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Based on my math (and using BHC’s chart), if we signed everyone left for full slot values, we’d have $545,775. No idea what Thomas went for but I’d imagine we will have extra savings from Ralston as a senior sign. I can’t imagine the others would require that much extra dough.
Think $500-600K (plus the $125k base) would be enough to entice any (multiple?) of the HS talent or maybe the sophomore from Auburn?
I am no prospect expert but I have a hard time believing our minor league system is 25th best. I mean, considering the w-l record of our teams it could be possible but I think the rankings should be more complex than just w-l records. It should be based on the potential of individual players, of which we have several with high projections.
I am no prospect expert but I have a hard time believing our minor league system is 25th best.
That’s probably because guys like Dylan Carlson and Montero are either not ranked, or barely ranked, anywhere. I guess that Carlson raking as a 20 year old at AA and Montero’s destruction of A ball as a 19 year old last year don’t count for much. As mentioned, raters don’t give Cardinals prospects much respect most of the time.
Of the first 10 rounds, how signable are the last 3 who have not signed? I was thinking Ralston was a senior, so he does not have much leverage. Also, it seems like Thomas might have signed for under slot $$$.
I am impressed with the depth of Thompson’s curve/slider. I can see why he had so many strikeouts. He could move very fast. If healthy, he could start at AA, and possibly see AAA next year a la Hudson.
C27…the Cardinals typically take college starters and put them on a lighter workload in a bullpen somewhere. Hudson, for instance, pitched in the GCL and Palm Beach in 2016. Griffin Roberts pitched in the bullpen in the GCL as well with a cup of joe in A ball. I wouldn’t be surprised if Thompson went the same route. He could be at A+ and AA next year, however.
“I am no prospect expert but I have a hard time believing our minor league system is 25th best.”
“That’s probably because guys like Dylan Carlson and Montero are either not ranked, or barely ranked, anywhere. I guess that Carlson raking as a 20-year-old at AA and Montero’s destruction of A ball as a 19-year-old last year don’t count for much. As mentioned, raters don’t give Cardinals prospects much respect most of the time.”
Yeah, gscott and scard-25, you guys are both correct of course. The reality is, the farm is roughly 10th-best right now. I could see them reasonably ranked as high as 8th or as low as 13th, depending on how the newly minted draftees and rookieballers play over the next seven weeks.
No super-elite top 20 overall prospect types, but five easy top 100 talents (Gorman, Carlson, Herrera, Montero, Knizner), three more definite top 150 prospects (Nunez, Rodriguez, Z. Thompson) and also better than average top 500 depth. (I count 22-24 top 500 types without even considering any DSL players. And two or three of those look promising in the [very] early going.)
Have I mentioned in the past ten minutes that the mainstream professional prospect rankers are the ones who never had Albert Pujols in their top 40, and never had Yadi Molina or Dan Haren in a top 100? Or Paul DeJong or Coco Crisp or Dakota Hudson or Matt Carpenter or David Freese or Harry Bader or Jack Wilson or Lance Lynn or, or, or….
But here’s the thing: it’s not just the fact that they weren’t in the top 100. That’s only half of the problem. The other half is that in most cases they were not anywhere close.
Trust the performances more than the pundits and you’ll be right faaar more often than wrong. And the Cards are getting exciting performances from several minor league individuals so far this year — with much more to come in the GCL and Appy Leagues, I have a feeling.
The Cardinal farm is severely slanted toward hitters right now, and somewhat slanted toward teens in the lower minors. So it superficially doesn’t look as strong as it is. (Just like how 12 months ago Dylan Carlson didn’t look like anything special to the mainstream prospect evaluators. Simply put, they gave him not nearly enough credit for his youthfulness.) But kids grow up, and some become regulars, and a few even blossom into stars.
I feel like I’m shaking my fist at a cloud yet again, but for heaven’s sake haven’t we seen enough radically underrated Redbird prospects over the past 2, 5, 10, 20 years to finally at long last come to the irrefutable realization that we should not listen to Baseball America or Keith Law or Bleacher Report or MLB Pipeline or Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus or any of these people? Because each and every one of them, without exception, has an established track record of incompetence re St. Louis prospects. (Well, I don’t know what Bleacher Report’s record is, or if they even have one, but they certainly do not know what they’re talking about right now.) It’s a tough chore, but just ignore them.
