Farm Watch -- The Ankiel On Pace for 54 HR/162 RBI!!! Thread

[mizzoupacers]

J-Rod is starting to heat up in Memphis...12 for 29 this month (for a BA of .414). And five walks. So that's a .500 OBP so far for May. Screw Juan Encarnacion, who is obviously not recuperated and would only be Jim Edmonds Lite if we call him up from his rehab assignment. Bring up Rodriguez! The guy can hit.

Ankiel has his average up to .274 now, and continues to hit with power. I'd say he is starting to rate as a pleasant surprise. If he keeps it up, he will be a September call-up for sure. That's gonna be fun!

[Gervin]

J-Rod is starting to heat up in Memphis...12 for 29 this month (for a BA of .414). And five walks. So that's a .500 OBP so far for May. Screw Juan Encarnacion, who is obviously not recuperated and would only be Jim Edmonds Lite if we call him up from his rehab assignment. Bring up Rodriguez! The guy can hit.

Ankiel has his average up to .274 now, and continues to hit with power. I'd say he is starting to rate as a pleasant surprise. If he keeps it up, he will be a September call-up for sure. That's gonna be fun!

lets call em both up now! lol

[bigboy1234]

Rasmus continues to kill the competition. He is now sporting a .940 OPS and has the most extra base hits among all top prospects in the game.

Jaime Garcia is struggling a little though, he has been bad his past 2 outings.

[mizzoupacers]

I'm a little bummed right now...my son is playing in a soccer tournament in Memphis in two weeks, but I just checked the Redbirds' schedule and they are going to be out of town that weekend. Damn. Still never been in that stadium. It's right downtown and looks highly cool from the outside. Maybe I'll get another chance later this summer. (Or maybe not, Memphis is a six-hour drive from my house.)

[bigboy1234]

Eh, I wouldn't be that bummed out by it. The Memphis players are really just a bunch of journey players, the only player I'd really be interested in watching down there is Ankiel. Now it's totally different if you had a chance to go to Springfield and they were out of town, well because thats where the future is.

[mizzoupacers]

No doubt the minor-leaguer I would most like to see is in Springfield. Rasmus is really starting to put up the numbers.

My son plays soccer in Springfield sometimes too.

If only in addition to baseball Springfield had some cultural attractions like Memphis does (no, Bass Pro Shop doesn't count).

What do you think about this guy, Bigboy?

amaury marti

He's probably 43 years old, but he is tearing up the Mexican league, and the Cuban national team is nothing to sneer at.

[bigboy1234]

To tell you the truth I don't know what to think about Amaury Cazana Marti.

He insists that he's only 27/28 years old, but everyplace says he's 32, so I'll say he's 32.

I was suprised the Cardinals "loaned" him out to the Mexican League instead of letting him play in Springfield. Last year he didn't do so well in Springfield though.

I wouldn't take a lot out of him tearing up the Mexican League because quite frankly a ton of hitters tear up the Mexican League. It's very much a hitters league. But then again he did play very well in the AFL.

He was really known as the mystery guy because almost no one knew about him.

Cuban defector Cazana-Marti was the club

[mizzoupacers]

OK, thanks for your take. I know absolutely nothing about the Mexican league, or why the Cardinals would want him there instead of Springfield.

He's got an unusual story, just as crazy in its own way as Ankiel's. Speaking of whom....NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!...Rick is on the DL this week with an Achilles problem of some sort. He sure gets hurt a lot.

[bigboy1234]

The Memphis Redbirds have placed outfielder Rick Ankiel on the seven-day disabled list because of an Achilles' tendon injury.

Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty said this week that the condition is not believed serious.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports ... enDocument

He's only suppose to be out for about a week, so it's nothing serious.

[bigboy1234]

Also, Cody Haerther made his season debut today and went 2-5, he had been hurt with an wrist injury.

Just a thought out of no where but the Cardinals need to go after Lastings Milledge, the Mets seem like they hate him, and his stock is at an all time low with them. Kid has phenominal talent.

[mizzoupacers]

After a slow start, Blake Hawksworth looks to have hit his stride in Memphis. Here are his numbers so far for May:

4 starts
24 IP
5 ER
1.87 ERA
14/4 K/BB
1.00 WHIP
2-1 W-L

Sounds like the Cardinals would be very reluctant to bring up Hawk before September. But I have to wonder if they might change their minds if our starting pitching corps gets any thinner. With Narveson on the DL, who else is there to bring up? Keisler again?

