TOWER GROVE — With colorful leaves, crisp temps and trade talk in the air, ’tis the season to talk Top 30 — the St. Louis Cardinals Top 30 prospects that is. Over the past month, I’ve been cranking through the scouting comments and reporting on the performances of the Cardinals minor leaguers to piece together a Top 30 for Baseball America.

This much is obvious: For the third consecutive year (and likely last year) Colby Rasmus is No. 1.

After that, well it gets a little trickier.

Last year, using the message baords, we attempted to do the first annual Cards Talk Community Top 30. This year, the blog’s new tool — those powerful and popular polls — allow us to do the Community Top 30 in here.

Chris Perez is the incumbent No. 2 prospect, but he could get some serious challenge this year from first-round pick Brett Wallace, who is now cranking in the Arizona Fall League, and, in some corners, resurgent prospect Daryl Jones. Perez and Jason Motte are still eligible for consideration on this year’s Top 30. Perez just missed pitching enough innings (50) to throw his way off the list. Any Top 30 is going to have to include those three players. Perhaps even in the Top 10. The Cardinals internally consider all three top-flight prospects, and the two relievers have certainly come up in trade conversation with other teams — and the interest of other teams is the true gauge of any prospect and minor-league system.

Adapting the Community Top 30 to a series of poll-based blog entries might take some experimenting. Please be patient. So we’ll start with two polls: Picking the No. 2 prospect, and selecting the players who are candidates for Nos. 3-5. Before reaching the polls, here are two resources to check:

• The Baseball America 2008 Top 30 revisited, complete with links to statistics.
• The BA Top 30 revisited, with discussion of 2009 breakout players.
• BA draft report (unfortunately, subscription required)
• Future Redbirds, a Web site with tons of info about the performance of prospects.

That should give you a good start on the performance and reputation of dozens of prospects. Plenty to get the ball rolling with the Community selection for the No. 2 prospect in the Cardinals’ system.

 Loading …

If you have a write-in candidate for No. 2, please state the name and make your case in the comments below. With that decided, below is a list of the prospects that could rank Nos. 3, 4 or 5. The incumbent Top 5 are: 1. Rasmus; 2. Perez; 3. Bryan Anderson, C; 4. Brian Barton, OF; 5. Jaime Garcia, LHP. Barton is no longer eligible after spending most of the season with the major-league club, and Garcia is an uncertain top-five pick because he’ll miss most of 2009 after needing Tommy John surgery.

That leaves the floor open for nominations.

The names below are culled from the list of No. 2 candidate above, last year’s top 15, the list of top performances in the minors this season and intriguing 2008 draft picks. Please pick the three you believe should get Top-Five consideration (not including the guy you picked No. 2, please). From this list will emerge the finalists for those three spots, and then we’ll move on from there.

 Loading …

Suggestions are always welcome.

***

Additional minor-league note: Topps, the baseball cards manufacturer, named this week its minor-league players of the year and Cardinals’ Curt Smith, a 2008 draft pick, was honored with the Topps award for the Appalachian League. The first baseman, out of the University of Maine, hit .378 with 49 RBIs at the shorts-season rookie-level league. … Conversation about the Top 30 and the outfielders that could/should be traded continues at the Bird Land @ Facebook group.

-30-