BP's Top 10

Talk about the Cardinals minor league baseball
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go birds
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BP's Top 10

Post by go birds »

1. RHP Alex Reyes
2. RHP Sandy Alcantara
3. SS Delvin Perez
4. C Carson Kelly
5. CF Magneuris Sierra
6. RHP Dakota Hudson
7. RHP Luke Weaver
8. OF Harrison Bader
9. RHP Jordan Hicks
10. RHP Jack Flaherty

Wow. Sandy Alcantara at #2 and Jordan Hicks at #9.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... leid=30958

Can you guys access that page? I pay for BP so i'm not sure if it's a free article or not.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

No, why did they rate Alcantara so highly? I was under the impression he had a live arm and lots of potential but still needed a lot of polishing.

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MrCrowesGarden
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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

It seems BP is enamored with upside over likelihood of reaching said upside.

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go birds
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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by go birds »

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:No, why did they rate Alcantara so highly? I was under the impression he had a live arm and lots of potential but still needed a lot of polishing.
The Good: Hey, it’s another triple-digit fastball. Alcantara has touched 100 this year, and his heater sits in the high 90s. It’s a heavy pitch with good life down in the zone and he can elevate it for Ks as needed. His curve will flash above-average with 11-5 shape. He may still get bigger and stronger in his early 20s. He has the body and delivery to start.

The Bad: Everything else is pretty raw. He commands the fastball better than either secondary, and the fastball command is still a little rough. The curve is well-below-average and a work in progress. It can flatten out as often as it gets swings-and-misses. He has a straight change that he’ll show feel and fade with, but he tends to slow everything down to utilize it.

The Irrelevant: Alcantara shares a birthday with both Queen Elizabeth I of England and Corbin Bernsen.

The Role:

OFP 60—No. 3 starter/closer
Likely 50—No. 4 starter/set-up

The Risks: Alcantara is really raw, still in A-ball and needs big grade jumps on the secondaries to stick in a rotation. And oh yeah, he’s a pitcher (who throws 100).

Major League ETA: Late 2018

Ben Carsley’s Fantasy Take: What ... what is it with BP and Corbin Bernsen? Anyway, Alcantara is one of the more exciting fantasy pitching prospects in the mid-minors. The control needs refinement (stop me if you’ve heard that before), but he’s got big-time strikeout potential (stop me if you’ve heard that before). A future as a fantasy SP3 who detracts from your WHIP but gives you plenty of Ks is very much possible. It’s just not fair how the Cardinals find one of these guys ever two or three years.

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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by Magneto2.0 »

Top 10 Talents 25 And Under (born 4/1/90 or later)

Carlos Martinez
Alex Reyes
Stephen Piscotty
Sandy Alcantara
​Randal Grichuk
​Michael Wacha
Delvin Perez
Carson Kelly
Magneuris Sierra
Dakota Hudson
This list was more fun to write last year. At the time, the Cardinals had six big leaguers in the top seven spaces (Kolten Wong and Trevor Rosenthal accompanied the four holdovers listed above). The group took a collective step back in 2016 though, as Wong and Grichuk spent part of 2016 in Triple-A, while Rosenthal lost his job and Wacha spent September buried in the bullpen. While all six remain a part of St. Louis’ core, many have a slightly cloudier future with the team than they did 12 months ago.

That comment doesn’t apply to Martinez, who spent 2016 solidifying his transformation from backend reliever to staff ace. The right-hander can miss bats with all four of his offerings, and his deep arsenal allows him to dominate when he has his best stuff (he allowed one run or fewer in 13 of 31 starts) and survive when he does not (he only conceded more than four runs twice). Martinez will be 25 for all but a fortnight of the 2017 season and he’s poised to emerge as one of the best pitchers in the National League. Phrased differently, if Reyes can match Martinez’s production, the Cardinals and their fans should be thrilled.

Piscotty was the rare bird who escaped Stanford with his bat intact. The program has notoriously wrecked many a promising hitter’s swing, but the erstwhile and current Cardinal has been one of the most solid hitters in the league since debuting in July of 2015: in 905 career plate appearances, Piscotty is batting .282/.348/.467. That doesn’t make him a star, but with good defense in right, he’s the latest first-division regular in an organization that produces them by the bushel.

