Minor league thread – Tue 5/28

You can count on your hand how many prospects there are showing some good progress this season.

The minor league teams are disappointing, and markedly so. But for me, plenty of individuals have raised their stock in a significant way.

Dylan Carlson has gone from borderline top 100 to definite overall top 40. Nolan Gorman from top 60 to top 30 or so. Ivan Herrera from roughly #140 to a certain top 100, likely in the 70-80 range. (No one nationally is talking about Herrera, but get these parallels/comparisons. He’s exactly the same age as Gorman, has a great pre-2019 track record just like Gorman, will have more defensive value than Gorman if he sticks at catcher, and is walking more and whiffing less than Gorman against the same pitchers this year. If he had the glove of fellow backstop Julio Rodriguez, Ivan Herrera would already be a top 50 prospect, and easily so.)

And speaking of Julio Rodriguez, he’s still 21 and the best player in the Florida State League so far. So he’s leaped from top 350-400 to borderline top 100 for me. Others to have moved up meaningfully are Tommy Edman, Lars Nootbaar, Justin Toerner, and Brady Whalen. None of that quartet threatens a reasonable top 100 list, but they all rate top 300 for me now. Maybe top 200 for Tommy.

On the pitching side there’s Angel Rondon, Johan Oviedo, Diego Cordero, and despite his recent struggles Jesus Cruz. And this is top-of-my-head. I’m sure there have been other breakouts I’m not recalling just now, Ny. Especially pitchers.

I would say that the farm system overachievers and underachievers have balanced out quite evenly thus far. But the truly ugly bullpens at both Memphis and Springfield have cost those teams innumerable contests, and made the overall farm system look terrible on many nights.

One last note: Carlson, Herrera, and Gorman may be hitting even better this year than their excellent numbers imply. They have combined for a home OPS just above .770 this year, but a road OPS over 1.000.

I hope Reyes pitches well tonight. If he is pitching well, he could make a big difference to our starting staff.
Also, I never did get why Helsley wasn’t moved back into the Memphis rotation earlier. I know you want to be careful because of his injury last year, but why shouldn’t he be starting at AAA say a month ago? He is a top prospect, and can always be called up to the STL bullpen.

As one who is relatively uninformed on the minors, what is holding Dylan Carlson back from being promoted to AAA Memphis? He leads Springfield in practically every category of stat – BA, R, HR, RBI and SB. So I guess there is someone at Memphis who is better. Removing him from Springfield would probably make it look like a total T-ball team anyway.

It seems to me that the Cardinals minor league management is trending towards multiple inning use of it’s relievers. 2 to 3 inning outings have been common. Escobar and Fernandez have been used this way, as Fernandez had an almost perfect 3 inning stint last night. The only reason I can think of is that Peoria’s bullpen is very green, and outside of Palm Beach, the top 2 affiliates bullpens have done little more than chuck Molotov cocktails.

Btw, Fernandez is quietly having a very good start to his season. Perhaps he is finally developed a secondary pitch to go with his high octane fastball. He may be in line for another promotion, and possibly a 40 man roster spot if can keep this up.

Hopefully Monteros recent injury isn’t that serious since they haven’t put him on the IL.