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Brian,
I agree with almost all of your list. One question though- would Kody Whitley not need to be protected? If so, then he’s a definite add. And I’d take off R Mendoza if that were the case. I’d also still like to protect Ludwin Jimenez if possible. But it’s not a big loss if any of those you have not being protected were taken.
I agree BlingBoy. I have Pachecho at 23 on my list. He does have some electric stuff and he’s almost sure to spend some time in the St Louis bullpen this year – likely riding the shuttle. But I also fear that big league hitters will wait him out and take a walk or hit their pitch. But who knows with relievers? Sometimes they can go on a run for a month where their stuff plays up or hitters just hit the ball right at someone and the overall results look good.
12. Baez – I worried about him when they drafted him. I still worry about him now. He has all the physical ingredients to make a great ball player. That’s not really all it takes though is it? Can he really harness all his tools, stay healthy, and play with the grit and determination of a guy with half his talent? If you’re looking for upside though, here he is.
13. Mejia – very young. But playing a premium position and hit well in the DSL as a boy among men (or at least very young men).
Agreed. I think it’s good to post them here.
Glad to see Ralston make the list. I’ve commented on him before. He’s really one of my favorite well under the radar prospects. I still see he and Granillo at the back end of the Stl bullpen in 2024. That’s assuming Ralston can stay healthy which may be a big if. But I definitely think he deserves to be on the list. That curveball of his is so spectacular.
BABiP is a good stat when looking at a single hitter or pitcher and comparing how it affected them from one season to another assuming they didn’t really change how they were throwing or pitching. But that’s really the only great use of this stat. It loses value when you try to compare one hitter to another hitter or one pitcher to another pitcher. That doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It’s just not worth as much. That’s because one pitcher might get lots of weak contact through good pitch movement which in general leads to a low BABiP (Helsley). And another pitcher might give up a lot more fly balls that just happen to not quite go over the fence or line drives that more often than average get caught (Parsons). The latter probably just got a little lucky and the former was good. But it’s hard to use this stat to compare the two.
10 – Bernal
11 – HjerpeI had Thompson at #14. Still shocked we voted him to #9. It will be interesting to see where Brian and Blake put him in their new list.
Glad to see Ynfante make the list! He had a really impressive season. I was amazed at his consistency all year for a kid who is 17. Plus, I love the fact that he has a tall body to grow into.
Thanks Brian. I particularly enjoyed the interviews with Walker and Antico. But in general, it’s always great to hear from each of these guys “in their own words”.
Thompson is a full 2 years older than Liberatore, has probably been removed as a starter to become a lefty reliever only, and had some mixed results in AAA last year – although was good in a small sample in StL. Not sure how that puts him above Liberatore? I get the Bernal pick completely and I still understand the argument for Herrera, but I think Thompson is a stretch here gang.
I was pretty confident in the first 5 and they came in the right order. Now it gets trickier. Herrera had a really odd season where the Cardinals didn’t let him play much, then didn’t send him to the AFL, and now they are openly shopping for a catcher outside the organization. That tells me their faith in Herrera has gone down significantly. Liberatore has been all over the place the past 2 seasons mostly looking either great or terrible with not a ton of in between. But he’s young still and the fact that he can find great sometimes gives me hope. There’s also Baez with all his tools but so far a propensity for getting hurt. There’s Bernal, but he’s still very young and developing good catchers is so extremely difficult. And then there’s Hjerpe who didn’t pitch at all, but looks really exciting. You could throw Machado and Moises Gomez in this group too, but to me they’re the top of the next tier. I’ll just go by gut here:
#6: Liberatore
#7: HjerpeHopefully no one steals Paniagua. But heh, now that we have an open spot, maybe there’s someone of some value we can take. Bullpen depth may be ideal and most likely.
Thomas will be for sure. They may take their chances with Paniagua knowing there will be lots of other options for teams to take. I don’t see anyone else being protected though.
So this one is tough. Burleson was so good this year and last. But what is his MLB ceiling? Probably a 125 WRC+ hitting and a little below average fielding everyday outfielder. And that would be really good. But I think most likely he’s a slightly plus MLB hitter whose a slightly below average outfielder. And that’s pretty ehhh. Whereas Hence best case scenario is an ace starter, but his floor is probably bullpen 8th inning setup. And he’s so far away that we really don’t know the most likely scenario. There’s also Herrera and Baez, but I don’t think we can put either above Burleson or Hence because of the latter two’s far better seasons. So I’ll go with Hence given the higher ceiling but I certainly would be perfectly ok if Burleson is chosen.
I think arguments could be made for Graceffo, Burleson, Hence, Herrera, or Baez (and maybe Hjerpe if you have faith in the unseen and untried). I’ll take Graceffo though. There is something special about this guy. Great stuff. Great control. And an amazing competitor. I get Carpenter vibes with him. He still has some hurdles that he has to figure out. But he could be really, really good. That ceiling seals it for me.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 EncarnacionFCL Starter: Diorys Guerrero
FCL Reliever: Victor Villanueva (maybe most difficult pick on here)
FCL Player: Samil De La RosaPB 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 BaezPeoria 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 BuchbergerSpringfield 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 BurlesonWhat 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.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.
