Amaury Marti is currently hitting .424/.509/.633 in 39 games for the Mexican Red Devils of the Mexican League, also known as Liga de Amaury Cazana. Bud Selig ordered the Cardinals to banish him to there, in fear of the major leagues losing competitive balance.
Amaury also refuses to accept the watch curse. He has the power to curse, and the power to bless.
FirstInning.com: St. Louis Cardinals Daily Report
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84 losses assures the Cardinals will be picking #13 in the 2008 Rule IV draft. I guess that is the bright side you can look at now that this awful season is over. Will Aaron Crow still be on the board at 13? Eh, probably not.
Filed under: 2008 MLB draft | Tagged: 2008 draft
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erik
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Geez. It feels like we should have been higher than that after this season. I guess it goes to show that even when it’s an off year for the Cardinals they’re still better than 12 other teams. . .
I hope at some point you guys will profile the last several players selected #13 in the draft. It’s been a long time since we drafted so high and it makes me hopeful we might be able to add an impact player.
Would have liked to finish at #11, where we sat early last week before losing ground to Texas and Oakland.
I dont mind the A’s being in front of us, they will cherrypick the 3 and 4 year college players who are safer picks and some who will sign for less the slot. So that takes away 1 of those players a round from the Cards…that I like.
Since the Cards love the 3 yr college RHP sinker baller….I have my early money on Zach Putnam from Michigan.
Over at Cardstalk we thru together some quick top 13 players at the moment..very early but would love to bump this on draft day and see just how much its changed.
1. Pedro Alvarez (Alex Gordon Part Deux)
2. Justin Smoak (Chipper Jones Jr.)
3. Brian Matusz (Buehlre with a plus fastball)
4. Tim Beckam (smooth, Hanely Ramirez clone)
5. Tim Melhville (Rich Porcello Lite?)
6. Yonder Alonso (Seriously is his bat MLB ready now?)
7. Aaron Crow (3 pitch RHP with a sinker, Cards heaven)
8. Brett Wallace (Looks like a beer leaguer, but hits like Thome)
9. Aaron Hicks (Probably the most gifted athlete in the draft)
10. Lance Lynn (just a horse, I mean a horse)
11. Harold Martinez (Slick fielder with huge bat potential at 2B,SS or 3B)
12. Zack Putnam (Sinker dominating pitcher with big stick)
13. Kyle Skipworth (Sweet swinging LH hitting catcher with power)
Would love for the Cards to stay local and end up with either Mehlville or Crow….both are likely candidates as long as they dont sign with Boras.
I’m hoping Melville has a rough season this coming year and loses a little of his luster so the Cards can snap him up in June. Ah, who am I kidding? They would pass.
Hopefully this clears the path for signing Arod or some other type A free agents. We would only have to give up Round 2 pick 13 talent and with a virtually infinite sandwhich round, that’s not so much…
I’m not really a big Aaron Crow guy, mainly because he hasn’t shown that he can dominate college hitters as he’s struckout less than 7 per 9 in his first 2 seasons in college. I know the projection is there but I would just like to see the results too. I would like to see his splits (GB%) but unfortunately that is unavailable.
So my hope for the #13 pick would be the hometown kid (well sort of because he’s from Virginia) out of Wentzville in Tim Melville.
http://www.aflacallamerican.com/2007/Roster/index.cfm?id=193
Some 13th overall picks from recent years:
2000: Shaun Boyd (Cardinals 13th overall pick after our last losing season now in AAA for Phi)
2001: Casey Kotchman
2002: Khalil Greene
2003: Aaron Hill
2004: Bill Bray
2005: Brandon Snyder
2006: Tyler Colvin
I forgot to say anything about those players. Besides Greene none of those have made a big impact at the major league level. But all have been surrounded by good players, in 2000 some players taken later then 13th include Utley and Wainwright in 01 you have Bonderman, Lowry and Wright after 13. It almost seems like 13th might be a cursed pick (oh you superstitious baseball folk) so it will be interesting to see what they do get next season.
