Cards Top-21

Talk about the Cardinals minor league baseball
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Bo Hart
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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by Bo Hart »

phins,

What sort of impact do you think Luhnow leaving have on the system? Was the foundation and philosophy he instilled left largely in place, or was it a big blow to the organization? It does seem like we had a long string of success under his watch, and I'm wondering what you think his departure means for the team.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by phins »

Kantrovitz is a great hire. Smart guy, analytical, they'll still use the computer model to evaluate prospects and they'll continue to be fairly conservative.

It's funny, we used to complain about the strategy of loving college All-Stars who fared well in summer wood bat leagues (especially Cape All-Stars), and want them to continue with that same strategy.

Luhnow instilled a system and the Cards scouts do a great job of scouting. Remember, after the first few rounds, the picks are really more about our scouts rather than the director of player personnel/scouting etc. The system lives on and is Luhnow's greatest legacy rather than him solely being the genius that architected it all.

The stability and foundation is strong and the player development is second to none.

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Felix The Cat
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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by Felix The Cat »

Thanks again for putting all this together, phins!

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pioneer98
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Re: Top-21 (17-21 +)

Post by pioneer98 »

phins wrote:Do you agree the fact that they didn't send him to AFL says a lot about they feel about him? They also didn't invite him to minor league camp you'll read about soon (forget which prospect I wrote about that).
Yeah, I see that. I also have seen a lot of Colin Walsh and Cody Stanley. They both got AFL invitations. I'm pretty surprised that they see more potential than those two guys than Garcia.

Walsh had great numbers at QC this year, but he's 3 years older than Garcia. And Stanley had a .701 OPS at Palm Beach.

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JoeMcKim
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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by JoeMcKim »

Cody Stanley has already been down in the minors for 4 seasons and is only to A+ level, doubt he ever develops into much more then a backup C.

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Re: Top-21 (17-21 +)

Post by jerbyrd25 »

Fat Strat wrote:Oh, and Ramsey looks worse than I thought. I was hoping for Jay, but he really looks like Skip. Even in his swing.
I have to disagree on Ramsey being compared to Schumaker. There was a poster over at Future Redbirds that had some comments that I'll quote to show what I am talking about:

There’s no reason on Heaven or Earth to slap a Schumaker or Jay comp on Ramsey. When Jay played college with the superbats, he never even posted an isolated slugging of .160; Ramsey’s was nearly .300 this year, and .230 each of the two preceeding seasons.

Moreover, and this is the big one for me, Ramsey retained his power when playing with wooden bats last summer on the Cape. Best ISO in that league, folks. More power than Shaffer or Roache, and far more than Piscotty.

Schumaker? The guy had one year of college ball, and his isolated slugging barely scraped the century mark. Skip has been small and punchless for-e-ver. Ramsey is neither. He ain’t *big*, but he is not small.

People talk about FSU’s stadium distorting his numbers…but according to collegesplits.com, once we adjust for home park AND difficulty of schedule, Ramsey’s OPS actually goes UP, from 1.165 to 1.171.

By the way, Ramsey also led the entire Cape Cod League in highest percentage of walks, and overall OPS.

People downgrade his speed…but he had 6 triples and grounded into ONE double play in 67 games. Sounds like a guy who runs very well to me.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by jerbyrd25 »

I do, however, feel like Ramsey is accurately ranked on this list. I just don't agree with the write-up.

In the others of note, shouldn't Starlin Rodriguez, .815 OPS in A+, get a mention? Where would he fall?

Also, what are your thoughts on Dixon Llorens, 15.5 K/9 rate in the minors?

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Bo Hart
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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by Bo Hart »

phins wrote:Luhnow instilled a system and the Cards scouts do a great job of scouting. Remember, after the first few rounds, the picks are really more about our scouts rather than the director of player personnel/scouting etc.
So with that in mind, how much of a trickle-down effect do you think the scouting director has on those underneath him? Does he provide a general archetype of player for the scouts do look for, or are they doing this mostly-independently? Guys like Craig (8th round), Carpenter (13th), Rosenthal (21st), Adams (23rd), Jaime (22nd) -- is it just a coincidence that they were drafted during Luhnow's tenure, or do you give him some credit for those?

Thanks for the info... this is cool stuff to hear about.

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Re: Top-21 (17-21 +)

Post by phins »

jerbyrd25 wrote:
Fat Strat wrote:Oh, and Ramsey looks worse than I thought. I was hoping for Jay, but he really looks like Skip. Even in his swing.
I have to disagree on Ramsey being compared to Schumaker. There was a poster over at Future Redbirds that had some comments that I'll quote to show what I am talking about:

There’s no reason on Heaven or Earth to slap a Schumaker or Jay comp on Ramsey. When Jay played college with the superbats, he never even posted an isolated slugging of .160; Ramsey’s was nearly .300 this year, and .230 each of the two preceeding seasons.

