Cardinals interested in top Latin American teen prospect

The St. Louis Cardinals are deep into their final preps for the upcoming draft — vice president/farm director Jeff Luhnow, for example, is out in Los Angeles for one of the workout camps the Cardinals hold around the country — but the draft isn’t the only player procurement date rapidly approaching.

And it’s also no the longer the only one where the Cardinals shell out six-figure bonuses.

When the international signing period opened last season, the Cardinals seized on six players from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, spending a franchise record $3 million bonuses. The player considered the top prospect that they signed, third baseman Roberto De La Cruz, received a bonus in excess of $1.2 million. Three players received bonuses that were more than the Cardinals had ever spent in bonuses before.

Now they are being linked to one of the highest-profile players in the Dominican Republic who will be eligible to sign with a major-league team this July 2.

Luhnow acknowledged this afternoon that the Cardinals are interested in outfielder Wagner Mateo, listed by some as one of the top five talents available for this international signing period. Mateo, who just turned 16, is a lefthanded-hitting center fielder and he’s expected to command one of the bigger bonuses of the season. My friend Dejan Kovacevic, the Pirates beat writer for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reported this morning that scouts/agents in the area are expecting the Cardinals to make a substantial offer to Mateo. Luhnow stressed that Mateo is one name on a list of players the Cardinals are interested in and added that the Cardinals “haven’t gotten to a point where we are making any offers just yet.”

“We’ve seen him,” Luhnow said of Mateo. “We’ve had some people go in and look at him. … I don’t know right now what the market is going to look like. It could be different than last year’s. We have a way to evaluate the player, determine his potential and then also decide what he is worth to us. We’re comfortable with how we’re able to do that.”

The Cardinals did bring Mateo to Jupiter, Fla., to work out in front of the team’s coaches and scouts there at the team’s spring training facility. Mateo played in a game with the Extended Spring Training team. He hit a couple doubles and played well in center fielder, Luhnow said. The Cardinals may elect not to wade into the kind of bonus Mateo is said to want, but the organization is making it a priority to be more active — and more of a presence — when it comes to the players of Mateo’s level at the July 2 signing period. It comes at a time that the organization also wants to see more of the international players moving toward the majors. For the past four years, strengthening the international scouting and development has been a priority, but the best of the talent harvested from that area is just now reaching High-A and Class AA (pitchers Francisco Samuel and Richard Castillo and infielder Jose Martinez, etc.). When/if De La Cruz is assigned to an affiliate this season we’ll have a better handle on the player they got with last year’s statement signing.

I asked Baseball America’s Ben Badler for a scouting report. Badler recently wrote about Mateo as part of a larger story with the international. Badler wrote me:

Mateo is will probably compete with Gary Sanchez, a catcher from the Dominican Republic, and Miguel Sano, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who will end up either at third base or right field, for one of the top three signing bonuses. Sano has received the most media attention, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say he’s the consensus best player available.

Mateo isn’t too big-he’s listed at 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, but scouts I’ve talked to say he’s closer to 6-foot-1 or 6-foot even. His body is already relatively mature so he might move to a corner outfield position, but scouts I’ve spoken with say his bat is advanced. He has a good feel for hitting and has shown the ability to hit balls out of the park to all fields. Some scouts see him as more of a line-drive hitter with occasional pop, but he has a short swing and should be able to hit in game situations. I know Mateo came to the Cardinals complex for a workout in spring training and hit well, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the Cardinals had interest in Mateo.

Cardinals’ Latin America scouting supervisor Juan Mercado has scouted Mateo for several years. Though Luhnow agreed when asked if last year’s willingness to spend on bonuses added oomph to the Cardinals meeting with agents a year ago when they expressed a willingness to be a larger player in the area.

“I think what we’ve seen is an increase in our access to the better players, yes,” Luhnow said.

Derrick Goold
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Scouting the Possibilities At 3B

I would take either one of them...

Greetings…

We talked about this on my WXOS 101.1 FM radio show Thursday and it’s worth some follow-up discussion.

The Cardinals need a third baseman, and GM John Mozeliak apparently plans to pursue one.  Three prime names have surfaced, so far: Cleveland’s Mark DeRosa, Colorado’s Garrett Atkins and Seattle’s Adrian Beltre. All three are free agents after the season. DeRosa makes $5 million, Atkins makes $7 million and Beltre is being paid $12 million this season. We’ll also throw in Baltimore’s Melvin Mora, who makes $9 million this year in the final season of his contract.

All are RH bats, which the Cardinals covet.