Had the opportunity to see Crow pitch 3 times last year for Mizzou and came away impressed (with the exception of the Louisville CWS DEBACLE!!!…but that was on 3 days rest, so I’ll try to forget that disaster). If memory serves, he threw in the 92-93 range with the fastball…a few touching 94…and he kept the ball down in the strike zone, consistent with the sinker-baller description. While he was MU’s best starter, he didn’t go very deep in his games and I wouldn’t have called him an “ace” last year (he just didn’t compare after seeing Max Scherzer pitch for several years…that may be an unfair comparison, though). All in all, I never came away from any MU game thinking to myself the kid is clearly a first rounder. However, from keeping up with the Cape, he surprisingly put it all together, and I was thrilled to see him reported throwing in the 93-96 range (a few touching 98 mph) and his final ERA of 0.67 still amazes me. I also remember reading he was voted the top prospect award from the CCL and that some scouts were saying “if the draft were tomorrow, he’d go #1 overall”. Hmmm…
…while those are mind-boggling stats from a greatly respected developmental league, I’ll be holding off with 1st-rounder “dominant ace” praise until I see him pitching against Big XII talent…and I hope the hype is commensurate with the output at that point. That’d be great if he turned into a dominant big conference college ace in his junior year, anchoring MU’s way to a title and the CWS…but in truth, I don’t remember him finishing off many games last year (just looked it up…he had 2 CGs in 18 starts last year)…and he routinely came out in the 6th/7th. Hopefully that is a correctable endurance issue. Anyway, I am fairly enthusiastic about seeing him pitch again and watching the MU offense backing him, but I’ve been down this road many times with Mizzou athletics and remain slightly skeptical in the back of my mind. Mentally, I still can’t get past the dodging of line drives off of Louisville bats this spring when we had everything on the line and a trip to Omaha in our sights. In happy ending world, Crow will go 15-2 for MU, I apologize for my hesitation regarding his abilities, we go to Omaha in the CWS, and the Cards snatch the kid up in the 1st and he doesn’t blow his arm out in the first two years in the organization.
The 13th picks since
2006 - Tyler Colvin
2005 - Brandon Snyder
2004 - Bill Bray
2003 - Aaron Hill
2002 - Khalil Greene
2001 - Casey Kotchman
2000 - Shaun Boyd (CARDS)
1999 - Mike Paradis
1998 - J.M. Gold
1997 - Kyle Peterson
1996 - Robert Stratton
1995 - Mark Redman
1994 - Paul Konerko
1993 - Matt Drews
1992 - Chad McConnell
1991 - Manny Ramirez
1990 - Donovan Osborne
shaun boyd…shudder. manny ramirez…giddy.
Odds are, the 13th pick in the first round gives us our choice of almost all the future major leaguers in any given draft.
I went through some BA almanacs, and just randomly looked at the 2002 draft.
Khalil Greene, as noted above, was the #13 pick, which was a fine choice. But Scott Kazmir, Cole Hamels, and Matt Cain went 15, 17, and 25. We’d all be happy with an equivalent player at #13. (I know I would!)
We know our current brain trust has no fear of making picks based on their own criteria, no matter what anyone else thinks of the players in question.
We just don’t have enough data yet to know if they’re picking the right guys based on the right criteria, or the wrong guys based on misguided methods of evaluation.
2006 was the first year they had a mid-first-round pick to work with, and it’s way too early to know how well they used it.
On the bright side, nobody’s comparing Pete Kozma to Shaun Boyd, so I guess we can take that a sign we’re moving in the right direction.
here’s my top 13 from that cards talk thread
1. pedro alvarez (best position prospect since mark teixeira)
2. brian matusz (polished lefty with good stuff, should fly through a system)
3. aaron crow (righty with plus fastball and good command)
4. tim melville (hometown kid is best pitcher in high school class)
5. tim beckham (dynamic do it all shortstop)
6. yonder alonso (draft’s best pure hitter isn’t hurting for pop either)
7. harold martinez (solid bat and can play anywhere in the infield)
8. justin smoak (huge power from both sides of the plate, questionable pure hitting skills)
9. christian friedrich (zito-esque curve, average fastball)
10. gerrit cole (high school righty with big time upside)
11. tyson ross (lean and athletic college hurler with room to add more to a 91-93 mph fastball)
12. eric hosmer (slugging high school first baseman)
13. scott green (huge righty with power stuff)
re: Picklefork
I don’t know anything about any of those guys, but would be willing to draft Yonder Alonso based on his name alone.
