BA’s Cardinals Top 10 Prospects
November 23rd, 2009 | by Ryan Boyer |As Derrick Goold notes in his BirdLand blog, Baseball America is out with its top 10 prospects for the Cardinals.
- Shelby Miller, RHP
- Jaime Garcia, LHP
- Lance Lynn, RHP
- Daryl Jones, OF
- David Freese, 3B
- Eduardo Sanchez, RHP
- Allen Craig, OF/1B/3B
- Blake Hawksworth, RHP
- Daniel Descalso, 2B
- Robert Stock, C
I have no major issues with the list, that said, I do have a couple minor differences in opinion:
- I would put Jones at No. 3 ahead of Lynn. Yes, Lynn is a safe bet for a solid back of the rotation starter, but there’s just so much more upside with Jones.
- I would have Craig higher than Freese. In my mind, Craig is clearly the superior hitting prospect and is over a year younger. Craig was knocked down presumably because he has no clear position, which is fair.
- I would rank Sanchez ahead of both Freese and Craig. I think he is the team’s closer in 2012 at the latest.
- I think Bryan Anderson should still be on the top 10 list (personally, I would have him at No. 8). He was No. 5 last year, behind four guys that have either lost the eligibility to remain on the list or are in another organization (Colby Rasmus , Brett Wallace, Chris Perez, Jess Todd), and now he’s not even in the top 10 because he hit just .245 in 163 at-bats at Triple-A while playing with a bum shoulder. That’s not enough for me to drop him that far in a system that is a lot thinner from a year ago, especially when you consider that he won’t turn 23 until next month.
