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Your #10 prospect in the 2025 TCN Prospect Rankings is Chen-Wei Lin, RHP.
1. Quinn Mathews, LHP
2. JJ Wetherholt, IF
3. Tink Hence, RHP
4. Jimmy Crooks, C
5. Michael McGreevy, RHP
6. Thomas Saggese, IF
7. Cooper Hjerpe, LHP
8. Chase Davis, OF
9. Leonardo Bernal, C
10. Chen-Wei Lin, RHPVoting is now open for prospects 11 & 12. This is a change from our first ten rankings. Please vote for TWO players, ranked 11 and 12, in this round. Voting will close on Thursday, November 21st at noon CT/1 PM ET
Tallying this round will go as follows: The votes will be weighted, with the vote for #11 getting two points and #12 getting 1 point. The highest point total will be the #11 prospect and the 2nd highest will be the #12 prospect. Ties are settled via whomever got more votes at the higher rank. In case of ties there we will go to whomever got to the vote total first.
11. Rajcic
12. PrietoRajcic is durable and has advanced at a crisp pace. Prieto is the top position player left on my list. Might play some 3B if NA goes.
11. Roby
12. GraceffoI spoke about Roby before. I’ll go with Graceffo for my 2nd pick just edging out Rajcic. I believe St Louis is going to see quite a bit of Graceffo this season – likely more in the bullpen, but maybe some in a swing role.
#11 Rainiel Rodriguez
#12 Yairo PadillaI don’t really want to list a pair of Dominican Summer League guys here. But Rodriguez was the best-hitting backstop in all the minors this year, and Padilla just received an almost unprecedented amount of praise in last week’s new Baseball America prospect list. Now a few details.
Of all qualified minor league catchers, Rainiel led in OPS+ with a 186. Second was 161. For perspective, the 17th catcher was at 137. Thus, the gap between #1 and #2 was greater than the gap from #2 to #17.
Rodriguez led all catchers in batting average by 21 points, and in slugging by 80 points. And he fanned less than he walked. And finally, his errors (3), passed balls (4), and caught stealing percentage (32%) were all boringly fine.
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Padilla is very young, half a year younger than Rodriguez — who himself was young for the DSL. If Yairo were 5 days younger, then 2024 would’ve been his age-16 season in “baseball years.” And yet, he posted a solid 121 OPS+ while playing shortstop, where apparently he is confidently projected to stick. At least per BA. Here’s where they think Padilla stands among Redbird farmhands:
Best Defensive Infielder, Padilla.
Best Infield Arm, Padilla.
Fastest Baserunner, Padilla.
Best Athlete, Padilla.From last week’s BA chat:
Geoff Pontes
4 days ago
The feedback has been off the charts most scouts viewed him as the second-best DSL prospect behind Jesus Made in 2024. He ranked that way in the list Josh Norris put out back on October 7th. He’s a plus athlete, defender at short, plus-plus runner with excellent bat-to-ball (12.6% z-miss) and swing decisions (low chase, higher swing, high heart swing). All we need to see is power and the reports from the offseason camps all say he’s the standout player in camp.Baseball America has Yairo the #5 Cardinal prospect, and Rainiel #11. That’s too high for Padilla, but somewhere in the 10-15 range feels absolutely reasonable to me.
And don’t ask me what “high heart swing” means. Maybe that’s another new metric! Hurray!
Thanks Bob for bringing these guys both up to the group. I wasn’t sure what to do with either. The DSL is so difficult to rank given the uneven level of competition and the fact we never get to see any of these guys play. I read all the same info from BA. That’s exciting that we have a prospect as good as Padilla.
What does this group want to do with Raniel Rodriguez, Yairo Padilla, and Keiverson Ramirez? Do we include them (because they are prospects) or do we exclude them because we can’t fairly evaluate them? I’m ok with including them, but wanted to see what you all thought.
We don’t have much to go on with the 2024 draft class pitchers either, but more than the DSL guys. After Rajcic and Prieto on my list is a big group of sore arms and long shots, not in any particular order. After that is guys I don’t know much about at all. I move up a few guys due to opportunity. Koperniak and the AFL starters. That young catcher too. I appreciate any info on the young guys, DSL or otherwise.
“Thanks, Bob, for bringing these guys both up to the group. I wasn’t sure what to do with either. The DSL is so difficult to rank given the uneven level of competition and the fact we never get to see any of these guys play. I read all the same info from BA.”
You’re welcome, J.
