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Bling your post was spot on. I just really see a similarity with both having the big fastball coupled with the beautiful bender.
I think that just about everyone who can vote, has…but we’ll hold off on the official tally until the noon CT/1 PM ET cutoff. 4.5 hours to go until #10 is crowned!
One more memory about the wiley vet coming off injury was Andy Benes. After leaving due to an office mistake, Benes finally returned but his body betrayed him. Then when the team looked viable but needed a starter, Benes returned and became Bruce Sutter. Starting with his arm blown out. his ball took on special sinking life. Though Sutter closed, he often went two or even three innings. Benes’s toppling medium ball:his fastball of mid-nineties was now 84 somehow pitched the best ball of his career.
In a runaway amongst 22 votes, your #10 prospect in the 2026 TCN Community Top 50 Prospect voting is…Tekoah Roby, RHP.
1. JJ Wetherholt, IF
2. Liam Doyle, LHP
3. Quinn Mathews, LHP
4. Rainiel Rodriguez, C
5. Joshua Baez, OF
6. Leonardo Bernal, C
7. Jimmy Crooks, C
8. Ixan Henderson, LHP
9. Brycen Mautz, LHP
10. Tekoah Roby, RHPVoting is now open for the #11 and 12 prospects. Voting will close at Noon CT/1 PM ET on Sunday, November 2nd.
As a reminder, now that we are voting for multiple prospects, here is how we tally it:
We use a weighted voting system to tally up a total for each prospect in a round of voting. A vote for the higher of the two prospects (for rounds of two) is worth twice as much as a vote for the power of the two. In this case, votes for the #11 prospect count twice as much as for the #12 prospect, so please rank your two votes each round.
As an example, suppose two prospects tie for the #12 slot.
Prospect A gets 4 votes at #11 and 4 votes at #12 (12 pts)
Prospect B gets 3 votes at #11 and 6 votes at #12 (12 pts)
The tie is broken by the most votes at the better rank, so in this case, Prospect A would get the edge. In cases of a perfect tie, we will use the existing tiebreaker rule that the first one to get to that vote is the winner. So vote early!
#11 Padilla
#12 Nathan ChurchChurch is the Brycen Mautz of position players. Excellent 2025 season, but not much at all prior to that. The thing that’s particularly impressive about Church, though, is that this year he flourished at AAA almost as much as AA. (At Springfield he had a 155 OPS+, and at Memphis it was 143. Great numbers, obviously.)
Yeah, he’s already 25. But he helps in the field and on the bases, and looks like he’ll be at least an adequate, roughly average hitter if given 20+ MLB at-bats per week. I doubt he’ll get that opportunity, but you never know what fate has in store.
#11 Pete Hansen : I will probably have to vote for him for two more weeks but I can’t bail on him yet.
#12: Jesus Baez: The Cards may end up winning the Helsley trade.#11-Tink Hence. He could make this voting look laughable within the next year, or all of us armchair prognosticators could prove to be prescient. I like his ability to pitch well when he does pitch.
#12-Chen-Wei Lin. The tall, projectable righty was my #10 prospect (Roby 11, Mautz 12) and I think his taste of the Arizona Fall League will be a springboard into a big 2026. He’s a little old, but he’s also inexperienced. The fastball should be good, but it sounds like his off speed stuff will be the bread and butter.
Number 11 is easy as I had Hjerpe at 10 on my list and am confident about that one.
The next group of 7 players get identical scoring from me. My list has Tanner Franklin as number 11 in that 7-way tie (Mautz was among the seven). But since Franklin isn’t receiving any votes yet, I’ll go with the next one of those seven who is getting votes.
11. Hjerpe
12. Deniel Ortiz11: Tink Hence
12: Yairo PadillaMy hypocrisy shall rise full force as I too shall advocate for the sore-armed Hjerpe. I could see him producing Andrew Millerish results next August down the stretch.That is exciting.
The issue is the Padilla screams switch-hitting Tatis Jr. in projectability.For TexasCard and KCB…are you voting for Lin? Or is there another prospect closer to Win that you’d rather pick?
#11. Yairo Padilla
#12. Chen-Wei LinBoth of these are quite risky picks. Lin has a giant frame he needs to learn to control and he needs to improve his offspeed pitch, but he has mid rotation upside and that is what excites me despite the risk.
11. – Jesus Baez
12. – Cooper HjerpeI originally wanted to rank Hence in my personal top 10. But after reading some of the posts concerning him, I did a reality check and conceded that there’s very little reason to expect much from Hence because of his health issues. It seems like the organization is just waiting and waiting for his body to hit a level of maturity where the injuries don’t keep happening. Hjerpe’s health issues don’t seem to be as big of a concern because he’s out with TJ surgery, and more often than not, pitchers come back well from TJ surgery. On the other hand, his submarine style pitching motion is worrisome, and he has had elbow issues ever since the Cardinals gave him $3.182M for showing up in Jupiter after the draft.
The voting is really close among 5 prospects. I’m also confused with Nigel’s vote. He lists Hence at 11 but then talks about having voted Hjerpe as his vote. Which is it?
My concern with guys like Roby and Hence is that we have already been down this tortured road.
See Reyes, Alex.
gscottar – That’s exactly the kind of post that made me do a reality check on Hence. I haven’t given up on him yet because as they say ‘Hope springs eternal’. By the way, I looked that quote up and because the whole quote is so beautiful to read, here it is.
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man… and, oh, here’s the definition of the word ‘expatiates’.
(intransitive verb)1. To speak or write at length.
2. “expatiated on the subject until everyone was bored.”
3. To wander freely. To range at large, or without
restraint.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
(IMHO, definition 3 relates to Hence.)@Mudville – you voted this early for Cooper Hjerpe, and he has only thrown 25 games in the three years since he was drafted, and only threw 5.0 innings or more seven times.
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