TOWER GROVE – With the draft approaching, Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow is a traveling man.

Constantly traveling.

There’s less than three weeks before the draft and soon the Cardinals will be holding scouting workouts at various sites around the country — and scout meetings at each place. While the Cardinals held a mock draft this past winter to help get more familiar with the amateur players available this June, and take a swing at reading the flow of the draft, Luhnow says in an answer below that the draft board truly will start to take shape during and after these meetings.

This week, Luhnow has agreed to answer questions from readers in Bird Land’s weekly mailbag. He starts with a breakdown of the Cardinals picks along the fault line of high school/college preference and continues with an answer about the amount of talent the Cardinals could find in a two-hour radius around Busch Stadium. 

On with Luhnow’s answers:

***

Q: A lot of ink has been used debating the drafting of high school versus college players. The Cardinals have seemed to be a little more predisposed to drafting college players. Now that the system has a lot more depth in it, do you anticipate taking a few more chances on high school players to try to get higher upside guys? When the big league club succeeds as it does year in and year out, it seems less likely that we can nab a high upside prospect unless we dip into the high school pool.

– Brent Schade.

Jeff Luhnow: I hear that quite a bit, that the Cardinals tend to draft college players. There are a few facts that merit consideration when discussing this topic:

• The majority of drafted players are from the college ranks, so most, if not all organizations draft far more college players than any other category. To be specific, 68% of the players signed from the draft are from four year colleges.
• Over the past three drafts, we rank fourth in number of players drafted from sources other than four year colleges! I bet that is a surprise to most of you. Only Milwaukee, Atlanta, and the Los Angeles Angels drafted more players from high school and junior colleges. We drafted three times more than the team with the fewest (San Diego).
• In 2005 we drafted 17 of these players, including Colby Rasmus, Bryan Anderson, Jaime Garcia, Josh Wilson, Shaun Garceau, Ken Maiques, Blake King and Brandon Garner. All of these players have and are currently contributing on full season clubs and all are considered prospects to varying degrees.
• In 2006, we did take more college players at the top of the draft, but we still got Tommy Pham, D’Marcus Ingram, Nick Addition, Mark Diapoules, Jonathan Edwards, LaCurtis Mayes, and Matt North from the high school or junior college category.
• In 2007, our first pick, Pete Kozma, along with several others were from sources other than four year colleges (Tony Cruz, Brian Broderick, Adron Chambers, Brett Zawacki, James Hooker, Mike Blazek, Joey Hage, Matt Spade, Rigoberto Lugo, Ramon Delgado, Brian Buck, Beau Riportella, Zack Russell).

I hope I don’t sound defensive here, I’m just merely pointing out that we are certainly not afraid to take younger players that don’t have a four-year college track record. Our system would certainly not be what it is without this list of players.

Now, to address your question … yes, I do anticipate that we will take some high upside players. Some of those will be high school players, some might be junior college players, and some might be college players. Daniel Descalso is only 18 months older than Pete Kozma, so sometimes where they come from can be misleading. With our system being relatively productive and deep compared to times in the past, we can afford to take a risk on some players that might take more time to develop because they are younger. We would make that investment if we believed the upside was there and there was a decent chance that with the right development approach the player could mature into an impact big league player.

We have been fortunate that our big league club has been consistently competitive, and I would prefer to be winning the division every year and picking in the 20s. We do select at 13 this year, so we have a good opportunity to pick a very solid player with significant upside.

DG NOTE: Tommy Pham, drafted as a shortstop and converted to the outfield, was once described as the best prep player in Nevada. This week the Midwest League named him the player of the week after Pham hit a homer on the first pitch he saw at the level and hit three leadoff homers in six games. During the week of the award, Pham slugged .926, hit five homers, drove in 10 runs and scored nine. Kenny Maiques, it should be remembered, was once described by Baseball America as the best junior college pitcher in the country. The Cardinals got him waaay late in the draft because he blew his elbow and the team was willing to cover his surgery and manage his rehab.

***

Q: As a Mizzou Tiger baseball season ticket holder, I have witnessed the hype and style of Aaron Crow and realize he probably won’t be available when the Cards select, but I have been more impressed with Rick Zagone. Any thoughts on taking him if available?

