[Jnevel]

Well, I didn’t do quite as well as I’d hoped above missing on 6 of 18 picks. But, going in, only 2 picks seemed like no-brainers. Those were Samil De La Rosa for Palm Beach hitter and tomorrow’s announcement as Burleson for Memphis’ hitter (surely it will be Burleson, right?).

I completely screwed up the DSL pitchers! I forgot about Bruno Lopez. He definitely was the best reliever. I also just forgot about Davila pitching so much at Palm Beach. Those 2 mistakes are completely on me. The other differences were either me picking someone who didn’t qualify because they had more innings elsewhere like Loutos or Baez and me just not picking the right DSL starter because I fell too in love with Ynfante.

The only pick where I disagree with TCN is LJ Jones over Buchberger. After all, Buchberger got promoted for a reason and LJ did not. But it was close. I just thought Buchberger seemed to change the team more often when he was healthy. LJ was just a guy who could hit for some power occasionally. But I see the stats and the stats do give a slight edge to LJ. But I think if you asked all the coaches in confidence who was the better player, Buchberger would be unanimous.

Thanks for posting all these though!

[Jnevel]

At those rates, I think all of those deals get made except maybe Stratton and Reyes. Now maybe some get traded afterwards, but to me those are all bargain amounts for what you’re getting vs free agency. Stratton is maybe just slightly north or right at what we might get him in free agency so he probably just gets picked up at but I could see it not happening too. For Reyes, it just all depends on what the team thinks his health is. Rosenthal was in the same position once and we let him go. I think it may be the same for Reyes if the team doesn’t see him contributing for a good portion of the year.

[Jnevel]

Brian,

FYI – the article mentions 2nd Baseman “Dylan Carlson” instead of Gorman.

[Jnevel]

I think the fact that we may have Knizner, Herrera, Rodriguez, and Pages on the 40-man excludes us from catcher shopping unless it’s for a really good upgrade. All 4 of these could be average or some better than average big league catchers. I’m ok with taking our chances on what we have already- guys that were already trained up in the Cardinal Way at the most important position to be trained in – rather than go to the outside and get someone back who is likely to be average. I’m excited about all 3 of those guys in the minors. Herrera has the bat. Rodriguez is great with mentoring pitchers. And Pages is probably the most Yadi like in that he is a field general who also seems to have a knack for coming through with the bat in big moments. Knizner might be the most expendable of the 4 except that he’s got real MLB experience under his belt and is probably at least somewhat close to league average himself.

I wouldn’t worry too much about catcher. I think we’re actually in pretty good shape.

[Jnevel]

Correction- for DSL reliever I’ll go with Omar Yanez. Juan Salas was really a “reliever” for just one game. Most of the DSL relievers were bad but Yanez is the least bad.

So Salas and Ynfante have to battle it out for best starter. I’ll stick with Ynfante who is 2 years younger, but Salas does have better overall numbers especially in WHIP and K/BB. But 2 years younger at 17 vs 19 is a really big deal and Salas’ numbers aren’t so much better as to make him clearly better so I’m sticking with the kid.

[Jnevel]

Throwing my picks for players of the year at each level to see how well I align with The Cardinal Nation Picks – just for fun:

DSL Starter: Nelfy Ynfante
DSL Reliever: (kind of same as starter in this league) Juan Salas
DSL Player: Anyelo Encarnacion

FCL Starter: Diorys Guerrero
FCL Reliever: Victor Villanueva (maybe most difficult pick on here)
FCL Player: Samil De La Rosa

PB Starter: Inohan Paniagua (most of season with PB but ended with Peoria) Could also go with Tink Hence
PB Reliever: Andrew Marrero
PB Player: Josh Baez

Peoria Starter: Zane Mills (could be Graceffo as well if his half season here counts as he was definitely the best)
Peoria Reliever: Nick Trogic-Iverson
Peoria Player: Jacob Buchberger