Let’s take a closer look …

- DeRosa: He’s more affordable for payroll puproses than Atkins, Beltre or Mora. DeRosa isn’t the smoothest at 3B, but can hold his own. He can also play 2B, SS, 1B, LF, RF. That versatility is ideal for manager Tony La Russa’s lineup concoctions. The Cardinals are poor against LH pitchers and DeRosa could help remedy that. In his career, he’s a .303 hitter against LH, with a .373 OBP and a .481 slugging percentage. Great guy in the clubhouse. Loved playing in the National League. Is Mitchell Boggs enough to land DeRosa? The Cubs, Mets and Brewers are said to be interested in acquiring DeRosa.

- Atkins: There seems to be a bit of a groundswell forming for Atkins among Cardinals fans, but let the buyer beware. Atkins had a career year in 2006 — 29 homers, 120 RBIs, .329 BA — but his offensive numbers have been in steady decline since then. Atkins is batting only .195 this season, with a .273 OBP and an anemic .292 SLG. He’s also near the bottom of the NL in zone rating among 3B. And here’s another big concern about Atkins: He has glaring home/road splits. He hits with greater authority at Coors Field and isn’t nearly as effective away from Coors. That bothers me.

Here are Atkins’ career splits:

Home:   .331 BA,   .388 OBP,    .519 SLG
Away:    .255 BA,   .324 OBP,    .410 SLG

To put Atkins’ road splits in perspective, consider these two batting lines:

.246 BA,  .353 OBP,  .404 SLG.
.247 BA,  .309 OBP,  .424 SLG.

Both sets of numbers are similar to what we’ve seen from Atkins away from Coors Field, no?

Well, the first hitting line belongs to Joe Thurston.

The second belongs to Brian Barden.

Perhaps Atkins would be jump-started by a transfer to St. Louis and the opportunity to compete in a winning environment. Then again, didn’t many of us say the same thing about Khalil Greene? I have no idea what the Rockies would want in return, but they’re 14 games out of first place and probably are looking to dump salary. And the word on the street is that the Rox may be willing to eat a big chunk of Atkins’ $7 million salary. Bill DeWitt holding on line two…

-Beltre: I have to be up front about this. At first I thought – no way. But I warmed up to the idea after digging into the numbers. First of all, the $12 million. That’s a lot of jack, and I can’t imagine that DeWitt would approve of adding so much salary to the payroll. So I’m assuming that the Mariners would have to absorb a lot of that salary to make this deal possible. Are the M’s willing to do that? Dunno. They’re 6 games out in the AL West. I don’t think they’re a playoff team, so maybe the M’s will want to save some money. Beltre is a very good defender. Since signing with the Mariners in 2005, he’s been the second-best 3B (according to Zone Rating compiled by STATS LLC) in the American League.

Beltre’s biggest season was with the Dodgers in his walk-year of 2004, when he hit 48 homers, knocked in 121 runs and batted .334. But here’s the deal: since joining the Mariners, Beltre ranks 6th among MLB third baseman in homers, and he’s 5th in RBIs. He’s 16th in slugging. That may not seem overly impressive to you, but we must consider an important factor in these numbers:

Beltre is the opposite of Atkins in that his offense has been suppressed by playing home games at Safeco Field. He’s a much better hitter away from Seattle. Let’s take a look:

Home:  .247 BA,  .302 OBP,  .405 SLG
Away:  .277  BA,  .325 OBP,  .481 SLG

In Atkins, you get a hitter with mediocre numbers away from Coors Field. In Beltre, you get a hitter who packs a lot more punch when he gets away from his spacious home yard in Seattle. Beltre is also great pals with the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols. Beltre has started slowly this season, but that’s normal for him; during his career he really heats up as the season rolls along. In terms of talent, Beltre is the guy. But the salary implications figure to be a considerable obstacle.  

-Mora: He drove in 104 runs for a bad team last season, and is a solid pro, good in the clubhouse. He’s playing decently at 3B. But Mora is 37, his power has dropped this season, and he has a no-trade clause. Mora, his wife and their large family have also made Baltimore their year-round home. Even if the Cardinals wanted him, and could get him, would Mora be willing to relocate? Would he insist on a contract extension to do so? A few things here seem to make this a reach for the Cardinals.

Bernie Miklasz
STL Today

Cardinals Receive Needed Offensive Help

Ryan Ludwick

The Cardinals may be on a roll of late, but you can’t hide the fact that the offense is in a slump. St. Louis is 7-2 in the previous nine games, but have only scored more than five runs once in the past three weeks.

The scuffling offense gets one of its biggest weapons back on Friday night, and not a day too soon.

All Star slugger, Ryan Ludwick, is scheduled to be activated this Friday when the 28-19 Cardinals take on the 23-23 Giants in San Francisco this weekend.

Ludwick experienced a strained right hamstring on May 12^th when he dove for a fly ball against Pittsburgh.

