ST. LOUIS -- With the days dwindling until the MLB Draft on June 9-11, the Cardinals' new scouting director, Randy Flores, will spend one more week on the road before returning to St. Louis to meet with his staff and make final preparations for the three-day, 40-round event.
Flores, who pitched five of his eight seasons for the Cardinals before taking over the scouting department, was headed to Hoover, Ala., on Monday for the start of the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament. He cleared time in his schedule for a final week of scouting by eliminating the pre-Draft workouts that the Cardinals had hosted in recent years.
These workouts, which typically took place in multiple regions across the country, would give members of the scouting department an opportunity to get a first-hand look at a couple dozen Draft prospects. But they also meant that those scouts were bound by those schedules, with no flexibility to move around based on need or opportunity.
"It was simply a decision of where to allocate a finite product of time, focus and energy," said Flores, hired in late August 2015 to replace Chris Correa, who had been dismissed for accessing the Astros' database without authorization.
"With so much being new for me this year, I did not want to add to that the newness of coordinating or watching or traveling to and evaluating four or five workouts. Instead I want to focus that energy with our scouts, over our reports, into our process with our analysts, conversing with [general manager John Mozeliak and assistant GM Michael Girsch], with agents, rather than leapfrogging across the country watching practice."
Flores will re-evaluate the potential value of pre-Draft workouts later in the year to see if he wants to include them in future scouting schedules.
Flores will oversee a Draft in which the Cardinals will be one of two clubs with three first-round picks. The organization will make its first selection at No. 23 overall. It also netted overall picks Nos. 33 and 34 as compensation for Jason Heyward and John Lackey leaving as free agents.
Members of the scouting department will return to St. Louis next week to begin piecing together the team's Draft board. The group will also go through multiple Draft simulations in order to see how various scenarios may alter their strategy on Draft day.
Worth noting
• After taking Sunday off, shortstop Jhonny Peralta (surgery on left thumb) resumed his rehab assignment with Class A Peoria on Monday and went 1-for-3 with a double and a run scored. He is scheduled to remain there two days and then likely move to another affiliate to continue working his way back into game shape.
• The Cardinals will make a limited number of tickets to their June 14-15 home series against the Astros available for $7 beginning on Tuesday at 10 a.m. CT. Tickets at this promotional price can be purchased at cardinals.com/communitycoffee. Customers are limited to eight tickets per transaction.