Cards Top-21

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

Post by phins »

jerbyrd25 wrote: Also, what are your thoughts on Dixon Llorens, 15.5 K/9 rate in the minors?
Interesting follow for sure. Haven't heavily scouted him to this point.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by Swingingbunt »

Great read, as always, phins. It's incredible to see the improvement made in the system over the last few years. Hopefully it's sustained with the move of Lunhow (and I have reason to believe it will be with this year's draft).

Selfishly, I'm glad to see Kelly make your top ten. Big fan of his.

Thanks again!

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Awesome, phins.

I assume Joe Kelly graduated and no longer considered a prospect? What is the line that a player has to cross to do that?

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by robbotis »

phin- you're the man.

I have to imagine there's no such thing as an 80 fastball?
If Rosenthal's hardly hittable 100 MPH fastball, that when, rarely, is touched, goes directly into the ground, isn't one, there can't be one.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by phins »

Rosenthal's fastball can get pretty straight at times and his motion doesn't have a ton of deception. I wrote a post from the summer when I watched him and I observed even then that hitters made a little more contact with his fastball than you'd expect.

Carlos Martinez has had some 8's thrown on his, but an easy answer for that is Chapman's is an 8 and Verlander's good one is as well. There's more to it than simple velocity due to movement and deception in motion.

I'm conservative though, and if the fastball you saw at times in the playoffs were more regular, I'd have thrown an 8 on it. My mathematical brain struggles with three standard deviations above the mean...it's the 99th percentile of the very good.

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Re: Cards Top-21

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130 at bats, 50 innings pitched, more than 45 days on active roster during 25 man limit days (prior to September).

Sorry, I should have listed that in original post. Kelly is no longer a rookie.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

phins wrote:130 at bats, 50 innings pitched, more than 45 days on active roster during 25 man limit days (prior to September).
10-4. So, here is the next part of that question: Where would you place him in relation to Rosenthal/Wacha/Jenkins/Wong/MMGA if you had to include him in the list? At least I assume he would fit somewhere in that part of the list...

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by Fat Strat »

phins wrote:Sorry, I should have listed that in original post. Kelly is no longer a rookie.
Where would Kelly rank if you had to put him in there? I'm guessing somewhere below Wacha but before Carson Kelly.

The curveball was spotty during my time seeing him, and I didn’t get a great read on the pitch. What I do like is the fact that he has a fast arm and long levers which should help him as he finds the right pitch for him to use. I’d prefer he go with a slurve rather than either/or on the curve/slider question. His motion lends itself to a fading curveball rather than a true 12-6 type curveball.
Also, I know you say you didn't get a good feel for his curve, but how tight was it? I would worry about a curve/slurve if it was loopy. Seems like Rosenthal's is like that. It's not a big overhand 12/6 curve like Wainwright's, but it's tight and sharp and fast. I think it can be a very effective pitch, with more side-to-side break than down. I'm wondering if Wacha's is like that or if it's slow and loopy.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by phins »

Kelly would have ranked ahead of Adams most likely. I didn't spend a ton of time on him since I saw him with the big boys quite a bit and he wasn't a rookie. I had him fairly highly last year (higher than most).

Wacha throws both a curve and a slider. His curve was pretty loopy when I saw it. It was more of a hump than a big break like Waino's. Obviously, Waino throws one of the best in the business, so you have to keep that in mind with any comparison. Wacha isn't a Roy Oswalt slow curve, and it's not a Waino type curve. It's just more of a hump right now. It's an off speed pitch, rather than a hard biting pitch like Rosenthal. Just needs to show consistency with the release point and grip to be a good pitch.

His slider is tighter and has a nice break away from righties. It's not consistent either though...that's the thing with young hurlers, consistency is going to be lacking for all but the few elite.

Wish I could find some video of the pitch.

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Re: Cards Top-21

Post by Fat Strat »

Thanks Phin. I just don't like humpy or loopy curves. I have no scouting prowess to back this up, but it just seems like curves with that trademark high school hump in them would be very easy to recognize. And typically, if you're throwing a curve with a hump, that means you're inconsistent with it and will make a lot of mistakes with it... usually up in the zone. Can't do that in the majors.

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