Cardinals farm director likes system's progress

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By Steve Batterson | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 |

When Jeff Luhnow’s phone rang Tuesday morning, the caller wanted to know about Richard Castillo and the five innings of no-hit baseball the 18-year-old pitched the previous evening in his starting debut for Quad-Cities.

The caller had read all about Castillo in Monday’s game reports and wanted to know more.

Luhnow was happy to share all he could about the right-hander from Barquisimeto, Venezuela, who the St. Louis Cardinals vice president of scouting and player development says “is kind of a mystery guy to a lot of people right now.”

The caller was William DeWitt Jr., the chairman and CEO of the Cardinals.

“Mr. DeWitt asked a lot of questions about him, and I was happy to tell him,” Luhnow said Tuesday during a visit to the Quad-Cities.

“Castillo is a player a lot of scouts shied away from because he is a 5-foot-11 right-hander. What we saw as we tried him out was a young man who knew how to pitch, who had good command of the strike zone and who could compete. That’s why we signed him as a 16-year old.”

He is also an example of the type of growth the St. Louis organization has seen in player development in recent years.

Nine players from within the system have made major-league debuts this season and despite injuries that have riddled the Cardinals’ pitching staff, St. Louis took the field Tuesday night with the National League wild-card entry if the season had ended.

Luhnow said that is a credit to the job done this season by major-league manager Tony La Russa, pitching coach Dave Duncan and his staff.

“It also speaks to the job that is being done by the coaches throughout every level of the organization. The system is working, producing players the way it is supposed to,” Luhnow said.

Luhnow said first-year Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak, who worked his way through the organization’s player development and scouting ranks, is committed to the renewed emphasis St. Louis has put on developing its own talent through an expanded farm system.

Since joining the Cardinals in 2003, Luhnow has overseen growth in the Cardinals’ operations in Latin America, including the opening of a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic and the establishment of operations in Venezuela.

He has developed proprietary player evaluation methods to assist in player personnel decisions and in 2007, his first year as farm director, he watched the organization add a rookie-level club in the Gulf Coast League.

“We’ve had a plan in place that we continue to execute. With the addition of another short-season club, we expected to dilute the win-loss record of our minor-league clubs the past couple of years, and that has happened as we have grown with youth,” Luhnow said.

“Right now, most of our affiliates are the youngest clubs in their leagues, including here in the Quad-Cities, but we are growing this organization the right way. In the first half, our clubs finished .500 or better at every level, and that is encouraging.”

All of the Cardinals’ top-10 prospects, as ranked by Baseball America, are players who have come up through the St. Louis system.

Luhnow said he believes the Cardinals achieved their objectives in baseball’s recent draft.

“We’re excited about what we selected. There are righties, lefties, speed, power. It’s a good hodge-podge of talent that we hoped to chose,” Luhnow said.

Luhnow said he hopes that part of that hodge-podge, first-round draft pick Brett Wallace of Arizona State, can be signed within the next week. The hard-hitting Wallace is expected to begin his pro career in the Quad-Cities.

“He’s a player we felt arguably had the best bat in the entire draft class,” Luhnow said. “The question for us is what position he will play in the big leagues. Initially, third base is where he will begin.”

Once that happens, the evaluation process will begin.

That is nothing new. In addition to reducing injuries — a goal that has been realized during the two seasons the system has been used — one of the reasons St. Louis expanded its tandem-starter system this year to the high-A level is to better evaluate the pitchers in its system.

“Simply, it gives us a chance to see more pitchers. Nick Additon here is a perfect example. In a standard five-man rotation, there is a good chance he would have been a bullpen guy coming out of spring,” Luhnow said.

“He worked his way into a starting opportunity now that we have settled into a five-man rotation by making the most of a chance he may not have had without the tandem setup. It’s a system we see working.’’

Luhnow finds himself saying that a lot these days.

“Things are going well now and we may even be a little ahead of schedule,’’ he said. “I’m sure there will be some bumps along the way as we proceed. That’s to be expected, but I like the direction that we are headed. It’s good for everybody.”

Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com.