I know there's talk of Franklin starting too, IF Wellemeyer shows us anything in the bullpen.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that I'm going to be tracking Hawksworth more closely.

[mizzoupacers]

HE'S BACK

Ankiel was back in the lineup yesterday, getting a hit, a walk, and an outfield assist. And for some reason he tried to steal home but was unsuccessful. Double steal gone bad or something? Kinda weird.

Also, I think that Hawksworth is due to pitch again tonight.

[bigboy1234]

A lot of our pitching prospects have done pretty well lately. Mostly Ottavino who has 51 Ks in 42 IP so far.

[bigboy1234]

Ottavino had a bad outing last night, going 2.2IP and giving up 5 ER. He's still having a pretty impressive season though.

Rasmus continues to be the greatest player that ever played the game hitting two doubles last night. Now has a .960 OPS, his stats even look more impressive when you go in-depth with his splits, he has a great line drive %, fly ball %, groundball %, and even strikeout % for his age and level. All around has had one of the best seasons in the minors.

Bryan Anderson needs to work on his defense very much so, last night he allowed his 5th error and has 6 passed balls to go with that.

Chris Perez (our future closer) is also striking out everybody who comes up to plate, too bad he's had a little bit of a control problem, but still pretty impressive.

[bigboy1234]

A terrible series for Rasmus against Corpus Christi were he went 0-12 with 4 SO and no BB. His OPS has now dipped under .900 at .899.

[mizzoupacers]

A terrible series for Rasmus against Corpus Christi were he went 0-12 with 4 SO and no BB. His OPS has now dipped under .900 at .899.

What you need to do is climb on the Rick Bandwagon:

Ankiel hits 2 HR on Monday

Rasmus hit two of his own as well. Good day for the outfield prospects.

On Sunday Hawksworth pitched seven shutout innings and FINALLY got his third win of the season. He is just 3-6 for the year, but here are his up-to-date May numbers:

6 starts
37.0 IP
7 ER
19 K/5 BB (four of the walks came in the same start; he had just one walk in the other five starts combined)
1.70 ERA
0.92 WHIP

Those are some pretty sweet numbers. The Redbirds could have a nice one-two punch in their starting rotation with Reyes now added to the fold. If Anthony is lights-out in Triple A, then Dave Duncan is going to have some 'splaining to do. Come to think of it, he already has some 'splaining to do. WTF is he doing to Reyes?!?

[bigboy1234]

The only thing with Hawk that worries me is his low K rate. Like last game he didn't strikout anyone. But he does have very good control. To be honest tho I would take Hawk over at least 2 pitchers currently in our big league rotation. Our AAA rotation might be better than our MLB rotation.

Rasmus goes 3-5 tonight with 2 doubles and a HR. The only bad thing is his 2 K's, it seems he has been striking out a lot lately, which is not good, hopefully he continues to work on that.

[Basketball Jesus]

Eddie Degerman...tell me more.

[Basketball Jesus]

Also: Shaun Garceau

[bigboy1234]

Eddie Degerman...tell me more.

Well as a lot of people know Degerman was one of the top pitchers in college last year, so when the Cardinals got him at #136 I pretty much thought it was a steal. I think he may have lasted longer because of his unusual delivery (straight over the top) but that really doesn't worry me that much. Degerman also doesn't have great control but has been working on it a lot since coming into the organization, I believe his BB/9 his senior season was something around 4.5. He pretty much has a 88-91 MPH fastball, a nasty curveball and pretty deceptive mechanics. If he develops a nice change (as of now he using a slowed down version of his curve for a change) he could become a good starter, if not he may end up as a reliever. I personally would like the Cardinals to push Degerman a little harder and by mid-season have him up to AA, and just outright skip High A. Seeing as he'll be 24 by the the end of the season

Also: Shaun Garceau

The Cardinals drafted him in the 20th round and was a huge steal, because he had the talent to go much earlier. His fastball has more velocity than Degerman's. He can top out at about 94 while working in the 90-92 MPH range. He has a promising curveball but right now only about average and a changeup that should develop as he gets more experiece. As of right now I would say he's getting by mostly on his nice fastball.