Springfield Starter: Graceffo (but I’d like to choose no one!)
Springfield Reliever: Ryan Loutos (although this only represents 1/3 of his innings on the year)
Springfield Player: Moises Gomez (Jordan Walker also a perfectly good pick)

Memphis Starter: Honestly, Dakota Hudson was probably best! But for a true Memphis starter, I guess I’ll go with Tommy Parsons
Memphis Reliever: Freddy Pachecho (close with James Naile)
Memphis Player: Alec Burleson

[Jnevel]

What I like:

– The order in general.
– Moving up Julio Rodriguez. I think there’s a great chance he gets added to the 40 man rather than being lost to free agency.
– Connor Thomas and Ian Bedell had to go way down and that’s accurately reflected here.
– I love the Mike Antico jump. He isn’t well talked about, but he really had a great season and he’s probably our best true CF prospect – at least above the Complex.
– I love that you included Marrero. He has been on a great run and it’s super exciting to see from someone who did not look good at all previously.
– I like seeing Pinder included too. He’s had a good year and deserves it.
– Including Ynfante. I don’t know much about him but the stats are great and he’s not 18 yet.

What I didn’t like as much:

– I think you are giving a little too much credit to a few guys that have made some huge jumps this year and they’re now a little too high up the list. This includes Paniagua, Bernal, and Davila. They have all had great seasons and deserve some serious upward movement, but I just feel they’ve all been placed around 5 places too high now.
– Pages deserves better than 40. I think he may still be top 25 for me. And I think the Cardinals think so too. He may even be added to the 40 man rather than take the risk of losing him. It will be a tough call.
– I feel like you just put RJ Yeager there as a feel-good story! Sure, he’s been pretty good against younger competition. But is he really a better prospect than Tovalin?
– The one guy that I think you’ll regret not even adding to the honorable mention list is Ralston. He is back healthy now and starting to mow batters down again. I’ve always really liked Ralston and still see a future 1-2 punch in the Stl bullpen of Ralston and Granillo.

[Jnevel]

I definitely hope Hence can become a big league starter. We certainly have quite a few guys now in the organization that could fill out a 5-man rotation in 2-3 years which is great because pitching can be so expensive on the free agent market and you just never know when that $15-20 million per year arm is going to break.

Brian, thanks for the interview with Gary Kendall. It’s always great to hear some inside scoop from someone who works directly with these guys every day. I’m not sure how I missed that Moquete has now fully transitioned to 2B but I like that move a lot for him and the organization.

[Jnevel]

Thanks for your thoughts!

gscottar, I’m also very much interested in the business end as well! I’m a business person by trade so I’m always curious about what our financial commitments are each year, our sources of revenue, and how we keep the talent that is valuable/impactful or trade it off for talent that fits even better.

Cardinals27, I don’t have much issue with your list except where you have Hence. I think all of the other positions you take are very solid and can be argued for. Why so high on Hence? I really like him as well, but he’s been so limited on innings and still is at a very low level. I worry that his stuff won’t hold up for 6 or 7 innings because he’s never shown that it can. And that may make him a high leverage reliever, which is still valuable, but not better than Graceffo or probably several other names up there. It’s just really hard to gauge Hence after 2 seasons of such limited innings. But I am really curious what the Cardinals might be doing behind the scenes with these HS pitchers because the same plan seems to be taking place with Willis. It just seems like they are doing something very fundamentally different than what would have normally been done and I wonder if it will pay off? I haven’t seen anything really written about what is going on with these two and why the Cardinals are taking this approach. I wonder if Brian has any thoughts on this or insight?

[Jnevel]

Thanks for the latest chat with Espinoza. It was interesting to hear that Linarez and Ramos were the guys he named off as under the radar. I guess Linarez isn’t a surprise because he was glowing about the pitchers and catchers but Ramos has had a pretty rough year statistically.
Really, much of their offense has struggled and with the new hitters who we drafted really not doing well considering their age (at PB) we may have a gap coming in the hitter pipeline. But I do think we’ve fixed the pitching gap and since most of our MLB hitters are young, we may be ok for some time. Still, I would have really preferred to see them go for it in the draft on one high end outfielder even if that meant sacrificing a 2nd/3rd round pitcher.

