The Future

BW23 · Post by **BW23** » May 5 07, 7:53 am

I saw Lambert in late July of last year. He was hitting 95 consistently on the gun at the stadium, but I don't know how accurate that was.

I think many of us have said that he'll be best coming out of the pen, so I agree that it's a little premature to write him off yet without having even seen him in the pen.

But without his velocity, he won't make it there either.

I do agree that it was a bad pick at the time. I've always thought that.

Fat Strat · Post by **Fat Strat** » May 5 07, 8:00 am

Michael wrote:I saw this on Future Redbirds. His velocity is around the 85-90 range, yeesh.

I somehow let a tidbit of juicy info slip past me. It seems Chris Lambert’s promotion wasn’t much of a promotion at all, depending on your point of view. Lambert will pitch out of the bullpen for Memphis.

Lambert’s velocity has dropped from the low to mid nineties in college to 85-90 range. His control has been better this year as he’s been better at repeating his delivery, an issue that has plagued him throughout his pro career. He’s still shown a propensity for the long ball, allowing 5 homers in 25 innings. 3 of them came in one game, back-to-back-to-back.

Putting him in the pen could good for his arm, as the grind of starting twice a week seems to be what’s sapped his velocity. If he can maintain decent control while regaining some of the velocity he lost, he may have a future yet, just not quite the future the Cardinal brass was hoping for when they drafted him.

http://futureredbirds.com/2007/05/04/la ... e-bullpen/

Wow. He was a mid-90's guy when he was drafted. I assumed he was throwing 92-94 as a starter and was hoping he could ratchet it up to 94-96 as a reliever.

If either this report is wrong or he regains his velocity I'll still give him a chance. If he doesn't....

cardfaninfla · Post by **cardfaninfla** » May 5 07, 12:17 pm

Well let's see Gateway called him "bile" and garbage and Longhorn said it would be a "miracle" if he ever made it. CAll me crazy but that sounds like written off to me.

longhornbaseball · Post by **longhornbaseball** » May 5 07, 12:26 pm

cardfaninfla wrote:Longhorn said it would be a "miracle" if he ever made it.

No, I never said that. What I actually said was its "highly unlikely" that he'd make the majors. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say around 5-10%. Hardly "writing him off."

Izzyman · Post by **Izzyman** » May 5 07, 1:12 pm

BW23 wrote:I saw Lambert in late July of last year. He was hitting 95 consistently on the gun at the stadium, but I don't know how accurate that was.

I think many of us have said that he'll be best coming out of the pen, so I agree that it's a little premature to write him off yet without having even seen him in the pen.

But without his velocity, he won't make it there either.

I do agree that it was a bad pick at the time. I've always thought that.

The gun in springfield has never been acurate. I doubt Lambert was throwing that hard.

PHILLYCARD · Post by **PHILLYCARD** » May 7 07, 10:20 am

I think we all agree that Lamberts only way to St. Louis is through the bullpen. We have been saying this the last couple years. The guy has never lived up to his draft slot plain and simple. He was promoted to make way for some of the younger arms in the system to move up and its really the only option the Cards had with him. Hopefully he pitches well in middle relief.

fewgoodcards · Post by **fewgoodcards** » May 7 07, 3:44 pm

PHILLYCARD wrote:I think we all agree that Lamberts only way to St. Louis is through the bullpen. We have been saying this the last couple years. The guy has never lived up to his draft slot plain and simple. He was promoted to make way for some of the younger arms in the system to move up and its really the only option the Cards had with him. Hopefully he pitches well in middle relief.

guys picked after lambert

Glen Perkins, Phil Hughes, Taylor Tankersley, Eric Hurley, Gio Gonzalez, Huston Street, Yovanni Gallardo

guys picked after Mike Ferris

Hunter Pence, Dustin Pedroia, Kurt Suzuki, Jason Vargas, Gabby Hernandez, Wade Davis, Adam Lind

we blew it that draft. hopefully lambert can make it as a righthanded taylor tankersley, but that is about it as far as upside goes with him.

thrill · Post by **thrill** » May 7 07, 4:00 pm

fewgoodcards wrote:
PHILLYCARD wrote:I think we all agree that Lamberts only way to St. Louis is through the bullpen. We have been saying this the last couple years. The guy has never lived up to his draft slot plain and simple. He was promoted to make way for some of the younger arms in the system to move up and its really the only option the Cards had with him. Hopefully he pitches well in middle relief.
guys picked after lambert

Glen Perkins, Phil Hughes, Taylor Tankersley, Eric Hurley, Gio Gonzalez, Huston Street, Yovanni Gallardo

guys picked after Mike Ferris

Hunter Pence, Dustin Pedroia, Kurt Suzuki, Jason Vargas, Gabby Hernandez, Wade Davis, Adam Lind

we blew it that draft. hopefully lambert can make it as a righthanded taylor tankersley, but that is about it as far as upside goes with him.

Hughes and Pence, please.

cardfaninfla · Post by **cardfaninfla** » May 7 07, 4:37 pm

I doubt the 2004 draft is one that they will celebrate. They did pick up some nice bull pen arms later in that draft in Sillman and Worrell. Parisi is pitching in AAA but I doubt he has much upside and Hoffpauir was drafted in the 6th round. Certainly the 05 and 06 drafts were much better.

I know when the Lambert pick was made I certainly wanted Hurley more. But I had seen him pitch. The funny thing is many thought that Ferris in teh second round was a steal pick since many projected him in the fisrt round.

phins · Post by **phins** » May 9 07, 10:11 pm

cardfaninfla wrote:I doubt the 2004 draft is one that they will celebrate. They did pick up some nice bull pen arms later in that draft in Sillman and Worrell. Parisi is pitching in AAA but I doubt he has much upside and Hoffpauir was drafted in the 6th round. Certainly the 05 and 06 drafts were much better.

I know when the Lambert pick was made I certainly wanted Hurley more. But I had seen him pitch. The funny thing is many thought that Ferris in teh second round was a steal pick since many projected him in the fisrt round.

Agreed on Ferris, many thought we got good value there. I wish the Cards would get over this college right hander stuff, as it hasn't panned out at all in the past decade.

Hughes was extremely highly rated coming out of HS, but was thought to want a high bonus to sign. We obviously should have given it to him in hindsight, but it was pretty widely agreed upon we should draft him or Hurley at that spot that year. Let's open up the purse strings and start drafting some high end talent for a change (and actually pay for it). Especially now that we have some talent from the last two drafts filtering its way up through high A and double A. If were to go college heavy this year, we would be stuck putting most of them in SS and low A teams that they may be a bit old for anyway since we have a logjam in several spots on clubs as is (even having to piggy back rotation in A ball just to make room for all our starters).

Here's to draft a toolsy, high school position player in the first round this year unless someone unexpected falls to us.