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With no more votes coming in, we are closing voting for the round.
With the tiebreaker vote (getting to six votes first), your 2027 TCN Community #2 prospect is Quinn Mathews, LHP. Congrats to Quinn.
1. Rainiel Rodriguez, C
2. Quinn Mathews, LHPVoting is now open for the #3 prospect. Voting will close at 12 PM CT/1 PM ET on Friday, October 9th.
Q: will there be any rule concerning changing the position of a player once you vote for him? That’s a peeve that I have developed. Just curious.
We generally discourage swapping out picks round to round. I keep tabs as well and would call it out if it becomes an issue. We haven’t seen it happen a ton in the past, though. Maybe once or twice per year.
The reason I don’t want to do a hard fast rule comes down to the fact that some might be a lot higher on a prospect than almost anyone else (and example, gscottar and Pete Hansen) and after a while, maybe they just tire of voting for the same guy and want to add a comment on another player. So, it’s a bit of a case by case basis.
Occasionally, people forget about a player as well and want to add him in. I’m fine with that as well. That’s why I like when people write something about their pick, as it helps bring some understanding.
It’s the final stretch for voting for the #2 prospect…and things are very close! Any of three different guys could feasibly take the spot. If nothing changes, the tiebreaker will have to to go our “first in” choice. It would be good to not have to go that route, so let’s get some more votes!
I like all the discussion! Even though I think Mathews is behind several other guys, having a fairly certainly passable big league starter at #6 is a very solid system indeed.
Voting is very tight so any vote could be the deciding factor! We’ve never had to involve a tiebreaker for a top 10 prospect before, but it very well could happen this time!
We had 17 vote in the first round, with 14 so far in the second round. There’s still a day and some change to get your vote in and influence history!
That’s the rub for me too, Bob. After his shoulder injury, the mighty Quinn has never managed to have get the walks truly under control. For me, that puts him in the #3-5 starter bucket, rather than the #2-3 guy that many are voting him for. And without much relief fallback, he looks to me like a 1.5-2.5 WAR starter, which is valuable. Doyle has more variance, but I think he’s a better bet to be a big league plus starter, with the fallback of a late inning reliever, barring injury.
I have Mathews as my #6 prospect. It’s very close between #2-6, and I’m probably underrating my #7 to where he could be a little closer to the others, himself. I see Quinn’s age and two years at AAA as limiting his ceiling more than you do, AtM, but I can understand how his MLB experience would give him a boost.
#2 Liam Doyle, LHP 55/60 (FV/FV80), Risk Med
Here’s where it gets a little more difficult. You could make a solid case for quite a few guys here, as there is enough talent, proximity, ceiling and floor in the upper end of the system that you could squint and see us with probably 7 guys who have above average MLB capability in their reasonable outcomes just from the AA and AAA ranks, along with a couple who have moved up to MLB.
Anyway, I’m going with Mr Doyle here, as he showed up in a pretty big way in the last month or two of the Springfield season. He was still occasionally wild, but he was also pretty much unhittable down the stretch. From late June on, he had an ERA in the low 2s while maintaining an excellent K rate, and his walk rate got a little more under control as the season went on. His batting average allowed was .183 in July and a paltry .147 in each of August and September. Only Kade Anderson and (potentially) Ryan Sloan were consistently better than Doyle in the Texas League, and they are two of the top 5 SP prospects in the game. Doyle has a reliever role as a fallback, where his stuff would play up even more in short stints. Such is why I have him at a 55 FV, because I think he’ll be in St Louis in the coming years and a useful role almost assuredly.
Why just a 60 ceiling, with his stuff? It’s the athleticism again. Maybe he’ll show up next year in better shape, but some of his inconsistency probably stems from his less than ideal body condition. Hopefully that’s something the Cards will work on, and he’ll take more seriously this offseason. He really could make the rotation a lot better in 2028 if he’s hitting that #2 starter ceiling.
OK, since I don’t think there will be too many votes trickling in at the end here, I will go ahead and call the vote while I have some time. Coming in *with checks* notes 100% of the vote, your 2027 TCN Community #1 Prospect is Rainiel Rodriguez, C.. Rainiel well earned his ranking with a Texas League leading .328 batting average and an overall line of .324/.413/.574 and slamming 28 HRs while driving in 87 between High A and AA. Congrats to Mr. Rodriguez on this high honor!
1. Rainiel Rodriguez, C
Voting is now open for the 2027 TCN #2 Prospect. Voting closes at 12 PM CT/1 PM ET on Wednesday, October 7th.
Thanks for the prompt response, BW!
