50 Days, 50 Nights, 50 St. Louis Cardinals Prospects for 2024

photo: Victor Scott and Tekoah Roby (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)

To recognize those players with perhaps the brightest futures in the St. Louis Cardinals system, The Cardinal Nation has developed our annual Cardinals Top 50 Prospect List for 2024. Our 19th annual rankings are rolling out in the days and weeks ahead.

A proven process

As we unveil our 2024 Cardinals Top 50 Prospect List, Blake Newberry will once again provide his in depth player evaluations.

Blake has written for The Cardinal Nation since 2019 and has covered prospects via the draft, in winter ball and via in-depth scouting reports on the best Cardinals prospects.

Blake’s expertise in scouting prospects is important in keeping our Cardinals projections grounded. His tools-driven evaluations join Brian Walton’s assessments for this project.

The rankings

The process to set TCN’s new Top 50 for 2024 is an extension of Walton’s members-only in-season monthly Cardinals prospect rankings, with adjustments based on fall and winter ball play as well as input from scouts and player development professionals.

Separately developed, Newberry’s list of his best 65 prospects was averaged with Walton’s working top 65 to develop the site’s new Top 50.

Players are eligible until they surpass the MLB rookie levels of 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched or 45 days of service time. Among those now ineligible are catcher Ivan Herrera and first baseman Luken Baker.

In our daily countdown of the Top 50, starting on Monday, November 20, Blake provides a scouting report on each prospect, highlighting the five major tools for position players and grades for pitches. These grades are on the standard 20-80 scouting scale, noted with the risk associated with the player eventually achieving his Future Value (FV).

Walton will provide background on each prospect, his progress in the organization, where he fits against others and his outlook for the coming season and beyond.

Following the countdown will be our annual series of “best-of”, “just-missed” and in-depth analysis articles of the Top 50 collectively. This series will likely continue beyond Winter Warm-Up, to be held in the second half of January.

As always, selected prospect reports will be made available to everyone, but for full access to all 50 write-ups and the following articles, one must be a member of The Cardinal Nation. Join today!

To follow the countdown, you can either read each new story when posted on our home page every morning or click on the individual players’ names, which will be listed below as they are unveiled. You can also return to this page daily to check the current status of our Top 50 countdown.

Readers can join in the dialogue at The Cardinal Nation’s free message board, where there will be discussion surrounding that day’s entry onto the top prospect list.

To check out the corresponding rankings from each of the past 18 winters, click here, or you can always access them via the permanent link in the left column located underneath the site logo called “PROSPECT RANKINGS”.

The Cardinal Nation Top 50 Prospects – 2024

50. RHR Guillermo Zuñiga (free)

49. 2B Adari Grant

48. RHS Zane Mills

47. 1B Chandler Redmond

46. SS Jeremy Rivas

45. OF Matt Koperniak (free)

44. RHS Alec Willis

43. RHR Leonardo Taveras

42. OF Alex Iadisernia

41. RHR Andrew Marrero

40. RHS Austin Love (free)

39. RHR Dionys Rodriguez

38. UT Noah Mendlinger

37. LHS Connor Thomas

36. CF Michael Siani

35. LHS Alex Cornwell (free)

34. RHR Matt Svanson

33. OF Zach Levenson

32. OF Joshua Baez

31. OF Mike Antico

30. RHS Trent Baker (free)

29. LHS Drew Rom

28. C Pedro Pages

27. RHS Inohan Paniagua

26. RHR Andre Granillo

25. RHS Zack Showalter (free)

24a. RHR Ryan Fernandez

24. LHS Quinn Mathews

23. IF César Prieto

22. OF Moisés Gómez

21. OF Travis Honeyman

20. RHR Edwin Nuñez (free)

19. SS Jonathan Mejia

18. LHS Pete Hansen

17. RHS Adam Kloffenstein

16. LHS Brycen Mautz

15. RHS Ian Bedell (free)

14. RHS Sem Robberse

13. CF Chase Davis

12. OF Won-Bin Cho

11. C Jimmy Crooks

10. RHS Max Rajcic (free)

9. C Leonardo Bernal

8. RHS Michael McGreevy

7. LHS Cooper Hjerpe

6. RHS Gordon Graceffo

5. 2B Thomas Saggese (free)

4. CF Victor Scott

3. RHS Tekoah Roby

2. RHS Tink Hence

1. SS Masyn Winn (free)

There’s more!

At the conclusion of the countdown, a multi-part series follows, as we drill down into the details behind the Top 50. Most of these articles will be exclusively for TCN members.

We will analyze year-to-year changes and the top additions, highlight players who did not make the combined Top 50 and unveil our All-Prospect Team – the highest-ranked players at each position.

Next will be a view behind the numbers, a look back at our best and worst picks from the previous year, the top prospect list cut by level of play, those on the 2023 list who dropped off for 2024 and a potential-only based-list of the new Top 50.

Top 50 Analysis Series

Scouting grading scale and risk

The following table aligns the level of each scouting grade for hitters and pitchers to the comparable future MLB role.

Grade	Hitter role	Pitcher role
80	Top 5 hitter	1-3 arm. Ace if multiple years
70	Top 10 hitter	2 starter FIP sub 3.00
60	All-Star	3 starter 3.30 FIP (200 IP)/High closer
55	Above average regular/occasional All-Star	3/4 starter 3.70 FIP (160 IP)/Mid closer
50	Average everyday player	4 starter 4.00 FIP (or 190+ IP)/Low closer/high set up
45	Platoon player	4/5 starter 4.20 FIP/Low set up
40	Reserve	Backend starter 5.00 FIP/Middle relief
30	AAAA player	AAAA player
20	Organizational player	Organizational player

Behind these basic grades are more detailed scales which help translate player measurements by position types into grades. Examples include average and home run levels and home to first base times for hitters, pop rates for catchers and velocities, strikeout and walk rates for pitchers.

Risk is another measure included. It indicates the chances a player hits the Future Value scouting grade given.

Low
Moderate
High
Extreme

Order Now – 2024 Cardinals Prospect Guide

The Cardinal Nation 2024 Prospect Guide is back for its seventh year. It includes 282 pages of in-depth commentary about more than 60 of the best St. Louis Cardinals minor leaguers, including in-depth scouting reports, 2023 recap, extensive draft and international histories and more.

Special half-price off deal for paid subscribers. Order your PDF or printed book copy today.

Order TCN’s 2024 St. Louis Cardinals Prospect Guide

Looking for more Cardinals prospect analysis?

There is plenty more of this kind of in-depth writing available here at The Cardinal Nation 365 days a year.

Join The Cardinal Nation for the most comprehensive coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals from the majors through the entire minor league system.

First-hand news and commentary on the St. Louis Cardinals™ and minor league system for over 25 years