TOWER GROVE — During instructs a few weeks ago in Jupiter, Fla., the Cardinals lined up a group of minor leagues at home plate. Coaches readied their stopwatches. Thumbs poised over the plungers. From his usual side of the plate, the player was going to sprint from the batter’s box to first.

The coaches let a pitcher try his cleats at the dash, too.

He dusted almost everybody.

Samuel (Sam) Freeman, a lefty, may have been the best athlete in the group, and he certainly was one of the fastest from home to first. He may, according to several officials in the system, move even faster when it comes to climbing through the minors.

The Cardinals have yet to decide if he’ll begin the 2009 season as a starter — perhaps in High-A Palm Beach — or as a reliever wherever his arm will take him. The 5-foot-11, 170-pound lefty finished the season with a brief appearance in Palm Beach after the rookie-level Johnson City, and his overall performance in his first pro season was striking. He went 4-1, 3.42 ERA overall at the two levels, striking out 38 batters in 26 1/3 innings against 13 walks.

Drafted in the 32nd round this past June, Freeman is a rarity in the Cardinals’ organization.

He’s a lefty. With promise.

As the Cardinals recent waiver claim proved what has previously been discussed: The Cardinals lack lefty depth in the organization. Freeman is a ways from being on the big-league prospect radar, but even at the lowest levels the path is clear for a quick rise if he remains cast as a lefty specialist. Freeman throws a fastball that ranges from 90 mph to 94 mph. He is working on a cutter to go with a changeup that gives him the varying speeds he needs to go after lefties. He faced 104 batters this season and struck out 34.  Against lefties, at Johnson City, he struck out 11 of the 24 he faced, walked two, and he held lefties to a .045 batting average.

It’s a small sample size, at one of the lowest levels. Freeman, 21, needs to refine his command and show success at the higher levels, but he’s piqued interest around the club. He was impressive during instructs. And he could elbow his way until some of the prospect lists. Scouts from opposing teams took note of other Johnson City players this season — guys like infielder Niko Vasquez and pitcher Deryk Hooker — but internally the Cardinals have been talking about Freeman.

Caught up with the Texas native Wednesday night, to let him do the talking …

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DG: I heard instructs went well.

Sam Freeman: I got a lot of work in. Worked on some things and really know now what I need to improve on to advance next season. I worked on getting a good breaking ball to throw to lefthanded hitters, and how to throw strikes with it. My front side has a tendency to fly open. That can make my pitches erratic. I worked on that, and if I can keep that under control, I’ll be more effective in the strike zone.

DG: What breaking ball are you working on?

Freeman: A cut fastball. It’s pretty hard. Not really a slider. I’m getting more consistent with it. Early in the year, I was working on a slider. With the cut fastball, it seems to work better off my fastball and a my changeup. It’s like a Fosh changeup. Do you know about a Fosh changeup?

DG: Sure, Jeff Suppan throws one. The dead-fish changeup.

Freeman: Yeah, it’s like a split-finger and a changeup.

DG: I understand you started out as an outfielder, or wanted to play outfield in college?

Freeman: I was an outfielder in junior college. All-Conference … It’s kind of a long story. Do you have the time? After (high school), I went to a pitching clinic right before. My coach wanted me to be a pitcher. I didn’t want to be. We kind of clashed about it. I went in my freshman year, and I wanted to hit. I was switch-hitting, getting faster. He (North Central Texas College coach Mark Allen) wanted me to pitch. He insisted that I should pitch, and I wasn’t having any of that.

So I went to that clinic, saw how I matched up with some other pitchers. I saw there was a chance there. My playing time was going to down as an outfielder, and I tried to be a pitcher. The first season didn’t go well. I pitched 14 innings, had like and 8.00 ERA. Fifteen walks, 15 strikeouts and 15 hits and so forth. I really struggled. …

I started making progress (that summer with a select team). Things started to click for me. I didn’t make the rotation (at the junior college), but I got better. There was an injury, one of the other pitchers, and that’s when I got my opportunity. I went 10-1, got drafted by the Cardinals (in the 24th round of the June 2007 draft). That was the summer of 2007.

