TOWER GROVE — Back during those 100-win salad days of 2004 and 2005, the St. Louis Cardinals’ tremendous success at the major-league level was a facade for what anyone with an eye on the minors knew, and knew well: It all could be fleeting.

A sobering reminder of the situation they put themselves in came the winter after the Cardinals juggernaut run to the National League pennant and World Series in 2004. Baseball America, viewed by many as the standard in the industry for prospect evaluations, ranked the Cardinals’ minor-league system 30th out of 30 teams in its 2005 Prospect Handbook. First in the NL, dead last in the BA.

The Cardinals vowed to change things with the 2005 draft.

By Baseball America’s measure they have.

For the first time since the trade publication began publishing the yearly Prospect Handbook in 2001, the Cardinals’ minor-league system will rank in the top 10, according to the Handbook’s editor Jim Callis. Callis sent me an email recently confirming the Cardinals’ collection of prospect talent will rank No. 8 when the book is released in January.

“It’s always fun to do the organization rankings because outside of the very best and very worst systems, I don’t know exactly how they’re going to stack up until I start lining them up against each other,” Callis wrote in an email. “The Cardinals were one of the surprises for me. I’ve always liked Colby Rasmus and Brett Wallace, but their depth really snuck up on me. When guys like flamethrowing Adam Reifer and Jaime Garcia — though Garcia is hurt — don’t make our Top 10 list, that’s saying something.”

The top-10 ranking represents a turnaround for the club annually ranked in the lower third by BA. When the Cardinals ranked 30th overall in 2005, it was the second time in four years that they were considered 30th and the fifth time in six years that they ranked 27th or lower. In 2008’s Handbook, the Cardinals reached the top half, at 13th, for the first time.

For the last three years, Rasmus has been hoisting the Cardinals up in the rankings with the gravitational pull of his place in the top 10 of all prospects and his performance for Team USA and in the Texas League. The fact he has company — in Wallace, in Daryl Jones, in Chris Perez — has boosted the Cardinals from 30 in 2005 (the year Rasmus was drafted) to 8th this coming season (the year Rasmus makes his big-league debut).

For the sake of nostalgia (and context), a detailed tour of where the Cardinals system has been according to Baseball America and how it arrived in the top 10:

• 2000 … No. 27 — top prospect: LHP Rick Ankiel; notable: No. 3 Adam Kennedy, No. 6 Jack Wilson, No. 8 Luther Hackman.
• 2001 … No. 23 — top prospect: LHP Bud Smith; notable: No. 2 Albert Pujols, No. 8 Gene Stechschulte, No. 10 Josh Pearce.
• 2002 … No. 30 — top prospect: RHP Jimmy Journell; notable: No. 4 Justin Pope, No. 5 Yadier Molina, No. 10 Chad Hutchinson, No. 12 Chance Caple.
• 2003 … No. 28 — top prospect: RHP Dan Haren; notable: No. 2 Journell, No. 6 Shaun Boyd, No. 9 Tyler Johnson, No. 10 Molina.
• 2004 … No. 28 — top prospect: RHP Blake Hawksworth; notable: No. 2 Adam Wainwright, No. 4 Molina, No. 5 Journell, No. 18 Brendan Ryan.
• 2005 … No. 30 — top prospect: RHP Anthony Reyes; notable: No. 6 Brad Thompson, No. 8 Chris Duncan, No. 20 Skip Schumaker, No. 29 Journell.
• 2006 … No. 21 — top prospect: Reyes; notable: No. 2 Rasmus, No. 5 Mark McCormick, No. 6 Wainwright, No. 15 Duncan, No. 20 Rick Ankiel (the outfielder).
• 2007 … No. 23 — top prospect: Rasmus; notable: No. 3 Chris Perez, No. 6 Bryan Anderson; No. 11 Mitchell Boggs, No. 19 Johnson, No. 29 Schumaker.
• 2008 … No. 13 — top prospect: Rasmus; notable: No. 2 Perez, No. 3 Anderson, No. 9 Boggs, No. 12 Jess Todd, No. 13 Joe Mather, No. 19 Kyle McClellan, No. 24 Jason Motte.
• 2009 … No. 8 — top prospect: Rasmus. notable: check back in January when — full disclosure — the top 10 I authored for BA is published.

