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15. Ryan “Gabby” Mitchell
16. Deniel Oneil Ortiz* Din-din tonight was a trip on over to Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse for a medium rare ribeye, baked potato, asparagus spears and for dessert I swung on through Popeye’s drive thru lane to snag myself 3 of their scrumptillyisish apple cinnamon pies.
A little over 4 hours to go before the noon CT/1 PM ET deadline…looks like we are missing Sooner, Pads and bccran from the voting rolls. There’s still time to join in!!
So it sounds like we have to pick our poison. Choose between reliable but unspectacular innings eaters (Hansen, Taylor) or the high pedigree guys with great stuff but spend more time in the MASH unit than on the mound (Roby, Hence, Hjerpe). I will take the former over the latter.
The only plus from the MASH guys is you can’t get destroyed by MLB hitters if you are never on the mound.
Closing the voting, your #15 and 16 prospects in the 2026 TCN Community Top 50 Prospect voting are…
15. Deniel Ortiz, IF
16. Chen-Wei Lin, RHP.
Running List:
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, RHP
11. Jesus Baez, IF
12. Tink Hence, RHP
13. Cooper Hjerpe, LHP
14. Yairo Padilla, IF
15. Deniel Ortiz, IF
16. Chen-Wei Lin, RHPVoting is now open for the #17 and 18 prospects. Voting will close at Noon CT/1 PM ET on Sunday November 9th.
#17 Nathan Church
#18 Braden DavisChurch fairly dominated AA and AAA at age 24 (excellent OPS and BB/K tally) and offers value both in the field and on the bases. I understand downgrading him for his mediocre pre-2025 hitting performance, but it feels like folks may also be overreacting to his micro-sample of 50something dismal AB’s in the majors.
Davis’ strikeout-to-base hit ratio was 3rd in all of the minors in 2025 among the 691 starters with 70+ innings pitched. First and second were uber-prospects Jonah Tong and Trey Yesavage.
I still have 6 guys before Davis & Church. Three haven’t been named yet so it may take me a bit. It’s a fairly close call though. A bunch of these guys could be similarly rated.
17. Franklin
18. MitchellI’m sticking with Franklin here. I actually didn’t like the Franklin draft pick initially. Having dug into him more and having watched him pitch a few innings this season led me to liking him more. There’s still a lot of risk with him just like so many of these guys. Mitchell I haven’t seen yet other than a couple highlight videos. But several people I really respect like him so I’m putting him this high.
17. Won-Bin Cho. My 16th ranked prospect, I think he got underrated a bit due to the Peoria curse. I was working on some stats earlier this summer to show that the staff at Peoria is harpooning the guys under their care, but it felt a little uncaring so I canned it. Anyway, he was slightly above average at Peoria, which is a feat in itself as their lineup struggled (to say the least). But he did that with a pretty poor start to the year. In April and May, he hit .191/.290/.252 (62 wRC+) with a 30.3% K rate and generally looked like he didn’t belong. June through season’s end he put together a .266/.375/.402 like (125 wRC+) with a much better K rate of 21.3% against a 14.3 walk %. He wasn’t hot in September, but he increased his OPS each month April to August. I like him to put up numbers next year in Springfield.
18. Tanner Franklin. A power arm with a tough fastball, he should have a chance to stick as a starter with the Cards. I think he ends up on a Trevor Rosenthal career arc where he could be a decent starter or a dominant relief arm. That’s decent value for the draft pick, and this slot in the voting as well.
#17 – Nathan Church
#18 – Braden DavisAs for the love Tanner Franklin is getting – I don’t really understand it. He was a reliever at Tennessee, and not a particularly effective one. Reminds me of the Zac Thompson pick, where people raved about his “stuff”, even though he never had results.
For those that want to say it was hard to break the Tennessee rotation – college baseball teams play Friday, Saturday, Sunday & Tuesday. He wasn’t even the Tuesday starter.
As far as I can tell. the next up position players are Ryan Mitchell, Nathan Church and Blaze Jordan, who has been sort of invisible for some reason. Based on his scouting grades, I think Mitchell has the highest potential. Nathan Church is the surest bet to get some MLB AB’s in 2026, although I don’t seem him getting much traction at the MLB level. Blaze Jordan has OPS’d over .800 for most of his career, and in fact, he was OPS’ing .928 for AA Portland before the Cardinals acquired him from Boston, and he’s now at Memphis at age 22.
Based on Brian’s and Kyle’s reporting and commenting on this weeks Wednesday With Walton and Reis, plus his AFL Fall Star award, Darlin Saladin comes to mind. So for me, it’s between Saladin and Braden Davis here.
17. – Ryan Mitchell
Future star, or not? Lots of promise based on early data.
18. – Braden Davis
Based on Bod Reed’s comment and a review of Davis’ stats for 2025. Also, appears to have starter potential.Caesar Prieto and Bryan Torres still exist and have achieved what we dream guys at the lower levels will possibly become. If Nathan Church hits over .280, he will probably play so much that he gets into the gold glove discussion. Church hitting .280 is a far greater lock than Cho finding loft or Mitchell becoming Tony Gwynn.
Ignore Church at your own risk.
Zach Levenson looked like the second coming of Joe Mather once he arrived in Springfield. He’s a pretty good outfielder, too.
Max Ragic has recieved no love, but he is just a little regained velocity from the days he was sitting 96 with that great bender.If 2nd rounder Tanner Franklin had pitched more than 6 pro innings I would consider him for the top 20, but he didn’t so I won’t. Mitchell, the other 2nd rounder, being a teenager, is even more of a no until we see something.
17. Hansen
18. WinquestLove the intensity here. One poster complaining that Tanner Franklin is getting too much love, and another poster complaining that Nathan Church is not getting enough love. Personally, I can’t wait for a chance to vote for Andrew Dutkanych IV. His improvement after his surgery puts him in the top 50, or at least close to the top 50, for sure.
btw, din din tomorrow will be roast duck. We have it every so often. I take the liver that comes with it and combine with some rendered duck fat to make a faux foie gras pate that’s fantastic. Last weekend, I got sent down to Soulard Market to get a duck egg, which gets used to make duck dumplings, which get covered in duck gravy. CiF would be impressed.
Oh my CardinalinFrance would indeed be enormously impressed with your DDD (Duck Din-Din, Bling! If anyone out there reading Bling’s last post and who’s mouth is NOT watering, please check your pulse to see if you’re still alive and kicking.
17. Ryan “Gabby” Mitchell
18. Braden “Scorched Earth” DavisGoing with the young and the old.
17. Mitchell
18. Bryan Torres in honor of him being added to the 40 man. Plus he had an outstanding season in AAA.#17. Ryan Mitchell
#18. Zach LevensonAt this point, we have went past the 15 guys I think have an edge over the others. There is a variety of guys of platoon starter upside with lower risk or some guys with starter upside but quite low odds of reaching it that I have in the next dozen or so picks.
Mitchell is purely based off scouting data as we haven’t seen him yet, but the people who job it is to evaluate future talent really like his tools and think there is a slightly above average starter upside albeit with what I have labeled extreme risk.
Levenson I was really disappointed in to start the year, but he really turned it around. Levenson is one of the few Cards prospects with good raw power and I hope he can tap into it, although I expect most likely at best he is a normal regular or more likely a platoon guy.
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