DG: You made the Cardinals draft you twice before signing.

Freeman: Yeah. My thought process was being drafted that first time out of junior college, that if I could go and duplicate that at a higher level I could improve my stock. At Kansas (the University of Kansas), that blew up in my face. I was just hoping to get the opportunity to sign. It was pretty much, if I got the chance to get drafted again, I was going to sign no matter what. You don’t know when you’re going to get that opportunity again.

DG: What did you get out of your first turn through professional ball?

Freeman: Oh, I don’t know how to say it. I went out there and showed that I could compete with everything. I got out there, wasn’t one of those top prospects, but I was pitching against some of them, and I thought that was a good opportunity to prove myself. Every time I took the mound, that’s how I saw it - my chance to prove myself. Before I took the mound, every time, I tried to keep that in mind.

DG: Can you still switch-hit?

Freeman: I’m rusty. If I was serious about it, I probably could. Give me a month and half or two and I could get to where I could compete. But no, not now. I could probably bunt.

DG: I’m not sure if anybody has brought this up to you or if it is even something they would mention, but do have a preference whether you start or relieve?

Freeman: Whatever they want me to do. Whichever they feel I could get the best opportunity to advance. When I’m relieving, it helped me - you know coming into that situation, makes you really lock-in as far as your focus and what you need to accomplish. It’s that do-or-die. Get out there, get the job done, and the results are there for you to see. I think having done that it will help me if I go back to starting. That could really help me starting.

DG: Did you find yourself thinking about the roles or situations a lefty specialist might be in during a game, especially when you were used like that?

Freeman: I could see that for myself. … It helped me to start thinking like that. When there was a moment in the game and there was going to be the potential to come into the game and face a lefthanded hitter, I got better at getting ready. I got better at getting myself prepared to go into the game and I had a better sense of what I had to do when I got in the game.

Before the game, I would write down the roster for the other team for that night’s game. I would write down whether the hitters were lefty or righty. I’d keep track. I would keep it all in this notebook, this …

Let me see if I can get it.

I have it around here.

It’s just this 70-sheet, spiral-bound notebook.

Here it is.

I started doing it on July 1 against the Danville Braves. The last game I did was August 18th. I started it and I think it really helped me. Writing what the hitters did and who they were - that kept me paying attention to the game and it got to a point where I started memorizing what the hitters were doing, how they looked. I didn’t need to write it down. The book was just — I just wrote last name, L for left, R for right and S for switch. It was a real help, and I kept it because of that.

DG: You said at one point you were thinking about going into the Army?

Freeman: Nobody was really recruiting me. No schools. There wasn’t really any one interested. I couldn’t really imagine myself working a 9-to-5 job, and so I was looking. My uncle was in the Army, and I spent a lot of time talking to him, and I told him, ‘I’m thinking about the Army.’ I started checking out the Web sites. Started clicking around and looking at the different jobs. I was looking at infantry. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking about doing after high school.

DG: How’d you feel coming out of instructs?

Freeman: Knowing what I need more work on and being in an environment that was all about working on things and getting better. It was easy to feed off that.

DG: Think you should have stuck with hitting?

Freeman: Not at all. I didn’t really like being a hitter. I liked the defense and running the bases. The hitting was only part of being able to do that.

DG: Have you thanked your coach (Mark Allen) or told him, Hey, you were right?

Freeman: Yeah. He’s probably one of my better friends. I’ve talked him. We joke around about it. I definitely have to thank him, definitely have to thank him for sticking with me. He stuck with me through some very terrible outings. I mean just terrible outings. Imagine the worst outings you could have. Outings that other coaches would have said, That’s it, throw in the towel. But he stayed with me. He stayed by me.

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