Few men embody contemporary baseball quite like Grichuk, a player whose high strikeout, low walk, and plus power skill set has found a comfortable home in the 21st century. In an unconventional experiment, Grichuk tried to have his cake and eat it too last season, as he actively attempted to reduce his strikeouts and take more walks (h/t Corinne Landrey). Technically he succeeded, but the small improvements in his walk and strikeout rates came packaged with a massive drop in power. Following a brief demotion to Memphis, Grichuk recommenced playing caveman baseball, to more success:

Grichuk before demotion: .206/.279/.392, 8 homers, 54 SO, 18 BB in 225 PA
Grichuk after demotion: .269/.300/.554, 17 homers, 87 SO, 10 BB in 253 PA

Even with all the strikeouts, that second line was good enough to keep him in the lineup down the stretch. This year, he’ll have to sustain that production over a full season, and there will be more pressure than ever on his bat. After signing Dexter Fowler, St. Louis no longer needs to shoehorn Grichuk into center field; Grichuk will in turn slide to left, where the organization will have less patience if he falls into a prolonged slump. He’ll probably hold the job, at least for this season, but there’s an upper bound to how often you can strike out while remaining an offensive threat and Grichuk will always flirt with the threshold.

It’s not clear that Wacha belongs on this list right now. A poor finish to the 2015 season, marred by uncharacteristically poor command and control, seeped into 2016. His velocity dropped a tick from the previous season, he posted the highest ERA and walk rate of his career, and perhaps most concerningly, he missed time with shoulder inflammation. That’s the bad news. The good news is that his stuff remains intact and that neither his DRA nor his FIP strayed far from his career norms. More than a year ago, Jeff Sullivan noticed that Wacha’s release point was unusually high at the tail end of 2015, and the right-hander had an even more pronounced case of spinal tilt last season. Whether that’s intentional, an unconscious response to a barking shoulder, or entirely unrelated to his command problems, we can’t know for sure. Regardless, Wacha is an enigma. We can’t rule out a return to the bullpen for him in 2017, nor dismiss the possibility that he recaptures his all-star form from 2015. He’s a splash of volatility on a team that’s pretty projectable elsewhere.

The Cardinals have a few other young contributors who bear a quick mention here. Matthew Bowman will still be 25 on opening day, and while he’s a Role 40 player, he was a nice find in last year’s Rule 5 Draft. Sam Tuivailala throws hard, and if he learns to throw strikes, he could log meaningful innings in relief. Mike Mayers had a debut to forget, but he touches the mid-90s out of the rotation, and could step into a swing role this season.

The lesson here is that, like always, the Cardinals are loaded with young talent. Declining numbers from Wong, Rosenthal, and Wacha shouldn’t detract from the potential aces sitting at the top of the rotation, or that Piscotty probably has an all-star appearance or two ahead of him. Turns out, St. Louis is still pretty good at this. —Brendan Gawlowski

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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by phins »

Alcantara would probably fit 3rd for me and Hicks would probably slot in around #10.

I still don't see it with Magneuris Sierra. I wish the team had traded him this offseason while he still has value. He wouldn't make the top-10 for me.

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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by themiddle54 »

MrCrowesGarden wrote:It seems BP is enamored with upside over likelihood of reaching said upside.
That's always been their MO, even in the KG/Parks days. They like players they can dream on.

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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by Fat Strat »

themiddle54 wrote:
MrCrowesGarden wrote:It seems BP is enamored with upside over likelihood of reaching said upside.
That's always been their MO, even in the KG/Parks days. They like players they can dream on.
Who doesn't? Alcantara is very intriguing but will probably overrated when it's all said and done.


Phins -- I agree about Sierra. There's several of those guys I would have liked to see us move this year for peieces that have a better shot at being part of our future. Hopefully Sierra can put together a good season at AA this year and then we can use him as a high value chip.

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go birds
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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by go birds »

ive seen sierra draw ender inciarte comparisons which i would absolutely take if we had higher offensive ceiling guys coming through (which we may).

Until then, i think sierra will be overrated.

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Re: BP's Top 10

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

go birds wrote:ive seen sierra draw ender inciarte comparisons which i would absolutely take if we had higher offensive ceiling guys coming through (which we may).

Until then, i think sierra will be overrated.
He was getting CarGo comps before last season (not entirely sure why).

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