Or maybe this is a better idea: When any of the above prospect “gurus” rank a Redbird player — or the farm system as a whole — just cut the number in half. If they rate Carlson 80th, just assume he should be 40th. If the club ranks 22nd, re-rank them 11th.
You’ll instantly be a better evaluator of Cardinal prospects than all of those so-called professionals.
Great post Bob. Thanks for that.
My assumption is that most prospect “guru” publications are either understaffed or lazy or both. The Cardinals have what, maybe 250 prospects? If all 30 MLB teams have the same amount that totals 7500 minor league players plus all of the independent league and international league players plus the thousands of college and high school players to keep track of. It sounds like a huge undertaking but if you are going to have a publication to specialize in this then do it right instead of half ***ing it!
It is easy to analyze and rate players like Tatis Jr. and Vlad Jr. but digging through all of the short season teams and low A teams analyzing all of those players takes a lot of time and effort. End of rant.
Anyone who doesn’t put Elehuris Montero in their top 10 has no standing as an evaluator of talent, IMO. That’s how you get silly things like “the Cards have the worst system.”
He also lists Peter Alonso in the Mets’ prospects while omitting names like Reyes, Hudson and O’Neill from the graduation list. I’m not sure what criteria he even used for prospect status.
I have no idea what the criteria is but things are changing for our farm system and there shouldn’t be too many who would place them higher than 20… at best.
I don’t follow other teams prospects other than where they have an abundance or lack of players at one position when looking at trade possibilities.
Of the top-10 TCN 5/19 ranking, other than Carlson, Woodford and Edman, the others aren’t exactly performing as elite prospects. I could see some others among the top-30 drawing merit for advancing Torner IHerrera, JuRodriguez, Sosa, Rondon and JFernandez. And a couple of moving into the top-30., Fagalde, Parsons, Seijas, Whalen and even DPerez may return.
I feel that this is somewhat of an off year but 25th or 30th is insane.
As those of you who happen to read some of my lengthy posts know that I do a fair number of studies of the draft and minor league systems.
I did a study of the 2007 major teams minor league systems based on performance by around 2013 at the major league level. Study was based on the cumulative positive WAR. I stopped updating the study in 2016.
The Cardinals system was ranked 23rd by Baseball America. Based on cumulative positive WAR (only players with a positive WAR were included) the Cardinals were closer to the top 10. What kept us from a higher performance was the lack of a premium performer like Kershaw, McCutcheon, and Braun, none of whom the Cardinals had a chance of drafting with our typical late first round choices. I believe that Rasmus, Ryan and Jaime Garcia were our top guys.
The Mets, Angles and Cubs were among the highly overrated teams with practically no players reaching the major leagues never mind performing at an elite level. Tampa Bay was ranked #1 with only Longoria and Wade Davis making any significant impact in the show.
I did another study of draft picks over a long period and the Cardinals were clearly top ten. This is in spite of rare top 10 picks in the draft. I believe that like this year at 19th pick we are almost always close to that number. The Red Sox and Blue Jays have had strong performances from their draft picks. I believe that the lack of early picks are a major factor in the at least percieved underranking of our system.
A final study compared the major league performance of The Cardinal Nation top 30 to that of Baseball America’s Cardinal top 30. Our top 30 has consistently outperformed the BA top 30 and the margin has been increasing over the last few years. The MLB top 30 is probably even weaker. I don’t have that data but I have noticed not only the good players they miss but maybe more important who they include.
“A final study compared the major league performance of The Cardinal Nation top 30 to that of Baseball America’s Cardinal top 30. Our top 30 has consistently outperformed the BA top 30 and the margin has been increasing over the last few years. The MLB top 30 is probably even weaker. I don’t have that data but I have noticed not only the good players they miss but maybe more important who they include.”
That last point is a particularly insightful one, Sooner. The mainstream guys (and nobody is more mainstream than Callis/Mayo at MLB.com) not infrequently cling to stale draft-based and signing bonus-based rankings of prospects for years before adjusting to the realities of on-field professional performance.
