Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Talk about the Cardinals minor league baseball
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Swirls
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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by Swirls »

Except to scouts/prospect nerds, that age difference matters. There aren't too many, if any period, MLB top prospects that are 25-26 years old.

EDIT: Here's an excerpt from the first Cardinals blog I could find regarding Matt Carpenter back in the minors. Dated December 2010, so the end of his first full MiLB season, when he put up a 150 wRC+ in AA Springfield.

https://playahardnine.wordpress.com/201 ... s-hitters/
PAH9 wrote:On the positive side, the projection thinks that if David Freese were to get injured again, Matt Carpenter could step right in and be a suitable replacement. As I’ve mentioned previously, that’s a sentiment I share.
Suitable replacement. Prospect talk for "somewhere between replacement level and league average."

I never said he wasn't a good prospect. He wasn't a great prospect. And to the rest of MLB, he was a dime a dozen player that every team has in spades. Keep in mind, Springfield's stadium is a freaking bandbox - it puts Cincinnati's and Philly's stadiums to shame. Hell, in 2009 Dan Descalso put up a 150 wRC+ there. DAN DESCALSO!
Last edited by Swirls on May 5 15, 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

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pioneer98
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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by pioneer98 »

Yeah but to Swirls' point, having guys that are doing well but are old for their level doesn't help your system in the rankings. Maybe the Cardinals have some more Marps in the pipeline. I sure hope they do. How do you predict whether an older prospect is going to be the next Marp or not?

Luhnow has continued putting together a pretty good system despite the botched signings of a couple high picks. I think it's a fair question to ask if they miss him. The Astros have the great class coming up at AA right now with Correa & Co (they are 18-6). Their high A team is 11-14. Even that team has Brett Philips who is off to a great start for them (age 21, OPS=1.041). Then see the post I just put in the Misc Ramblings thread about the Astros low-A team, who are 19-6.

salukifan2
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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by salukifan2 »

Swirls wrote:Except to scouts/prospect nerds, that age difference matters. There aren't too many, if any period, MLB top prospects that are 25-26 years old.

EDIT: Here's an excerpt from the first Cardinals blog I could find regarding Matt Carpenter back in the minors. Dated December 2010, so the end of his first full MiLB season, when he put up a 150 wRC+ in AA Springfield.

https://playahardnine.wordpress.com/201 ... s-hitters/
PAH9 wrote:On the positive side, the projection thinks that if David Freese were to get injured again, Matt Carpenter could step right in and be a suitable replacement. As I’ve mentioned previously, that’s a sentiment I share.
Suitable replacement. Prospect talk for "somewhere between replacement level and league average."

I never said he wasn't a good prospect. He wasn't a great prospect. And to the rest of MLB, he was a dime a dozen player that every team has in spades. Keep in mind, Springfield's stadium is a freaking bandbox - it puts Cincinnati's and Philly's stadiums to shame. Hell, in 2009 Dan Descalso put up a 150 wRC+ there. DAN DESCALSO!
Descalso's 2009 season at AA is pretty hilarious. However you could see the difference between the two because Descalso's wRC+ in the Midwest league and florida state league were 99 and 92 respectively, whle Marp's were 132 and 130ish

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Swirls
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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by Swirls »

Except Descalso had those 99 and 92 wRC+ seasons at age-appropriate levels.

Marp doing it as someone who's 1-2 years older makes his 130ish seasons less impressive to scouts.

Yes - I get it that it was because he was drafted as a fifth-year Senior in college. As such, he was still "young" by total organizational years, but not young actual age-wise.

Another perfect example is Mitch Harris. He's 29 now but obviously has only been with the organization for a couple years due to the whole Naval Academy thing. He's "young" organization wise, but not age-wise.

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33anda3rd
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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by 33anda3rd »

Scouts/prospect nerds are like analytically-minded folk in that they understand a player continues to get better into his late 20s. A kid of 20 who has a 120 wRC+ at AA should get a lot more love than a guy who's 25 who's doing the same because the 20 year old is still 5 years behind in baseball terms, whether that baseball was played in college or short-season ball, Cape ball, low-A, high-A. He should develop by the time he's 25 into a lot more than what the guy who is currently 25 is.

Bill James wrote almost 30 years ago:
Suppose that you have a 20-year-old player and a 21-year-old player of the same ability as hitters; let’s say that each hits about .265 with ten home runs. How much difference is there in the expected career home run totals for the two players?”

As best I can estimate, the 20-year-old player can be expected to hit about 61% more home runs in his career. That’s right—61%.
That's HUGE. Rany Jazayerli revisited it in 2011. He took the drafts from 1965-1996, and then picked the five youngest and five oldest players in the draft. He took the expected value of each draft position (the slot they were taken) and found that the five youngest from each year, as a total, outperformed their draft position by 32%. The five oldest players in each draft underperformed the average of their draft slot by 39%. Rany said "hedge funds would kill to beat the market with this kind of consistency."

Granted, that's not always true, there are always guys who struggle and don't meet their potential and there are always Marps and Donaldsons who end up really good MLB players. Marp is a hell of a player, but there was nothing in his minor league career that suggested he'd be one of the 10 best players in the game.

salukifan2
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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by salukifan2 »

I never suggested that people should have considered him a future top 10 player based on his minor league numbers. He was never even in the top 100, and maybe not top 150. That is imo a travesty.

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Re: Do the Cards miss Luhnow & Co.?

Post by Socnorb11 »

Luhnow was at the helm when both Allen Craig and Matt Adams were drafted.

Luhnow is a fraud!

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