[Jnevel]

That sounds good. Love that you have the connections to be able to get those manager’s take on things. I’m definitely interested to hear what they have to say.

Yes, you could do it by changes in rankings. Somehow just get to who has far exceeded expectations (or at least your expectations) and maybe some who fell far short, like for me, that’s got Holgate written all over it. While I wasn’t a huge fan of that pick, still, I expected him to at least be ok or slightly better than ok at Low A. He isn’t even hitting ok at the FCL. So for me, he was hit well below my expectations. Prater is really the other one for me because I’d already given up hope on a few of the others I mentioned above. We saw the serious control problems last year, but his strikeout rate was also great and he had some modest success. This year he’s gotten bad results just about every time out. I was thinking he’d slightly improve so to me, his descent is very disappointing. I’m really curious as to what is going on with him. Maybe just everyone knows that he’s wild and they don’t swing? Or has his stuff just regressed?

[Jnevel]

I guess there’s probably just a whole lot more free members that don’t get access to most of the content.

How about an article on both the biggest surprises (guys who far exceeded expectations)and the biggest disappointments this year? I think the surprises are easy: Gomez, Graceffo, Pallante. You could also have a second tier for Donovan (maybe he’s in the first tier), Paniagua, Antico, and Davila. I’m sure I’m missing some here in this tier. And then on the other end, the biggest disappointments in the minor’s ranks are Tre Fletcher, Jhon Torres, Ryan Holgate, Levi Prater, and maybe Yordi Richard. Second tier here is probably Gragg, Lott, Lunn, Luken Baker, and maybe Conner Thomas.

[Jnevel]

We are close to the end of August and a new potential list. After no one commented or challenged my long list above, I thought I’d keep my thoughts a lot simpler this time around.

1) I’m disappointed in our draft for position players. Maybe Crooks will be solid. Maybe Rotondo is a diamond in the rough for a late pick. Maybe our one non drafted free agent signing in RJ Yeager is at least interesting. But overall, it’s hard to envision many if any future big leaguers in this group outside of maybe Crooks. I’m going to bet on zero right now. I know it’s still early and there’s lots of development time so there’s still hope.

2) We haven’t seen much of the pitchers yet, but overall I’m very excited about them as a group.

3) There are a few guys I think should be considered at the back end of the top 50 who haven’t gotten much recognition in the past. I have 4 names in mind. Scott Hurst has really improved from vastly disappointing offensively to someone who might end up being slightly above average offensively with good defensive. Honestly, I’m ok dropping Capel from the 40 man and putting Hurst in his spot as the emergency every position outfielder next year. Next, Samil de la Rosa really continues to put up impressive offensive numbers at the FCL. And, he’s a shortstop so that should mean positional flexibility down the road. I think he’s got to be top 50 at this point. Next up is Chase Pinder. I’m still incredibly on the fence about him given his age and injury history but I think he may now warrant a top 50 spot considering his excellent season (when he’s been healthy). I’m fine if he doesn’t make it, but I think he’s barely there. And finally, we have a 17 year old named Nelfy Ynfante who has pretty much been our best pitcher at the DSL this year. I don’t know anything more about him than that, but that sounds like top 50 material.

[Jnevel]

FYI – the article mentions Chris Girard signing as an undrafted free agent in 2021 but he was actually drafted in the 12th round.

[Jnevel]

Edman platoons better with Gorman whereas Donovan doesn’t truly fit anywhere better than Edman. Therefore, I think Donovan may be our most redundant piece and should have some solid trade value for a catcher or maybe packaged for a starting pitcher. I like Donovan a lot. But someone else may like him better for their needs than what we need him for.

