Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Talk about the Cardinals minor league baseball
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33anda3rd
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Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by 33anda3rd »

The talk about Taveras and attitude/want over in a BT thread got me thinking about this. Over the July 4 weekend I got to see a couple guys a couple times.

Image

And I've been wondering about both of them.

If you took the two games I saw them, statistically, it looks like this:

Almora 9 PA, a triple, a homer, a strikeout, two HBP, 286/444/1000, one really spectacular play in CF running a ball down at the wall.
Correa 10 PA, two walks, a double, a single, a steal, 250/400/375, one very good play at SS to pick a ball up behind 2B and get the runner by a half-step.

Looking at the above you might think Almora stuck out. But it was Correa.

Pre-game, while the players were on the field stretching and playing catch, Correa, who is still 2 months away from turning 19, is the guy the other Quad Cities players gravitate to. He walks like, for lack of a better term, a Yadier, at only 18. He's focused on defense, and looks like he's locked into every minute detail of the game in-between plays. He's a very very good player, clearly a natural leader, and clearly working hard every minute he's out there.

Almora got hit by a pitch in what looked like the tricpes of his non-throwing arm in his first PA on 7/4. This was against a SP who had walked the previous batter on four pitches and couldn't find any part of the plate. Almora was nothing short of a prima donna, slammed his bat and helmet down out of frustration, took about 6 minutes of time talking with the trainer....then stayed in the game perfectly fine. He got hit again in I believe his 3rd PA (might have been 2nd) and acted put out again to have been hit by a pitch. On routine fly balls he just kind of coasts under the ball, and.....I'm not sure I can describe it, but that one-handed-catch thing where it's obvious that you're trying to make it look even easier for you than it already is. The kind of [expletive] a good player on a 7th-grade traveling team would do.

What it really got me wondering was whether there's anything at all to the above. Not even so much the Correa stuff--I mean, [expletive], the kid is 18 and arguably the best player in the MWL now that Buxton is up in high-A. You look at him and you just go "[expletive] Ballplayer." But the Almora stuff is what bothers me because I have seen a lot of teenagers come through the MWL the past several years, and I've never thought so negative of a player by the way he carries himself. It could be I caught him on a bad weekend--I've seen Almora a few other times this year and while he's never been Correa-esque, he's also never carried himself in such an offensively entitled way.

It bothers me, that I think this about Almora. I think Correa will be the better player. But I don't know what to make of Almora or what I've been thinking about him for the last few weeks.

Anyone seen this in a player before and they ended up trumping your opinion?

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33anda3rd
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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by 33anda3rd »

....also Cubs 1B prospect Dan Vogelbach is tubby like Adams but shorter, so rounder, and goes chain-out, and wears a very flat brim very low on his head, and wears a lot of eyeblack even when it's like a late start and the sun won't be out for the game, and when he runs home from second on a hit or when he doubles and runs at his fastest it's adorably funny and he's just kind of tubby and adorable like a bear and he also has a great swing and very good power and is heir to Adams in the category of fat-guy-who-mashes-and-who-I-love-but-will-be-perpetually-underrated-because-he-has-a-bad-body.

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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

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Image

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redbirdjazzz
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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by redbirdjazzz »

youaremagdal wrote:Image
Unless he was hit in the face in his four previous plate appearances, I'm pretty sure that's not called for.

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33anda3rd
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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by 33anda3rd »

That's kind of what I'm talking about w/r/t Almora. I hadn't seen that Vogelbach video. I've never seen Vogelbach when he hasn't acted like a professional, and showed hustle and drive. If I saw that game, it would probably have me wondering the same as I am about Almora: is he the guy I saw one weekend who looked like a prima donna, or is he the guy I've seen a couple other times who doesn't appear to have maturity issues on the field?

The answer might be: they're teenagers. If people followed me around with video cameras when I was a teenager, I'm sure there'd be stuff on the internet, or guys writing stuff anonymously about me on message boards, questioning my makeup.

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Schlich
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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by Schlich »

Yeah, people were saying the same [expletive] about Bryce Harper.

Anybody not want Bryce Harper? Or is it different because he's a superstar?

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33anda3rd
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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by 33anda3rd »

This one got Miguel Sano two days on the bench. ~30 second tater trot time, and a long pause as he admires the ball that you can't see entirely, but get a glimpse of.

[/youtube]

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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by phins »

Almora and Correa were both signees with the U. *Sigh*

Both are very naturally talented, but I'd take Correa.

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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by Transmogrified Tiger »

This was really interesting to me, because everything I've ever read about Almora talks about how he's everything you're attributing to Correa here. A fantastic work ethic, very humble and unassuming, leader that teammates look up to, plays hard on the field, etc. For a little while we had an ongoing joke about Almora's defense because people gush about his instincts so much that it seemed like he was somehow going to be an 80 range guy with 50 speed.

FWIW, I didn't see anything like that when I saw Almora play about 5-6 weeks ago. He also wasn't hit by a pitch and instead was lacing line drives all over the place, but he did strike out and miss a diving attempt in the field(that would've been an incredible play) and I didn't notice any poor reactions.

Vogelbach is a bit of a different story, as you can obviously see that bit of "showmanship" in the gif. He's also supposedly an incredibly hard worker and great teammate, and I haven't heard or seen anything like that gif as a professional, but I wouldn't doubt that he's more prone to letting his competitive spirit get the best of him.

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Re: Misc. Minor League Ramblings

Post by 33anda3rd »

Everything I've read about and seen when I've watched Vogelbach, Nick Faleris summed up in his writeup this morning for BP.
Huge makeup; high-energy player with personality; bathes in the game of baseball; high level of comfort on the field; asset in the clubhouse; type of player you want in your system.
Almora, I should note, I've seen 5 times this year. He's appeared fine (not Correa-esque, but not prima donna-ish) four times and he's looked like a ridiculous tool on one day. Could be, bad day. Could be, player who spent a lot of the year on the DL upset that he got pegged with a pitch, then another on that day. Could be a lot. But the way he carried himself on that one day made me wonder, since it's one day but still 20% of the times I've seen him, if he'll be like that 20% of the time. My instinct is no, but I was wondering if a lot of the guys on the board like phins and AW and swirls and pioneer who see a lot of MiLB games have seen this in a player where they can be Jeckyll/Hyde in the minors, and what they saw of the player in the future.

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