Draft slots and signing bonuses are like security blankets to these guys. When ranking prospects, they seemingly cannot survive emotionally without these touchstones. They are all flooded with knowledge and bereft of wisdom. They do not understand this essential fact: signing bonuses and draft positions can only represent perceived talent, as opposed to actual talent. Actual talent only and always reveals itself between the lines.
Signing bonuses and draft spots simply do not matter once a player’s professional career commences. Among other innumerable errors, fixating on signing bonuses and draft spots kept future superstars like Jose Altuve and Paul Goldschmidt entirely off of every top 100 list despite the fact that they were tearing up pro baseball.
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“I have no idea what the criteria is but things are changing for our farm system and there shouldn’t be too many who would place them higher than 20… at best.”
I strongly disagree, Ny, and here’s my straightforward supporting argument.
I would encourage you to go back and check the very recent track record of whomever it is that you want to cite as a farm systems expert. Please check any organization or individual who ranks prospects, and see where they ranked Paul DeJong and Harrison Bader and Dakota Hudson. It’s too soon to say much about Hudson, other than he’s pitching great lately and he is clearly NOT a reliever, as incorrectly forecast by numerous sources like Fangraphs, Keith Law, et. al.DeJong and Bader, however, we don’t need to wait to evaluate. They have combined for 14.0 WAR in just over 1,900 plate appearances, per Fangraphs. In other words, they are providing star-level production. They are stars.
According to every single professional prognosticator they were “possible bench contributors” or maybe “platoon players.” Instead they are stars, according to Fangraphs. (And Baseball-reference values them even higher than Fangraphs.)
I am not praising the farm system out of some misguided directionless homerism, Ny. I daresay that almost nobody here is more negative than I about the front office, the manager, and the general direction of the franchise right now.
I am so (bleeping) negative that I’m boycotting even discussing any aspect of the MLB team until the manager is fired or front office overhauled. My blood boils just thinking about the blunders of the past few years. This organization hasn’t shot itself in the foot. It’s shot itself in the face.
But the Redbird farm is distinctly above average, led by the quintet of top 100 types cited in the earlier post. Take it from the only person on the planet who had Bader in his top 50 prospects for two years running before he hit the majors.
In retrospect I was actually 20-30 spots too low on Harry, and like everyone else I was far, far too low on DeJong. And I may have been too high on Elehuris Montero at #40 before the year started. But that’s what a good evaluator does — he’s too high on some and too low on others, in relatively equal measure. As opposed to the national voices who are almost never too high on any Cardinal prospect. And frequently too low on many of them.
And that’s how we know they are incompetent at evaluating them. In fact it’s the definition of incompetence, or a severely debilitating bias if you prefer.
We have agreed to terms with the following 2019 MLB Draft Picks:
RHP Logan Gragg, Oklahoma St. (Round 8)
RHP Tyler Statler, Hononegah HS (IL) (Round 14)
RHP Michael YaSenka, Eastern Illinois (Round 17)
RHP Jeremy Randolph, Alabama (Round 26)— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) June 14, 2019
If my count is correct, they have signed 24 of 40 drafted. Under slot/over slot, who knows overall. And as far as if this is a good draft, we won’t know that for 3 or 4 years.
Time for an updated chart.
Players in BOLD will indicate the players that have signed.
2019 Cardinals Draft Picks
ROUND (#) | NAME | POSITION | PROJECTED BONUS (SIGNED AMOUNT) | DATE SIGNED1 (19), Zack Thompson, LHP, $3,359,000 ($3,000,000), 06/11/2019
2 (58), Trejyn Fletcher, CF, $1,214,300 ($1,500,000), 06/12/2019
3 (96), Tony Locey, RHP, $604,800 ($604,000), 06/12/2019
4 (125), Andre Pallante, RHP, $455,600
5 (155), Connor Thomas, LHP, $340,000 ($340,000), 06/11/2019
6 (185), Pedro Pages, C, $261,600 ($250,000), 06/12/2019
7 (215), Jack Ralston, RHP, $204,800
8 (245), Logan Gragg, RHP, $167,800 (???), 06/14/2019
9 (275), Todd Lott, OF, $152,000 ($152,000), 06/11/2019
10 (305), Jake Sommers, RHP, $143,600 ($10,000), 06/10/2019BONUS POOL………………………………………….$6,903,500
BONUS POOL PLUS 5%…………………………………..$7,248,675
SUBTOTAL……………………………………………$5,856,800
Above Slot (Round 11-40)……………………………..$75,000
REMAINING POOL………………………………………$971,700
REMAINING POOL PLUS 5%……………………………….$1,316,875Draft Picks in Rounds 11-40 can sign for $125,000. Anything over that goes against Draft Signing Bonus Pool.
