Cardinals' top draft pick Wallace to join River Bandits

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By Steve Batterson | Sunday, June 15, 2008 |

Arizona State's Brett Wallace, right, is greeted at home by teammate Ike Davis after Wallace hit a solo home run off Fresno State pitcher Justin Miller in the third inning of the NCAA Super Regional baseball game Monday, June 9. Wallace, the St. Louis Cardinals' top draft pick, will join the Quad-City River Bandits. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)

St. Louis’ first-round selection in this year’s baseball draft will only be part of the new look the Quad-Cities River Bandits will have for the second half of the Midwest League season.

As the league begins its all-star break today, six Quad-Cities players have been reassigned by the Cardinals organization and at least five newcomers will join the club when it opens the second half of the season on Thursday.

Brett Wallace, a hard-hitting third baseman from Arizona State who was the 13th pick overall in the draft, is one of the players expected to join the River Bandits this week.

Wallace hit .410 with 22 home runs and 83 RBIs for the Sun Devils and has been named the player of the year in the Pac-10 Conference in each of the past two seasons.

The 6-foot-1, 245-pound Wallace led the Pac-10 in batting, home runs and RBIs a year ago as a sophomore, and he is one of five finalists for the Golden Spikes Award, which is scheduled to be presented tonight to the premier amateur baseball player in the nation.

With Quad-Cities, he’ll play beside the Cardinals’ top choice from the 2007 draft, Midwest League all-star shortstop Pete Kozma.

The other four players who will join the River Bandits have experience in the St. Louis organization.

Two — pitcher Richard Castillo and infielder Oliver Marmol — will join Quad-Cities from Palm Beach (Fla.), the Cardinals high-A affiliate in the Florida State League.

Castillo is 1-0 and has not allowed an earned run in five appearances with Palm Beach, while Marmol is hitting .204 and likely will see the bulk of his playing time at second base. Marmol hit .209 in 31 games with the River Bandits a year ago.

Also joining Quad-Cities will be infielder Ross Oeder, a 28th-round pick in 2007 from Wright State who hit .270 last year at short-season Batavia (N.Y.), and Roberto Espinoza, a 19-year-old catcher who hit .123 while splitting time between the Gulf Coast League and short-season Johnson City (Tenn.) in 2007.

To make room for the newcomers on the 25-man roster, St. Louis has promoted infielder Mike Folli (.264) to Palm Beach and reassigned five other players to short-season clubs.

Pitcher Thomas Eager (2-2, 5.92 ERA), catcher Luis De La Cruz (.167) and infielders Domnit Bolivar (.216) and Jose Garcia (.175) have been sent to Batavia in the New York-Penn League, while infielder Osvaldo Morales (.194) will join Johnson City in the Appalachian League.

Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com.