That’s probably why I don’t work for the Cardinals scouting and player development department.
Maybe we should look at BA’s list of the top 30-60 players in the draft to see who the cards are going to tab at the #13 slot.
Sadly, Chris, that appears to be an accurate way to look at it. I just kind of think they are not interested in gambling top-round money on such a high-risk thing as an amatuer player. They had many chances to do so last year (some top-15 talent slipped very far), and didn’t pull the cord….not sure why they would be any more inclined to do so this year.
The situation in 2008 is the kind of one that makes me wish MLB would trade draft picks…let the Cards get some value back for Pick #13, then wait and grab the 30-th ranked player at spot #30 (instead of at 13).
shhh, i would agree with you on crow and his low strikeout levels in college, but he did strike out a pretty good number in the cape cod league with 36 in 40.1 innings. now usually i want a guy to strikeout at least a batter an inning in college, but his other numbers were just so dominant this summer (19 hits allowed, 9 walks, 0.67 ERA) that i can excuse the lower strikeout rate. one more thing that helps me forgive it a little is that strikeout rate is used to judge stuff, and by all accounts he has plenty of stuff.
Guys with good stuff who dont pile up K’s really worry me…..Jeff Smarzjida for one and the Cards very own David Kopp.
I think if you look at current MLB’ers who were college pitchers…I would say for the most part the good ones all had 9+ K’s per 9 while in the NCAA.
Just a guess on my part of course,…but K’s per 9 is one of the biggest stats I look at when evaluating amateur pitchers…b/c many things can be altered by team, like ERA and W/L..
K’s per 9 to me…equals stuff.
Just a couple I found
Last year in college K’s per 9IP
Tim Hudson 12.58
Brandon Webb 9.88
Justin Verlander 12.86
Tom Gorzelanny 7.97
Joe Blanton 8.38
John Maine 9.86
Draftee’s
David Kopp 6.77
Jeff Samardzija 5.62
Joba Chamberlain 10.28
Tim Lincecum 14.29
I know its all subjective and there are many layers to this kinda study…but I think K’s per 9IP in college is important…especially for RHP.
Sorry forget add this, the whole point of the discussion.
Aaron Crow 6.91 K’s per 9IP in 2007
i’ve got all of the top guys strikeout numbers, but it won’t let me post it for some reason
K/9 is also probably the first thing i look at with a pitcher, but i am not going to put too much weight into his sophomore year stats. if he still isn’t striking guys out next year then i will start to move him down. pickle, i know zach putnam is one of your favorites, but he wasn’t even close to a strikeout an inning, he only had 87 in 102.1 innings and its not like he had great control either as he walked 38.
here are some strikeout rates for other top pitchers
brian matusz 163 K’s in 123 innings
christian friedrich 101 K’s in 81.2 innings
lance lynn 146 K’s in 123.1 innings
tyson ross 120 K’s in 115.2 innings
shooter hunt 104 K’s in 99.2 innings
aaron shafer 90 K’s in 84.2 innings
jacob thompson 101 K’s in 114 innings
brett hunter 76 K’s in 82.1 innings
scott green 20 K’s in 17.2 innings (coming off tommy john)
i broke it up a little bit and it worked, here is the rest
obviously matusz, lynn, and friedrich are the most impressive (need to remember that friedrich is facing inferior competition in the OVC). guys like ross, hunt, and shafer are solid. thompson shows why i am not a big fan of his. sure he puts up fantastic ERA’s, but he doesn’t strike out anyone and that is b/c his stuff is pretty average. something that doesn’t show up with hunter is his huge walk total and that with his stuff and lack of control you would think he would strike out more guys. he seems a lot like mark mccormick to me. there isn’t enough to go on with green.