Rob Rains Inside Baseball: Cards have more small-college pitchers on the way

NOTE: For great St. Louis Sports coverage, check out StLSportsPage.com edited by veteran St. Louis sports writer Rob Rains. Sign up for StLSportsPage.com's Fantasy Survivor League.

By Rob Rains

One of the reasons for the Cardinals’ success this year has been the performance of the 11 rookie pitchers who have taken turns on the mound, including eight who celebrated their major-league debut.

While two of the 11 – Michael Wacha and Shelby Miller – were highly touted first-round draft picks and another, Carlos Martinez, was an international free agent – the majority of the rest advanced to the majors either after being a mid to late-round draft pick or a small college selection, or both.

Of the other eight rookies to pitch for the Cardinals this year only one, John Gast, was selected earlier than the ninth round of the draft. He was a sixth-round pick.

Five of the rookies – Trevor Rosenthal, Keith Butler, Sam Freeman, Michael Blazek and Kevin Siegrist – were selected in the 21st round of the draft or later.

“You have to take your hat off to the whole scouting department, that’s pure scouting right there,” said Double A Springfield manager Mike Shildt, who has had all of those pitchers spend some time on his team the last two years. “You have to get out, be connected in your area, work the phones, work your contacts and keep your ear to the ground, then basically go out and see guys pitch.

“That’s why the area scouts are the lifeblood of the organization. The national guys and cross-checkers are not going to get that deep on your list. Those are the guys you earn your money on and earn your reputation. We’ve done a nice job of doing that.”

Shildt was a scout from 1999 through 2007 before becoming a coach and then manager in the Cardinals’ farm system. Gary LaRocque, now the senior advisor to player development, worked for many years as a scout and scouting director in his career with the Dodgers and Mets before joining the Cardinals in 2008.

“At the end of the day they don’t ask you what round you were drafted in or how much money you got when the game goes on,” LaRocque said. “Our players recognize that. When you wear this uniform that’s how we view it, that we are all in this together. Our responsibility centers on making sure the next wave of players that comes along can do the exact same thing.

“Having been in amateur scouting for a long time, I really believe that you can outwork people. Today the way the system works very few players are hidden on the amateur market. We do rely on being a homegrown organization, and we are proud of that.”

Part of the reason the Cardinals have been able to find and develop those pitchers is a blend of work between the scouting department and the analytics side, who have been able to correctly identify many small-college pitchers who otherwise might have gone unnoticed.

“The later the round, as the number of scouting reports and the number of scouts who have seen a player start to taper down, you reach for any data point you can,” said scouting director Dan Kantrovitz. “If you have one scout who has seen a player and you have the stats agreeing, for lack of a better word, with that scout, it makes the decision easier.

“We try to put as much due diligence into a guy taken in the 30th round as the guy we are taking first overall, but realistically that doesn’t always happen for one reason or another. You can’t have 10 guys see everybody in the draft. The fewer scouts who see a player, that might add to the intrigue of those guys once they get into the system.”

Kantrovitz also said there is a valid reason why more pitchers seem to come from smaller colleges, and later round draft picks, than hitters.

“When you draft a guy late sometimes it’s easier to hang your hat on a high velocity number, above 90, because that is the primary tool for a pitcher,” Kantrovitz said. “With a position player, it’s more the sum of all his tools. Unless a guy is a tremendous home run hitter, like Matt Adams was, it’s tough to hang your hat on one particular tool at that point of the draft.”

All of the scouts and player development officials with the Cardinalsdo not believe the current success of the small-college and late-round pitchers is an anomaly. They see the system continuing to churn out pitchers who soon should be ready for their turn in the major leagues.

“When somebody likes one of these players it takes 15 other scouts to say, ‘Yeah that player sounds better than mine’,” said Kantrovitz. “It’s a group effort. Then once they get in the system, a lot of them have made pretty good adjustments with the teaching they get from our coaches and instructors.”

Here is a list of a dozen pitchers in the Cardinals system who could be in that next wave, including three who went undrafted. They are grouped according to their current level in the system.

At Double A Springfield:

Right-hander Zach Petrick - Signed in 2012 as undrafted free agent from Northwestern Ohio. Petrick quickly became one of the hot prospects in the Cardinals’ farm system after going 11-0 to begin his professional career before running into a little bit of a wakeup call of late, losing two of his last three starts. The 24-year-old still has a combined record of 6-2 this season between Peoria, Palm Beach and Springfield with a 1.76 ERA, allowing only 74 hits and 25 walks in 97 innings while striking out 107.