Based on this, the following rules apply as an amendment to the first post in this thread (I’ll try to post this occasionally for all to see):
Ineligible players from last year’s list: JJ Wetherholt, Jimmy Crooks, Nathan Church, Blaze Jordan, Luis Gastelum, Bryan Torres, Cesar Prieto, Cade Winquest, Max Rajcic
Guys who made MLB debuts who remain rookie eligible: Quinn Mathews, Joshua Baez, Leonardo Bernal, Brycen Mautz, Hancel Rincon
Guys who are no longer in the system: Andre Granillo, Matt Pushard, Matt Koperniak, Jeremy Rivas, Zack Showalter, Miguel Ugueto
I would like first and foremost to be consistent with the site rankings of Brian and Kyle if possible. We did have a mixup over Victor Scott a couple years back, but otherwise I don’t think we’ve ranked guys that BW and Co haven’t. So I’ll wait to decide until he checks in.
Brian, what’s the rule?
I just wanted to confirm we are still considering Gastelum? He’s spent more than 45 days on the MLB roster–called up July 8, so as I understand has used up his rookie eligibility.
Traditionally we have used only the innings pitched or plate appearances cutoff. Will Brian and Kyle have him removed from their rankings? If so, we will match with that. I’m not sure how to get Brian’s attention to confirm.
I’ll kick things off…
#1 Rainiel Rodriguez 60/65 (FV/FV80), Risk Low
Mr Rodriguez is a hitter extraorinaire. He hit at High A; he hit at AA. He hit righties (1.014 OPS); he hit lefties (.903 OPS). Other than a tiny blip at Springfield in May, he hit in every month. I guess you could say he didn’t hit as well on the road as at home, but even there, he still had an .894 OPS. He led the Texas League in batting average. He did this all at 19 years old. I’m fairly sure we haven’t had a hitting prospect this good since Oscar Taveras. That’s the extraordinary plus.
Now for the negatives. First, he may not end up the long term catcher. If he’s a future .900 OPS guy at catcher, that’s an immense value. If he’s doing that at 1B, is that really much better than what we have with Burleson out there now? The reason he may lose the catcher battle to Bernal? The athleticism. I realize that he’s probably in better shape than he looks, but the camera is not flattering to him at all. His 19 year old age works against him in this case.
If I was certain he was the catcher of the future and was more confident that he’ll mature well in his athleticism, I would slap a 70 FV80 on him. But I think there’s a solid shot that he ends up a good hitting 1B. The bat will play no matter what, but there’s a little bit of dampened enthusiasm from me there. Even so, he’s still an easy #1 in the system.
Voting is now open for the 2027 TCN Community #1 Prospect. Voting closes at 12 PM CT/1 PM ET on Monday, October 5th.
Voting Schedule (Voting CLOSES at this time of these days)
Oct 5 #1
Oct 7 #2
Oct 9 #3
Oct 12 #4
Oct 14 #5
Oct 16 #6
Oct 19 #7
Oct 21 #8
Oct 23 #9
Oct 26 #10
Oct 28 #11-12
Oct 30 #13-14Nov 2 #15-16
Nov 4 #17-18
Nov 6 #19-20
Nov 9 #21-22
Nov 11 #23-24
Nov 13 #25-26
Nov 16 #27-28
Nov 18 #29-30
Nov 20 #31-33
Nov 23 #34-36
Nov 25 #37-39
Nov 27 #40-42
Nov 30 #43-46Dec 2 #47-50
Dec 4 #51-55
Dec 7 #55-60Rules on the votes where will vote for more than 1 player (I’ll refresh this when we get there):
We will vote past #10 on a weighted ballot system. Each set of votes will give “points” to each prospect in descending order of the group we are voting on (if we are voting for 3, the top vote gets 3, second gets 2, last gets 1). As a practical example for votes #31-33:
Player A gets 5 votes at #31, 3 at 32 and 2 at 33 (23 pts)
Player B gets 4 votes at #31, 4 votes at 32 and 2 votes at 33 (22 pts)
Player C gets 1 vote at 31, 1 at 32 and 2 at 33 (7 pts)
Player D gets 0 votes at 31, 2 at 32, 3 at 33 (7 pts)In this example, A is #31 because they got the most points. B is #32 because they got 2nd most. C is #33 because although C and D tied in points, C got more votes at the higher spot. D goes back into the hopper for the next round.
The last tiebreaker will be vote order, so the player who gets to the total first will get the edge. So get your votes in early!
Santana is my pick. He’s very difficult to hit, and he’s pretty likely to get a shot in the big leagues next year.
