Cardinals place eight in Sickels’ 2014 top 150

Normally each spring, John Sickels of minorleagueball.com is one of the major talent raters to publish cross-organization and team-specific prospect lists. Due to some health problems, Sickels delayed his national top 150 list a bit in 2014, just publishing it on May 1.

The rumored decline of the St. Louis Cardinals’ system has been exaggerated. With a “fair share” for the average organization being five (150 spots divided by 30 systems), the Cardinals exceeded that substantially by placing eight prospects on Sickels’ new list.

That includes two in the top 20 and five in the top 100. One additional prospect is among the others considered.

In the list below, Sickels’ grade for each prospect is included as is the players’ respective rankings in The Cardinal Nation’s top 40 prior to the season.

Rank Prospect Grade Level TCN 40
4 Oscar Taveras A AAA 1
17 Carlos Martinez A- MLB 2
57 Kolten Wong B+ AAA 3
70 Stephen Piscotty B+ AAA 4
88 Alex Reyes B A 7
110 Randal Grichuk B- MLB 10
116 Marco Gonzales B A+ 6
139 Tim Cooney B- AAA 12
150+ Carson Kelly A 9

Please check out all of the details behind the rankings and grades at minorleagueball.com. Sickels is also running a Thursday chat in which he is answering reader questions.

Note: The Cardinal Nation subscribers should follow the main site in the upcoming days as our monthly Cardinals prospect rankings will be returning very soon.

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