, my father told me what happened later0 and Walter Alston's non-time out game in I think 1971. Crazy things just happen when I used to go to less games during the year. Obviously I was at Brock's 105, and Gibson'e 18 SO WS games, but that was when I was going to more games, so I obviously would have been at those games, they were planned as important games.