50 Days, 50 Nights, 50 St. Louis Cardinals Prospects for 2025

photo: Thomas Saggese and Nathan Church (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)

To recognize those players with perhaps the brightest futures in the St. Louis Cardinals system, The Cardinal Nation is announcing our annual Cardinals Top 50 Prospect List for 2025. Our 20th annual rankings are rolling out daily in the weeks ahead.

A proven process

Blake Newberry

As we unveil our 2024 Cardinals Top 50 Prospect List, Blake Newberry is once again providing 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 2025 is an extension of our 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.

In our daily countdown of the Top 50, starting on Tuesday, November 12, 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 continue into the New Year.

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 progress in 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 19 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 – 2025

50 IF Dakota Harris (free)
49 RHR Joseph King
48 1B Josh Kross
47 OF Joshua Baez
46 LHS Jack Findlay
45 LHS Drew Rom (free)
44 SS Jeremy Rivas
43 RHR Edwin Nuñez
42 RHS Leonel Sequera
41 OF Ian Petrutz
40 LHS Brycen Mautz (free)
39 RHR Andre Granillo
38 SS Yairo Padilla
37 RHS Keiverson Ramirez
36 LHS Pete Hansen
35 C Ryan Campos (free)
34 C Rainiel Rodriguez
33 RHS Andrew Dutkanych IV
32 RHR Ryan Loutos
31 RHR Luis Gastelum
30 RHS Brian Holiday (free)
29 OF Matt Koperniak
28 OF Travis Honeyman
27 OF Zach Levenson
26 LHS Ixan Henderson
25 2B/SS Jonathan Mejia (free)
24 RHS Gerardo Salas
23 RHR Matt Svanson
22 Open (RHS Adam Kloffenstein non-tendered)
21 2B/3B César Prieto
20 C Sammy Hernandez (free)
19 RHS Max Rajcic
18 RHS Darlin Saladin
17 OF Won-Bin Cho
16 RHR Zack Showalter
15 RHS Ian Bedell  (free)
14 RHS Gordon Graceffo
13 RHS Chen-Wei Lin
12 RHS Sem Robberse
11 CF Victor Scott II
10 OF Chase Davis (free)
9 RHS Michael McGreevy
8 C Leonardo Bernal
7 LHS Cooper Hjerpe
6 C Jimmy Crooks
5 2B Thomas Saggese (free)
4 RHS Tekoah Roby
3 RHS Tink Hence
2 LHS Quinn Mathews
1 SS JJ Wetherholt (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 2024 list who dropped off for 2025 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

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