2027 TCN Community Top Prospect Voting Thread

Home › The Cardinal Nation Forums › Open Forum › 2027 TCN Community Top Prospect Voting Thread

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #320139
    stlcard25
    Participant

    Well folks, the time has come to begin our annual rite of passage…where the meeting of the minds and the testing of the wills converge into the conglomeration of all our hopes and dreams for the future. Yes, it’s 2027 TCN Top Prospect Voting time!!

    We will have a couple of new wrinkles this year. First, voting will be a weekday only sort of deal. We will have voting tallies on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week. The voting schedule will be posted in the next post in this thread. Additionally, we will vote on the Top 60, rather than the Top 50. I believe this reflects the incredible depth that this system has, where guys who will likely be #30-50 in our system could easily be top 20 guys in most organizations. As such, Chaim and company deserve a hat tip for their good, albeit preliminary, work. A note, we will not be voting for honorable mention this time, but we will be counting everyone who gets a vote in the top 60 to come up with a full list.

    So here’s the timing…as we previously did, voting will close at noon CT/1 PM ET. I may need a little grace, as the Mrs and I are welcoming our second baby this November…but I will do my best to check in with an update the morning each vote closes to give the go ahead if no other votes come in (or if someone can pinch hit when the time comes, please let me know).

    Now, for last year’s list:

    2026 TCN Community Top 50 Prospects

    1. JJ Wetherholt, IF
    2. Liam Doyle, LHP
    3. Quinn Mathews, LHP
    4. Rainiel Rodriguez, C
    5. Joshua Baez, OF
    6. Leonardo Bernal, C
    7. Jimmy Crooks, C
    8. Ixan Henderson, LHP
    9. Brycen Mautz, LHP
    10. Tekoah Roby, RHP
    11. Jesus Baez, IF
    12. Tink Hence, RHP
    13. Cooper Hjerpe, LHP
    14. Brandon Clarke, LHP
    15. Yairo Padilla, IF
    16. Deniel Ortiz, IF
    17. Chen-Wei Lin, RHP
    18. Ryan Mitchell, OF
    19. Braden Davis, LHP
    20. Tanner Franklin, RHP
    21. Nathan Church, OF
    22. Luis Gastelum, RHP
    23. Blaze Jordan, IF
    24. Andre Granillo RHP
    25. Pete Hansen LHP
    26. Zach Levenson, OF
    27. Chase Davis, OF
    28. Jack Gurevitch, IF
    29. Bryan Torres, IF/OF
    30. Mason Molina, LHP
    31. Won-Bin Cho, OF
    32. Nate Dohm, RHP
    33. Sebastian Dos Santos, IF
    34. Leonel Sequera, RHP
    35. Andrew Dutkanych, RHP
    36. Kenly Hunter, OF
    37. Hancel Rincon, RHP
    38. Cade Crossland, LHP
    39. Ethan Young, RHP
    40. Matt Pushard, RHP
    41. Travis Honeyman, OF
    42. Frank Elissalt, RHP
    43. Yaxson Lucena, OF
    44. Matt Koperniak, OF
    45. Michael Watson, LHP
    46 Josh Kross, C/IF
    47. Cesar Prieto, IF
    48 Brian Holiday, RHP
    49. Max Rajcic, RHP
    50. Austin Love, RHP

    Best of the Rest

    51. Miguel Hernandez, SS
    52. Ty Van Dyke, RHP
    53. Mason Burns, RHP
    54. Noah Mendlinger, IF
    55 Randel Clemente, RHP
    56. Royelny Strop, OF
    57 Branneli Franco, RHP
    58 Payton Graham, RHP
    59. Jacob Odle, RHP
    60. Miguel Ugueto, OF
    61. Matthew Miura, OF
    62. Ryan Campos, C
    63. Alan Reyes, RHP
    64. Keiverson Ramirez, RHP
    65. Jon Jon Gazdar, IF
    66. Zack Showalter, RHP
    67. Jalin Flores, IF
    68. Brandt Thompson, RHP
    69. Tre Richardson, IF
    70. Jonathan Mejia, IF
    71. Skylar Hales, RHP
    72. Jeremy Rivas, IF
    73. Juan Garcia, RHP
    74. Yeferson Portolatin, IF
    75. Chase Heath, C
    76. Hendrick Cana, LHP
    77. Darlin Saladin, RHP
    78. Ian Petrutz, OF