Moreover, and this is the big one for me, Ramsey retained his power when playing with wooden bats last summer on the Cape. Best ISO in that league, folks. More power than Shaffer or Roache, and far more than Piscotty.

Schumaker? The guy had one year of college ball, and his isolated slugging barely scraped the century mark. Skip has been small and punchless for-e-ver. Ramsey is neither. He ain’t *big*, but he is not small.

People talk about FSU’s stadium distorting his numbers…but according to collegesplits.com, once we adjust for home park AND difficulty of schedule, Ramsey’s OPS actually goes UP, from 1.165 to 1.171.

By the way, Ramsey also led the entire Cape Cod League in highest percentage of walks, and overall OPS.

People downgrade his speed…but he had 6 triples and grounded into ONE double play in 67 games. Sounds like a guy who runs very well to me.
This is a great example of scouting a box score. When you watch his functional tools, you simply can't put them in an above average category.

For a right-handed hitter, average speed (50) is in that 4.2 to 4.3 speed range. For a left-handed hitter, it's more in the 4.1 range. I don't mean on a "jailbreak" bunt where you get started running in the box first, I'm meaning from batted ball to foot on bag. Ramsey is not a fast runner, he's a decent base runner due to instincts and feel for the game.

If you believe Ramsey has better power than hitters who have received plus power grades then we'll definitely disagree.

I don't put much to any stock in the college park factors (as I pointed out in that Future Redbirds post where the above numbers were added). Missouri State plays at Hammons Field, which is a home park we have loads of data showing to be an obscene hitters park, especially for power. It has consistently ranked at the top of HR park factors in all of the minor leagues for several years now.

However, if you look at college park factors for their home field, it is among the biggest pitcher's parks in the entire country and suppresses HR's at a rate of almost two standard eviations below a neutral field.

How could this be? Because Missouri State has an insane pitching staff with an All-American pitcher who allowed only 1 HR all year long, uneven competition, and just a small sample size. Florida State plays in a hitter's heaven, and those park factors will not change my mind about that.

The Cape Cod numbers provide some hope that once he adjusts to professional baseball he'll show a little more pop than he did this year, but watch his swing and his natural mechanics and tell me you project him to have any more power. I don't see Ramsey as a starting player in the major leagues on a championship club.

Finally, you should never force a comp...let the players be the players, but when writing something such as this, you have to paint a picture for a lay fan of the minor leagues to be able to visualize what a player may be if his tools actualize to a normal degree.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by phins »

Kyle wrote:
phins wrote:Luhnow instilled a system and the Cards scouts do a great job of scouting. Remember, after the first few rounds, the picks are really more about our scouts rather than the director of player personnel/scouting etc.
So with that in mind, how much of a trickle-down effect do you think the scouting director has on those underneath him? Does he provide a general archetype of player for the scouts do look for, or are they doing this mostly-independently? Guys like Craig (8th round), Carpenter (13th), Rosenthal (21st), Adams (23rd), Jaime (22nd) -- is it just a coincidence that they were drafted during Luhnow's tenure, or do you give him some credit for those?

Thanks for the info... this is cool stuff to hear about.
Luhnow gets a HUGE amount of credit for drafting those guys. For one, he sets the philosophical standards for the club, and he dictates to his scouts and scouting director and crosscheckers national crosscheckers the philosophy they need to scout to. He came up with the statistical model that they employed in the drafting of Craig, Carpenter and Adams (it has a bigger impact on hitters than pitchers). Garcia was a different case because the scout who drafted him with the Orioles came to the Cardinals and pounded the table to draft him.

A lot of being an effective leader is hiring people who are great at their jobs and giving them the tools to do the jobs you hired them to do. In this case, listening to those scouts you hired.

Scouts are where the rubber meets the road, and your crosscheckers are the "lead" scout types who go in and look at the guys that your scouts love. They can't be everywhere and probably see these guys once, so it better be on a good day.

Losing Luhnow is going to sting, but the Cards were able to keep the foundation, the philosophy, the statistical model and data, and most of the scouts and directors they had before. Kantrovitz is a great hire and will do an excellent job, but you can't change the fact Luhnow was smart enough to hire the right guys, give them the philosophy and expectations, and then drafted towards it and listened to those same scouts.

This system was in shambles when he took over and it is now flat out filthy.

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