TOWER GROVE -- A favorite of those looking for late-round steals or pitchers who pitch beyond a pigeonhole, St. Louis Cardinals farmhand Trey Hearne stalled at Class AA Springfield and was among 14 minor leaguers released this week by the parent club.
Hearne, a 28th-round pick in the 2005 draft, went 4-4 with a 4.43 ERA in 12 games (seven starts) for the Double-A S-Cards. Hearne made a strong first impression once he got into the Cardinals' system despite defying a lot of the traits often insisted upon in a prospect pitcher. He didn't throw hard. He threw for location. He even once said that he threw with very little margin for error. The Cardinals considered him a potential gem, discovered when sorting through the statistics of all college programs and normalizing them for performance in one of the Class A systems. Hearne graded out well as a groundball pitcher whose mph wasn't ideal but movement was clearly a plus.
In that way he became a favorite in some corners of the organization, especially as he went 12-3 with a 2.25 ERA in ihs first full pro season and followed that a few years later with a 12-3, 2.82 turn in Class AA during the 2009 season. Hearne did reach Triple-A Memphis twice for cameo appearances, but his control -- he had a coach insist on nibbling at the black of the plate as far back as high school -- wasn't enough to compensate for his stuff at that level.
Scouts saw his ceiling as the lower minors, and his success at Class AA was beyond some of their expectations.
Among the other players released the most noteworthy was Jon Edwards, an outfielder who annual was graded as the best outfield arm in the system. Edwards topped out at Low-A Quad Cities, he hit .180 in his return to short-season Batavia this past season.
The moves were prompted mostly by opportunity each player would have coming into spring training next year. Hearne, for example, would be squeezed for innings by the insurance pitchers at Triple-A Memphis and the rising (read: younger) pitchers coming into Class AA.
The complete list of releases, per a club official:
Trey Hearne - RHP
Richard Racobaldo - IF/OF
Colt Sedbrook - IF
LaCurtis Mayes - RHP
Chris Notti - RHP
Travis Lawler - RHP
David Kington - RHP
Matt North - RHP
Jon Edwards - OF
Joe Babrick - OF
Moises Colorado - LHP
Yorbel Alcala - C
Anthony Fonseca - OF
Alberto Rivero - OF
Farmnik aside, and more on this later: Cardinals' draft pick Jordan Swagerty is keeping a blog during his time in the Arizona Fall League. He posted the first entry at "Walking with a Swagerty" a few days ago. You can check it out here as the league gets ready to open. AFL play begins Tuesday.
-30-
