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Brian, that’s an excellent point. Griffin is a recently turned 18 year-old baseball phenom. With, evidently, a fabulous attitude. I prefer either Burns or Smith at #7. But Connor Griffin would be a wonderful consolation prize for the future of the organization.
The more I read about Griffin, the more I like him. I’m still not high in drafting a pitcher this high given the bust rate. I’m a little lower now in Montgomery than I was due to some hit tool concerns. I’ve been liking Bryce Rainer some as well. Wetherholt would be a good player as well, but I hope to see him stay healthy as he hasn’t the spitting image of health in college.
In general, the Cards chose a bad year to have a bad year. This draft class has some bats, but many of them are 1B types or below average 2B types. Overall a much weaker class unfortunately.
In general, the Cards chose a bad year to have a bad year.
It looks like we are going to get another shot at it in the 2025 draft.
When we were playing the Orioles, I was amazed at how many recent first and second rounders were contributing to their team. So, I did a comparison:
Cardinals under Randy Flores (2016-2023):
– 10 first rounders, 9 second rounders
– 14 WAR total
– 4 seasons of 2 WAR or greater; 3 players on pace for 2 WAR this season, 1 is already over 2 WAR (Winn)Orioles under Mike Elias (2019-2023):
– 7 first rounders, 9 second rounders
– 25.1 WAR total
– 4 seasons of 2 WAR or greater; they have 4 players on pace to be greater than 2 WAR this season, 1 of whom already isThat’s 2019’s #1 overall Adley Rutschman mixed in there. They also picked Gunnar Henderson with the first pick that year in round 2. Here is where the Orioles have drafted in the first round over the past 10 seasons:
2015: 25
2016: 27
2017: 21
2018: 11
2019: 1
2020: 2
2021: 5
2022: 1
2023: 17They also get competitive balance picks.
That is one path to success. No guarantee you make it, but if you can be a bottom team for a couple years in a row and then now hopefully get lucky in the draft. It’s a path, but not one the Cardinals want to take.
If we take out players drafted in the first 17 picks, and only look at players drafted 30 or later (meaning the Cardinals had a shot):
– They have 13.7 WAR
– 2 players on pace to achieve more than 2 WAR this season
– 3 players in AAA, one who has already had a cup of coffee
– 0 players drafted in the first two rounds have been bustsKeep in mind, we only have five years of track record for Baltimore. If you figure it takes the average college player 3-4 years to get to MLB and longer for HS players…
To make an apples-to-apples comparison: Cardinals drafted in rounds 1 & 2 since 2019:
– Total of 1.8 WAR
– 1 2 WAR season – this year by Masyn Winn
– 2 busts (Tre Fletcher, Ryan Holgate), 2 struggling (Josh Baez, Chase Davis)I agree. Cards have not been good in first two rounds in general for a while. 2020 was the outlier where they may have done quite well. But lots of failed or weak picks. This year, we pick earlier than in forever. Let’s hope they get the right guy.
On the hitter side, the Cardinals take a LOT of risk.
On the pitcher side, they tend to go for ho-hum.
I would like to see them go for more upside with pitchers in the first round. And in the years I have followed the draft, I have always found the most value for college hitters in the second round.
If you look at what Baltimore has done, they’ve taken one pitcher, two high school hitters and the rest were college bats with excellent numbers.
I do believe the Cardinals need a new Director of Scouting.
This many misses in the first and second rounds is untenable.
Who is drafting for the Orioles? Who is drafting for the Cardinals?
Elias is roughly equivalent to Girsch.
I think Elias is the equivalent to Mo. Some teams refer to their top front office exec as PBO and some refer to them as GM.
To add a layer to this discussion, both Elias & Sig Mejdal, his analytics guru /asst GM, were both members of the Cardinals organization-back in the Luhnow days (early 2010’s). This is back when the Cards were at the forefront of draft & development-especially pitchers (think Trevor Rosenthal, Joe Kelly & Kevin Siegrist). After Luhnow’s departure (& him taking many of their top minds with him to Houston), it seems that Mo never backfilled those roles with equally forward thinking people. It seems like it’s been all like-minded, safe (Cardinals way) type people. No one is pushing boundaries anymore or starting trends. The Cards front office are all “behind the curve” followers right now…
I know that this thread is related to the 2024 domestic draft, but since it’s evolved into a Cards/Orioles comparison, the Orioles had NO presence in Latin America when Elias arrived. Now, in a few short years (5 to be exact) they had more infrastructure in place & high-end L.A. prosects in their system than do the Cards. Juxtapose that with the Cards Latin American system which has since been contracted from two DSL teams to one & has provided no one of impact, or even exciting prospect that could be trade bait…not since Carlos Martinez.
Reyes was an exciting prospect
Alas, he only had one 2 WAR season and brought us nothing back in trade.
Mississippi State has a really intriguing pitcher. Jurrangelo Cijntje is a borderline first round talent. What makes him interesting though is he is a switch pitcher. He has been throwing right handed more lately, but he does throw with both arms and will swap it up and throw lefty to some lefty batters.
The good thing about Cjintje is that if he ever did have Tommy John, he could still pitch with his other arm.
In theory, it seems you could let him pitch righty half the game, and lefty the other half. What better way to go deeper in the game and remove the three times through the order effect.
He can change throughout the game. He has to declare which arm he is going to use before the batter declares. He is naturally a lefty, but throws better (and harder) righty.
There is one college bat that may go in the Top 10 that hasn’t been mentioned:
James Tibbs, III, FSU – .375/.496/.810; 17 2B / 1 3B / 25 HR; 49 BB / 26 K
He ended the regular season with more HR than strikeouts. He’s since added 2 strikeouts and no HR, but yesterday was walked four times…
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