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Keith Laws latest Mock in the Athletic has:
1)Lackey, GT Catcher going 1st to White Sox…was not blown away with him in the NCAA regionals against OU… think he was 1-13 in those 3 games they played in Atlanta, but that is a small sample size.
2) Bell, U. Kentucky SS going 2nd to Rays….seen some mocks he would go in the teens
3) Cholowsky, SS UCLA going to Twins….Cholowsky has been kind of the mock consensus #1 (UCLA was bad in the NCAA Tourney don’t know if this is related)
4) Emerson High School SS, Giants….Giants would probably do cartwheels if this played out
He had Cardinals taking Strosnider TCU OF….he did say if Curiel (LSU OF) was available that could be the pick
I am looking forward to this years draft. With all of these draft picks it could be quite a haul. They can take a variety of draftees, like safe senior picks saving $$, or or they can overpay higher ranked prospects. We don’t know what the draft rules will be in 2027, but we can cross our fingers that Wetherholt wins rookie of the year. And if the rules aren’t altered we could get a post 2nd round competitive balance pick. I’d trade a year of service for a post first round round draft pick. And hopefully there isn’t a stoppage in 2027. I would then look at extending our key players.
Baseball America recently came out with their writers doing a mock draft of the first 75 players doing a mock draft.
13) Hacopian RHP Tex A & M
32) Kuhns RHP Tennessee
50) Hirschkorn HSRHP
68) Waechter HSRHP
72 Williams HS SS/OFInteresting that they go back to Tennessee for a high draft pick, and the mock has them taking 3
high schoolers.I stand corrected. Hacopian played third base. Unless he pitched also?
Thanks LA. I thought I saw him on the left side of te diamond in a picture. Immediately not sure I’d take Hacopian with the 13th pick. But the Kuhns kid had a very good scouting report, and I like the 2 prep pitchers, the 2 seem to be pretty advanced with good command and live arms.
It will be interesting to see how many draft picks to our top 50. There should be a lot of quality prospects added. Maybe 5 or 6. Maybe we draft Kuhns, Franklin and Doyle’s ex teammate.
I can understand why Cardinals 27 confused a 3rd baseman with a pitcher. Our 3rd sacker for the past couple seasons hit like a pitcher. 😉
People inherently think high schoolers are better than college players, but here is the reality:
75 percent of domestic Major League players were developed through college baseball, 88 percent of whom were not ranked in high school.
since 2023, 82 college players have reached the big leagues within two years of being drafted, more than 2016-2022 combined.
According to MLB, 75 percent of high school signees do not make the Majors, and those players have used only 12 percent of the Continuing Education funds in their Minor League contracts.
I think the fascination with high school players may stem more from the belief that the high-end (domestic) superstars tend to come more from the high school ranks vs. college, which offers more certainty, but somewhat muted upside. For a team like the Cards, who will never sign a superstar free agent, the most likely way to obtain one is via the draft (grow your own).
With the draft less than two weeks out, I’ll be curious to see how things shake out for our Cards. For a while, it has looked like they will go with a hitter for their first round pick. I’m not sure I feel confident enough in the pitching in the system to pass up a guy like Flukey or Peterson if they are still available at our pick (and many mock drafts now have them sliding past 13).
I guess I’ll just have to trust Chaim and the development team to make a good choice. But I sure would feel better if we had a guy who’s a pretty likely mid rotation starter at least (like Flukey) in the system to go with the more wildly variant guys like Doyle, Mathews and Franklin.
Randy Flores, Zach Mortimer and the scouting team are front and center.
I wonder if this will be Flo’s last year leading the draft. If I am Mo, I’d give him a long look as a GM candidate to revitalize the Angels.
I wonder if this will be Flo’s last year leading the draft. If I am Mo, I’d give him a long look as a GM candidate to revitalize the Angels.
It seems many are drawing that conclusion:
MLBTR – Mo doesn’t know Moreno, may draw Flores
Jeff Fletcher of the Southern California News Group suggests that Cardinals assistant GM Randy Flores could be a candidate for the Angels job, as Flores is a known quantity to Mozeliak and has local ties as a SoCal native.
