St. Louis Cardinals Community Top 30: Picking No. 20
TOWER GROVE — A few days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training last February, six of the St. Louis Cardinals top pitching prospects — including Chris Perez and Mitchell Boggs — were invited to Jupiter, Fla., early for an experimental minicamp. They were there to learn the classics.
The concept was explained by the Cardinals then-new roving pitching instructor, Brent Strom:
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here. Before coaches came along, Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, all the greats, did what they did because they had to. The body found a way to do what it needed - to throw hard, with velocity, and get hitters out. It’s a very natural approach to finding the best mechanics.”
They worked on the “fluid athleticism” of their deliveries. They watched video of great, athletic pitchers, like Bob Gibson, for example. They spent considerable time looking at video breakdowns of their own deliveries. They compared their current deliveries to the delivery they had at the time they were drafted. And they talked about what Strom called “classic mechanics” — this area of great interest for some members of the Cardinals’ front office. They have employed everyone from scouts to statistic specialists to even an artist in an attempt to define pitching mechanics that are both safe (read: healthy) and effective for the long haul.
They had used the “classic mechanics” information to draft players. This minicamp was the first outgrowth of the studies to be employed at spring training.
First-round pick Adam Ottavino, one of those players drafted partially because of his superb mechanics, called the minicamp: “Liberating.” Then the season started. Not so liberating.
Cardinals pitching prospect Adam Ottavino
As we reach No. 20 in the Bird Land Community Top 30 Cardinals Prospects, no prospect has confounded voters quite like Ottavino. The righthander was impressive enough during spring training this year — coming out of the minicamp — that the Post-Dispatch put him on the cover of the baseball preview section as the personification of the Next-Gen Cardinal. But after spring training he tumbled into a difficult year. Ottavino, selected 30th overall in 2006, went 3-7 with a 5.23 ERA in 115 1/3 innings at Class AA. He walked 52 batters, struck out 96 and allowed 16 home runs.
These are stats that don’t line up with his stuff.
Ottavino has an explosive fastball that he rode to success in college. They Cardinals asked him to make more use of his two-seam, running fastball, and he eventually he embraced the idea with some success. He throws in the mid-90s. He had that easy delivery, not too different than Chris Carpenter’s.
But in 2008, he struggled to be consistent with any delivery and that led to a difficult time with his command. At least once this season, a coach was dispatched to Springfield to work with Ottavino and snap his funky mechanics. This winter, he went to Arizona where a coach told him to stop raising his hands high over his head, almost Hideo Nomo-like, before winding into his delivery. He didn’t have the best numbers in Arizona, but he had a couple uplifting appearances in relief.
He’ll come to spring training (maybe even to a second minicamp) with his reset delivery and a chance to regain some traction. Last season, he was the No. 6 prospect according to Baseball America. In other corners he was a top-five prospect. His ability easily makes him a top 10. It’s his performance that still has him alive and in the poll for No. 20.
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RHP P.J. Walters took the No. 19 spot in your rankings here with 29 percent of nearly 475 voters. … Several folks get their wish and youngster Richard Castillo is making his debut on the poll. Castillo was still 18 when he arrived in High-A Palm Beach this past season. He went 1-0, 1.13 ERA there in 16 innings and struck out 19 of the 65 batters he faced. Impressive numbers, especially for a young pitcher. … For the Shaun Garceau crowd: He chimed in at No. 28 on the rankings going on over at Scout. com. …
To write the above entry, I dug up the article from spring about the minicamp. It contained this bit of forecasting from pitching coach Dave Duncan: “He’s intrigued by three of the prospects — hard-throwing closer Perez, reliable starting pitcher Boggs and lefty Jaime Garcia, a 21-year-old who might be the organization’s top starting prospect.” All three saw ample time in the majors. … Sorry the blog entries have been a little irregular this week. I am on vacation this week. But I wanted to continue to the Comm Top 30 when possible.
Will return with more regular entries and a mailbag, if there is interest, next week.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
DG, as you mentioned Ottavino ran into some mechanical issues, but I think most agree this guy has the some of if not the best stuff in the system. I still have a lot of faith that Ottavino can be a really solid major league starter. Clearly he shouldn’t have slipped this far down on the list.