    Ineligible players from last year’s list: JJ Wetherholt, Jimmy Crooks, Nathan Church, Blaze Jordan, Bryan Torres

    Guys who made MLB debuts who remain rookie eligible: Quinn Mathews, Joshua Baez, Leonardo Bernal, Brycen Mautz, Luis Gastelum, Hancel Rincon, Cade Winquest (who technically wasn’t on our list last year due to timing, but is back in the system)

    Guys who are no longer in the system: Andre Granillo, Matt Pushard, Matt Koperniak (I think this is it, please let me know if there are any others I’ve missed)

    #320140
    stlcard25
    Participant

    Rules on the votes where will vote for more than 1 player (I’ll refresh this when we get there):

    We will vote past #10 on a weighted ballot system. Each set of votes will give “points” to each prospect in descending order of the group we are voting on (if we are voting for 3, the top vote gets 3, second gets 2, last gets 1). As a practical example for votes #31-33:

    Player A gets 5 votes at #31, 3 at 32 and 2 at 33 (23 pts)
    Player B gets 4 votes at #31, 4 votes at 32 and 2 votes at 33 (22 pts)
    Player C gets 1 vote at 31, 1 at 32 and 2 at 33 (7 pts)
    Player D gets 0 votes at 31, 2 at 32, 3 at 33 (7 pts)

    In this example, A is #31 because they got the most points. B is #32 because they got 2nd most. C is #33 because although C and D tied in points, C got more votes at the higher spot. D goes back into the hopper for the next round.

    The last tiebreaker will be vote order, so the player who gets to the total first will get the edge. So get your votes in early!

    #320141
    stlcard25
    Participant

    Voting Schedule (Voting CLOSES at this time of these days)

    Oct 5 #1
    Oct 7 #2
    Oct 9 #3
    Oct 12 #4
    Oct 14 #5
    Oct 16 #6
    Oct 19 #7
    Oct 21 #8
    Oct 23 #9
    Oct 26 #10
    Oct 28 #11-12
    Oct 30 #13-14

    Nov 2 #15-16
    Nov 4 #17-18
    Nov 6 #19-20
    Nov 9 #21-22
    Nov 11 #23-24
    Nov 13 #25-26
    Nov 16 #27-28
    Nov 18 #29-30
    Nov 20 #31-33
    Nov 23 #34-36
    Nov 25 #37-39
    Nov 27 #40-42
    Nov 30 #43-46

    Dec 2 #47-50
    Dec 4 #51-55
    Dec 7 #55-60

    #320142
    stlcard25
    Participant

    Voting is now open for the 2027 TCN Community #1 Prospect. Voting closes at 12 PM CT/1 PM ET on Monday, October 5th.

    #320144
    stlcard25
    Participant

    I’ll kick things off…

    #1 Rainiel Rodriguez 60/65 (FV/FV80), Risk Low

    Mr Rodriguez is a hitter extraorinaire. He hit at High A; he hit at AA. He hit righties (1.014 OPS); he hit lefties (.903 OPS). Other than a tiny blip at Springfield in May, he hit in every month. I guess you could say he didn’t hit as well on the road as at home, but even there, he still had an .894 OPS. He led the Texas League in batting average. He did this all at 19 years old. I’m fairly sure we haven’t had a hitting prospect this good since Oscar Taveras. That’s the extraordinary plus.

    Now for the negatives. First, he may not end up the long term catcher. If he’s a future .900 OPS guy at catcher, that’s an immense value. If he’s doing that at 1B, is that really much better than what we have with Burleson out there now? The reason he may lose the catcher battle to Bernal? The athleticism. I realize that he’s probably in better shape than he looks, but the camera is not flattering to him at all. His 19 year old age works against him in this case.

    If I was certain he was the catcher of the future and was more confident that he’ll mature well in his athleticism, I would slap a 70 FV80 on him. But I think there’s a solid shot that he ends up a good hitting 1B. The bat will play no matter what, but there’s a little bit of dampened enthusiasm from me there. Even so, he’s still an easy #1 in the system.

    #320145
    forsch31
    Participant

    Free

    #1 Rainiel Rodriguez.

    I don’t think there is much else to add to
    25s reasoning.

    #320146
    Jnevel
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Raniel is such a good hitter that it would be hard not to put him at number 1 despite the defensive questions.

    1) Raniel Rodriguez

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

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