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Well folks, the time has come to begin our annual rite of passage…where the meeting of the minds and the testing of the wills converge into the conglomeration of all our hopes and dreams for the future. Yes, it’s 2027 TCN Top Prospect Voting time!!
We will have a couple of new wrinkles this year. First, voting will be a weekday only sort of deal. We will have voting tallies on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week. The voting schedule will be posted in the next post in this thread. Additionally, we will vote on the Top 60, rather than the Top 50. I believe this reflects the incredible depth that this system has, where guys who will likely be #30-50 in our system could easily be top 20 guys in most organizations. As such, Chaim and company deserve a hat tip for their good, albeit preliminary, work. A note, we will not be voting for honorable mention this time, but we will be counting everyone who gets a vote in the top 60 to come up with a full list.
So here’s the timing…as we previously did, voting will close at noon CT/1 PM ET. I may need a little grace, as the Mrs and I are welcoming our second baby this November…but I will do my best to check in with an update the morning each vote closes to give the go ahead if no other votes come in (or if someone can pinch hit when the time comes, please let me know).
Now, for last year’s list:
2026 TCN Community Top 50 Prospects
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. Brandon Clarke, LHP
15. Yairo Padilla, IF
16. Deniel Ortiz, IF
17. Chen-Wei Lin, RHP
18. Ryan Mitchell, OF
19. Braden Davis, LHP
20. Tanner Franklin, RHP
21. Nathan Church, OF
22. Luis Gastelum, RHP
23. Blaze Jordan, IF
24. Andre Granillo RHP
25. Pete Hansen LHP
26. Zach Levenson, OF
27. Chase Davis, OF
28. Jack Gurevitch, IF
29. Bryan Torres, IF/OF
30. Mason Molina, LHP
31. Won-Bin Cho, OF
32. Nate Dohm, RHP
33. Sebastian Dos Santos, IF
34. Leonel Sequera, RHP
35. Andrew Dutkanych, RHP
36. Kenly Hunter, OF
37. Hancel Rincon, RHP
38. Cade Crossland, LHP
39. Ethan Young, RHP
40. Matt Pushard, RHP
41. Travis Honeyman, OF
42. Frank Elissalt, RHP
43. Yaxson Lucena, OF
44. Matt Koperniak, OF
45. Michael Watson, LHP
46 Josh Kross, C/IF
47. Cesar Prieto, IF
48 Brian Holiday, RHP
49. Max Rajcic, RHP
50. Austin Love, RHPBest of the Rest
51. Miguel Hernandez, SS
52. Ty Van Dyke, RHP
53. Mason Burns, RHP
54. Noah Mendlinger, IF
55 Randel Clemente, RHP
56. Royelny Strop, OF
57 Branneli Franco, RHP
58 Payton Graham, RHP
59. Jacob Odle, RHP
60. Miguel Ugueto, OF
61. Matthew Miura, OF
62. Ryan Campos, C
63. Alan Reyes, RHP
64. Keiverson Ramirez, RHP
65. Jon Jon Gazdar, IF
66. Zack Showalter, RHP
67. Jalin Flores, IF
68. Brandt Thompson, RHP
69. Tre Richardson, IF
70. Jonathan Mejia, IF
71. Skylar Hales, RHP
72. Jeremy Rivas, IF
73. Juan Garcia, RHP
74. Yeferson Portolatin, IF
75. Chase Heath, C
76. Hendrick Cana, LHP
77. Darlin Saladin, RHP
78. Ian Petrutz, OFUpdate from 10/5:
Ineligible players from last year’s list: JJ Wetherholt, Jimmy Crooks, Nathan Church, Blaze Jordan, Luis Gastelum, Bryan Torres, Cesar Prieto, Cade Winquest, Max Rajcic
Guys who made MLB debuts who remain rookie eligible: Quinn Mathews, Joshua Baez, Leonardo Bernal, Brycen Mautz, Hancel Rincon
Guys who are no longer in the system: Andre Granillo, Matt Pushard, Matt Koperniak, Jeremy Rivas, Zack Showalter, Miguel Ugueto
Rules on the votes where will vote for more than 1 player (I’ll refresh this when we get there):
We will vote past #10 on a weighted ballot system. Each set of votes will give “points” to each prospect in descending order of the group we are voting on (if we are voting for 3, the top vote gets 3, second gets 2, last gets 1). As a practical example for votes #31-33:
Player A gets 5 votes at #31, 3 at 32 and 2 at 33 (23 pts)
Player B gets 4 votes at #31, 4 votes at 32 and 2 votes at 33 (22 pts)
Player C gets 1 vote at 31, 1 at 32 and 2 at 33 (7 pts)
Player D gets 0 votes at 31, 2 at 32, 3 at 33 (7 pts)In this example, A is #31 because they got the most points. B is #32 because they got 2nd most. C is #33 because although C and D tied in points, C got more votes at the higher spot. D goes back into the hopper for the next round.
The last tiebreaker will be vote order, so the player who gets to the total first will get the edge. So get your votes in early!
