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#8 – Cooper Hjerpe – 25 years old, flew up the rankings from #11 to #8, simply because he is pitching for the first time in two years.
I got a chuckle out of that one LA. If Hjerpe could stay on the IL longer he might make it to number 1.
Sometimes, we can get too hung up on absolute numbers for less than absolute possibilities. As a person who puts numbers on players every month, I make the same warning. Many times when ranking, I’ll have trouble with no names I feel great about to rank from eighth or 10th on, plus a bunch of guys I’d like better in the 20’s. But the reality is that we don’t leave big blanks or gaps in the rankings.
So, yes, an injured player might actually move up – IF someone above him graduates, OR if someone above him suffers a major decline in performance, OR if no one else emerges from below who deserves the spot better than him.
A possibility is that perhaps only about 10 of the players in the system right now might once become regular MLB players, anyway. But sorting them out from the other 200 is never an exact science.
With Hjerpe, return to previous form is at least plausible. As far as we know, his injury is limited to the type of elbow trouble that can be fixed with TJ surgery most of the time. But with minor leaguers, injury history and status is opaque, so we really have no idea until we see sustained results. His timeline is unusual in that he seems to have wasted a year trying to avoid elbow surgery, so he was out two years. I mentioned elsewhere that he has a runway problem as a result. I fear that Ixan Henderson might be going down that same road, but his situation is as opaque as it gets, so we don’t know.
bling said:
I mentioned elsewhere that he has a runway problem as a result. I fear that Ixan Henderson might be going down that same road, but his situation is as opaque as it gets, so we don’t know.
I disagree. Henderson has three minor league option years remaining so will be able to remain under team control through at least 2029 without having to stick on the big league roster. A lot can and will change in the next 3 1/2 years.
Hjerpe will be out of options after the 2028 season, so he has “just” 2 1/2 more years to reach StL and stay there. I have a high level of confidence we will know all we need to know about him by then.
So I don’t consider either to have a “runway problem” at this time. If nothing changes in the next two years or so, then we can revisit.
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