Yay or Nay? Prospects are going to flame out but we rank them anyway. The following is all about whether they’ll have the ability to stick in the majors. How many of the FR top 20 do we think will have real baseball careers? We’ll use some arbitrary definitions of 800 games for a position player (~5years), 1000 IP for a starter, 300 IP for a reliever. Our answers follow.
| Rank | Prospect List | Erik | Roarke | Azru |
| 1 | Colby Rasmus | Y | Y | Y |
| 2 | Brett Wallace | Y | Y | Y |
| 3 | Chris Perez | Y | Y | Y |
| 4 | Bryan Anderson | Y | Y | Y |
| 5 | Daryl Jones | Y | Y | Y |
| 6 | Jason Motte | Y | Y | Y |
| 7 | David Freese | N | Y | N |
| 8 | Jaime Garcia | Y | N | Y |
| 9 | Jess Todd | N | N | N |
| 10 | Mitchell Boggs | N | Y | N |
| 11 | Pete Kozma | Y | Y | N |
| 12 | Allen Craig | N | N | N |
| 13 | Jon Jay | N | Y | N |
| 14 | Clayton Mortensen | Y | Y | Y |
| 15 | Niko Vasquez | N | N | N |
| 16 | Tyler Henley | N | N | Y |
| 17 | Tyler Herron | N | N | N |
| 18 | Lance Lynn | Y | Y | Y |
| 19 | Fernando Salas | N | Y | N |
| 20 | Adam Ottavino | N | N | N |
Note: This was a very off the cuff exercise for us. Don’t read too much into this.
Entries (RSS)
Interesting that none of you think Todd will even make it as a reliever. And where’s the love for Niko?
Nice exercise.
Of course, in 6 months, this could be oh so very different.
whither Niko? how dare you all say that about a future HOF’er…you are awarded NO points and may God have mercy on your souls…
I’m willing to read into it that you gents (and robot) think we’ll look back and believe Lynn was under-ranked. I buy that–dude quietly had a lot of success at the low levels after a pretty long college season.
What parts of Mort’s and Lynn’s game make them seem like a lock for the majors and what part of Todd’s game makes him seem like he wont make it.
This is in line with the other comments, but why is Todd ranked higher than others if there is a belief he won’t stick in the majors and others will?
i like the post. i agree with everyone about todd. most ive talked to seem to think hes a very good short relief option. not a ton of upside but definitely a bigleaguer with good health. who is tyler henley? if u look at our team long term we appear in pretty good shape except a 2b and lefthanded pitching.
2011 cardinals(i am predicting a title this year)
1b pujols
2b
ss kozma/vazquez
3b wallace
of ludwick
of rasmus
of jones
of mather
of jay
1b/3b craig/freese
2b/ss
c molina
c
sp carp
sp waino
sp lohse
sp boggs/garcia/mortensen
sp boggs/garcia/mortensen.
sp/rp todd
rp mclellan
rp lynn
rp reifer
rp motte
lrp
cp perez
this is obviously subjext to change but long term we look mostly solid. i say lets trade jones or anderson or jay for some lefthanded pitching or a 2b that doesnt suck. if we could turn 2 outfielders and anderson into a 2b, a lefty starter, and a lefty reliever we would look pretty darn good.
I think the discrepency with Todd has to do with upside. Mortensen and Lynn seem to be 4th or 5th starter types that will eat innings, while Todd has a bit higher upside than that. The tradeoff is that Mortensen and Lynn seem to be more likely to reach that upside than Todd – they both appear to be the type that will move through the system quickly and be able to begin racking up those innings soon. Todd, on the other hand, has some hurdles to jump: persistant questions about his size and questions about whether he profiles better as a starter or a reliever. Those questions, especially regarding his future role, make reaching the innings limit Az set much more uncertain, in my opinion.
I would add to that some analysts question Todd’s max effort delivery. The injury risk with Todd is, imo, greater.
I actually am not that worried about the “max effort” label he gets. This would be bad if he wa all arm and just muscling the ball up there, but most of his effort appears to be in his lower body. I am not sure Todd is at any more of an injury risk than any other pitcher. That stated the injury risk for any pitcher is high.
OT: Kieth Law put his system rankings and his top 100 prospects…two cardinals in the top 20 and we were his 6th rated system…he menitons having three star prospects…though i am not sure who he is counting as the third since i can only see his top 20…Perez maybe?
I think he may be speaking of Daryl Jones. He was really high on Desmond Jennings, and he said he liked Jones more.
Two nays for Jay? Man, tough crowd!
I haven’t seen him play since the 2006 CWS, but why wouldn’t a high-average lefty hitter who plays ++ defense in center field settle in as a major-league regular?
The Cards may be overstocked in CF right now, with Ankiel and Rasmus ahead of Jay, but I can’t think of any reason why he won’t cross the 800-games hurdle.
For perspective, Schumaker turns 29 in a couple weeks. He already has 296 games, and will probably hang around long enough to double or triple that number. Jay turns 24 this spring, and despite losing a season to injury, is at AAA, basically on the cusp of the majors. Schu probably has a stronger arm, but other than that Jay has better skills pretty much across the board — more speed, better average, more power potential.
Law ranked the Cards system the 6th best over at espn.com.
By the way…did anyone check out MO’s chat at STLToday.com. It was a lot of hostility toward the GM. I think MO cut it short and took his toys home.
The loud, message board posting, butt-tard segment of the fanbase really is starting to get on my nerves lately. Go root for the Yankees if you want an owner and a GM who doesn’t have to worry about a budget, they still have plenty of room for bandwagon fans. Or maybe try rooting for the Royals for a while and see how thankful you are for DeWitt and Mo.
From one of the biggest draft strategy complainers ever.
You can disagree with elements of what they do without coming across as most of the people I believe erik is speaking of…those that bitch, whine and moan at everything with no supporting evidence, just what they create in their minds or hear on talk radio and think the only way to measure success is by dollars spent (ie wanting to sign Garland) and who really think someone should own a business and not make money.
the draft doesn’t fall on mo, and i am far from one of the biggest draft strategy complainers.
i agree erik.
What I don’t understand is why he goes there to discuss the team. Set-up something on live chat and announce it on viva and the other good blogs. Then at least there would be some good questions and discussion.
Amen, brother.
Down with the butt-tards.
FYI, the link from the post-dispatch’s website still goes to futureredbirds.com
Interesting stuff, but statistically how many of those 20 players will have ML careers?
I’ll go with maybe 1 or 2 of the above, which 1 or 2, I have no idea.
Just think, baseball season is right around the corner! :)
The reason people are complaining is because our biggest problem last year was the pen. We need a good LH and closer. There were more than enough closers on the market this offseason and several good lefties. We however can only come up second on whatever closer we made an offer too. And we sign some scrap heap lefties. Villone did fine against just LHs. However he had to pitch to many innings because of our weak rotation. Which we didn’t do anything to improve either. Overall the only success Mo might have had is not giving out a bad contract. Because he essentially has not made any significant upgrades.