[Jnevel]

Blingboy, I think your thoughts are close to spot on. I do think they strongly considered trading him and he probably was in the Soto offer and perhaps some other offers. But now that we’ve kept him, I think you’re right on the likely plan and how it will be implemented. I do think they would prefer to keep developing him this year and not put him on the 40-man roster yet so they have more options at year’s end on who to protect and who they could potentially take in the rule 5 or sign in free agency. And, I think that’s a good plan. He probably wouldn’t be better at hitting and certainly wouldn’t be better at defense than anyone we have now on the MLB team. So why not continue to try to upskill him a bit and have him be ready next year.

[Jnevel]

I don’t get the angst with Woodford. The Cardinals are right. He struggles a lot. He typically runs a 2:1 strikeouts to walks ratio and is doing that again at Memphis. His WHIP at Memphis is almost 1.4, which is not good at all. Too many base runners and lots of hard contact against him at the MLB level. Sure, his ERA looks good. But that just means he was lucky. He’s certainly not a better option than any of our 5 starters now. You could argue that he deserves a bullpen spot over Naughton, but the Cardinals would much rather have him improve as a starter long-term than languish in fringe usage territory in our bullpen. I think that’s a smart move. Better for the Cardinals and better for Jake long-term (or at least hopefully if he can get sharper).

[Jnevel]

I figured Nunez had to go. He made more sense to trade than anyone given that he had value and was completely blocked. Oviedo is probably the overpay portion for a deadline deal. But not a bad deal. Quintana has been good this year and Oviedo is replaceable.

[Jnevel]

I thought we might have gotten Victor Scott at a little discount compared to slot but I guess not. I still think there’s a good shot at VanKempen. Just at a little less $ than I thought we might have. But I trust they did their homework and that they believe they can sign him for what we have left. It’s not the same as drafting Casserilla in the 20th round last year when he was just a hedge bet just in case.

[Jnevel]

I know that we won’t see a new Top 50 list until after the draft. But since I literally know next to nothing about college talent, I wanted to throw out where I think our talent is now. I’ve ranked them all in order and then separated that order into 3 tiers of talent. I’d love to hear challenges to anything anyone doesn’t agree with.

Top 12
Walker
Herrera
Wynn
Graceffo
Liberatore
Thompson
McGreevey
Burleson
Hence
Mejia
Baez
Malcolm Nunez

I think these guys are the real prospects here – the guys with a good chance of being average to plus MLB players. I moved Graceffo up further just because at this point I value his future potential even higher than Libby. I’ve also included Nunez here. He’s kind of fringe between this tier and the next one because of of his defense. But he’s still very young and now beginning to show that he can be a very good hitter at AA.

The Middle 17
Moises Gomez
Connor Thomas
Paniagua
Luis Pino
Walsh
Bedell
Pachecho
Trent Baker
Austin Love
Alec Willis
Pages
Julio Rodriguez
Jose Davila
Won-Bin Cho
Loutos
Antico
Granillo

I separated this tier from the last one because I think all of these guys definitely have prospect value because they are all likely to at least make the major leagues at some point with significant at bats or innings pitched. Pino and Cho may be the exceptions to that here because they are still so young. Also, I wasn’t sure what to do with Julio Rodriguez. I think he’s make a fine backup MLB catcher, but he may retire this year and become a Cardinal coach rather than go elsewhere in MiLB free agency. The last 2 of this tier (Antico and Granillo) are the 2 that I think are going to really surprise people and be solid performers in the MLB before the end of 2023.

The Maybes
Zane Mills
Romeri
Leonardo Bernal
Koperniak
Maycol Justo
Gragg
Wilfredo Peirera
Luken Baker
Jhon Torres
Adari Grant
Diorys Guerrero
Yordalin Peña
Tovalin
Capel
Dionys Rodriguez
Scott Hurst
Samil de la Rosa
Dalatri
Anyelo Encarnacion
Chase Pinder
Redmond

There are certainly at least 10 others that I’d love to include here. But as it stands today, this is where I’m at. This tier is a lot more of a long shot to ever make the big show with more than 50 ABs or 10 innings pitched but there’s still a chance! Hurst has really had a nice boost with finally showing some power and hitting ability. Pinder has a different story, but he’s kind of in the same boat. Two months ago we looked to have no outfielders with much promise at the upper levels and then suddenly these 2 started hitting and Antico really went on a tear. They are all a little old (Antico a little less so) but there at least is some depth now. The other guy I want to mention is Yordalin Peña. He just looks like such a beast. He’s hit well so far at a very young age in the Dominican so I wanted to at least get his name in this list as being a hope and a prayer. Maybe Malcolm Nunez 2.0.

