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Max Rajcic – #44
This is fun.
Kyle sounds mad. He sounds like he bet the entire ranch on his horse to win. But the poor horse barely made it to the finish line.
Brian, on the other hand, sounds like Napoleon reveling in his exploits and victories while trying to dismiss the nagging possibility that he may one day meet his Waterloo.
Thanks to both of you. This is great. I love it.
And by the way, a ranking of #44, for reasons I can’t quite explain, seems kind of right.
I look at a player like Ryan Campos and then read how enthusiastic Kyle is about Campos’ ‘intangibles’. It makes me wonder if the only reason they drafted him was so he could show the Cardinals’ young, developing pitchers and catchers what really good intangibles are supposed to look like. The other thing that I think is interesting is that his college stats were so very impressive. It must have been fun for him to produce those kinds of stats. It gives him the chance to play professional ball for awhile which is saying something.
I would still like to see Koperniak get some major league AB’s.
So, if they don’t trade him, Romero is the entirety of our left-handed relievers. They could let Hjerpe pitch an inning or two, now and then, just to get him broken back in to MLB. But, long term, I still see him as a starter.
I wasn’t sure where to post this. But since it’s Wednesday and I’m with Walton, I thought I’d post it here…..
I enjoyed today’s TCN article on the Cardinals’ Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year. I especially enjoyed Larry Day’s comments on JJ Wetherholt and Brycen Mautz. It’s exciting to hear that Mautz really improved his game with offseason hard work and an apparent willingness to let himself be coached. Incidentally, I looked around to find out where Day’s comments came from. No luck. I’m guessing that TCN got the quote from a press release or something like that.
Also, I didn’t remember who Larry Day was. A quick search showed that he came to St. Louis from Cleveland in early December, 2024, after accepting an offer to be the Cardinals Director of Player Development. I’m guessing that ‘Director of Player Development’ is something like being the foreman of the position player coaching crew.
The thing that worries me about Hjerpe is his pitching motion. That sidearm motion looks like an arm or shoulder injury waiting to happen.
Welcome.
What does that purple avatar represent? It looks like a tulip, or maybe some kind of bird to me.
I’m unfortunately thinking the 2027 season won’t fully happen or just not happen.
CardsFanInChiTown – I’ve been thinking that the absurd financials of MLB would be rectified at every negotiation for decades. But it has never happened because the owners decide that they can’t stand the pain and eventually give in. Meanwhile, the fans are forced to choose between paying exorbitant ticket prices and staying home.
I have commented on the possibility of Torres making the Opening Day roster. But I hadn’t thought about him actually winning the second base job. I don’t think anyone knows if he could play 2B and hit better there than the other candidates.
Matthew Miura? Could this kid be the next Michael Siani? Kind of sounds like he could be. Speaking of center field, Victor Scott III’s batting line was .216/.305/.601 with 5 HR in 2025. Siani’s batting line for 2024, his one full season with the Cardinals was .228/.285/.570 with 2 HR. He was injured for part of that season and only had 298 AB. Unfortunately for Siani, he got beat out for the CF job by Scott at spring training, 2025.
Love Kyle’s appraisal and enthusiasm about Mason Burns. Still, it’s good to see Brian temper things down a bit. But let’s see….yeah…let’s just see.
I was thinking that Jesus Baez could develop into the third baseman we are looking for. But after reviewing his stats again, I don’t see much to support that idea. I saw that Wetherholt has played 85 games at SS, 12 games at 3B, and 20 games at 2B since joining the Cardinals. If he can handle SS well enough to play that many games there, then he should be fine, defensively, at 3B. That would solve a lot of problems. Think of an infield of Wetherholt, Winn, Saggese/Gorman/Fermin, and Contreras/Herrera.
(Unless things change considerably for Gorman during this offseason, I’d like to see what Saggese could do if playing at 2B every day. I’ve commented before that I’d like to see Herrera at 1B.)
I stand corrected. Should have done my homework instead of relying on my tired memory. Had a rough night last night. Thank you.
The Cardinals know John King and, if they intended to keep him, he would have been added already. Somebody will surely claim him. He does get outs. I’d just as soon keep King and let Prieto go. But I don’t believe that will happen.
I agree that Alcala will not be retained.
They need Pozo, for now anyway.
So, I agree with everything Jnevel says in his post, but with a little bit of hedging on King.
I want to vote for Bryan Torres and Jack Gurevitch again. But it looks to me like a vote for Torres is a wasted vote. I’m guessing that too many voters are turned off by the fact that he’s 28 years old, not 22-25 years old. For Gurevitch, I’m hoping that his elevated strikeout rate can be attributed to a rookie just swinging away at his first big league camp. Gurevitch was the Cardinals’ third round draft choice and signed for slot. I’ve been thinking about Nate Dohm for the last few rounds. It just seems like he should be able to outgrow his forearm issues, and if that happens, we have a very promising prospect. I’ve also been itching to vote for Andrew Dutkanych IV. The problem with Dutkanych is that he hasn’t pitched since his surgery. Reportedly, he has a high ceiling as a starting pitcher. Jesus Baez ought to at least be in our top 30, IMO. All of these last three players could be ranked considerable higher going into 2027. Won-Bin Cho will get ranked soon. Bryan Torres should eventually get ranked, also.
