Charlie Tilson Makes Debut For St. Louis Cardinals’ Rookie Club
Charlie Tilson, the St. Louis Cardinals‘ second-round pick in the 2011 MLB Draft—who signed recently for nearly as much as Kolten Wong, the team’s first-rounder—made his professional debut in the Gulf Coast League Saturday, going 0-3 with a walk, a stolen base, and a run scored. This doesn’t mean much—the GCL is half a baseball league and half extended spring training—but it’s our first chance to get over-excited about the speedy center fielder, and you can rest assured that we in the Hyperventilating Prospect Geek Fraternity will do just that.
If you must follow Tilson’s every move, some tips for watching Tilson and the GCL in general.
1. Don’t get excited if he does really well or really badly. Maintain your cool at all times. The Cardinals have six games left, meaning you’ll have a seven-game sample at your luckiest. This is the same scenario in which Zack Cox went 6-for-15 in an I-waited-too-long-to-sign four-game stint with the GCL Cards, only Tilson is a high schooler and not inexplicably the Best College Hitter In The Draft.
2. The GCL is a pitcher’s league with a ton of variance among players. The league OPS this year is .682, with a slugging percentage of .354, and pitchers earn a ton of strikeouts against inexperienced wood-bat hitters. At the same time, the difference between the best hitting team—the .300/.378/.471 Yankees—and the worst—the .223/.304/.292 Twins—is gaping. As far as talent distribution goes this is closer to high school ball than the majors.
The Cardinals, for their part, have two hitters with full-season OPSes over .800—Dominican Summer League product Luis Perez, and VSL refugee Ildemaro Vargas—and three 2011 draftees who are cratering—third-rounder C.J. McElroy (.194/.261/.226), fourth-rounder Kenneth Peoples-Walls (.243/.305/.257), and 17th-rounder and all-name-team member Dutch Deol (.094/.222/.113.) I wouldn’t exactly want to be Dutch Deol this year, but none of those full-season lines say much of anything about these players’ futures. Tilson’s will say even less.
3. Tilson’s power is in question, so that’s one thing to watch for. The GCL Cardinals’ home run leader is 22-year-old Michael Knox, who has four, so it’s safe to say that the prospects don’t do a lot of mashing here. But if you’re going to watch for one thing over the next week, see if TIlson hits a ball or two out of the park. We know he can run; we know he hits line drives; it’s an increase in home run power that’ll make up that huge bonus.
