Cards sign 17 year old pitcher

[BrockFloodMaris]

https://x.com/RedbirdFarmhand/status/20 ... 0853062012

Leonil de Leon

[Breaking: The Cardinals are expected to sign RHP Leonil de Leon (17) to an international free agent deal.

Standing at 6'2, 170 pounds according to PG, Leon is a former SS prospect who converted to pitching. He's up to 95 mph on the mound with 2400 RPM on the fastball, and also includes a sweeper with 16 inches of horizontal movement.

The deal is expected to be in the 400k signing bonus range. ]

[ramfandan]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

[82birds]

thnx for the link

[WeeVikes]

Oh no, not a right-handed OF who can play NOW!

[82birds]

Oh no, not a right-handed OF who can play NOW!

Chaim is still working on that (hopefully and hopefully successful)

[Banner29]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

Will be fascinating to see what him and Pierpoint can do with these flamethrowers. Kinda loving the mad scientist approach getting kids that throw hard that they can hopefully develop how they want them to be.

I don’t exactly know what their plan is as far as developing bats is yet but I feel pretty good about the future with keeping runs off the board

[Carp4Cy]

Here’s hoping he becomes the best de Leon the Cardinals have had. If he’s not as good as D Ponce or Jose, that could be frustrating to watch.

[WeeVikes]

Oh no, not a right-handed OF who can play NOW!

Chaim is still working on that (hopefully and hopefully successful)

I agree. I’m just not upset that we signed a kid for the future!

[greyhawk]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

Will be fascinating to see what him and Pierpoint can do with these flamethrowers. Kinda loving the mad scientist approach getting kids that throw hard that they can hopefully develop how they want them to be.

I don’t exactly know what their plan is as far as developing bats is yet but I feel pretty good about the future with keeping runs off the board

When you have a ton of needs including rebuilding your farm system do you stop signing players because they may not fit your immediate needs or do you keep stockpiling? Lets give Bloom a chance and see how he uses some of these assets to get what the team needs when they get to the point where now matters more than it is going to this year.

[rockondlouie]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

[CCard]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

Lol...Now Bloom created signing high velocity pitchers.

[11WSChamps]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

That's everybody's philosophy these days.

[Ozziesfan41]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

That's everybody's philosophy these days.

It just seems like a new idea to cards fans because mo was so far behind the times and out of touch

[RichieRichSTL]

Oh no, not a right-handed OF who can play NOW!

People know its going to be a bloodbath this year. They simply don't have enough talent at the major league level to be put together a competitive team. That's what happens in a rebuild. Since the trade deadline, they have traded away players who had contracts that would expire by the time their competitive window would open for varying degrees of promising young players who would be under team control by the time they hoped the competitive windown would open again (2028).

Of course that means that in the short-term they have a greater talent deficit, more severe at some places rather than others on the roster. As we have seen fielding a credibly competitive starting rotation is one of the most challenging part of roster construction. So, it makes sense that is the first and biggest priority. It's one thing to put a mediocre OF on the field, but if you simply do not have enough arms to pitch at the major league level and enough arms in the minors to gear up for the next competitive field, you are in serious trouble.

Bad hitting can kill a rally or cut short an inning, but bad pitching lead to a disaster of an inning and can lead to dramatic overuse of the BP. In other words, bad pitching can make games a disaster, wreck your roster and harm arms on the roster. Bad hitting doesn't have that dramatic downside. It just means your club will struggle to score and that your offense will be boring.

I fully expect by 2028:
1) Hitting talent in the minors to bubble up.
2) Bloom to have make moves, some earlier.

such that the hitting will improve to respectable by 2028 and may be significantly better next year.

But, really he just traded away 2 strong hitters and a strong pitcher and a respectable but fading third baseman on a team that has been miserable for three years running. Are you expecting that anything he does to firm up the OF offense is going to improve the team appreciably. Do you really expect much this season? I don't. What I'd like to see is Walker/Gorman to let us know once and for all if they have the moxy to be at least serviceable major leaguers. I expect Nootbaar if he is always going to be meh or if he's going to stay healthy and a solid offensive force. I expect Scott to show if he can hit enough to justify his arm and legs in CF.

I expect to see if Liberatore is for real and to see if there are hidden gems in the young pitching in the majors.

I expect beter progress with our players in our farm system.

--

In other words, I expect them to get a better idea of what they need, for our young players to progress and for them to not give up on the field. It is more important I come away in the next year or two with
1) Hope for the midterm starting in about 2028.
2) A sense that they the a) clubhouse has a better chemistry/vibe to it.

I know the team won't be that great in 2026, so I'm not going to get all bent out of shape if Bloom hasn't turned around or upgraded every position on the roster.

[RichieRichSTL]

More high velo upside..Bloom’s philosophy continues

That's everybody's philosophy these days.

It just seems like a new idea to cards fans because mo was so far behind the times and out of touch

The sad part about it is this: Had they tore down the team after 2023 and started implementing more competitive philosophies, they might actually have a decent term this year.
They had a choice going into 2024, rebuild or reload. They choose neither. They chose, half-[ashed] reload.

[Mort Gage]

He's only seventeen......