Voting Schedule (Voting CLOSES at this time of these days)
Oct 5 #1
Oct 7 #2
Oct 9 #3
Oct 12 #4
Oct 14 #5
Oct 16 #6
Oct 19 #7
Oct 21 #8
Oct 23 #9
Oct 26 #10
Oct 28 #11-12
Oct 30 #13-14Nov 2 #15-16
Nov 4 #17-18
Nov 6 #19-20
Nov 9 #21-22
Nov 11 #23-24
Nov 13 #25-26
Nov 16 #27-28
Nov 18 #29-30
Nov 20 #31-33
Nov 23 #34-36
Nov 25 #37-39
Nov 27 #40-42
Nov 30 #43-46Dec 2 #47-50
Dec 4 #51-55
Dec 7 #55-60Voting is now open for the 2027 TCN Community #1 Prospect. Voting closes at 12 PM CT/1 PM ET on Monday, October 5th.
I’ll kick things off…
#1 Rainiel Rodriguez 60/65 (FV/FV80), Risk Low
Mr Rodriguez is a hitter extraorinaire. He hit at High A; he hit at AA. He hit righties (1.014 OPS); he hit lefties (.903 OPS). Other than a tiny blip at Springfield in May, he hit in every month. I guess you could say he didn’t hit as well on the road as at home, but even there, he still had an .894 OPS. He led the Texas League in batting average. He did this all at 19 years old. I’m fairly sure we haven’t had a hitting prospect this good since Oscar Taveras. That’s the extraordinary plus.
Now for the negatives. First, he may not end up the long term catcher. If he’s a future .900 OPS guy at catcher, that’s an immense value. If he’s doing that at 1B, is that really much better than what we have with Burleson out there now? The reason he may lose the catcher battle to Bernal? The athleticism. I realize that he’s probably in better shape than he looks, but the camera is not flattering to him at all. His 19 year old age works against him in this case.
If I was certain he was the catcher of the future and was more confident that he’ll mature well in his athleticism, I would slap a 70 FV80 on him. But I think there’s a solid shot that he ends up a good hitting 1B. The bat will play no matter what, but there’s a little bit of dampened enthusiasm from me there. Even so, he’s still an easy #1 in the system.
Raniel is such a good hitter that it would be hard not to put him at number 1 despite the defensive questions.
1) Raniel Rodriguez
#1 for me is no surprise, Rainiel Rodriguez.
I liked his future outlook at Catcher but his bat is rushing him through the system faster than his defense can keep up. The best thing for him may be to slow down his rush through the minors, but the bat is going to be too much to ignore. If Bernal continues to play like the catcher of the future, I think they continue to push Rainiel through the system as a DH/1B who can also catch instead of waiting for him to become an MLB Caliber catcher.
From the Best of the Rest Group, Jeremy Rivas, Zack Showalter, and Miguel Ugueto are also out of the system and Cesar Prieto is another player who is technically still rookie-eligible I believe despite having now played in the majors in 2025 & 2026.
Thanks for getting this started “25”!
I’d like to add a rule this year that states:
Any vote for Pete Hansen inside the first 10 rounds will not need to be counted and automatically stricken from the official record.Just kidding. Kind of.
#1 Rainey Rodriguez. The first few are easy. But I’m having difficulty separating the young outfielders Arias, Peete, and Ragsdale. I guess when it comes time to select them I’d have to pick them by how high a level they played at. Although a lot of scouts like Arias the best for potential. I guess there are a lot of tough choices to make. This is the best I’ve felt about our farm system. I don’t think when we were ranked first around 2013 that we had this much talent.
I’d be shocked if Rainiel doesn’t receive the same percentage of votes that Saddam Hussain used to get in his Iraqi elections…..100%. Put me down for Rainiel por favor Senor stlcard25.
I will also go with RR.
The positive is he hits AA pitching good even though he is only 19. On the other side it is not obvious he can stick at catcher, so there is DH/1B risk, and he is undersized.
This got here so fast. I at least know who I have #1 without any research and I’ll have to start prepping the top of my list.
#1. Raniel Rodriguez
1) Rainiel Rodriguez
for me, it gets tougher after #1. I’m not afraid to go off the beaten norm for 2nd and beyond.
Thanks for for hosting this @StlCard25
jnevel wrote:
I’d like to add a rule this year that states:
Any vote for Pete Hansen inside the first 10 rounds will not need to be counted and automatically stricken from the official record.Just kidding. Kind of.
I guess I am going to have to edit my list.
Thanks for getting this started, 25!
Raniel Rodriguez for me, too. I’m betting he takes the role that Herrera filled this year, maybe 50 starts at catch then 100 or so as DH. Seems short for 1B.
I just wanted to confirm we are still considering Gastelum? He’s spent more than 45 days on the MLB roster–called up July 8, so as I understand has used up his rookie eligibility.
I thought you might get a kick out of that GScottar!
Ha! I do like Pete but I did move him down my list quite a bit relative to this time last year. It really has less to do with him than what we have acquired and developed the last 12 months. A lot of guys are getting shuffled backwards which means the organization is getting stronger.
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