Image courtesy of Redbird Chatter
It's been a while since Cardinals fans have had a chance to be excited about a pitching prospect on his way up. Adam Wainwright and Jaime Garcia sneaked up on the Major Leagues, arriving as a reliever and an elbow-surgery victim, respectively, and Rick Ankiel's teenage infamy left fans justifiably snake-bitten about some of the promising pitchers in between. But last week Carlosmania arrived in the states, and joining him and Shelby Miller are enough pitching prospects for an entire rotation to dream on, if you're desperate enough.
All that need be said about Carlos Martinez, signed from the Dominican Republic for $1.5 million last June, is that after he made his first stateside start Saturday—a four hitless inning, six strikeout performance for the Quad Cities River Bandits—the River Bandits' manager was so moved as to make Pedro Martinez comparisons. For a 19-year-old making his first start in the United States. Pedro Martinez comparisons. Carlos Martinez features one of the best fastballs in the minor leagues, a high-nineties pitch with, uh, Pedro-like movement, and surprisingly well-developed breaking stuff. Pedro Martinez once struck out 313 batters in 213 innings. It might be a stretch, but I can't complain.
Shelby Miller is less of a surprise but no less exciting. After a debut season in which his innings and pitches were constantly monitored, the 20-year-old's first five starts at high-A Palm Beach have been eye-opening; he's struck out 42 batters in just 28 innings, which leads the Florida State League even though he's made one fewer start than most of his competition. Miller, the Cardinals' first-rounder in 2009, was advertised as a long-term project when he signed, but he took immediately to full-season baseball and at this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where he won't end the season as a 20-year-old in AA. He's got another of the best fastballs in the minor leagues, although he's too tall and white for anybody to compare him to Pedro Martinez. (I hear the coach of the Quad Cities River Bandits once compared him to a young Trever Miller.)
Elsewhere, the Cardinals win fewer best fastball contests, but their rotation depth in the minor leagues is suddenly enviable. Lance Lynn, who briefly challenged for the fifth-starter job in Spring Training, remains one injury away from the majors, and he'd look nice as the fourth man in a 2014 rotation that featured Martinez, Miller, and Jaime Garcia. Trevor Rosenthal, a Lee's Summit native who became one of the most talked-about low-minors prospects of the spring, announced his arrival in the Quad Cities by striking out 11 of the 15 batters he faced in his first start there. Even Maikel Cleto, the much-maligned pitching prospect acquired in the Brendan Ryan trade, has pitched well, earning a call-up to AA Springfield after just five starts in Palm Beach.
There are even more prospects behind those guys, if you care to look. For a team that's made its name rehabilitating thirtysomething pitchers with bad fastballs it's an embarrassment of prospect riches—and a look into a future where Dave Duncan will have to find something besides "Try to throw it at his bat" to tell the members of his rotation.
