Joe Mather gets a call to the big leagues. Unfortunately, it’s the same call the Chris Perez got initially — one that’s rescinded a little while later. That’s not a dig at the Cardinal’s front office but kudos to Mather for not getting too bummed about it or at least not letting it affect his play.
Mather, along with a few other minor leaguers, get mentioned in Goold’s PostCards entry. I continue to be confused by the teams logic regarding Mather. I don’t think Brian Barton is the roadblock at all. They have disparate skill sets. The only real commonality is what side of the plate they hit from. The roadblock, imo, is Chris Duncan. I don’t know if Mather is as good as Duncan but, right now, Duncan has a .273 EQA and Mather’s translated EQA is .318. Combine that with the fact that Mather plays better defense and you could make an argument that he’s the better of the two. I’m not sure that’s a position I’d take personally but I do think the club should make an effort to turn Duncan into a middle infielder that can help the team.
Matthew Leach’s mailbag on Jess Todd:
This e-mail was sent in April, and since then Todd has received a promotion to Double-A Springfield and has kept rolling. His last outing was his best at Double-A, going seven one-hit innings with four strikeouts and no earned runs. Todd is rising quickly, and he’s definitely one of the more promising arms in the system. I like his chances quite a bit, even as a not-very-tall right-hander.
Here’s a player I need to see personally. Reports at draft time were that he had the fastball-slider combination to make it to the majors quickly as a reliever. Now he’s in AA and showing up the Cardinal’s first rounder Clayton Mortensen. I wonder if his command was better than expected or if he developed another pitch. A very interesting pitcher. . .
Springfield Cardinals to get back to the basics.
Standings:
- Memphis 27-25, .519, W1 - first in division
- Springfield 23-25, .460, W3 - third in division 4 games back
- Palm Beach 30-20, .600, L1 - first in division
- Quad Cities 26-23, .531, W1 - 4th in division 10 games back
The Palm Beach Cardinals are off but everyone else decided to win on Memorial Day — Hooray! David Freese has a big night for Memphis, Jose Martinez makes some noise and a lineup card error makes for a crazy start in QC.
- Jarrett Hoffpauir was in the leadoff spot and went 1-for-4 with a walk.
- D’Angelo Jimenez goes 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.
- Colby Rasmus was 1-for-3 with a homerun and a walk.
- David Freese had a big night for the Redbirds going 3-for-4 with a double and a HR. He racked up 6 RBI on the night. He’s hitting an underwhelming .272/.322/.456, which isn’t bad for a player who skipped AA, but the 43 strikeouts to 12 BBs tells me he might be a bit overmatched at the moment.
- While he doesn’t really constitute a major league pitcher anymore, the damage was all done against Jeff Weaver over the course of 6 innings.
- PJ Walters, meanwhile, had his best AAA outing of the season. He only went 5 innings but he struck out 9 and walked just 1 while allowing 7 hits and 3ER. Walters needs to make some adjustments to avoid being labeled another Yusemiro Petit. His walks are up, HRs are up, opponents are hitting over .300 against him and he’s not going deep into games. He is still striking out batters and getting groundouts (actually at a higher clip than AA) so there’s some good indicators as well. Hopefully, tonight he starts to turn it around.
- Matt Scherer threw 2 innings allowing just 1 hit.
- Jason Motte got touched up for 2 hits, 2 walks and a run while striking out just 1 in an inning of work.
Springfield 4, Corpus Christi 2
- Shane Robinson goes 2-for-5.
- Jose Martinez goes 2-for-3 with a HR. He also committed two errors.
- Mark Shorey went 2-for-4.
- Kyle Sadlowski was good in his start going 3.2 innings. He allowed 1 hit, 1ER and 2 walks against 2 strikeouts.
- Luke Gregerson seems to have things back on track after a DL stint earlier in the year. He struck out 4 in 2 innings allowing just 1 hit.
- Fernando Salas may have usurped the closer’s role though as he pitched the 9th allowing a solo HR and striking out 1. It was his 4th save.
- Pete Kozma went 2-for-4 with a walk.
- Charles Kingrey went 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.
- Paul Vazquez went 2-for-4 with a triple and a walk.
- Domnit Bolivar went 2-for-4 with a double.
- Eduardo Sanchez picked up the win pitching 5 innings. He allowed 5 hits, 2 runs and 1 walk while striking out 3. Be sure to check out the recap of what happened to start the game with Thomas Eager.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
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I assume you meant “turn Mather into a middle infielder…”
I’m sure it was a “slip of the tongue” but I’m dying here over the idea of Duncan at shortstop.
I’m not sure Chris as a middle infielder could EVER help the team.
