The GCL team finished up it’s season Monday, so I thought it would be as good of time as any to start a new series you’ll being seeing more of in the near future as we recap each team’s season.
Wrap after the jump.
The league: Since the Gulf Coast League Cardinals are new this year, I thought it probably would be helpful for some of you to a little background on the GCL. Unlike other minor league leagues like the Midwest League or the NY Penn League, GCL teams are owned by their parent clubs. The play their games at the Spring Training complexes of their parent clubs, in the Cardinal’s case that of course would be Roger Dean. (Here’s an excellent view from Google Earth from the sky of the complex, in case you’ve never been and would like a peek.) The games have little to no spectators, and are more for younger players and recent draftees. They do have a playoff at the end of the season. There are three divisions, the North, East and South. The division champion with the best record gets a bye into the best-of-three finals, with the other two squaring off in a one-game playoff. This year, the Yankees won the GCL playoffs. Yankees win! Yankees win! Tha’a'a’a'a’a'a’a'a Yankees win! ( Sorry, I heard that in my head whenever I typed “Yankees win”. John Sterling, I do loath thee. I will now proceed to stab my brain through my ear with a Q Tip.)
The Team: The team’s record was 24-30, good for third place in the GCL East and 15.5 games back from the GCL Dodgers, who had an astounding .727 win percentage. They scored just 233 runs, 14th (out of 16) in the league and allowed 275 runs, 6th most in the league. One thing they did well was strike batters out, with 483 K’s in 452.2 innings. That’s a K/9 rate of 9.24, good for 1st in the league.
The Players: As we look at the players, here are the leaders of the team in several statistical categories:
Hitters-
- Highest batting average: D’Marcus Ingram .325.
- OBP: D’Marcus Ingram .430.
- SLG: Osvaldo Morales .542, 4th in the GCL.
- OPS: Osvaldo Morales .926, 6th in the GCL.
- xBH%: Edgar Lara 46%.
- HR: Edgar Lara, Osvaldo Morales tie w/8.
- ISO: Osvaldo Morales .252.
- Nancy Limpwrist: (lowest ISO) Frederick Parejo .026.
- Stolen Bases: D’Marcus Ingram 17.
- BB/K or batting eye: D’Marcus Ingram 19/15, or 1.27:1.
- David Eckstein Scrappy Pest Award (Hardest to K): Ingram 10.4%
- Russ Branyan Free Swinger Award: Edgar Lara 15/55 BB/K, 31% K per plate appearance.
- Patience, my young apprentice: Guillermo Toribio 15.5% walk rate.
- Whoa look at the wOBA (Measure of overall plate production): Osvaldo Morales .393. 2nd place is D’Marcus Ingram with .375.
I’d have to say the 20 year Morales was the team’s most valuable hitter, and was promoted to Johnson City on the 15th. His strikeout rate is a little alarming but he’s demonstrated some real power and decent plate discipline. The other standout here is the 19 year old Ingram, who was one of the last Cardinal draft and follows. He certainly fits the lead off hitter mold well. The 18 year old Lara is as raw as you can get but has some pretty big power potential.
Pitchers-
- ERA: Reynier Gonzalez 1.01.
- FIP, or how you’re fielding or lack thereof ain’t my problem: Deryk Hooker 1.92.
- You must WHIP it: Carlos Gonzalez 1.12.
- Control artist (K/BB): Hooker 4.27.
- ‘When Joe Buck Says “swing and a miss” it’s Like Velvet Mixed with Peanut Butter Award’: Hooker struck out 35.9% of the batters he faced. Honorable mention to Mike Blazek, who fanned 28.2% of the batters he faced.
- Wormburner: Reynier Gonzalez. 58% of his BIP were grounders.
- No free passes: Carlos Gonzalez walked only 8% of the batters he faced.
This lucky group got to work with 4 time All Star Dennis Martinez, El Presidente himself. They seemed to have benefited, demonstrated by all the K’s. 7th rounder Deryk Hooker had a sensational debut and looks to be the best of the group. Fellow high school draftee Mike Blazek doesn’t look far behind, either. The Gonzalez duo looked pretty sharp as well, Carlos, a Panamanian, was one of the better pitchers who played in the DSL last season. The Venezuelan Reynier was roughed up in Johnson City, he came over from the VSL and had pretty rotten control but seems to have righted the ship. Both are just 19.
Out of the entire team, Hooker strikes me as the brightest prospect, followed by Morales. I’m told Lara has a lot of upside, but of course will have to cut down the K’s.
Filed under: GCL Cardinals, Season Wrap Ups
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
FYI, It’s John Sterling, not Michael Kay who does the silly Yankees Win thing.
How many teams are in the GCL and how many are in each division? Without knowing that their rankings don’t mean much to me 14th out of 30 ain’t bad but 14th out of 16 is just plain dreadful.
Bret–i am the lord of mistakes lately. i think i knew that. it’s not like i’m tuning into the yankess a lot. waldman, sterling, kay all are pretty annoying.
Hugo, it’s 16 teams.
Our team was hovering around .500 until they went 2-8 down the stretch, finishing with three losses.
Our teams in the Dominican and Venezuela were terrible as well. In fact, all five short-season teams had losing records. I don’t know if that means anything, especially when you consider how the Cards shuffled guys through those teams this summer.
But it might indicate that breadth doesn’t equate to depth — the Latin American signees give us lots more guys in the system, but not many appear to be genuine prospects.
Other than the Gonzales’s , all the latin prospects seem rather unimpressive. The only other good players from the team were ameericans -D’Marcus Ingram, Deryk Hooker and Mike Blazek.
Hooker and Blazek….sounds like a detective show.
Lara had 8 Hr
Morales had 11 between GCL and JC
edgar lara is the latin version of jon edwards.
i really like the young pitching that team had this year. hooker, blazek, zawacki, and the gonzalez brothers.
d’marcus ingram looks like an exciting leadoff prospect. he doesn’t have much power, but he walked more than he struck out, hit for a great average, and stole a lot of bases. it will be interesting to see where he goes next year and how he does.
lara, jairo martinez and parejo i understand were signed for considerable bonuses. all are pretty young, their tools could turn into game. lara has shown some pretty + power. i think with some time and investment latin america will start cranking out prospect in the cardinals favor. let’s not forget that jose martinez and elvis hernandez were both signed as free agents from there, both have found varying degrees of success, and both i would call interesting prospects.