St. Louis Cardinals Community Top 30: You pick Nos. 6-7
SOUTH GRAND — With nearly 400 votes in on what, granted, was a difficult kind of poll to pull off, it’s clear who should be considered for spots Nos. 6 and 7 in Bird Land’s Community Top 30. Five different minor leaguers received at least 45 percent of the vote, and interestingly four of the five were pitchers. Five of the top six were also pitchers.
Yet, when it comes to trade talk about pitchers this offseason it’s widely viewed that the St. Louis Cardinals don’t have the surefire arm to enter into deals for, say, Jake Peavy, and a few others. Injuries have complicated their stock of pitchers (i.e., Jaime Garcia, who would be a top-five talent if not for Tommy John surgery that will all but erase his 2009) and so too has timing. A year from now, the view of pitchers like Clayton Mortensen, P.J. Walters and Jess Todd will likely be different — as two or three of them will be on the doorstep of the majors, if not already there.
Time to move on to Nos. 6 and 7 in the Community Poll.
I saw the write-in candidates and agree for the most part — there is room in the top 10 for Fernando Salas and his zany strikeout numbers to get spot on the ballot — so as we move toward No. 10, those opinions will be represented. For these two spots, however, dibs go to the prospects who got 45 percent or more of the vote.
I can already tell you that there is a player in my top seven that isn’t getting the support in here, and there is a lot of shuffling going on with the top 10. Fresh faces. Returning tools. Good signs.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
DG,
My only problem with how you are doing the polls is that I voted for Motte for 6 and Todd for 7. If other people also vote for Motte for 6 and he loses by 1 vote to Todd, then does my vote for the 7 slot no longer count since Todd can’t be 7 and I would have voted for Motte there that time around. Or are you doing an MVP ballot type of thing taking all the votes from the 6 and 7 polls and giving the receivers 2 points for getting a 6 vote and 1 point for a 7 vote, then the top vote getter wins 6 and second get 7. Imagine a scenario of Motte getting 150 votes for 6, Todd getting 149 and Jones getting 100, then in the 7 slot Jones gets 200, Todd gets 100 and Mott gets 99. In this case Motte and Jones would win 6 and 7 by vote count but Todd was actually the highest rated of the 3. I think this may explain why Freese was in the Top 5 and yet Motte, Jones and Todd all missed out, mainly because my vote for the 5th spot was pretty much wasted when I voted for these guys out of order. I don’t envy you the position of doing a single post for each spot but it might be more fair in the long run.
Either way you do it though I love that you are doing this again and I can’t wait to see your rankings again.
You need to give serious consideration to Shaun Garceau and add his name real soon….the kid has major league stuff and is way better than some of those popular prospects….he just finished a great year in Palm beach and is still very young at 21.
Hugo,
An excellent comment as it strikes at something that I considered before approaching the Comm Top 30 as a blog/poll-based exercise. All I can say is have faith. I may be a few years removed from those Statistics courses at Mizzou … but I will take percentages into account and if there is a close vote, like the one you describe, there is always room in here for a runoff.
I trust that the number of voters will help crystallize the vote.
But I recognize that once we get out of the top 10, that gets trickier.
dg
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The vote for Garceau is noted.
Lance Lynn should get some top 10 consideration along with Nico Vasquez.
I put Adam Ottavino @ 7
Looks like we’re going to need a runoff for No. 7.