With an ownership seemingly more focused on marketing the Cool! New! Ballpark! than putting together a team able to dominate a fortuitously weak division, reinforcements over the next several years are going to have to come from a gradually rebuilding farm club. If Jock is ever going to get the chance to pursue another big-ticket, high-reward free agent, the Cardinals will need to keep a stock of major league starters coming through the system on the cheap. MLB.com, apparently having the same idea in mind, though understandably less angry about it, recently profiled Cody Haerther and Nick Stavinoha.

Neither was projected as an impact bat, but coming into the season no names were more bandied about when it came to potential regulars in the near future. Both were similar players; Haerther, a sixth rounder out of high school in 2002, debuted in 2003 and had little trouble with rookie ball, hitting .332/.390/.478 with solid plate discipline. He had an unspectacular season in 2004, hitting .316 in the Midwest League but without power; Baseball America ranked him as the ninth best prospect in the system anyway, based largely on his unobscured route to the major leagues.

In 2005, the 22-year-old Haerther was assigned to high-A and dominated it out of the gate, hitting .318/.380/.584 with 23 extra-base-hits in 173 at-bats. Promoted to AA Springfield, he continued to hit–.298/.333/.500–but his plate discipline suffered. After putting up a solid 71:120 BB:K ratio in the low minors, he struck out 44 times to only nine walks in AA.

Returning to AA to start the season, Haerther’s stock was at an all-time high; with the Mediocrity Club holding down left field and no long-term candidate in sight, it was conceivable that he could spend the end of 2006 in St. Louis. In the early going he was up-and-down, slumping badly to start the season before surging at the end of April. Through one month he was hitting .284/.326/.506, similar to the end of 2005 except his BB:K rate had returned to its usual levels. And then he collapsed.

Stavinoha, though a year older than Haerther, had a much shorter road to Springfield. Old even for a college player, he fell to the seventh round in 2005 despite starring at LSU. 23 years old, he signed quickly and joined low-A Quad Cities. No Cardinals pick debuted higher, but even full season ball wasn’t competitive enough. After hitting .370/.408/.677 in college he scrapped the Midwest League without missing a beat, going .344/.398/.564 and striking out in just ten percent of his at-bats. The same age questions that sent him spiralling down in the draft dogged him as a prospect, but he seemed a lock to have continued success in the high minors.

Like Haerther, he looked pretty good over the first month of the season, hitting .324/.347/.479 in April. But warning signs were already there: after his 23:25 BB:K ratio in low A, he walked twice and struck out eighteen times in his first month in the high minors. Just before May began, he suffered what was supposed to be a minor ankle injury; he sat out for longer than expected, and when he came back his numbers collapsed.

Haerther, according to the MLB.com articles, was suffering from self-doubt and bad technique, and it shows:

        AB   H  2B  3B  HR  BB   BA   OBP   SLG
April   81  23   7   1   3   5 .284  .326  .506
May     70  15   4   1   2  10 .214  .309  .386
June    63  12   2   1   0   0 .190  .190  .254
July   100  32   8   0   5   7 .320  .361  .550
August  32  11   2   0   1   2 .344  .382  .500

In May his approach was the same–his walk and power numbers are similar to his successful April, his batting average is just lower. If we can assume that that’s when the crisis in confidence began, and it makes sense, it resulted in one of the worst months a professional baseball player could possibly had. Pressing, Haerther managed to do nothing right; he didn’t walk a single time all month, his batting average stayed low, and his power disappeared. An unequivocal disaster of a month.

In July Terry Evans (of Jeff Weaver fame), promoted to AA, apparently noticed how hard he was trying, and the ways in which he was pressing. Buoyed by those fixes and the resulting boost in confidence, Haerther’s continued to show his customary high batting average and solid plate discipline.

Stavinoha, meanwhile, was never able to get back on track after that minor ankle injury.

        AB   H  2B  3B  HR  BB   BA   OBP   SLG
April   71  23   5   0   2   2 .324  .347  .479
May     61  11   2   0   1   3 .180  .224  .262
June    71  19   1   0   1   3 .268  .297  .324
July    89  26   8   0   1   6 .292  .330  .416
August  47  17   3   1   5   6 .362  .426  .787

Perhaps more disheartening than his May disintegration was his June, when he got his batting average up but displayed no power or plate discipline. In July he began hitting doubles again, and in August–well, you can see what he’s done in August.

Neither one is a sure thing, but having two of them leaves the Cardinals with a pretty good shot that one will turn into a league-average outfielder. And if that happens, they won’t have to pay another Juan Encarnacion to do the job.

Also in the minor leagues: Junior Spivey homered again; that brings his August total to six, and his line to .277/.346/.745. Commenter Whopperman, who follows Memphis more closely than I do, had some great observations:

He hit another one tonight — well over 400 feet, landed off the stadium property.

Here’s my take, from having been at somewhere around 45 games in Memphis to this point this year. Spivey, until about two weeks ago, was still pouting over not getting the 2B job out of spring training. You could see it in his body language, he was just plain lazy out there. He didn’t care, and he didn’t care who realized it. If he couldn’t get to a ball in two steps, he watched it go into center or right. He didn’t run out much of anything. He took his nameplate down on autograph day so people wouldn’t see him, he was very obviously just trying to get the season over with.

But something changed a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if it was his suspension for blatantly ignoring a sign and getting in a fight with Danny Sheaffer about it or what, but he’s looked like a completely different player. He’s making big plays in the field, he’s stroking the ball at the plate, he’s high-fiving other people who make plays in the field…

If Spivey had the same attitude in April, he would have been the everyday second baseman by May 1. As it is, I say file it under better late than never and see if he can help…if he causes problems, banish him. The talent’s still been there all along, IMO.

In Palm Beach, Colby Rasmus–perhaps the only true impact bat in the system–also homered. As he’s done in every league, he started off his time in the high-A FSL slowly; he hit .214/.309/.372 in July. But over the last several days, he’s really turned it on; he’s 10 for his last 17, and in August he’s hitting .353/.441/.451.

So–there’s an update on the names you could be cursing this time in 2008. The idea of having three outfield prospects is pretty novel, I must say.