Future Redbirds

With a month of minor league ball under our belts, it’s time to take a look at who’s been hot and of course…who’s not.

Memphis Redbirds (14-11, 1st in the PCL)

If you’ve paid any attention to the Rick Ankiel watch on the left, you can see Ankiel has shown a lot of raw power and not much else at the plate. His .318 ISO is 5th best in the league, and his 3.4% walk percent is the 5th worst in the PCL. I love Rick, but he’s not going anywhere until he learns to take a walk. Ryan Ludwick is raking with his .337 GPA, some of that can be chalked up to his lucky .357 BABIP, some of that you can chalk up to nearly cutting his strikeout rate in half from last season. P-Dub better watch his back. Travis Hanson’s .201 GPA tells you all you need to know. Stick an 4 pronged eating utensil in him.

Chris Narveson is missing his fair share of bats with 29 K’s in 33 innings however his outings have been sort of uneven. With the good prognosis on Carp’s elbow and his option situation he’s probably not going to be up anytime soon.

Springfield Cardinals 9-11, 2nd in the North Division of the Texas League

Joe Mather is absolutely crushing the ball. One of my readers Mike J was curious what his story was, so he emailed Baseball Prospectus’s professional prospect prognosticator (say that 5 times fast) Kevin Goldstein, and Kevin had this to say re: Mather

Mather is a big, big guy with plenty of plus power, but he’s raw hitting skills always held him back a bit — he’s definitely off to a great start. He’s upgraded at least to ‘keep your eye on’.

A .473 ISO certainly would scream “plus power”. The Springfield media dubbed him this season’s Terry Evans, that looks like a great call thus far. Mather was selected in the 3rd round all the way back in 2001, behind Justin Pope and Dan Haren. (Where have you gone, Justin Pope?). Back at the time of the draft, BA said “Down the road, 3B Joe Mather should hit for average and power.” He’s no longer a third baseman and it’s much further down the road. His previous career GPA high was .273 in 200 at bats in 2005. His GPA is now a freakish .368. Few can keep up this sort of power, but it’s not like it’s a skill he didn’t completely possess before so I still would expect him to maintain good numbers. He’s not bad at making contact, either.

It could be said that several players were rushed to AA, which would include Jaime Garcia, Colby Rasmus, Jon Jay and Bryan Anderson. Of those players, Anderson has responded. His .318 GPA in 55 at bats is good for the team best behind Mather, and best among all TL catchers. To keep Anderson fresh, they’re spelling him often with Matt Pagnozzi. Rasmus (.273 GPA), Jay (.203) and Tyler Greene (.205) have appeared a little overmatched. Rasmus is hitting .067 verses lefties, however on the positive 10 of Colby’s hits have been for extra bases, and he’s hitting the ball in the air often. Rasmus has been notoriously slow starter upon each promotion, so I’m not going to freak out. I’m more worried about Greene, who hasn’t shown any ability to hit above low A.

Jaime Garcia has struck out 25 batters in 20 innings, but now he’s struggling with his control a little and his walk rate has more then doubled then what it was last season. Chris Perez had one bad outing, one shaky save and a few other dominant outings. He has 14 strikeouts in 9 innings and looks like he could help the big league bullpen now if they needed the help. Chris Lambert’s 3.42 ERA looks nice, but his fielding independent ERA is 5.52 mostly due to a yeasty HR rate of 1.71. I think he will fair better in a more pitcher friendly park like Auto Zone.

Palm Beach Cardinals 14-10, 2nd in the FSL East

Allen Craig, 3rd baseman selected out of Cal last season has a .954 OPS, 3rd in the FSL. He’s also leading the batting race with .371 average. That looks great and all, but he’s only walking in 2.5% of his plate appearances. No one else on the team is hitting anything of great consequence. Mark Hamilton is striking out in a quarter of his at bats and has only a .636 OPS. Half of the balls he’s put in play have been the worm killer variety. Not good for a power hitter. Tyler Norrick is pitching more to contact, his K/9 rate has been cut down to about a 2/3rds of the rate he was at last season, but he’s inducing batters to hit the ball on the ground often. Adam Ottavino’s control issues are getting out of hand by walking over 5 per 9, but he’s striking out more then a batter per inning and he’s ground ball rate is a robust 53%.

Quad Cities 12-12, 5th in the MWL Eastern Division

Daryl Jones is the team’s best prospect, and he’s still all tools no game. He has a .212 GPA at this time. Not much else to see here. I could make mention of speedy Christian Lopez, who currently has a .370/.493./.500 line for QC in 54 at bats. His .475 BABIP is insane for a player who is hitting the ball on the ground so often. He must be able to fly. You have to love his batting eye-13 walks to 13 K’s. He’s 165 pound middle infielder, only 20 years old.  Elvis Hernandez, (2.75 FIP) P.J. Walters (2.99) and Tyler Herron (3.25) have put up decent numbers pitching wise. Blake King is getting a lot of grounders and K’s, but like Ottavino is walking way too many batters. (13 in 18 innings.)