Well, this has been an eventful day. I meant to get this up much sooner, thankfully I didn’t. Wagner Mateo would have been my #4 prospect on this list, but who knows what is going on now.

A caveat here — I still like waiting for fall leagues to get over with before I come up with an “official” ranking, but in the name of collaboration and blogging, here’s my ranking. This system has greatly thinned and now looks a bit thinner without Mateo, who’s ceiling as a hitter I had at least believed to be higher than others. I’m starting to sour a bit on the whole international signing scene, there’s just too much shady dealings going on. I’m not saying the Cardinals should abandon it. It’s just not always the bonus babies that rise to the top of prospect lists, as evidenced by my #6 rated prospect.

1. Shelby Miller – No brainer here, even though he hasn’t thrown more than 10 professional innings. You all know the scouting report. Miller’s a potential 1-2 starter. The road from here to there is long, and there’s a lot of ditches along side that road, but it’s exciting to have a pitcher with Miller’s ceiling in the system.
2. Jaime Garcia – Jaime is back from Tommy John, which was the only knock on him the previous season. He’s burning worms and missing bats, just like before. Ceiling is #3 starter, which is why he is here.
3. Daryl Jones – 2009 was better than his bad seasons but worse than his terrific year last year, no thanks to injury issues that dogged him all season long. Scouts remarked as to Jones looked more like a 4th OF due to his lack of speed and power, but the speed part was because of knee issues. Carl Crawford lite is the lofty comparison. I think he can be an average LF because his range will make up a little bat for a lack of thump. My semi-realistic but maybe overly optimistic hope for DJ Tools: .280/.355/.445, +5 defense, double-digits in steals.
4. Lance Lynn – The big hoss does nothing super spectacular, but avoids ugly innings, misses an average number of bats and gets a little better than average ground ball outs.
5. Allen Craig – Met with a big dose of skepticism from the scouting community despite mashing year after year. He got off to a slow start and still managed to have his finest season to date. I know he’s a little older at 25, but after this season in Triple-A I believe Craig can help the club now, whether that be at the hot corner or in the OF.
6. Eduardo Sanchez – The breakout prospect of the year. He’s about on par with Reifer and Samuel in terms of stuff, only the big difference about Sanchez is he can command it more often than not. Look for him at some point in 2010.
7. Robert Stock – People seem to forget he’s only 19. He mashed in the Appy, not sure if that amounts to much, but after suffering through the slumps he suffered through at USC it was nice to see him hit. The back-up plan of pitching has to be on the shelf for now. I do hear some concerns about Stock’s swing mechanics. I’m not fully on the bandwagon yet, but he was formerly mentioned as a possible first rounder and he has a nice ceiling. I just don’t get too thrilled after good Appy stats, call it the Niko Vazquez shakes.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Prospect rankings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.