ROUND (#) | NAME | POSITION | (SIGNED AMOUNT) | DATE SIGNED
11 (335), Connor Lunn, RHP
12 (365), Patrick Romeri, RF, ($200,000), 06/10/2019
13 (395), Tommy Jew, CF
14 (425), Tyler Statler, RHP, 06/14/2019
15 (455), David Vinsky, OF, 06/11/2019
16 (485), Thomas Hart, RHP
17 (515), Michael YaSenka, RHP, 06/14/2019
18 (545), Aaron Antonini, C, 06/12/2019
19 (575), Zarion Sharpe, LHP
20 (605), Adrian Mardueno, RHP, 06/12/2019
21 (635), Jack Owen, LHP
22 (665), Zade Richardson, C
23 (695), Brylie Ware, 3B, 06/10/2019
24 (725), Will Guay, RHP, 06/10/2019
25 (755), Alexander McFarlane, RHP
26 (785), Jeremy Randolph, RHP, 06/14/2019
27 (815), Eric Lex, RHP
28 (845), Tyler Peck, RHP, 06/12/2019
29 (875), Scott Politz, RHP, 06/11/2019
30 (905), Cameron Dulle, RHP, 06/10/2019
31 (935), Dylan Pearce, RHP
32 (965), Chandler Redman, 2B, 06/10/2019
33 (995), Anthony Green, RHP, 06/11/2019
34 (1025), Ben Baird, SS, 06/11/2019
35 (1055), Logan Hoffman, RHP
36 (1085), Kyle Skeels, C, 06/11/2019
37 (1115), Chris Newell, LHP
38 (1145), Kurtis Byrne, C
39 (1175), T.J. McKenzie, SS
40 (1205), Cash Rugely, SSDollar amounts do not represent the bonus amount for Gragg.
Thanks so much for the ongoing updates, BlackHills. Very fine work, sir.
By my math the Cards have about half a million in extra dough before incurring penalties, and two highly rated high schoolers — both around #100 pre-draft, per MLB.com — to try and buy away from college commitments. So they could offer McFarlane (25th round) or Newell (37th) middle of the 3rd round money (roughly $620,000).
Or they could offer each of them just under $400,000 (4th/5th round bonus range). But I doubt that would be enough to get either one. Probably want to use each draftee as implicit or explicit leverage against the other, i.e., “first guy to sign gets the six hundred grand.” I don’t know which one I prefer, but I’d bet they ink one of them.
And that’s not counting any additional bonus money saved once Ralston is signed. There should be something fairly substantial there I’d guess, since he’s a senior.
Bob, just curious… what present prospects do you think are undervalued? How about a few to prove that they are better than let’s say 20th. Maybe you are something that other Card fans aren’t recognizing.
Here I’ll help you get started…. Carlson.The latest list I am aware of is MLB Pipeline. They have Ivan Herrera at 18th in the Cardinal system, Junior Fernandez at 20th and Jake Woodford at 24th. All too low.
Baseball America had Woodford at 16, Herrera at 21 and Fernandez out of the top 30. In fairness Junior’s injury history was probably a factor.
One player who is beginning to intrigue me is shortstop Kramer Robertson. He seems to be improving as he moves up the organization. To me that is an indicator that he is good at making adjustments and has the talent to use those adjustments for better performance. He is on a pace to have 15-20 home runs after hitting only 5 total his first two pro seasons. Now at AAA Memphis in his third year.
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