- This topic has 31 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Apologies if anyone else already brought this up in a different thread, but Leonardo Bernal warrants a special mention these days.
May 8th to June 8th, Leo accrued 99 plate appearances, with an exceptional slash line of .382/.434/.685 and just 9 strikeouts. (Also 9 walks, 7 homers, and 6 doubles.) Overall, the 21-year-old has lifted his AA line for this season to .301/.383/.542 (151 OPS+), with a sturdy 21/25 BB/K ratio in 175 trips to the plate. He’s combining the excellent power of his 2022 season with the superlative plate discipline of his 2023 campaign.
Leo’s always been built like Campy. Now he’s hitting like him, too. The Cards have the best prospect bunch of pitchers & catchers (when the former group is healthy, that is) and Bernal may turn out to be the best of them all. He can really hit, he led all of High-A with a 35% caught stealing last year, and he’s even better at 38% this season. Definite top 40-50 overall prospect. The errors and passed balls are slightly elevated, and for me that’s all that’s keeping him from consideration for #1 Redbird farmhand.
I agree with Kyle from the Wednesday with Walton episode a couple of weeks ago. Minor league catching numbers don’t give a lot of insight. Bernal’s offense for his age has definitely been exciting and he has an up arrow next to his name for me. However, I don’t think he is a top 40-50 overall prospect. I could see him as a bottom of the top 100 list guy though and I think most scouting orgs (will see with Fangraphs soon) will have him as a 45+ FV with an upward arrow pointing toward 50 soon. BA in their update are way low on him in my opinion and have Bernal as the 11 in the Cards org behind guys like Saggase and Chase Davis.
Does anyone else find it odd that the IAFA guy the Cards spent the most money on this year Royelny Strop has only appeared in 1 game so far in 6 DSL games?
Albert, I’ve been wondering the same thing. I look for him daily because he’s one of the few names I know at the DSL. I assume he’s injured, but who knows?
“Minor league catching numbers don’t give a lot of insight.”
I missed that episode, Albert. By “catching numbers,” are you referring to a specific skill like gunning runners or framing pitches? Because I’m sure that some minor league catching statistics are much more predictive than others — just as the stats with pitchers & hitters. Yadi for example threw out 46% in the minors, 40% in MLB. On the other hand, Yadi’s passed ball/error totals in the minors were unexceptional, and in the majors he was of course outstanding.
Bob, you can watch this episode of the podcast. The 5:00-6:30 mark is where the discussion occurs.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.