I keed.
That would be a sight to behold. They had him taking groundballs at 3B a few weeks back and I cringed at that thought. Think of him at SS. Yikes.
When I say “turn him into a middle infiedler”, I meant trade Chris Duncan for a middle infielder.
We need Dunc to hit well this summer to boost his trade value. Dunc is one of the best trading assets we have, so we do not just want to dump him. We may need to trade him in future.
Mather is gaining useful experience at AAA.
Loving the success Scherer’s having at AAA. Thought it was a shame he didn’t start the season there over the likes of Politte, Jimenez, et. al..
I would think that the Rays might be interested in Duncan if he can get going, they are finally in position to take a shot and currently giving some DH ABs to the corpse of Cliff Floyd.
Baby step to Mario Mendoza, Colby.
I’m starting to get worried about Motte. He’s had three bad outings in a row.
Do you think a Reyes for Lillibridge baseline with “other parts” headed the Braves way would be doable? Seems to me that would be decent bones for a deal. Heck, at this point I’d gladly trade Duncan and Reyes for Lillibridge. Do you think the Braves would take us up on it.
+1 on Motte. Got to wonder what’s going on. Scherer is just a steady son of a gun isn’t he? Here’s hoping he at least makes it up when rosters expand…
>I don’t think Brian Barton is the roadblock at all. They have disparate skill sets. The only real commonality is what side of the plate they hit from. The roadblock, imo, is Chris Duncan.
It doesn’t matter that they have disparate skill sets, because Barton and Schumaker have the same skill set. As long as we’ve got one of them to back up all three outfield positions and come in for defensive purposes, it’s not a necessity that we keep the other. Duncan is better than Barton has shown himself to be, and better than what I suspect Schumaker’s true talent is.
Mather needs to get a longer look than we can get him in September, but to get it for him we need to move whichever outfielder makes the most sense in isolation. If an AL team places a lot of value in Duncan, move him. If someone thinks Schumaker is the answer in center and wants to compensate us appropriately, him. If it comes to just cutting someone loose, Barton is the obvious choice unless they think he’s got a future significantly brighter than Duncan’s or Schumaker’s.
The other alternative is the one they seem to be leaning towards: Letting Mather tear up the PCL and giving him his chance in the big leagues next year when Barton can be sent down. I personally disagree with this as long as the Cardinals are in contention, but maybe they think more of Barton than I do.
It’s getting to the point where I just assume Shane Robinson went 2-5 the night before.
Completely agreed re: Duncan and Mather. It makes all the sense in the world to flip Dunc for value and put Mather in his spot. Question though - do you include Kennedy/Izturis in the trade or release/bench one and demote Ryan?
-RBB
It’s very interesting that Brian Barton is being thrown under the bus by some fans even though he STILL doesn’t have 200 PA above AA.
Schumaker, as the season wears on, will continue to reveal himself for what he is: not very good. If the team could some how move him NOW while his value is somewhat high, I’d have a great deal more respect for Mozeliak.
The problem with Duncan is that he isn’t producing enough to be at peak trade value. To move him now, the Cardinals can only market him as a 1B/DH (as he has been a butcher) and hope some team sees what he has done over the last two years (when healthy) as opposed to his struggles early this year.
Duncan has options and he could be sent down to Memphis ‘to get himself right’. Of course, they will never do this. He has to stay up with Uncle Tony. If he went down to Memphis and struggled, he may never see the big leagues again. So, he has to be left on the big league team, take at-bats away from Barton and Ludwick while they let him sort all of this out.
I’ve never believed that Chris played because of nepotism. He’s got too much talent. However, I do believe that personel moves involving Chris now may involve that to an extent.
Mortensen has acquitted himself quite well in AA.
It’s too late to expect much of Dunc in the way of trade value; his limitations have been exposed all too clearly. Jocketty should have moved him a year and a half ago — a perfect example of Rickey’s dictum that it is better to make a deal a year too early than a year too late.
This leads to the inescapable conclusion that any deals transacted from here on out are going to have to involve trading away some minor-league talent. I’m curious: given what we’re seeing of the ever-expanding pool of Cardinals prospects, who do you think we would miss the least, yet would bring something appealing in a trade? You’re going to hate me for this, but I think a reasonable case can be made that the answer is — Joe Mather.
It seems like a no-brainer to send Duncan down and bring Mather up. I hadn’t even thought of it, until reading this thread, but it’s the ideal solution, because it would give Mather an opportunity to show if he’s ready, while giving Duncan an opportunity to get healthy in the likely event that Mather needs more time in Memphis.
I know I’m just repeating what everyone here already knows, but it’s worth repeating, imo.