2026 TCNs Top 50 Prospect Countdown

I look at a player like Ryan Campos and then read how enthusiastic Kyle is about Campos’ ‘intangibles’. It makes me wonder if the only reason they drafted him was so he could show the Cardinals’ young, developing pitchers and catchers what really good intangibles are supposed to look like. The other thing that I think is interesting is that his college stats were so very impressive. It must have been fun for him to produce those kinds of stats. It gives him the chance to play professional ball for awhile which is saying something.

I would still like to see Koperniak get some major league AB’s.

Mud, with 100% all do respect I’m curious why? A light hitting, LH bat, corner OFer, under a .700 OPS at AAA at age 27…. I hope he doesn’t or it’ll be a worse season than possibly expected.

We all used to call BDJ cheap when payroll was around $165-170…. Boy oh boy, is he showing us what cheap looks like now. Losing well over 1.2M “butts in the seats” times $75 a fan shows up…. on the balance sheet. You can rebuild and not be awful, focus on long term but fill out the roster with reclamation projects for the short term.

Disclosure: They are full of lies when announcing the attendance numbers. No idea how they come up with those numbers that they “tell” you on TV but they have to be justifying it somehow

Max Rajcic – #44

This is fun.

Kyle sounds mad. He sounds like he bet the entire ranch on his horse to win. But the poor horse barely made it to the finish line.

Brian, on the other hand, sounds like Napoleon reveling in his exploits and victories while trying to dismiss the nagging possibility that he may one day meet his Waterloo.

Thanks to both of you. This is great. I love it.

And by the way, a ranking of #44, for reasons I can’t quite explain, seems kind of right.

I don’t think I’ve ever deliberately posted something that was disrespectful on your website. Inappropriate? Maybe that, a time or two. And, my inappropriate posts got appropriately deleted. I admire the thoughtfulness and the thoroughness and the integrity that you both put into your work. You both call it the way you see it. Thanks, again.

Hmmm . . . I didn’t expect Van Dyke to make the list or at least not above mid 40’s. I’m excited to read the article to find out why!

Back to Rajcic, I feel more like Kyle does on him. I have Rajcic as a depth only guy. I am ready for the weak fastball guys to be out of the org as most don’t have a role as a SP at the big league level and can’t transition to the pend either with their lack of stuff.

I expected Van Dyke to be on there with Kyle’s thoughts on him from WwW. Kyle did convince me to like him more as well so I have him in my top 40. I am curious what he physically looks like coming into camp. I’m hoping he can rework his body and lose some of that fat to help him be ready to pitch deeper into games in the summer heat.

Yeah it is. Such a major philosophical difference in the old versus new. I do not think it ultimately bodes well for a wide range of prospects like Rajcic, Hansen, Rincon, and many more. They are not the type of pitcher the org wants and I am curious how long they have in the org.

I had Clemente in my 50-60 range. His inability to get his wildness under control keeps him out of the top 50. At this point, I don’t see him making it.

I really enjoy the quite different opinions of you and Kyle.

ATM – Me, too.
Kyle appears to be taking a more emotional, eyes wide approach for his assessments. I really like that a lot. Also, like the balance Brian’s levelheaded, stat and history driven approach brings. And that’s not to say the two of them couldn’t switch off if they felt like it.