Continuing our 16-year tradition, the staff of The Cardinal Nation will share our recaps of the 2022 season at each level of the St. Louis Cardinals system. We will also crown three award winners for each team – The Cardinal Nation Minor League Starting Pitchers, Relievers and Players of the Year.
We will unveil our selections, one team recap or award per day, every day, beginning on Monday, September 19, and running through late October. Club recaps are first, then the Dominican Summer League (DSL) Reliever of the Year and all the way through the Memphis Redbirds Player of the Year.
Several special awards will be added and of course, our top selections for the entire Cardinals minor league system for 2022 as well as the best-performing rookies and top emerging and comeback players follow. The series will continue with our choice as the top manager in the organization and conclude with the system’s top hitting and pitching performers by various statistical measures.
Those at the keyboard are our team of locally-based reporters – covering every Cardinals minor league affiliate first-hand – as they select the very best of the best at each level and overall, from approximately 250 players.
TCN staff include James Brisentine (Memphis), Nicole Walker (Springfield), Matt Lucas (Peoria) and Kevin Garcia (Palm Beach). Veteran TCN analysts Leonda Markee will recap 2022 for the Dominican Summer League Cards and Blake Newberry will single out the top first-year players and stats leaders. Brian Walton pinch-hits for ailing Paul Ivice with the Florida Complex League as well as selecting various cross-system awards.
Note: While the team reports and all winning names will be made available to everyone as this master article is updated daily, the detailed commentary behind most of the player awards in this series will be exclusively for The Cardinal Nation members 
. All major league articles will again be free for all.
This 40-article series will include analysis from our local reporters as well as comments by scouts, Cardinals players, coaches and executives. We explain what tradeoffs were made and what we saw in the best players to take the field at each level of the Cardinals system during the 2022 season.
Again, we begin the process with a daily series recapping each minor league club’s 2022 season in depth, looking at records, injuries, player movement, key stats and much more. Once they are published, you can click on the highlighted team names below to read those articles if you missed them the first time.
2022 The Cardinal Nation Award Winners/Schedule
| Team | Writer | Team recap | Reliever | Starter | Player |
| DSL | UConn Card | free to read | Bruno Lopez |
Alexander Beltre |
Anyelo Encarnacion |
| FL Complex | Brian Walton | free to read | Victor Villanueva |
Jose Davila |
Samil De La Rosa |
| Palm Beach | Kevin Garcia | free to read | Andrew Marrero |
Inohan Paniagua |
Brady Whalen |
| Peoria | Matt Lucas | free to read | Nick Trogrlic-Iverson |
Zane Mills |
L.J. Jones |
| Springfield | Nicole Walker | free to read | Dalton Roach |
Gordon Graceffo |
Moises Gomez |
| Team | Writer | Team recap | Reliever | Starter | Player |
| Memphis | James Brisentine | free to read | Freddy Pacheco |
Tommy Parsons |
Alec Burleson |
| Writer | Reliever | Starter | Player | ||
| Top Rookies | Blake Newberry | Matt Hickey |
Jimmy Crooks |
||
| Top Players | Brian Walton | Freddy Pacheco |
Gordon Graceffo |
Moises Gomez |
|
| Writer | Pitcher | Player | |||
| Emerging | Brian Walton | Jose Moreno |
L.J. Jones |
||
| Comeback | Brian Walton | Gustavo Rodriguez |
Clint Coulter |
||
| Manager | Brian Walton | Gary Kendall |
|||
| of the Year | |||||
| Writer | Counting stats | Rate stats | Speed | ||
| Pitching leaders | Blake Newberry | click here |
click here |
||
| Offensive leaders | Blake Newberry | click here |
click here |
click here |
|
| Defensive leaders | Blake Newberry | click here |
(Note that because the Triple-A season schedule runs later than the other levels, the Memphis articles will follow the other five teams.)
Click on the player name highlighted in the table above to be taken to that detailed article. In addition, select each team name to read the 2022 overall summary for that level.
Then, join the daily discussion at The Cardinal Nation’s free message board, as each selection is unveiled.
If you ever forget the location of this article, you can always use the permanent link on The Cardinal Nation homepage. Underneath the site logo in the left column, click on “Season Recaps/Top Players”, and select the year.
Our annual Cardinals Top 50 Prospect Ranking countdown for 2023 will begin in November after this series concludes. Please remember that the two processes are separate and distinct.
This effort is to recognize the top performances on the field in 2022, whether or not the players are projected to have a major league future down the road. In other words, this is all about current year results at the assigned level of play, not future potential.
Exclusively for members of The Cardinal Nation
Closeout Sale – 2022 Cardinals Prospect Guide
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