27. Gurevitch
28. DohmWe don’t need prospects, IMO. The community top 20 this year is the most loaded with prospects that I have ever seen. We can be grateful for the good fortune we had in the last two drafts for that. Let’s see the Cardinals put together a package for one impact prospect, if possible, preferably a pitcher. I always thought that Wetherholt was a fit for 2B. Now there’s talk of him being our third baseman. But if Wetherholt is determined not to be a good fit for third base, and if they trade Arenado and Donovan, that leaves us with Gorman, or maybe Saggese, to play 3B. I don’t think Gorman was even a league average second baseman defensively based on the eye test, so it’s hard for me to imagine Gorman reliably catching and throwing the ball from the third base position. Then, there are all those strikeouts. (I do understand there are conflicting views on Gorman.) If they trade both Arenado and Donovan, then it appears that they will have to to allow Gorman and Saggese to compete for the third base job. Or they can trade for a third baseman, or sign a free agent third baseman.
In looking over my last seven TCN Prospect Guides, here are the last seven #50 ranked prospects:
2025 – Dakota Harris
2024 – Guillermo Zuniga
2023 – Nelfy Infante
2022 – Thomas Francisco
2021 – Brendan Donovan
2020 – Bryan Dobzanski
2019 – Derian Gonzales
2918 – Breyvic Valera1. Obviously Brendan Donovan is the standard for hope for all ranked prospects.
2. Zuniga didn’t last long.
3. Cardinals have not given up on Nelfy Infante. He’s only 20 years old, but walked 8.3/9IP in 2025. I can’t vote to rank a pitcher that walks 8.3/9IP. But who knows? There could be something less obvious going on with Nelfy Ynfante.
4. It kind of looks like the ship has sailed for Thomas Francisco, Bryan Dobzanski, Derian Gonzales, and Bryvic Valera.I’d say the take away from this is that if Brendan Donovan can become a coveted player by several MLB organizations, so can every other last ranked prospect.
As I remember, there were quite a few games where Gray barely made it by the 4th inning.
Here’s a comparison of Gray to Mikolas:
Gray GS 32 – IP 180 IP per start – 5.6 ERA – 4.28
Mikolas GS 31 – IP 156 IP per start – 5.0 ERA – 4.84I don’t see why there so much concern about trading Gray. Personally, I find it annoying to see a pitcher take the mound who I know is going to get taken out after 5 and a half innings, but is till getting paid like a Cy Young contender. Gray does have a much higher winning percentage than Mikolas, though. But, as with all stats, that can get skewed by the kind of offense and defense that is playing behind him.
It feels a little weird to be voting for Bryan Torres because of his age. But who can argue with gscottar’s rationale.
#25. Bryan Torres
#26. Jack Gurevitch (All of the prospects mentioned in this round deserve consideration.)John King mostly has had better years than he had in 2025. It looks like the HR hurt him in 2025. The only LH reliever that I see up and coming is Hjerpe and I’m not convinced Hjerpe should not be a starter. Add that several voices are calling for Romero to be traded, and we have no left-handed relievers at all.
I hope that the talk of Herrera behind the plate is just a red herring designed to distract fans until the Cardinals figure out who is really going to be catcher. Herrera is an artist when it comes to hitting. But you never know where the ball is going to end up when he is trying to stop a runner from stealing a base.
No problem staying tuned.
I’m also very interested to see what you guys did with Quinn Matthews this year. After the year he had in 2024, you had him ranked at #2 in the system, and I was right along with you on that. But this year he just didn’t put up the kind of stats that generate excitement. Still, the community gave him a #3 ranking. I do not understand the optimism. Reportedly, his fastball picked up 3-4 MPH over his college years at Stanford in 2024 and that was thought to be a big part of the reason for his success. Then, in 2025 the speed of his fastball dropped back down and his stats were not impressive. I checked my 2025 prospect guide again and both Brian and Blake were both very high on Matthews. I’m looking forward to what you and Kyle have to say about Matthews going into 2026.
Interestingly, Brian’s Sleeper Pick for 2025 was Braden Davis who burst into our top 20 this year at #18.
Blake Newberry was Brian’s collaborator last year. His Sleeper Pick was Nolan Sparks who, unfortunately, did not appear to move closer to his formidable ceiling. I liked Blake a lot and respected his knowledge and baseball acumen.
I also think it’s noteworthy to mention that Nathan Church did not make TCN Top 50 f0r 2025. However, he had such a good year at Springfield in 2025 that he got ranked at #20 by TCN community for 2026. It will be interesting to see what Brian and Kyle have to say about Nathan Church in their countdown.
I can’t even tell you exactly why. Probably because I really like defense which is why I feel sorry to see Nado go. But I thoroughly enjoyed your report on Casey Demko.
ACU defense was highly ranked nationally.
Demko led the nationally ranked Quincy defense to their highest fielding percentage and most double plays turned in program history. de
How cool is that!!
It’s really none of my business. But I would like to see three people buy those last three copies of TCN 2025 Prospect Guide. It just feels like a loose end to me. There were 4 copies left, but I bought a second copy to give to my one of my sons. It’s interesting to have a record of the changes in the system from year to year.
osuagec – Are you kidding me? Bryan Torres??? How could you vote for that old goat?
Seriously, now that you mention it, Torres looks like a shoe-in to replace Donovan in the 2026 Opening Day lineup. All he has to do is show up at spring training and prove that he is what his stats say he is. Hope he doesn’t crack under the pressure.