The improvement within the Cardinals’ system can be illustrated by the rankings adventure of one prospect: Hawksworth. The righthander was signed as a draft-and-follow in 2002 and given a bonus of about $1.5 million. He sported one of the best changeups in the organization from the moment he joined the organization and was seen as not only a high-ceiling pitcher but also one who could move quickly. That was reflected in his debut ranking: No. 5 in the 2003 Handbook. In 2004, he was considered the top prospect in the system. Then injuries and the development of the organization led to Hawksworth’s rise and fall in the rankings: No. 3 in 2005; No. 25 in 2006 (injuries); No. 4 in 2007 and No. 20 in 2008.

Hawksworth is not ranked in the 2009 Handbook, bumped from the Top 30 as much by the infusion of new prospects — international and through the draft — as much as his performance. (And there hasn’t been much mention of him in the Bird Land Community Top 30 that readers are currently putting together.)

“My take on it is that the Cardinals have made a spectacular climb from near or at the bottom of BA’s list just a few years ago to a Top 10 ranking,” wrote Kary Booher in an email to me today. Booher was the beat writer for the Cardinals’ Double-A team in Springfield, Mo., before getting the overdue call-up to the majors and a staff writer position at Baseball America. He arrived in Springfield at Year One of the Cardinals’ rebuilding. “When I covered Double-A Springfield beginning in 2005 and would take the farm system’s temperature in print, I would make clear that the Cardinals had fallen because of a combination of trades to help the big-league team, poor drafts and downright bad luck. …

“It looks like they’ve hit on some nice draft picks since (Bill DeWitt Jr.) handed the scouting department to (Jeff Luhnow). Scouts love Rasmus … and shrewd draft-day moves such as plucking (Clayton Mortensen) in the sandwich round and Jess Todd in the second round in the same draft are bolstering the system. The most fascinating wild card in all of it is Daryl Jones. … What was looking like a terrible gamble could flip and demonstrate the scouting department’s willingness these days to take educated chances rather than hopeful attempts (i.e. most of the 2004 draft class).”

Ah, that 2004 draft class. No need to rehash that here. Save to use it as a cheap transition.

The Cardinals are still recovering from the Lost Draft of ‘04. There are critics of the Cardinals’ system — too many of the same type of players; not nearly enough raw athletes; etc. — and there are critics of the system rankings. While his role in improving the farm system has been papered over in recent years for farm director Bruce Manno was always irked by Baseball America’s ranking of the system. Manno, who still has some fingerprints on this No. 8 ranking (see: Jason Motte, for example), argued that a system should be judged by how many big leaguers it produces, not just how many “prospects” it has or how much “potential” pundits guess it has.

There is something to Manno’s argument. Consider the years before that 30th-ranking in 2005, and how many big leaguers (and only a few for that one-sip, two-sip cup of coffee) came from the Cardinals’ Top 10:

• 2000: 4 of the top 10, including Ankiel (the pitcher), Kennedy, Wilson.
• 2001: 3 of the top 10, including some guy named Pujols. Nuff said.
• 2002: 5 of the top 10, including Molina, Haren and Duncan.
• 2003: 5 of the top 10, including Haren, Molina, Narveson and Johnson.
• 2004: 7 of the top 10, including Wainwright, Daric Barton, Molina, Hector Luna.

Manno has a point. Sure the Cardinals have come a long way since Reid Gorecki was the team’s organization player of the year. Their depth is better. But that above list shows how they got good (even elite) value for a 30th-ranked system.

So what can be expected from a top-10 system?

Much of the credit for the rise in these rankings will be given to Luhnow, the Cardinals’ vice president whose first turn at the controls of a draft was in 2005 and has seen his influence in drafting and development grow each year since. There is little doubt that the Cardinals have more talent in the pipeline now than they have in many years, arguably a decade. And the first trickle of international talent is just starting to reach the upper half of these rankings.

It has been a tremendous and quick restocking of the talent pool.

Look no further than the parade of prospects who debuted in 2008.

But many in the organization agree that 2009 is a pivotal year for the farm system and for the draft class that started it all, that 2005 class of Rasmus, et. al. The time for cameos from the minors is over. The Cardinals are banking on contributors.

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