(Busch Stadium) After visiting with the team’s national cross-checkers, St. Louis Cardinals Director of Scouting Randy Flores stopped by the press box to answer a few questions about the upcoming amateur draft.
“It’s adrenaline now,” smiled Flores. “Our scouts just came in today and all of them have that wide look where they’ve been up and they’ve been working hard, but they’re ready to go.”
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The next three days will include preliminary exercises to rank players and discussions about the team’s big board. This will be the first draft since Flores took over the department last September.
“As a guy who was not a prospect–I was a guy who was a senior sign out of college, undrafted out of high school, parts of nine years in the minor leagues–I assumed that scouts hated me,” he began. “They didn’t hate me. They didn’t hate players like me, they were evaluating me. So I was surprised and have just been thrilled to see the excitement that’s on the faces of our scouts when they talk about players. It’s easy to say players are no good and they’re not going to get to the big leagues. That happens more often than not. What’s fun is seeing our scouts say ‘look, this guy has this or he has that’ and hear them advocate for the specific skill set that they’re looking into the future picturing him wearing the Birds on the Bat.”
General Manager John Mozeliak has been involved in the preparations, but Flores is expecting to have the final call on selections.
“The only thing I’ve heard from him over and over is ‘make good picks’ so sounds like it’s a responsibility that I wear, to be responsible for,” he said.
The Cardinals have the 23rd, 33rd, and 34th picks and Flores was open to high school or collegiate players of any position.
“We’re looking to pick the best guy at the best spot,” he said with a nod to that being a common statement from teams.
The 2016 MLB Draft will be held June 9-11th.
WEAVER STRONG DEBUT
–Elsewhere on Sunday night, Luke Weaver, the Cardinals top pick in 2014 (27 overall) had a strong Double-A debut with Springfield.
Weaver finished with a line of 7.1 innings pitched, 4 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, and a career-high 1o strikeouts.
The 22-year old right hander had a delayed start to his season after fracturing his left wrist in Spring Training. Weaver went 8-5 in 19 starts for Palm Beach last season (105.1 IP) and then 2-1 (19.1 IP) while appearing in seven games in the Arizona Fall League.