Garceau is young and impressive, no doubt. Has got to improve his control a bit, however. Not a great K/BB ratio. But, still he should be intersting to watch…
“Ottavino has an explosive fastball that he rode to success in college. They Cardinals asked him to make more use of his two-seam, running fastball …”
*Sigh*
These things take time…Ottavino was also hurt I believe for a bit last year…that plus the constant mechanics adjustments couldn’t have been easy. It seems like he was back and forth a lot between things. I think when you look at his second half in springfield and the fact that he had more than a K per inning in the fall league while starting not relieving…it could be a good sign. remember hes still younger than clayton mortensen.
I voted for Ottavino b/c of his upside. I think Herron would have been my next choice. Why did Pina drop off the list? I think he’s hurt some by the fact that no one knows much about him and we don’t have professional numbers to compare, but he supposedly has excellent upside…enough that the Cards paid more for him than their supplemental pick last year.
I would also like to say that there are a lot of relievers in that group. I think Pina, as a position prospect, and Herron, as a starting prospect should be considered ahead of those relievers, because they probably end up having more value if they pan out.
It’s interesting to read the different criteria (rationales?) behind the picks…. Generally, I agree that a position/starter gets priority over relievers– HOWEVER, the critical phrase (from Todd) “if they pan out”. My criteria is based on my opinion of their ceiling: i.e. what is his chance to contribute at the MLB level. Anything else, I just don’t care about. They become a “roster filler”. As we move in the 20-30 range, I still prefer a guy at the lower levels who projects higher–than a guy who might be in AAA/AA but is probably not going to contribute at the highest level…. Just my take; just my opinion.
Hey DG, where are you vacating and what are you doing for fun while keeping the birds fed here in BIRD LAND? Very nice of you to keep us BIRD FANS in mind while getting some deserved R & R after the winter meeting push amongst all the other stuff. It would be nice to see Ottavino be a part of the cream that rises to the top. Thanks again for being there for us fans! Very thoughtful gesture that goes very well with the holiday season. Happy Holidays!
I agree, it is interesting to hear different reasoning behind the selections.
I too prefer to vote for a lower level guy with a higher ceiling, opposed to a guy at a higher level who likely won’t preform at a high level in the major leagues. I tend not to factor in proximity to the majors when voting on these polls. I rely more on both production and and a propspect’s ceiling.
David,
Nice of you to ask. Not vacating anywhere this time. The annual adventure comes every January, a pre-spring training vanishing act with the wife. This is just a chance to unplug, to make headway on other projects, to catch up on paperwork, to organize the Hummel Internship judging, to … well, you get the idea …
The best part about doing the prospect rankings is seeing the rationale behind each person’s picks. Mine are different than, say, Joe Strauss, and both of ours vary from, say, MiLB.com. We all look for and value different things. Once the Baseball America rankings come out, I can speak more candidly about my rationale and how it fits into the BA criteria — which, yes, can vary from the list I would put together on my own.
I tend to be conservative with high-ceiling, young guys new to the system or lacking production to go with tools. I value performance. Talking with Bryan Burwell and Pat Parris today at their posh office at 101ESPN — an office that has become the Tower of Burwell, as I’ll call it — it became clear to me that I put a lot of weight on not just performance but performance at certain levels.
We can get into that shortly.
Got the email this morning: The Cardinals top 10 is going to press shortly. The rest of the top 30 from Baseball America is released with the Handbook in February.
There will be a chat in January shortly before the adventure.
Best,
dg
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Ottavino is fully four years older than Richard Castillo, and has succeeded at just *one* level higher. In fact, Castillo was better in the Midwest League at age 18 than Ott was at age 20 (better ERA, better K/BB).
Until Castillo struggles at least a little with his so-called “average stuff,” he’s clearly the better prospect, to me. No, he wasn’t a big bonus signing, and no, he he doesn’t have a 93-95 MPH fastball–but he gets people out. And unlike, say, Mitch Boggs, Castillo does so with good strikeout rates & very good K/BB numbers (while being much younger than the opposing hitters).
I’ll take Castillo at Cardinal prospect #6, behind Rasmus, Jones, Wallace, Anderson, and Todd.
Oh, I mean #20.