If you have a BA subscription (I don’t, I’m a cheapskate) you may be able to access an old Ben Badler article from March of 2009 entitled “Mining for Prospects in the DSL.” In that analysis of DSL hitting performances, Badler found that Dominican batting numbers were much more predictive of eventual MLB success than expected — particularly for young hitters with sturdy BB/K markers. If I recall, his article did not address DSL pitchers.Heck, with this Twitter gizmo, or whatever the cool kids are calling it now, you might even be able to contact Badler directly and ask him for a copy. At any rate, if DSL guys are considered eligible by all of the public ranking services, I think we oughtta do the same.
Bob, I like the way you think. I’ve got Padilla and Rainel Rodriquez flipped, and someone else in front, but I love their upside.
I do not like moving SP prospects to the pen, but I think the Cards need to go ahead with Roby. His stuff is electric, but he has injury concerns and surprisingly command problems this last year, but maybe he wasn’t fully healthy all year. Even in the pen, Roby can be a very valuable late inning option with his stuff. His sheer potential gets him as high as he is despite a very poor year.
Padilla’s scouting reports think he can stick on the left side of the infield with a strong arm and a chance to stay at SS with his great athleticism. He performed well in the DSL and his bat has good upside as well. Overall, this is a pure upside pick. If you asked me if I would trade Padilla for players below him on my rankings like Graceffo, the answer would be no. GMs get fired for trading away players with starting SS potential for a #6 starter type. The majority of the time it doesn’t work out, but #6 type SP are easy to find in FA and it only working out even 30% of the time on the upside player outweighs the more sure low upside guy.
#11 Tekoah Roby – Closer
#12 Yairo Padilla – SSWith Graceffo, you have to flip a coin for whether he has it or not on a given day. When he is on, he is quite a good pitcher, but Graceffo doesn’t seem to have that bulldog mentality like Chris Carpenter did. To have a shot at the back end of the rotation, he is going to need to improve his consistency. I am unsure on Graceffo’s viability in the pen and he may be a long reliever type as his consistency is not welcome at the back end of a bullpen.
Graceffo’s WHIP has been over 1.500 each of the last two years, and that was in AAA, so I would expect him to get hit around pretty fierce in the ML rotation. Advanced hitters waiting him out, making him get it over the plate. I see him sort of like Zack Thompson in that aspect. He could be next man up though.
Great seeing Bobby Reed back in the Cardinal Nation dugout! Bobby’s absence is akin to The Bambino being MIA from the ’27 Yankees, Stan the Man nowhere to be found on the ’47 Cards squad, or Bob Gibson selling insurance for Mutual of Omaha in Nebraska instead of pitching for the ’67 Redbirds. I’m all in for Rajcic here for top prospect #11.
#11 Gordon Graceffo
#12 Tekoah Roby
Lots of choices coming up that are very similar! I do like the idea of including the DSL players in our vote, even though we haven’t seen them and are just relying on their stats and the reports we see on TCN. We may have a few viable prospects from there that will advance in the next few years, and we will have more info on them to discuss their futures in the org then!I believe that all prospects should be eligible for voting, including the DSL guys. Some.vote based on stats and some on potential, and some a mix. DSL guys can have both. Of course there’s proximity to the majors and risk, which are marks against the DSL and even FCL guys, but folks are welcome to vote em in.
My votes…
11. Gordon Graceffo. I was a fan as soon as I heard that he’d been gaining velocity his first season. The dominant start at Peoria made everyone take notice. He’s seemed to plateau ever since, whether due to injuries or the fact that his stuff isn’t elite, despite the upper 90s fastball (at its best). I had Lin ahead of him on pure projection, but Graceffo will have a role in St Louis this year and maybe going forward.
12. Tekoah Roby. A true sore arm guy here. The stuff is still electric, but he’s running out of time as a starter. He could end up being an impact bullpen arm with his repertoire simplified and lower the chances of him flaming out due to injury. He and Graceffo would probably be good candidates for the Tink Hence treatment of being a 70ish pitch opener.
Very sensible look at Graceffo and Roby, 25. I personally have Graceffo a couple slots lower and Roby lower still, but spot on with the take on them.
I don’t hold out massive hopes for anyone outside my top 10, bling. It’s not realistic to expect more than a role player from those guys, typically. I think Graceffo and Roby could have a role, it’s just uncertain what it will be. Possibly both are bullpen arms, where Graceffo in particular could look a lot like Liberatore from the right side.
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