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Viva el Birdos put out some awards at the end of the minor league season:
Position Player of the Year – Montero
1st runner-up – O’Neill
2nd runner-up – YoungPitcher of the year – Hudson
1st runner-up – Helsley
2nd runner-up – KruczynskiThe Card’s played well enough to be awarded the 19th spot in the ’19 draft. We’ll need a very good draft class to make up for the decline of the farm system starting at Palm Beach on down.
The top 10 selections of the ’18 class:
Gorman*
Roberts*
Baker*
Gil
Gingery
Dunn
EGonzalez
Donovan
Nootbaar
Duce
Of this group I can see 4 strong candidates (3 already in the community’s top 17) and possibly two others, (much lower)
The rest of the draft produced a bunch of pitchers that may a decent future, but that’s about it.The top 10 selections of the ’17 class:
Hurst
Robertson
Kirtley
Jackson
Pinder
Rivera
Kruczynski*
Seeburger
Mendoza
Summerville
*= already selected by the community vote.Of this group, I can see 4 strong candidates to make the TCN’s top 50 list.
The rest of the draft produced 3 others have had enough success to be considered…. all pitchers.
This class was victimized by the penalty picks forfeited and the Fowler pick that we lost.The ’15 and ’16 classes produced 6 players each that have earned very successful value.
The ’14 class brought in a wealth of pitchers that have accomplished just rewards.
The ’13 draft was a disaster…. worse than the ’17 class.The international players made some inroads, but less than expected. However, we have a few that will burst on the scene next season.
Some will argue that Tommy Layne needs to be protected from the rule-5 draft. He was signed on 6-15-18 off the RedSox roster, he is 33 years old and although he is a lefty with MLB experience, I don’t see him being considered a big loss if he goes. I doubt any team will take a chance on having him on their roster all season.
With Layne it initially is not about rule 5 protection. 6 days after the world series I believe he becomes a minor league FA if not added to the 40 man roster before then. If we are able to re-sign him as a minor league FA (doubtful since we didn’t give him a shot last year) he then would be eligible for the rule 5 draft
For those who are members, I posted an article about minor league free agents on Friday. Layne is included among them.
Fanside’s “Call To The Pen” selected their hitter and pitcher of the year:
I added their Community rankings
HITTER- Nunez #8
runners up
Thomas #12
Montero #5
DeLosSantos #42
O’Neill #3
Gorman #4PITCHER- Poncedeleon #10
runners up
Hudson #2
Puello TBD
Fagalde #40
Walsh #39
Dahlberg #54I dont consider the community rankings really relevant for what they did. They were obviously focused on performane where the rankings focus also on potential and risk.
CC, you are 100% right. Performance is only part of how prospects are ranked, potential and pedigree make up the rest of the equation. If we had an all potential or all performance ranking, the list would look quite different. I’ve talked about this matter here with Brian Walton. I tend to skew my ranking towards production, but that’s just me. Objective versus subjective in a sense. After time, production will increase potential.
We’ll see different rankings from both Brian and Derek Shore and the final TCN rankings will be a consensus of the three, including the Community voting. You can see how the Comm. voting has become more spread out and so many different names appearing, as participants see some prospects with high potentials while others are are using performance as being more of a factor.
Towards the end of the off-season, I make an aggregate list of as many legit prospects lists as I can get to, with the belief that the more opinions included the more fair the results.
I’d like to hear what others think about this. My late brother told me on many occasions that I should have been a pollster.
This year there is far less consensus in the late voting than past years. I consider that a good thing. I attribute it to more people paying closer attention and educating themselves more on the system’s prospects.
So the Memphis lineup comes in focus with the minor league free agent filings. Looks like another solid lineup.
C- Knizner (assuming Kelly backs up Yadi in the Lou)
1B- Nogowski
2B- Urias
SS- Edman
3B- Wisdom or Mendoza
OF- Arozarena, Garcia, Thomas, Williams
2B/SS/3B Young/Sosa
DH/1B/OF RangeloI think Young has passed Schrock on the depth chart. He may even challenge Urias for the starting spot. Minor league middle infielders usually get rotated around and will get time at other positions. The same with some of the outfielders. Both Schrock and Sosa will have to pick it up in ’19. When you add a 2nd catcher to that group its still one over the 12 spots…. injuries???
From A.E. Schafer SB Nation:
“We can definitely see a bit of a shadow at Peoria and Palm Beach this year from the lost draft picks the Cards suffered from the Chris Correa debacle and the Dexter Fowler signing. The guys drafted in the first and second rounds in 2017 would have probably been right around the High A level this season, or maybe in Peoria had they been a little younger or more raw. We have no idea who the Cards would have taken with those hypothetical picks, of course, but it’s easy to look at Palm Beach this season and feel like there should have been one more name player there had things not gone off the rails.”
The effect of the lost picks will move throughout the system for another 3 or 4 years. And it’s a point that I have been making for two years. It’s hard to overlook it.
If the three lost 2017 picks were college players, they would likely be at Springfield at least. Even much later round guys like Mendoza and Kruczynski did it. I suspect it is part of the reason the Double-A team was not very good this year, but frankly, the 2017 draft overall was poor and is at least as big of a problem, in my opinion.
College guys who were drafted LATER than the three lost picks in the two years prior to 2017 who were in Double-A during their first full season include Bader, DeJong, Gallen and Knizner.
Case in point. The first three picks in 2015 were Plummer, Woodford and Denton – all taken at #66 overall or earlier.
Lets say they were never drafted, as those picks had been taken away. How much would it matter to the system overall? Only one of them is a legitimate prospect at this point and he is barely in the top 20 in the system.
The Cards saved their 2015 draft by taking Bader, Hicks, DeJong and Helsley afterward. They were all taken with pick #100 or later.
So, we can complain about the hacking penalty and signing Fowler, but had the rest of the 2017 draft been better, no one would have noticed.
If you look at the class of ’18, top 3 selections = Gorman#4 – Roberts#14 – Baker#17 on the Community’s list. Even if the ’17 missed picks were somewhere between the ’15 and ’18 top 3 picks, it would be better than nothing.
Well, yes, if your point is whether having three picks would have been better than having no picks, I agree.
My point, however, is that not having those picks could have been overcome (at least to some degree) with better choices in the following rounds.
A pitcher named Walker (Ferris) Buehler was taken 1 pick after Plummer. I understand that you can’t always hit a home run in the draft, but one is in the Majors, and pitched in the World Series, and the other is still in CLass A.
But it does seem the Cards do better than most teams in the later rounds. Hopefully, Gormman will break that trend.It will be interesting to see where Roberts starts, Palm Beach would be my guess. Not sure he is a starter long term, but he could move fast. Also curious to see Nunez and Torres, as they could see Class A sometime in 2019.
Thrilled to see the re-signing of Tommy Lane. Actually surprised though since the Cards didn’t give him a shot last year.
Here’s the article in case folks did not see it from earlier.
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