– Ed, Columbia, Mo.

Luhnow: I can’t comment on specific players for many reasons. What I can say is that every year there is quite a bit of speculation about who will be available and who will not … and we find that there are always some players that surprise us all. We have to be prepared so we will discuss and evaluate every player as if they were going to be available where we select. We have done our homework on Aaron Crow and Rick Zagone and we will be prepared to make a decision on both of them during the draft. It is nice to have high profile players in the local area … something the teams in California, Texas and Florida have every year. This year we have several.

***

Q: Jeff- Thanks for taking some time to talk to the fans. Some teams, like the Braves, have placed emphasis on scouting and acquiring local talent through the years that grew up loving, and following the organization. Is any similar emphasis used by the Cardinals? That being asked, there seems to be a very high level of local high school talent compared to most years. Guys like Tim Melville (Stl), Jake Odorizzi (Highland), and Otto Roberts (Belleville), all seem to be highly touted prospects by most services. All else being equal, if you guys were equally high on another prospect come selection time, would the local nature of it influence your pick? In addition, if another guy was ranked slightly ahead of one of these guys on your board, who the “local boy” thing be enough to overcome that difference? Thanks for taking my question.

– Jon, Chicago

Luhnow: Good question and one that I’m sure many people think about. Everyone has their own point of view about this issue. It’s certainly a wonderful story when a local player is drafted and developed by the hometown team and makes it to the big leagues. Kyle McClellan is a perfect example. The fans love it, the media loves it, and we feel good about it. However, we would not compromise quality to take a local player. This year’s regional group from both college and high school is a strong one.

The local players could have an advantage because they are easier to see multiple times and therefore the local team tends to be the one that knows the player best. That can sometimes backfire though, because the scouts get to see the player at his best and at his worst.

***

Q: Jeff, Thanks for taking the time to do this. I have a couple of questions. We have heard a lot about the STOUT system in relationship to the draft. Do you also use it to assess players already in the Cardinals farm system, or do you use a different set of parameters? Second, in light of the failure to sign Kyle Russell last year (a risk worth taking, in my opinion), will the organization shy away from drafting an eligible sophomore this year?

– L. R. Gray

Luhnow: We have a different system to evaluate the players in our own system, but it’s every bit as sophisticated and valuable. We have the luxury of having much more information about our own players in the minor leagues than we do about amateur players, and we take advantage of this information. Not only is detailed information captured for all minor-league players (to varying degrees depending upon the level) but we have our staff provide information that we feel is essential for evaluation. All of that goes into our internal player evaluation system.

I’m not sure I like the word ‘failure’! We took a gamble with our selection of Russell last year. We intended to sign him if we could get to a place where the value we estimated for him would match his expectation. We were never able to bridge that gap, although we worked hard up until the deadline. We went in with our eyes open, knowing that he would be a tough sign. Eligible sophomores are difficult to sign, relative to the juniors and certainly the seniors. We take that into consideration but would not rule anything out.

***

Q: I understand not wanting to tip your hand– so some general questions re the draft: Will the Cards be willing to go over the slot to sign someone who falls due to “signability issues”? Secondly, Pitcher or Position player? College or High school?

– Allen, Portland, Ore.

Luhnow: You know I can’t or won’t tip my hand. Even if I could, we haven’t had our draft meetings yet and I really can’t predict our draft board more than two weeks before the bell rings. What we want is the best player available when we select at 13. However, that decision cannot be made independent of a discussion about what it would take to sign the player. We do not want to take an unnecessary financial risk. We have a method to value each player, and if our value is close to what we believe it would take to sign the player, then we are prepared to take a player and negotiate. If it is not close, then we would likely pass and move on to the next player on our board.

As far as the category of player, the answer is - yes, yes, yes and yes.

***

Every week during the regular season, The Post-Dispatch’s baseball writer Derrick Goold will answer fans’ emails in a mailbag blog called PostCards, a spin-off of Bird Land. This week Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow has agreed to answer questions about the draft and the minor leagues from readers.

To comment and discuss the mailbag visit the PostCards blog on StlToday.com. To submit questions write PostCards@post-dispatch.com or file them as a comment on this blog. With all questions please include your name and hometown.

PostCards will run online exclusively at StlToday.com.

-30-