Todd Named Cards Minors Starter of the Year

Right-hander Jess Todd is our Scout.com Starting Pitcher of the Year for the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system in 2008. The 22-year-old posted a 2.88 ERA across three levels.

In Jess Todd’s first full season and second partial season in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, one could not blame him if he had trouble remembering where he was when he woke up each morning.

The 22-year-old began the season in A-Advanced Palm Beach after bypassing Quad Cities of the Midwest League. He spent the majority of his season with Double-A Springfield before finishing with Triple-A Memphis. Across the three levels, the right-hander posted an 8-6 record with a .213 opposing batting average and finished with an ERA of 2.88.

More importantly, in my time covering the Cardinals, I do not recall any player having a more decorated season from start to finish than Todd enjoyed in 2008.

In April, Todd got out of the blocks quickly, earning the Organization’s Pitcher of the Month. He went 3-0 with a 1.48 ERA in six Florida State League appearances, including three tandem starts. In 24 1/3 innings, Todd struck out 31 batters while only walking five. Opponents hit .174 against him, and he yielded only three extra-base hits, including no home runs.

Three days later, he was promoted to Springfield. But, Todd was not forgotten, being named after the fact to the Florida State League Mid-Season All-Star Team.

On May 27, Todd took a perfect game into the seventh inning for Springfield, a club record. The next time out, he allowed a leadoff hit followed by seven more hitless innings. At that point, Todd was carrying a 0.91 ERA in his first 29 2/3 innings at Springfield on the way to earning our Scout.com Cardinals Starter of the Month Award for May.

With June came more awards, as Todd was named the Texas League Pitcher of the Week for the period ending June 1. Later that week, he was named to his second All-Star Team of the season and third in two years.

During the Texas League All-Star Game on June 25, he pitched two innings, struck out five batters and got a hit on top of it. Todd topped off the month when he again was named the Texas League Pitcher of the Week on June 30.

By July, the accolades continued as Todd traveled to New York in the final year of Yankee Stadium as he was named to the MLB All-Star Futures Game, held in The Bronx on July 13.

On August 10, Todd was promoted to the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds, finishing his short Double-A stint with a 4-5 record and a 2.97 ERA in 17 games with Springfield. He struck out 84 and walked 21 in 103 innings there.

In a measure of the impression that remained after Todd moved on, for the second time this past season, Todd was named to an all-star team after having left the appropriate league. He was selected as a Texas League Post-Season All-Star on August 25.

The Cardinals’ second-round selection (82nd player overall) in 2007 from the University of Arkansas, Todd finished his whirlwind year by going 1-1 with a 3.97 ERA in four starts for Memphis.

To close out the season, the 5-foot-11, 210-pounder was tabbed the St. Louis Cardinals organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year on September 27 and a resulting invitation to the Cards major league spring training camp in 2009.

Whew!

Oh yes, the 22-year-old was previously named our Springfield Cardinals Starting Pitcher of the Year, as well.

The others

As a reminder, following is the full list of our 2008 Starting Pitchers of the Year at the various levels of the Cardinals system. (insider logo) Scout.com subscribers can click on the players’ names to read the detailed articles on each, recapping their 2008 accomplishments, quotes and much more:

Memphis: Mitchell Boggs

Springfield: Todd

Palm Beach: Shaun Garceau

Quad Cities: Nick Additon

Batavia: Thomas Eager

Johnson City: Deryk Hooker/Scott McGregor

Gulf Coast League: Chris Notti

Dominican Summer League: Angel Cruz

Venezuelan Summer League: Geney Rios

By the numbers

As with all system-wide awards, there was significant competition. Our own Leonda Markee assembled 2008 system-wide stats, both traditional and sabermetric, for Cardinals minor league starting pitchers.

Minimum qualifications: For tandem starters, 1/2 IP for every game played; all others 1 IP for every game played.