Left-hander Lee Stoppelman - Drafted in the 24th round in 2012 from Central Missouri. He began this year with Palm Beach before being promoted to Springfield, where he is 3-1 with four saves and a 1.46 ERA in 34 relief appearances. In 37 innings he has allowed 20 hits and walked 13 while striking out 45. He has limited opponents to a .157 batting average. The 23-year-old has been even better of late. In 10 appearances before pitching Sunday night, he was 2-0 with a 0.71 ERA and in 12 2/3 innings allowed seven hits, walked two and posted 20 strikeouts.

Right-hander Heath Wyatt - Drafted in the 33rd round in 2011 from Southeastern Oklahoma State. Like Stoppelman, Wyatt started this season at Palm Beach before being promoted to Springfield, where he has made 31 relief appearances, going 3-1 with a 3.10 ERA. A 25-year-old sidearm style pitcher, he has allowed just eight walks in 40 2/3 innings while striking out 32. He was the closer at Quad Cities last year, earning 20 saves while recording a 2.24 ERA.

At Class A Palm Beach:

Right-hander Joe Cuda - Drafted in the 27th round in 2012 from Eckerd (Fla.) College. In his first four starts after being promoted from Peoria, Cuda has gone 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA. In 25 innings, he has allowed 20 hits and walked four while striking out 18. In his last two starts Cuda, who will turn 24 next month, has worked a combined 13 scoreless innings, allowing just six hit hits and two walks while striking out 10.

At Class A Peoria:

Right-hander Thomas Lee - Signed in 2012 as an undrafted free agent from Sonoma (Calif.) State. The 23-year-old Lee has spent the entire season at Peoria, where he has gone 5-1 with a 2.66 ERA, allowing 38 hits and walking only five while recording 41 strikeouts in 44 innings. He has made one start among his 22 appearances. He had just nine walks and 57 strikeouts in 51 1/3 innings in his first year as a professional last year at rookie level Johnson City.

Right-hander Dixon Llorens - Drafted in the 25th round in 2012 from Miami Dade (Fla.) Community College South. Like Lee, Llorens, who won’t turn 21 until October, has spent the entire season at Peoria and has become the Chiefs’ closer, earning 10 saves. He is 3-2 with a 2.93 ERA and in 40 innings has allowed 26 hits and 19 walks while striking out 61. He has held opponents to a .183 batting average. He split the 2012 season between Johnson City and Quad Cities and walked 11 and struck out 62 in 36 combined innings, a ratio of 15.5 strikeouts per nine innings, which led the St. Louis organization.

Right-hander Chris Perry - Drafted in the 17th round in 2012 from Methodist University (N.C.). A 2-0 record and 1.61 ERA in four starts at State College earned Perry, who turned 23 last month, a promotion to Peoria. With the Chiefs he has made six starts, going 2-1 with a 2.41 ERA. He has allowed just five walks in 37 1/3 innings in those starts while striking out 32. He missed last season after the draft because of a lower back injury.

Right-hander Brad Watson - Signed in the 37th round in 2011 from Wartburg College (Iowa). After starting the season at Palm Beach he has spent much of the year at Peoria, where he is 3-5 with a 3.93 ERA in nine starts. In 52 2/3 innings he has walked 13 and struck out 42. The 6-foot-4 Watson just turned 24.

At rookie Johnson City:

Right-hander Kyle Grana - Signed as an undrafted free agent in 2013 from Bellarmine University (Iowa). The graduate of Lafayette High School attended the Cardinals pre-draft workout at Busch Stadium and was signed just a couple of days after the draft. He began the season in the Gulf Coast League, where he went 1-0 with a 1.69 ERA in 15 relief appearances, walking seven and striking out 24 in 21 1/3 innings. That earned the 6-foot-4 Grana, 22, a promotion to Johnson City where he has pitched in just three games.

Right-hander Mike Holback - Drafted in the 25th round from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. He has spent this season at Johnson City, going 2-0 with a 2.18 ERA. He made 12 relief appearances before becoming a starter and in those three starts has worked a combined 13 innings, allowing three earned runs, walking five and striking out 19. He will not turn 21 until September.

Right-hander Zach Loraine - Drafted in the 21st round in 2013 from Coker (S.C.) College. Another St. Louis area native (Fort Zumwalt West) Loraine is a converted infielder who has been pitching fulltime for less than a year. He just turned 23, and in 19 relief appearances, is 3-0 with two saves and a 1.41 ERA with 10 walks and 41 strikeouts in 32 innings.

Right hander Blake McKnight - Drafted in the 37th round in 2013 from Evangel (Mo.) University. A 21-year-old native of O’Fallon, Mo., McKnight has made eight starts in his nine appearances and has gone 2-1 with a 2.37 ERA. Of the 13 earned runs he has allowed in 49 1/3 innings, five came in one game. He has 33 strikeouts and just seven walks.
.............
Follow @RobRains on Twitter  Follow @StLSportsPage on Twitter
Like StL Sports Page on Facebook