Apparently Clarke didn’t even make it to Arizona before jnevel proved to be prescient. I was considering moving him back up my prospect list, but I’m backing off for now.
We could bring in a veteran 3B for one year while Jesus Baez plays at AAA. He wouldn’t be blocked.
We currently do not have a legitimate starting caliber 3B or CF ready for the big leagues next year. I appreciate guys like Saggese, Jordan, Church, and Scott but they are bench players in my opinion. Same with Fermin. He is a bench player.
The 3B could even be a two year player. I’m not even sure who would be feasible, but for one of Herrera or Pallante we should have a shot to get someone reasonable. Maybe they could be the platoon bat with Jordan or Saggese.
I totally agree about all the bench guys. They have some limited value, but they aren’t starting caliber, let alone building pieces.
Like I’ve said before, you can have one dead weight position and still field a winning team. If you’ve got 2 or 3, forget it. This team has 3, sometimes 4 or 5 dead weight spots in the lineup and that’s just a huge burden to overcome. They need to figure out LF, and find a 3B, CF, and make sure there’s enough bat for DH. Winn is a bit fragile at SS. That’s plenty of stuff to work on in the next few years, the pitching side notwithstanding.
The things I would like to see happen this off-season:
1. Trade Ivan Herrera for the best possible MLB SP, 3B or CF.
2. Trade Andre Pallante for the best possible MLB or MLB-ready SP, 3B or CF that we didn’t get in the Herrera trade.
3. Sign a guy better than I project Pallante to be for the rotation…which is a 4/5 type. So a 3/4 guy like May was. Maybe even May himself, if he would accept a 1 or 2 year deal.
4. Sign at least one decent reliever.
The net increase of salary here would probably be in the $10-15M range, depending on the guys signed and what you get for Herrera and Pallante. I think it would at least get you within spitting distance of making the playoffs next year, which would be a nice springboard into 2028.
I enjoyed your discussion, as always. I’m glad you brought up Sandro Santana. I’ve been digging into my rankings for our upcoming 2027 TCN Community rankings (beginning next week) and he’s a guy who will likely end up a lot higher on my list than I would have expected when we acquired him.
Looking back on my picks:
1. The Cardinals start the season on a tear…in a bad way. They are 29-52 at the midway point and 100 losses seems almost certain as fans are despairing of the future. However, they finish the final half at 46-35 to end up at 75 wins, gaining momentum for the 2027 season.
Pretty much got this one opposite. The first half was surprisingly good and the second half was putrid. They were 40-31 in the first 71 games and 37-54 the last 91 games.
2. JJ Wetherholt is up all season and hits .280 on the nose. He finishes 3rd in the rookie of the year voting, causing much weeping and gnashing of teeth amongst supporters of Dewitt’s finances.
JJ was up all year and will likely not with ROY. If he somehow finishes 3rd, I’ll award a full point, but with the extension the Dewitt backers can breathe easy. Half a point here.
3. Dustin May is the deadline’s hottest commodity after allowing 1 earned run in 4 starts (27 IP, 26K, 6BB) in late May and June. He’s traded to Seattle after their rotation falls apart due to injury, and the return is Ryan Sloan, who has had just an OK 2026 so far, due to the Mariners’ desperation.
You know, this one didn’t turn out so badly. He did have a hot steak in late May and June (27-2/3 IP, 4 ER, 33K, 4BB) and while he wasn’t the hottest deadline commodity, it’s not hard to argue that outside of Skubal, the Cards got the best return for their trade of May and Romero to Milwaukee. I’m going to award a full point here.
4. The backfill for May is Quinn Mathews, who becomes the best starter in the rotation, going 7-1 to end the year with impeccable command after finding just the right grip early season in Memphis.
Not a bad call here, either. Mathews may not have been the best pitcher at the end of the year, but he acquitted himself pretty well. No points but was probably my third best prediction.
5. Joshua Baez hits .300+ with 20 HRs for Memphis by late July while Jordan Walker scuffles along. The Cards bring up Baez, who hits .188 the rest of the way and option Walker to Memphis, where he hits .370 with 15 HRs in 45 games. Memphis wins the AAA title. Right field remains a black hole and a huge question mark for the future.
A mixed bag here, as Baez was elite in Memphis. Walker was really good while Baez was coming up, only to tank at the end of the year. Baez wasn’t as bad as I predicted, and Memphis didn’t win the AAA title. So…a quarter point?
Overall, a respectable showing…maybe my best year, if I had flipped the calls on the team’s success vs flopping and Walker’s second half flop. 1-3/4 points, with a shot to go to 2-1/4 if JJ finishes 3rd in the ROY.