Earned Run Average
Rk	Player	Team	ERA	G	GS	IP	ER
1	Nick Additon	PB/QC	2.23	28	22	137	34
2	Deryk Hooker	QC/JC	2.77	15	12	65	20
3	Jess Todd	Mem/Sf/PB	2.88	28	24	153	49
4	Ramon Delgado	Bat	2.96	15	7	54.2	18
5	Shaun Garceau	PB/QC	3.14	25	22	123.1	43
DIPS Earned Run Average
Rk	Player	Team	G	GS	dERA	dIP	dER
T1	Ramon Delgado	Bat	15	7	2.58	57.1	16.3
T1	Deryk Hooker	QC/JC	15	12	2.58	66.9	19.2
3	Jameson Maj	QC/Bat	14	8	2.80	61.1	19.0
4	Chuckie Fick	QC	20	13	3.22	95.8	34.3
5	Reynier Gonzalez	JC	14	9	3.25	53.6	19.4
FIP
Rk	Player	Team	FIP	HR	BB	HB	SO
1	Ramon Delgado	Bat	2.52	1	13	1	46
2	Deryk Hooker	QC/JC	2.62	3	20	3	73
3	Jameson Maj	QC/Bat	2.72	4	8	1	54
4	Chuckie Fick	QC	3.15	6	15	2	67
5	Kyle Mura	Sf/PB	3.33	8	19	5	79
WHIP
Rk	Player	Team	ERA	IP	H	BB	WHIP
1	Jess Todd	Mem/Sf/PB	2.88	153	116	42	1.03
2	Nick Additon	PB/QC	2.23	137	103	40	1.04
3	Jameson Maj	QC/Bat	4.20	60	62	8	1.17
T4	Deryk Hooker	QC/JC	2.77	65	58	20	1.20
T4	Chuckie Fick	QC	3.17	93.2	97	15	1.20
Strikeouts-to-Walks Ratio
Rk	Player	Team	IP	BB	SO	K/BB
1	Jameson Maj	QC/Bat	60	8	54	6.8
2	Chuckie Fick	QC	93.2	15	67	4.5
3	Kyle Mura	Sf/PB	135	19	79	4.2
4	Deryk Hooker	QC/JC	65	20	73	3.7
5	Ramon Delgado	Bat	54.2	13	46	3.5
The Flamethrowers
Rk	Player	Team	IP	SO	K/9IP
T1	Deryk Hooker	QC/JC	65	73	10.1
T1	Blake King	PB/QC	93.2	105	10.1
3	Michael Blazek	JC	46.1	47	9.1
T4	Matthew North	JC	42.1	42	8.9
T4	Reynier Gonzalez	JC	53.2	53	8.9
T4	P.J. Walters	Mem/Sf	158	156	8.9
The Control Artists
Rk	Player	Team	IP	BB	BB/9IP
1	Jameson Maj	QC/Bat	60	8	1.2
T2	Kyle Mura	Sf/PB	135	19	1.3
T2	Brian Broderick	QC	81	12	1.3
4	Chuckie Fick	QC	93.2	15	1.4
5	Ramon Delgado	Bat	54.2	13	2.1
Batting Average Against
Rk	Player	Team	IP	H	TBF	BAA
1	Nick Additon	PB/QC	137	103	552	0.208
2	Jess Todd	Mem/Sf/PB	153	116	609	0.212
3	Shaun Garceau	PB/QC	123.1	96	523	0.215
4	Mitchell Boggs	Mem	125.1	107	508	0.235
5	Thomas Eager	Bat/QC	108	93	463	0.236
Innings Eaters
Rk	Player	Team	G	GS	IP
1	P.J. Walters	Mem/Sf	29	29	158
2	Jess Todd	Mem/Sf/PB	28	24	153
3	Brandon Dickson	Sf/PB	29	23	144.2
4	Clayton Mortensen	Mem/Sf	26	25	139.2
5	Tyler Herron	PB/Sf	27	24	138

Congratulations to our Scout.com St. Louis Cardinals Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Year, Jess Todd!

Master article with all 2008 Scout.com Cardinals Minor League Players of the Year and the schedule for daily announcements: link. (This link is also permanently located at the lower left of The Birdhouse home page.)

If you missed our Players of the Year as they were unveiled, it’s not too late to catch up! Subscribe now to Scout.com and follow our countdown of the top Players and Pitchers of the Year at every level of the Cardinals minor league system. Next up will be Player of the Year, before moving on to Top Rookies.

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