Kinda quiet on the news front with Opening Day right around the corner. This will be the last of the Cardinal’s spring training farm reports (for which we thank John Vuch) until the season picks up in the very near future. Don’t read into who was on what team in tonight’s report — it’s largely a matter of finding specific players at bats and not a function of where they’ll actually be this season.
Palm Beach 5, Memphis 3
The benches cleared in the 8th inning. Not due to a fight though, a swarm of bees came in and chased the players out. Dyar Miller was the only victim suffering a beesting on his finger. Flowers and condolences can be sent to … I kid, I kid.
Palm Beach
- Matt Clement makes an appearance throwing 3.2 innings allowing 5 hits and striking out 2.
- Mitchell Boggs, Jason Motte and Josh Dew followed up with 3.1 scoreless innings.
- Tommy Pham took Braden Looper deep.
- Tyler Henley had a single, SB and a pair of RBIs.
Memphis
- Braden Looper went 6.1 innings allowing 7 hits and 3 runs (2 earned). He struck out 3 and walked 2. Nice to see him go deep in the game, but beyond Wainwright and Lohse, I have no faith in the Cardinals starting pitchers this year. It’s entirely possible that they could get replacement level production (combined) from everyone outside of the two I mentioned.
- Cliff Politte pitched 1 inning with 1 hit, 1 ER and a strikeout. Is it a nostalgia thing with Politte for the organization? Because I don’t see any real reason to give him innings at Memphis. Do the Cardinals really think he’s going to provide something that one of Perez, Motte or Worrell won’t?
- Speaking of which, Mark Worrell recorded 5 outs (3 were strikeouts) against 2 hit. Chris Perez was perfect for an inning striking out 1.
- Josh Phelps was 2-for-3 with a double and a homerun.
- Nick Stavinoha was 2-for-3. Any chance he makes himself into a viable platoon outfielder? He’s got a limited timetable to do so.
Extended Spring Training 4, Quad Cities 1
Extended Spring Training
- Clayton Mortensen threw 4.2 innings with just 1 unearned run on 2 hits. He did walk 3 batters against 3 strikeouts.
- Jess Todd struck out 1 in a perfect inning.
- Chris Gibson was 2-for-4 with a double.
- Mateo Marquez was 3-for-3 with a double.
- Osvaldo Morales also had a double. Keep an eye on Morales this year. He hit .290/.377/.542 for the GCL team spending most of his time at 1B.
Quad Cities
- Blake Hawksworth had a rough outing. He pitched 5 innings allowing 8 hits and 3 runs (2 earned). He only struck out 1 batter.
- Brad Furnish and Shaun Garceau both threw perfect innings striking out 1 and 2, respectively.
- Domnit Bolivar and Jose Garcia were both 2-for-3 with a triple and a double, respectively.
- I like to use the word respectively, respectively.
- Pete Kozma found the fastest way to my prospecting heart — he walked 3 times.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Keep the faith on the Redbird starters, Azru. Even in his “bad” year last season, Brad Thompson was a couple notches above replacement level. Wellemeyer was too wild in Spring Training I’ll grant you, but he was *very* effective last year after working with Dave Duncan–I expect an ERA around 4.00 for him, with 5 1/2 to 6 innings per start. Looper? Your guess is as good as mine. Pineiro is on course for a mid-to-late April return, and he had a sub-4.00 ERA for the Cards in 2007 (with an excellent K/BB ratio of 40/12). He should be a solid addition; why would he regress from last year?
I’m not AZ, but Pineiro will likely regress because A) last year was an outlier, not the norm for Joel. B) He’s nursing some injury issues.
AZRU or ERIK-
I see AZRU likes guys who walk. I was wondering how much of walks do you consider luck? For example there are times during the year where a guy walks on 4 straight pitches. I consider that more luck than anything. I also wonder about walking on 5 pithes being just merley luck. Has anyone ever done a breakdown on how many walks are good vs. luck?
what do you think? Just someother stat to ponder.
I would think over time those occurances would become statistically insignificant.
Two quick thoughts - 1) If a batter gets walked on 4 straight pitches it’s probably more a function of the pitcher at that moment than the hitter but you still have to have a batter that won’t just hack at anything. 2) The year to year correlations on OBP aren’t great — other derived stats are better — but it’s an improvement over batting average and the like.
Players with decent thoughtful approaches at the plate don’t just suddenly lose those approaches, on balance. It would be interesting to see if there’s any correlation between 4 pitch walks and career walk rates for batters.
Thanks for the response, Erik. I guess I look at Pineiro and (given his relative youth) see a return to his good-to-outstanding form in Seattle as a plausibility. Especially given Dave Duncan’s stellar history with veteran righties….