Future Redbirds

Making my usual meanderings about the interweb on Monday when I stopped by Kary Booher’s blog and started cursing in my cubicle.  Jaime Garcia has been shut down.  He’s going to be shut down amid “growing concerns” over pain he’s experiencing in his elbow.  What makes me worry the most about this is the ‘growing concerns’ portion.  Meaning it was a concern, something happened and now that concern has gotten bigger.  O Sh-t.

St. Louis pitching coordinator Mark Riggins on Sunday said Garcia recently underwent an MRI, and Springfield manager Pop Warner later noted that he would shift Garcia to the shelf until the organization’s medical team determines the seriousness of the injury.

Well, with the organization’s medical team on the job Garcia should be ready to pitch in what — a week?  Of course shortly thereafter he’ll need major surgery.  Derrick Goold ripped on the medical team in his Postcards entry on Friday.  I don’t have a lot of faith in them.  I’m sure they are all very bright people but I’m not a fan of the way this team handles injuries.

“The day I pitched, I felt some soreness in there. And then after I pitched and the day after,” said Garcia, who made his 18th start of the season last Wednesday in Tulsa, pitching six innings. “We’ll just wait to see what happens. I’ve worked real hard.”

Personally, when something causes me pain, I try to replicate that situation again as soon as possible.  Seriously, WTF?  If he had pain on pitching day that was uncharacteristic, STOP THROWING.  For all I know, Garcia didn’t even tell Warner but this is not what I like to hear about a pitcher so I’m not sure where to assign the blame but there is plenty to go around.

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I’m not sure we gave this an entry but it deserves it.  Kevin Goldstein ranked Mark Hamilton #9 1B hitting prospect in the minors.  It’s behind the subscription window so just a bit of what he wrote:

A second-round pick out of Tulane last year, Hamilton’s power ranked with that anyone else in last year’s draft, and he was among the Florida State League home run leaders with 13 when he was pushed to Double-A, an aggressive assignment for a player in his first full year of play.

Hamilton did struggle once he got to Quad Cities last year posting a measly .680 OPS there.  He was moved up to Palm Beach despite that where he and Allen Craig made a nice power tandem at the corners.  Now in Springfield he seems to have found his groove as of late.  The other note of interest in Goldstein’s article is someone we were touting a long time ago here at FR — Brandon Buckman.  He’s someone Goldstein reccommends to keep an eye on, which we’ve already been doing:

[...] at six-foot-six and 210 pounds, he’s an eye-catching talent with plenty of power from the left side, but an approach that needs work.

I could have written those words myself.  I harped on his plate discipline while drooling over the power stats and keeping an eye on his age (23) relative to the level.  He’s been promoted to High-A where he’s hitting  .281/.315/.388/.703.   I actually find this line encouraging.  The power will come; I was far more worried about his hitting for average.  He still needs to work on his plate discipline but the .281 average is a good thing.