The Cards, who were the MLB’s best offensive team in the first few weeks of the season, scored an average of three runs per game with Ludwick out of the lineup. In the early stages of this season, St. Louis had a scoring average of above five.

With Luddy coming off the DL, somebody will have to be sent down to Memphis. IF I was John Mozeliak, this would be the hardest decision of this season so far.

The likely candidates to be sent down are Stavinoha and Brad Thompson.

Stavinoha has been hot of late, but it would kill me to send down a hot bat in the middle of the team’s offensive slump. However, with Rasmus, Ankiel, Ludwick, and Duncan… Stavi would see little playing time and almost be wasted.

On the other end of the spectrum, Brad Thompson has been the definition of waste. Many argue that he is in the lineup just in case a starting pitcher implodes in the second inning. Well that is great but Thompson has only pitched TWICE since May 8^th. We just do not need 13 pitches on the roster.

Another option would be to move Khalil Greene to the DL and basically just switch roles with Ludwick. While Khalil CERTAINLY needs to be DLed, I think the Greene-Ludwick exchange would hurt us… as it would only leave us with one bench infielder. The lack of depth in the infield concerns me, so I would wait to put Khalil on the DL until Tyler Greene is available to promote (June 3).

As the GM, I would demote Nick Stavinoha. I hate saying that, but he would get little playing time due to the outfield depth we already have.

—

Not only is Ludwick expected to start on Friday, Cardinal outfielder Rick Ankiel is also part of the plan for tomorrow.

Ankiel was actually activated from the DL on the 24^th, but had taken the Milwaukee series off after he experienced soreness throughout his body after his Sunday start.

There’s no question, it’s especially Ludwick that’s been missed in the batting order.. Ankiel is off to something of a slow start this year, whereas Ludwick already had eight home runs in 30 games and is slugging .538. Ank, one of the streakiest players on the team, has hit .247 with only two home runs in his 85 at bats this year.

It is obvious that the offense is just not the same without these two. If you combine Rick and Luddy’s 2008 stats, you will find one helluva player. When you take out these two, you take out a .283 average, 62 HR, and 184 RBI. Basically, home run wise, just envision at McGwire-less 1998 Cardinal team.

“Ludwick’s a quality producer, so he’s got to make it better,” manager Tony La Russa said.

The main victim of these injuries has unarguably been Albert Pujols. Opponents have been able to pitch around the St. Louis Cardinals star following the injuries to Ludwick and Ankiel that left Pujols with little protection. He drew four intentional walks in last weekend’s series against Kansas City — one of them with two on and no outs — and seven walks overall. Albert has been walked 12 times in the past six games.

With no reason to pitch to Pujols, he is finding it hard to get into a groove. There is little difference between what he is experiencing now and pinch-hitting. Lately he’s only getting a chance to hit twice a game at the most due to the ridiculous amount of walks. When he gets his protection back, expect more real at bats, and look for Pujols to heat it up a little bit.

The Cardinals have still found a way to breathe with two of their top three sluggers out of the lineup thanks to amazing pitching. The opposition has only scored a mere eight runs in the past seven days.

St. Louis will likely take a dose of there own medicine when they visit the Bay City this weekend. They will face greater pitching with Cain, Zito, and Jonathan Sanchez taking the mound.

I suspect more 2-3 games in the next few days. With Lohse missing his Friday start due to a “burning cramp” in his elbow that may DL him, Pineiro, Carpenter, and Waino will take the mound for the Redbirds at AT&T Park where the Cards are 12-15.

Both teams’ offense has been pretty poor of late. Hopefully, the return of Ludwick and Ank will spark something in St. Louis’ lineup.

Justin Hulsey
Cardinals Front Office

This Card Is A Real Ace

Chris Carpenter is doing exactly what Chris Carpenter does when healthy…dominate opposing hitters. He has yet to give up an earned run in 23-innings to start the season. Just 2 starters since 1954 have begun a season with more innings without an earned run, the Dodgers Fernado Valenzuela in ‘85 and KC’s Zach Greinke this year.

Carpenter is now 53-20 as a Redbird with an ERA of 3.00. The Cardinals are 70-31 in his starts.

But Carp means so much more to the starting rotation than just when he pitches. This recent stretch of terrific starting pitching is a direct results of Carpenter being healthy and in the rotation.

In the 19-games Carp has been active the rotation is 13-2 with a 1.44 ERA. Eye-popping numbers! The 28-games this season The Ace has been on the disabled list, the rotation was 9-11 with a 5.09 ERA.

Now to this current stretch for the Cardinals rotation. It’s up to 9-games now with 2-starts by Carp. The rotation is 7-1 with a 0.98 ERA over 64-innings.

The numbers are very impressive. But what you see with your own eyes tells an even more impressive story, Carpenter is the Cards Real Ace.

Pat Parris
101 ESPN