Results for May 1st

[New Pagodi]

Memphis won 4-2 against Omaha. Blake Hawksworth had by far his best start of the season. He gave up 1 run over 7 innings. Rick Ankiel was 2 for 3 with a walk. Box Log

Springfield was rained out.

Palm Beach won 7-6 against Daytons. Gary Daley had by far his worst start of the season. (After 3 very good starts.) He gave up 5 runs in 5 innings. Luke Gregerson pitched a scoreless ninth. He has taken over the closing duties since Jason Motte has been promoted to Springfield. The team was down 5-1 in the fifth, but came back lead by a 4 for 4 performance from Brandon Yarbrough. Allen Craig was 2 for 4 including the game winning hit. Box Log

Quad Cities won 4-2 against the Great Lakes Loons. The team had been shut out for 16 innings by Loon pitching before finally scoring 4 in the eighth. (Although honestly that was mostly due to shoddy defense.) Shaun Garceau gave up 1 run over 5 innings with 5 strikeouts. Garceau is the youngest member of the pitching staff and has been pleasantly surprising so far – 2.29 ERA, 20 Ks in 19 and 2/3 innings. The only negative is that he has also given up 6 walks so far. Costarter Mike Schellinger gave up 1 run over 3 innings and picked up the win. Box Log

[Dillagii]

Whats your opinion on Yarbrough?

[New Pagodi]

Whats your opinion on Yarbrough?

He’s definitely the second best catching prospect in the system, but that is mostly due to the extreme dearth of catchers. And honestly he was in danger of being passed by Christian Reyes until his excellent play this year.

He had a very good year in Johnson City in 2004, but was disappointing in Quad Cities in 2005 and had to be demoted to New Jersey. I think a lot of people have been down on him since – especially with the emergence of Bryan Anderson.

I don’t know much about his defense, and probably would not be qualified to evaluate it even if I had some reports.

He’s still young (22) and has some time left to develop, but taking everything into account, I think he’ll probably top out as a quad-A catcher like Mike Mahoney. Of course I would love to be wrong here.

So far this year, he’s hitting .344, .417, .508, .925 (avg, obp, slg, ops) with 7 extra base hits in 61 ABs. Here are his career stats.

[cardfaninfla]

While Yarbrough did struggle in Low A last year he is playing in high A this year and has been on fire the last few weeks. He isn't as good defensively from what I have read and he hasn't shown a lot of power. But as we saw with Estrada and LoDuca, if a guy can hit around .300 and catch a little bit he has value.

[Richie Allen]

Rick keeps hitting! 27 Ribbies in 25 games.

[Izzyman]

Whats your opinion on Yarbrough?

He’s definitely the second best catching prospect in the system, but that is mostly due to the extreme dearth of catchers. And honestly he was in danger of being passed by Christian Reyes until his excellent play this year.

He had a very good year in Johnson City in 2004, but was disappointing in Quad Cities in 2005 and had to be demoted to New Jersey. I think a lot of people have been down on him since – especially with the emergence of Bryan Anderson.

I don’t know much about his defense, and probably would not be qualified to evaluate it even if I had some reports.

He’s still young (22) and has some time left to develop, but taking everything into account, I think he’ll probably top out as a quad-A catcher like Mike Mahoney. Of course I would love to be wrong here.

So far this year, he’s hitting .344, .417, .508, .925 (avg, obp, slg, ops) with 7 extra base hits in 61 ABs. Here are his career stats.

Do you know anything about Reyes. He had a nice year in JC last year.

[Fat Strat]

Rick keeps hitting! 27 Ribbies in 25 games.

I think we can safely say that Ankiel has a legitimate shot at a major league career. He just needs more seasoning.

I would take a .270 ba from a CF'er with a lightening arm who can crank hr's at will. He might beat Rasmus into Edmonds' spot. Honestly.

[Dillagii]

Rick keeps hitting! 27 Ribbies in 25 games.

I think we can safely say that Ankiel has a legitimate shot at a major league career. He just needs more seasoning.

I would take a .270 ba from a CF'er with a lightening arm who can crank hr's at will. He might beat Rasmus into Edmonds' spot. Honestly.

It's little premature to talk about it, right?

[cardfaninfla]

Reyes is interesting to me because the Cards drafted him twice in the same round in two different years. He was a 27th round pick out of a PR high school in 04 and then a 27th round pick out of a JC in 06.

Last year he hit 8 home runs in 122 at bats with JC. That comes out to 30 plus home runs over 500 AB's which shows interesting power for a catcher these days.

I am not sure why he was in extended spring training but he just started playing again he is 20/21 years old playing in low A so he bears watching.

[Fat Strat]

It's little premature to talk about it, right?

No, I don't think so.

Ankiel is slowly demonstrating that he's not all hr. He has an .867 OPS at Memphis this season, which is right in line with his MiLB career #'s. He's clearly got a lot of power, with an astonishing .568 slug%. As he gains more experience playing the field and hitting, he'll start to hit more consistently, and you'll see that OBP and BA climb to more respectable levels.

He has more raw power than Duncan ever showed in the minors. Duncna never slugged over .500 in any season in the minors. Ankiel's career slug% in the MiLB is an amazing .529. We know he has a great arm, and from all indications he's developing into a decent defensive CF'er.

His minor league batting totals: .265 .338 .529 867

An 800+ OPS CF'er is immensely valuable in the big leagues.

I would say that Alphonso Soriano is the best big league model for him. A player with a low OBP and immense raw power. Ankiel doesn't have Soriano's speed and I wouldn't be expecting 40 hr seasons, but he fits the Soriano mold of high slug%, low OBP.