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Where they are now, Cardinals 2008 Top Prospects



I thought it would be fun to look back at the 2008 prospects list created in late 2007, just after the rule 5 draft by Futureredbirds readers and see where they are now.  This list is two years old so Wallace isn't on it, Kozmawas 11 (and I cropped it at 10 for now) and Morty was still new with Koz.  See the list after the jump.

All stats are from Fangraphs.com this morning.

Star-divide

Colby Rasmus: Currently the "starting" center fielder for the Cardinals, has a wOBA of .317 and a UZR/150 of 17.1 in CF and 16.9 overall

Jaime Garcia: Has 2 starts for Memphis so far and 6 total this year after coming off Tommy John.  Has allowed 8 ERs and has 32Ks and 8BBs over 27 IP.

Bryan Anderson:  Recently selected for the AFL and has been injured since June.  In his 3 rehab games he has a .460 wOBA over a very small sample size of 11 PAs.

Chris Perez: Now in the Indians' pen and is carrying a 3.69 FIP for the season while getting 11.10 K/9.  For a guy who was known for his fastball he has only a wFB of 3.6, though his "replacement" has a wFB of -6.3.  Good luck Chris I know it will be hard for some of us to let you go.

Adam Ottavino: Has a 4.48 FIP in 24 starts averaging over 5 IP per start.  Has a career low K/BB rate of 1.45 but is recovering from a 2008 campaign that saw a career high HR rate of 1.25, it is down to 0.70 this year which falls in lign with his 2007 numbers and even the small sample from 2006.  His BABIP is also down from .338 last year to .309 this year.  Nothing about this year is screaming "luck" to me and most of it is just a recovery from bad luck last year.  He seems to be mirroring his 2007 season in everything except BBs and Ks, he needs to get more Ks and lower his BB rate and I think he will be back on track.

Tyler Herron:  Been a Pirate since June of this year and hasn't pitched since July.  Has a FIP of 4.05 in 26 IP for the Pirates AA affiliate.

Clayton Mortensen: Made a start for the Athletics on the 8th and only went 4 innings with 8 ERs.  Other than that he has not experienced the same success with Oakland's AAA team as he did in Memphis this year.  His K/9 dropped from 7.03 to 5.33 and his BB/9 went up from 2.91 to 4.62.  Overall I think Mort will end up as a back of the rotation guy or a long reliever.  I had higher hopes for him when this list was created and had pictures dancing in my head of a guy much like what Joel has been this year.

Brian Barton:  This list was one of the few created post Rule V draft so Barton was actually ranked.  He has a wOBA of .333 for the BravesAAA team.  That for a guy with a UZR/150 of 48.4 in RF last year (small sample size but 21.5 overall). is still going to produce value.  Worst trade of Mo's tenure right now but in the end I don't know how much the system will feel it, though he would have been nice to have off the bench earlier in the season.

Mitchell Boggs: Has 7 big league starts this year with a FIP of 3.70...tell me how many of you thought his FIP was that low?  In Memphis he has a FIP of 4.46 which is more along the lines of what I would expect from him.  He also has an unreasonably high BABIP of .417 for the Cards and .343 for the Redbirds.  His FIP is aided by a unsustainably low HR/9 of .24 by far lower than his career rates.  He is walking more in the big leagues (5.68BB/9 combining 08 and 09) than he has in the minors (usually mid 3s or so and 3.77 this year).  He is still a serviceable 5th starter and is showing the ability to be more.

Allen Craig: wOBA of .393, 23 HRs, .902 OPS....sounds great!...oh but he has a .348 BABIP, 0.39BB/K and questionable defense at the hot corner and seems to be stuck in LF in this organization.  But as a RH "utility" guy capable of playing 3rd in a pinch and LF every so often he is a valuable commodity and should be playing in place of Thurston now that we have Lugo and Greene to back up 2B and 3B.

 

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Good rundown

Nice to know how people you once cheered for are doing, but how has Wallace been doing in Oakland?

Man, with this outfield, need to get rid of that Rasmus, no Ankiel, wait no, Rasmus wait...To hell with Ankiel FREE KOBE RAMSIS

by Taskmaster on Aug 26, 2009 10:01 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Has 7 HRs in half the games he took to get 6

has a .367 wOBA compared to a .339 with Memphis.

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 10:06 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

mashing :-(

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Aug 26, 2009 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

mort made a start for the indians?

Of course, hope means being cut down on some street corner, as you run like mad, by a random bullet.

by prophetjohn on Aug 26, 2009 10:04 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Yes

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 10:05 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Of oakland?

Shut up, Fritz™.

by Alxfritz on Aug 26, 2009 10:07 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

shit

thanks for catching that

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 10:08 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

ok fixed now

I was trying to make indians a link for Perez for the auto tagging and changed Oakland instead. Bah! stupid SBNation auto tagging.