With high schoolers, you are drafting on raw potential rather than amy stats most of the time. Lots more missing than hitting. With college players, more is known but you have to have a real high pick to get most those that stand out. Lots of variables.
The better the Cards record is, the more I wish we’d have bstter lottery results. I wasn’t concerned when I thought we’d have another bite at a number 1 overall pick in 2027. Picking 13th this year was bad mojo.
I put the statistics about college versus high schoolers because on a recent podcast, Carlos Calazo casually mentioned something about how they inherently rank high schoolers above college players, which drives me nuts.
Statistically, if you want the best odds of developing a winning team, take the players that give you the best odds of contributing.
The only reason to ever draft a high schooler is if you truly believe he is going to be a superstar. Yet, how many times do we see teams drafting high schoolers and nothing about them screams “superstar”?
I’m not sure I feel confident enough in the pitching in the system to pass up a guy like Flukey or Peterson if they are still available at our pick (and many mock drafts now have them sliding past 13).
I am not as high on the Cardinals pitching situation as others. I look at how many of the top prospects are injured or struggling to ERA’s over 5, and am just not impressed. I am not high on Flukey or Peterson, which means one of them will probably be the Cardinals choice.
They need to lean on pitching.
With the lack of depth (or so it seems) .Pitching seems to be a need if some of these guys at the upper levels don’t work out.
I feel Flores and Bloom will make the best call and draft the best player available.
I am also in on drafting a college pitcher like Flukey, or if there s someone who falls Wetherholt 2 years ago. Kahn’s would be a nice addition for the next couple picks.
I am not as high on the Cardinals pitching situation as others. I look at how many of the top prospects are injured or struggling to ERA’s over 5, and am just not impressed. I am not high on Flukey or Peterson, which means one of them will probably be the Cardinals choice.
I am with you there. I think there are a few generally positive performances, and a few that we should expect given that the Cards are prioritizing long term gains (such as Doyle), and a few that have me really thinking about how much we can expect long term.
Curious why you don’t like Flukey? He was looking like a top 5ish pick before the injury, which doesn’t seem like an arm thing. Peterson I get, he’s like a plus Franklin who could go either way, to turn into a stud starter or end up a reliever.
The Brewers haven’t picked higher than 17 in the last 5 years. Their system overall is just plain good. I think the Cardinals system is much improved and may be one of the top systems. As always time will tell.
Curious why you don’t like Flukey? He was looking like a top 5ish pick before the injury, which doesn’t seem like an arm thing.
He rode the helium from the 2025 CWS to the top of the draft boards. Other than a couple of weeks in 2025, he hasn’t been particularly effective.
You are correct, the injury was a rib fracture, not an arm injury.
For whatever reason, he hasn’t fallen in publicly available scouting sites, but they are generally slower to react when downgrading players.
I probably have about 10 other pitchers higher than Flukey. Now, if he falls to the second round, then maybe he is the best on the board. But at 13? I’d rather go in other directions.
Is there a printable list of the top 100-200 draft prospects out there somewhere? Some are hard to print due to formatting, and/or print out too many pages.
Flukey seems to be free falling in the mock drafts I’ve seen. Seattle seems like a possible landing spot, and I don’t doubt that they’d get the most out of him. I would certainly not mind if he fell to our CB A spot. One thing I know is that I won’t be too excited about a catcher or a light hitting OF if that’s the route we go at 13. But I guess sometimes the draft just falls a certain way.
One way to look at this year’s potential draft haul…last year, the Cards selected 3 of the top 72 (Doyle, Mitchell, Franklin) and 4 of the top 89 (Gurevitch). This year, they get 5 of the top 72 and 6 of the top 89, so we could be adding 5 Franklin level talents and a 6th Gurevitch type. All of those guys are basically top 25-30 type prospects. Throw in another guy or three depending on whether they trade May, Romero, and/or O’Brien. It should be fun to rank our top 50 this fall.
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