Remington: Cardinals still benefiting from the first farm
From Alex Remington at FanGraphs on October 19, 2012:
With their victory tonight, the St. Louis Cardinals are up 2-1 in the NLCS and in good position to defend their National League title from 2011. They are also, by far, the most farm-developed team in the hunt for the World Series. As John Sickels recently wrote, 64 percent of their roster was developed by their farm system, compared to 40 percent for the Giants and 32 percent each for the Tigers and Yankees. The Cardinals famously developed the first modern farm system, under Branch Rickey. They are still, clearly, ahead of the curve.
Sickels looked at all 25 players on the Cards’ 25-man roster, and all but eight were originally drafted or signed by the Cardinals. (Mark Rzepczynski and Chris Carpenter were originally drafted by the Jays; David Freese was originally drafted by the Padres; Kyle Lohse was originally drafted by the Cubs; Adam Wainwright was originally drafted by the Braves; Matt Holliday was originally drafted by the Rockies; Carlos Beltran was originally drafted by the Royals; and Edward Mujica was originally signed as an international free agent by the Indians.)That’s really quite remarkable. If the 2012 Cardinals were to win the World Series, they would be the most homegrown team to do so in well over a decade: the last World Series winner to be more than 50 percent homegrown was the 2002 Anaheim Angels, 13 of whose players were original Angel draftees or signees.
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-cardinals-still-benefiting-from-the-first-farm/
Originally published: October 19, 2012. Last Updated: October 19, 2012.