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 10:10 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Why was trading Barton for Boyer

Mo’s worst trade? Boyer pitched fairly well here and is pitching fairly well for the D-backs now. If anything, giving up on Boyer when the team was about to trade Perez and Todd and was giving innings to Thompson was the mistake, particularly in light of Motte’s recent troubles.

by chuckb on Aug 26, 2009 12:42 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

In terms of value added

I just don’t see what value was added to the team with Boyer compared to the value Barton could have brought. What trade would you say is worse? He hasn’t made that many and while it was not a horrible trade it also seemed to be a short sighted one.

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

also Boyer... is not here anymore.

"It was like two ankles." AVENGE BOOG
"But listen, and understand: more Molinas are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear." - THT

by Yadi2Second on Aug 27, 2009 10:10 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I think you can argue that the Holliday trade is comfortably the worst trade made this season, in the whole of baseball

by anyone with a name that doesn’t rhyme with Cyan Babean.

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Aug 27, 2009 11:03 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

What would support that?

It is not a good long term trade for this team, but it also wasn’t worthless to the Cardinals either. I just feel like Boyer provided something we already had and while Barton was in a similar situation at the time it still provided nothing to the team in my eyes.

I know there is probably an arguement for the Holliday trade being “bad” but I just don’t get what the support for it would be.

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 27, 2009 11:22 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

There is still no evidence that Wallace will stick at 3B on a MLB roster

And it’s had to say that Holliday hasn’t played spectacularly whilst wearing the birds on bat.

They say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger...

by Valatan on Aug 27, 2009 10:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Lefty

Garcia “[h]as allowed 8 ERs and has 32Ks and 8BBs over 27 IP”? I have looked at his box scores but not his cumulative numbers. Those K and BB rates are very heartening. Maybe I should have cast a different vote over at Goold’s 10@10…

"I'm gonna throw the nastiest curveball I have ever thrown...if he hits it, I'll tip my cap, but if not we're going to the Series."

--Adam Wainwright on the final pitch of the 2006 NLCS

by bgh on Aug 26, 2009 2:26 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

I just summed up fangraphs totals for all 3 levels

4IP in Rookie ball, 12.2 in high A and 11 in AAA, 3, 16 and 13 for Ks and 1, 4, 3 for BBs, so alot of those were against rookie and high A level hitters, but the AAA numbers are still 11 IP, 13Ks and 3BBs

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 2:38 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

and for the record

I did vote for Garcia in the 10@10 poll today

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 2:39 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Call me a pessimist,

but I voted for WonderBrad.

"I'm gonna throw the nastiest curveball I have ever thrown...if he hits it, I'll tip my cap, but if not we're going to the Series."

--Adam Wainwright on the final pitch of the 2006 NLCS

by bgh on Aug 26, 2009 4:02 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Pretty high BABIP for Craig.

Any idea what his LD rate is?

Matt Holliday. Nuff said.

by SoonerfanTU on Aug 26, 2009 2:51 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

BTW Firstinnings.com is one more day up to date

and his BABIP is down 3 points to .345

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I never said I didn't care at all.....

But I don’t find it any where near as telling as alot of you folks do. What if you have a batter that is hitting weak grounders (b/c he is out in front), or popping the ball up a bunch. How does BABIP deal with that? It doesn’t. It leads fans to call him “unlucky”, when in fact, he isn’t hitting the ball hard enough to get it through the infield, ect.

I find the LD rate portion of BABIP to be a little helpful.

Matt Holliday. Nuff said.

by SoonerfanTU on Aug 26, 2009 3:11 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

LD Rate is not a portion of BABIP

and for those that look at it regularly it is a stat we look at too. BABIP is just an indicator of luck and things like LD rate, GB rate, etc. are things you have to use along with it. Fangraphs just doesn’t have minor league rates and I didn’t think about firstinnings when I made the post. So his BABIP may not be as “lucky” as it seems at first, but it does seem rather high at first glance.

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 3:21 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

if you use a babip calculator you can determine with some reliability what a player's babip

ought to be.

it involves taking the total # of GB, LD, FB, K’s, HR’s, etc. into account, so that the hitter’s proclivities get taken into account.

the truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark/ it scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark -- macmanus

by tom s. on Aug 26, 2009 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Is there a good webbased one?

I would be interested in what Craig’s expected BABIP is as compared to his actual.

"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."

by StLHugo on Aug 26, 2009 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

It will be higher

Just like all minor league players. And the batted ball data in the minors is shaky at best.

Smoltz.

by vivaelpujols on Aug 26, 2009 6:34 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

like VEP said, it's not reliable for minor leaguers, but you can get a good one

on-line. I downloaded this one. works pretty well.

or just google “xbabip calculator” and see what comes up.

the truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark/ it scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark -- macmanus

by tom s. on Aug 26, 2009 6:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I'm pretty sure BABIP is more luck-influence for pitchers than hitters

I seem to remember that almost all pitchers regress to pretty much the same BABIP, whereas each hitter tends to regress to his own BABIP (though extreme outliers in either case can obviously indicate luck as a factor)

by brackenthebox on Aug 26, 2009 4:03 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Regress to the mean over what time frame?

A week of games? A month? A season? A career?

