You can go here to see Sickels’ full commentary, here’s his top 20:
- Shelby Miller
- Jaime Garcia
- Lance Lynn
- Robert Stock
- Daryl Jones
- Eduardo Sánchez
- Allen Craig
- David Freese
- Jon Jay
- Joe Kelly
- Dan Descalso
- Tyler Henley
- Blake Hawksworth
- Tyler Greene
- Steven Hill
- Pete Kozma
- Francisco Samuel
- Scott Bittle
- Mark Hamilton
- Tyler Norrick
No major surprises here, other than Sickels is higher on Stock than most of the other rankings I’ve seen so far. Sickels seems to like our system more than I thought he would. B grades for prospects 1-7, which is good, but obviously the system is way, way down from where it was a year ago. Maybe not 30th overall bad, but in definitely in the “bad neighborhood”.
The good news is the Cardinals are more than likely to have several extra high draft picks from the departures of Holliday, DeRosa and Pineiro. And, Miller could become a beast and there’s always the potential for more breakouts.
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I don’t understand how several extra picks from the departure of a player like Matt Holliday is necessarily a good thing. Do we all have faith that the Cardinals will use every one of those picks to draft the high upside players that the Cardinals need to have a great farm system again.
We all loved the Miller pick this season, but they fell right back on their history of taking really boring high floor college players for pretty much the rest of their draft.
Instead of utilizing the fact that they have two first round picks, will they instead choose to spend less money on each pick than they would have on one? And reach for two players that weren’t necessarily forecast to be first round picks? I think it could be a money saving option that they could take, and it kind of frightens me.
Quite frankly I would rather have Matt Holliday back, and one really good high school player(because from all that I have read, the 2010 draft is one of the worst in terms of college talent this decade), than two first round picks that would be used on low upside college players signed to slot bonuses.
Man he is really high on Robert Stock.
Well, if you liquefy Robert Stock and shoot him directly into your veins you might be able to get that high on him, otherwise…….
Haven’t seen anyone near that high on Kelly or Norrick either.
I wonder what about Luna’s .800+ OPS and reaching AA as a 22 y.o. Sickels doesn’t like – not even in his top 40.
David Freese now officially a Cardinals utility player: arrested for DWI over the weekend.
@ danny
i’d rather have holliday than the draft picks, but lets not forget they went over slot for miller and planned to spend big money on wagner mateo. when you plan some outlays like that, going with signable players for the most of the draft is forgivable. while they have not taken too many risks lately, i think they will take more risks if they have more early picks, just as they did in 2005.
1st round
rasmus-high school outfielder
greene-collge ss
supplemental
mccormick-high upside college pitcher
herron-high school pitcher
2nd rd
josh wilson-high school pitcher
nick webber-college closer
3rd round
daryl jones-high school outfielder
4 high schoolers in the first three rounds. jones was thought to be a tough sign. some thought mccormick might be a tough sign as well (boras). i think they will take more high upside players if they have more picks. i think they may have learned a lesson from rick porcello, too.
I’d rather have Holliday too, of course, but when handed a lemon, make lemonade. This risk always exists on rent-a-star trades. And if they don’t re-sign Holliday, they should (should…) have plenty of money to throw at high draft choices. “Signability” shouldn’t be a concern.
One of the interesting points in the Sickels article was the large swarm of C prospects who didn’t make his top 20. In a typical organization, I would not consider this a good thing; having a couple of real blue-chippers clearly has greater value than exceptional organizational depth in replacement-level guys. However, LaDuncan’s voracious appetite for acquiring “veteran” projects by raiding the farm system keeps this from being a typical organization. Having a ton of low-level trading chips may be exactly the right thing to fend off the gutting of the system for rentals that happened last year.
I actually was surprised by several things. Two were that I think Ottavino and Reifer have to at least be in this year’s top twenty and Stephen Hill does not. Nor does Norrick and I have zero interest in Hamilton and that was before I learned that he’s a terrible fielder. I should stop being surprised that most people rate Descalso lower than I do because of his AAA stats. I maintain he was misused and will rebound strongly.
The Joe Kelly ranking interests me. I see nothing in his numbers to feel good about and I would think that, if you’re looking at recent draftees who haven’t really done anything yet that you would go with Bittle’s ceiling over Kelly’s. Kelly’s stuff must be fairly impressive.
I do like it that he seems higher on our overall talent than most folks are. If Stock and Miller reach what he thinks may be their ceilings this is a solid core of talent. I also think that when a guy who played a real role in a successful major league stretch drive is ranked as your 13th best prospect things can’t be too bad.
I agree on Ottavino and Reifer over Hill, but I do think Hamilton is an intriguing enough bat to merit mention.
As for the Bittle/Kelly thing, Kelly does have some truly monstrous stuff; kind of a puzzle why he has been relatively hittable. (Sort of like Reifer, really.) He’s also very new to pitching, having only picked it up in college, but already can get his fastball into the upper 90s and has a nice slider and a surprisingly okay changeup. I really like Bittle for his college numbers, but with the health questions and his reliance on just one pitch, I think Kelly is the better prospect. And as for numbers to like on Kelly, I think his K rate of almost one per inning and FIP of 2.76 are both very promising. As you can probably tell, I’m very high on Joe Kelly.
I definitely agree with you on Descalso. I think he’s probably being marked down far too much, considering what an odd situation that became once he was promoted. Love what he brings to the table, and I think he’ll show more of his Double A form in Memphis in 2010.
Oh, and Norrick is intriguing, but I see him strictly as a future LOOGY. I think there were probably better choices to go on the actual list. He does have very good stuff, though…
The Cards have been drafting for depth, so its not surprising if they have a lot of class C possibilities. Maybe some will arise in 2010.
Agree Ottavino and Luna deserved more mention.
Yeah. Luna in particular I think got the shaft in this instance. His translations are really great for a player still so far off, yet he gets sort of shunted aside in most conversations.
Aaron Luna= Allen Craig v2.0.
Aaron Luna has yet to reproduce an similar season to what Allen Craig has done at every rung of the ladder he has been placed.
No Aaron Luna does not equal Allen Craig 2.0.