Cardinals Community Top 30: The bigger picture & vote for No. 16
SOUTH GRAND — One of the real problems with any club’s Top 30 is perspective. Whenever you rank players within one organization, you are, by definition, limiting the scope of how you judge — or perceive — their status as prospects.
The argument raging in the comments about David Freese and Allen Craig is a good example. Both have been voted as top-15 prospects here in the Community Top 30, and there have been several comments arguing that their places in the ranking — No. 5 for Freese and No. 14 for Craig — should be swapped. Either way, they have both been described as a Top-10 prospect.
But that needs a caveat: A Top-10 prospect … in the Cardinals’ organization.
When ranking players within one team’s system, they are only compared against each other. There are going to be 10 top-10 prospects because the exercise demands it. But throw two other organizations into the mix, throw the systems from the whole National League Central in the conversation — now how many top-10 prospects do the St. Louis Cardinals have? One? Two? Maybe three?
The far better way for us to have a real grasp of the quality and quantity of prospects in the Cardinals’ system is to check the rankings within leagues and the overall rankings. The first of those overall rankings has started its roll-out at MiLB.com. Jonathan Mayo is revealing his annual “Top 50 Prospects” by 10s, with Nos. 31-40 debuting Tuesday. The list so far is available here at MiLB.com, and you’ll notice a Cardinal prospect has already been mentioned:
42. Brett Wallace (check out his video and scouting report here)
It’s s safe bet that Colby Rasmus will show up later in the list — he was No. 7 in Mayo’s 2007 postseason Top 50 Prospects — and, according to the rookie-eligible rules that govern the list, that could be it for the Cardinals. That’s just one ranking, and others are sure to follow — Baseball Prospectus and eventually Baseball America. The latter has already given us a road map by which to judge the Cardinals prospects: The rankings by league.
When it comes to providing context for a club’s stockpile of prospects, there are few rankings better than the league-by-league rankings BA does each year. Wallace, for example, was the fifth-best prospect in the Midwest League; Pete Kozma was no. 15. The Cardinals had the No. 1 overall prospect in the Pacific Coast League (Rasmus) and five of the top 20. That’s a hearty showing, especially considering the age of Rasmus, Bryan Anderson (No. 14) and Jaime Garcia (No. 16). Turn a few pages and there, ranking No. 3 in the New York-Penn League is Adam Reifer.
And so on.
Consider that as you vote. Sure, the nature of the beast here is that the Cardinals’ prospects are being measured against Cardinals’ prospects. But be mindful of where these prospects would rank in the bigger picture, on the league or even the division scale.
A close vote for No. 14 allows us put Craig there and cut to the chase with Jon Jay, who had five fewer votes at last check. Jay will be No. 15. We now move into the second half of the Comm Top 30, welcoming Reifer back to the poll and adding the Cardinals big-bonus signing from the international pool, third baseman Roberto de la Cruz. Regarded as one of the best bats in his class of international free agent, one pundit encouraged me to “rank him aggressively.” The Cardinals seem poised to promote him aggressively, as he could play for Rookie-level Johnson City in 2009.
It will be interesting a year from now to see if he charts in that league’s prospect rankings.
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Another element of the big-picture rankings is the opportunity to line up a prospect against his neighbors. A lot can be learned about the perception of Wallace in baseball by who is ranked around him — ahead of him, behind him, etc. In Mayo’s rankings, from above, some interesting nearby names:
- No. 50 RHP Jeff Samardzija, CHI — Already a major-leaguer and big part of Cubs’ bullpen.
- No. 49 3B Matt Dominguez, FLA — Taken 12th overall, one of the high-profile third baseman taken early in the 2007 draft.
- No. 41 RHP Adam Miller, CLE — Taken 31st overall in 2003, but his 98-mph fastball carries him into the rankings. Will be big-league reliever in 2009.
- No. 35 RHP Nick Adenhart, LAA — The highly regarded and coveted pitching prospect in the Angels system, taken in 2004’s fourth round.
- No. 34 1B Yonder Alonso, CIN — Like Wallace, just drafted in 2008, seventh overall.
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The keen observer will notice, as mentioned above, that we skipped ahead to No. 16 with this vote. Jay had received enough votes for days now to merit him just moving into the top 15 and us moving on. But, for the sake of staying organized, here is your list so far:
- Colby Rasmus, OF
- Brett Wallace, 3B
- Chris Perez, RHP
- Bryan Anderson, C
- David Freese, 3B
- Jason Motte, RHP
- Daryl Jones, OF
- Jess Todd, RHP
- Mitchell Boggs, RHP
- Jaime Garcia, LHP
- Niko Vasquez, SS
- Clayton Mortensen, RHP
- Pete Kozma, SS
- Allen Craig, INF
- Jon Jay, OF
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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. 
I think that this is a pretty good top-15. My only quibbles:
Freese, Vasquez - too high
Boggs, Craig - too low
I could also see including Reifer and dropping Garcia because of the TJ surgery.