Matt Holliday. Nuff said.

by SoonerfanTU on Aug 26, 2009 5:03 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

It'd be over several seasons.

Over single seasons, there’s a lot of variance from pitcher to pitcher, although I think the spread is only about 100 points.

The first thing that a pitcher has to understand is that Albert is better than you.-- Jim Palmer

by il rosso on Aug 26, 2009 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

It isn't really a matter of time, it's a matter of weight

Lets say I only know two things: a single pitcher’s BABIP for one year and the league average BABIP. If I want to predict the BABIP for that same pitcher for next year, I need a way of combining those two pieces of information. The statement that pitchers’ BABIPs regress to the league average basically means that I should place a lot more weight on the league average than on the pitchers BABIP for a single year. As you get more and more data about a pitcher, the ratio shifts. This piece suggests that you need 7 years worth of innings before a pitcher’s BABIP is predictive. The closest answer to your question is that everyone regresses to their own mean performance (i.e. talent level) immediately (within the bounds of random variation).

And by the way, I was supporting your statement that BABIP isn’t strictly a matter of luck for hitters (at least not as much as it is for pitchers).

by brackenthebox on Aug 26, 2009 5:42 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

it is at least partially luck...

if you look at two hitters who hit exactly the same set of batted balls over a two-week period, but one is facing the Rays over that period, and one is facing the D’Backs, the guy playing against Arizona is likely to have a higher BABIP due to making his hits against a weaker defensive outfit. That’s even before you consider the fact that, over a season, you only need a dozen or so hits to escape a glove to raise your average (or average-on-balls-in-play) quite a lot. I’d say two hitters can have identical seasons in terms of how hard they hit the ball, and how often, and still have very different BABIPs.

Obviously, it should regress to a hitter’s mean over time, but I think BABIP has to be impacted severely by luck, and by a greater degree in smaller and smaller samples.

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Aug 27, 2009 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Yes it is influenced by luck and small sample size

But not much more than any other stat, unlike pitcher BABIP, which is almost always luck.

Smoltz.

by vivaelpujols on Aug 28, 2009 6:48 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

pitcher babip is more defense-driven.

a pitcher plays a whole season with (mostly the same) defense behind him. a batter will face widely varying defenses, so the noise level is lower.

actually, I wonder if there’s not a good defense article in there. if you took a team babip against (the pitchers’ collective BABIPs), adjusted it for the GB/FB/LD proclivities of the pitchers, you should get a pretty good picture of team defense as a whole, yes? you’d have to figure out what the threshold sample size is for significance – how many games you needed to make the team BABIP against significant.

you could “test” the effectiveness of defensive metrics against that baseline. you’d expect a team with the highest total UZR score, say, to have the lowest adjusted BABIP against.

the truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark/ it scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark -- macmanus

by tom s. on Aug 26, 2009 6:51 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I really like that idea

I think it’d also give you a better clue than the (seemingly fairly subjective) views of mgl and the like on “how big a sample size you need for UZR to be vaguely descriptive, and then vaguely predictive” (i.e. if the BABIP over/under the mean, when translated to runs, correlates with the UZR run total, and, if so, how long it takes).

I can’t decide whether the positioning of the defence would have a large impact on this (AFAIK UZR doesn’t take into account the starting position of the defenders), and, if so, exactly what sort of impact it would have. My initial gut reaction is that BABIP should mirror “actual results” of a positioning-independent metric (like UZR) better than a metric that actually takes positioning into account (because, counter-intuitively, a metric that takes positioning of individual players into account will probably under-value the defense of the team, if the positioning is above-average, and vice versa if it’s below average).

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Aug 27, 2009 11:18 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

babip

is much more telling for pitchers than hitters. but when you look at babip in conjunction with gb, fb and ld% it can tell you a lot more than you might think for offensive players

Of course, hope means being cut down on some street corner, as you run like mad, by a random bullet.

by prophetjohn on Aug 26, 2009 11:41 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

BABIP is always high for minor leaguers due to crappy defense in the minors

And the batted ball data for them minors is very shaky, so using LD rate to gauge xBABIP is going to be a mistake. His career BABIP in minors is about .330, so it’s probably not luck, although it will probably drop once he gets to the majors and the defense is better. I’m not worried about it though.

And total zone doesn’t mind his defense either:

http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?pl=501800

Smoltz.

by vivaelpujols on Aug 26, 2009 6:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

from what I hear of his defence

he’s probably about average in LF and somewhat below-average (without being a complete butcher) at 3B. Therefore, probably ~ Mark DeRosa. I’m not convinced he’ll initially hit as well as DeRo, at least at first, in the majors, but you can make a pretty decent argument that he’s liable to be a fairly similar player.

I have more confidence in Craig than I do in Freese, personally.

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Aug 27, 2009 11:07 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I don't know

Craig looks like a very good hitter, but Freese seems like a really good defender. His preseason projections (I know, I know) were for +10 defense.

Smoltz.

by vivaelpujols on Aug 28, 2009 6:49 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

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