[Jnevel]

The most likely traded prospect is Malcolm Nunez. He is young and can hit with some power but he really offers no value to the Cardinals because of his redundancies at the major league level. Plus, he will be rule 5 eligible. I think of all prospects, he seems most likely to be traded as he will definitely be more valuable to someone else than he is to the Cardinals. That’s really what you look for in trades. The next most likely are guys like Burleson or Woodford. They also have a skill set that while valuable to the Cards, is probably more valuable to another team. Woodford may have equal value either way, but he seems like one of those guys that just needs a fresh start somewhere else. I think we otherwise will at least try to hang on to the rest of our pitching talent because we know we are going to need them all in the near future. The other place we are somewhat abundant in is decent catching prospects so one of them other than Herrera may be traded as a throw-in part of a deal. But I guess anyone could be for sale if the return is worth it.

As for Nootbaar or Capel, I just don’t see either of them really having much value to another team. Nootbaar probably has a little, but it’s just not going to be much.

[Jnevel]

Nice job on the Burleson article. I think it’s a very good point that Alec may be more valuable as a non 40-man player plus the other reasons you cite about potentially struggling.

The one other advantage that Capel has over Burleson is flexibility in that he can definitely play center field solidly. And if we were to DFA Dickerson (which I believe was what the organization was about to do before he suddenly got some key hits), then our CF depth is really short. Bader is injury prone. So if he goes down (and frequently does), then it’s Carlson first and then probably Nootbaar next despite him having not played much CF in his career and then likely O’Neil. And what if Carlson gets hurt at the same time as Bader? I think that’s where Capel offers some peace of mind. Still, he’s a Quad A guy. But it’s nice to have that guy around for the outfield and another for the infield to call up in an emergency without having to kick someone else off the 40 man (like what just happened to Rondon).

[Jnevel]

I hadn’t thought about it that way. But yes, not being on the 40 man and not being rule 5 eligible has to add value to his stock as it offers the receiving team more flexibility. I don’t really want to lose Burleson at all. He can really hit and would make a great fourth outfielder and/or DH. But, his skill set is fairly redundant to what we already have so he probably would have more value to another team than to the Cardinals. Perhaps he could be a center piece in a trade for a number 3 starter. I’d still rather keep him and trade Nootbaar. But no one is giving us a number 3 starter for Nootbaar. Good point.

[Jnevel]

I think I may have been wrong about Romeri not being a prospect anymore. I knew he was a High Schooler when we drafted him. I’m now seeing that he is still just 21 and at PB. While he’s never really put up above average numbers, I guess he’s really always been pretty young where he was at. So keeping him on your list is probably a good call. He’s looked good since he returned from injury including 4 hits today so maybe there is still hope.

Although I do still think that Peirera should have made it on the list and not just as an honorable mention. Right now I’m excited about any pitcher with any kind of promise and Pereira definitely has MLB bullpen upside in his future.

[Jnevel]

We don’t really have a replacement for Bader. Carlson and O’Neil can play CF, but I don’t think the Cardinals prefer either to do so long-term. I think the trade candidates are DeJong and Luken Baker (both of which have almost no value unless we pay most of Dejong’s salary), Malcolm Nunez, or maybe Alec Burleson. So therefore, I think we are looking at getting a solid relief pitcher for Nunez with maybe another year of control. That seems light and probably not really worth it. But it’s the reality that the Cards are in.

[Author]

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