Youngsters...

[MaskedMan]

Is it just me, or do we have a LOT of promising youngsters coming up through our system...I don't remember THIS much young talent in our system...Tag Bozied, Rasmus, Cate, Cavazos, Hawkesworth, Kiesler, Hansen, Ryan...I like all of these guys and think we're gonna get some cheap help in the very near future.

[jim]

I think in general the Cardinals farm system is pretty weak. Maybe it seems like that to you because it's been so bad in recent years, and has now risen to just plain "bad" but improving.

[cardfaninfla]

I think we tend to think it has been weak because the experts keep telling us it is weak. Let's really look at it though.

The system ( and when i say system I am going to include trades, free agents that were scouted, pretty much everything but striaght free agent signings) has given the Cards:

Pujols
Edmonds (traded guys in the sysytem)
Rolen (trade)
Reyes
Wainwright
Duncan
Molina
Kennedy(first drafted and played with the Cards)
Mulder (even though most would probably still like to have Haren, Barton and Calero) Speaking of Calero he was picked up from KC when they had no success with him.
Most of the bull pen from last years WS run were guys either drafted or signed as minor league free agents.

So no matter what experts thought of the guys in the sysytem they were either able to make a pretty good ball club or were enough to bring some pretty good ball players in a trade. Basically every starter with teh exception of Eckstien and Encarnacion was drafted or traded for Cards minor leaguers. Not bad.

[MaskedMan]

I think we tend to think it has been weak because the experts keep telling us it is weak. Let's really look at it though.

The system ( and when i say system I am going to include trades, free agents that were scouted, pretty much everything but striaght free agent signings) has given the Cards:

Pujols
Edmonds (traded guys in the sysytem)
Rolen (trade)
Reyes
Wainwright
Duncan
Molina
Kennedy(first drafted and played with the Cards)
Mulder (even though most would probably still like to have Haren, Barton and Calero) Speaking of Calero he was picked up from KC when they had no success with him.
Most of the bull pen from last years WS run were guys either drafted or signed as minor league free agents.

So no matter what experts thought of the guys in the sysytem they were either able to make a pretty good ball club or were enough to bring some pretty good ball players in a trade. Basically every starter with teh exception of Eckstien and Encarnacion was drafted or traded for Cards minor leaguers. Not bad.

GREAT POINT!

[jim]

I think we tend to think it has been weak because the experts keep telling us it is weak. Let's really look at it though.

The system ( and when i say system I am going to include trades, free agents that were scouted, pretty much everything but striaght free agent signings) has given the Cards:

Pujols
Edmonds (traded guys in the sysytem)
Rolen (trade)
Reyes
Wainwright
Duncan
Molina
Kennedy(first drafted and played with the Cards)
Mulder (even though most would probably still like to have Haren, Barton and Calero) Speaking of Calero he was picked up from KC when they had no success with him.
Most of the bull pen from last years WS run were guys either drafted or signed as minor league free agents.

So no matter what experts thought of the guys in the sysytem they were either able to make a pretty good ball club or were enough to bring some pretty good ball players in a trade. Basically every starter with teh exception of Eckstien and Encarnacion was drafted or traded for Cards minor leaguers. Not bad.

The system has improved, but it's still down. It's nice to have a couple of players in the system, but it's not where I would like it to be nor where the Cardinals would like it to be.

Alot of those examples you gave I'm not sure the point you are making. We got Rolen for Bud Smith, Timlin, and Polanco - all in the bigs at the time. Wainwright was a Brave draft, and both Edmonds and Kennedy were a long time ago. Reyes and Duncan have some definite possibilities, but on the other hand they have some serious doubts as well. As for Yadi, well I'm just tired of bashing him so I won't say anything else on that.

Pujols made a big difference, obviously, and if your point is you see some promise compared to recent past I definitely would agree.

[JohtoVillage]

Tag Bozied, Rasmus, Cate, Cavazos, Hawkesworth, Kiesler, Hansen, Ryan...I like all of these guys and think we're gonna get some cheap help in the very near future.

I agree with Rasmus, Cate, Hawksworth, and I guess Ryan.



But Bozied is a career minor league who is 27 years old and Keisler is 30 years old. While our guys have done something in the majors in the past few years, we really haven't had that top 5 farm system since we had the best two prospects in the game (Ankiel and Drew), but I do think it is getting better. Guys like Sillman, Garcia, and Worrell are certainly helping.

[cardfaninfla]

I think we tend to think it has been weak because the experts keep telling us it is weak. Let's really look at it though.

The system ( and when i say system I am going to include trades, free agents that were scouted, pretty much everything but striaght free agent signings) has given the Cards:

Pujols
Edmonds (traded guys in the sysytem)
Rolen (trade)
Reyes
Wainwright
Duncan
Molina
Kennedy(first drafted and played with the Cards)
Mulder (even though most would probably still like to have Haren, Barton and Calero) Speaking of Calero he was picked up from KC when they had no success with him.
Most of the bull pen from last years WS run were guys either drafted or signed as minor league free agents.

So no matter what experts thought of the guys in the sysytem they were either able to make a pretty good ball club or were enough to bring some pretty good ball players in a trade. Basically every starter with teh exception of Eckstien and Encarnacion was drafted or traded for Cards minor leaguers. Not bad.

The system has improved, but it's still down. It's nice to have a couple of players in the system, but it's not where I would like it to be nor where the Cardinals would like it to be.

Alot of those examples you gave I'm not sure the point you are making. We got Rolen for Bud Smith, Timlin, and Polanco - all in the bigs at the time. Wainwright was a Brave draft, and both Edmonds and Kennedy were a long time ago. Reyes and Duncan have some definite possibilities, but on the other hand they have some serious doubts as well. As for Yadi, well I'm just tired of bashing him so I won't say anything else on that.

Pujols made a big difference, obviously, and if your point is you see some promise compared to recent past I definitely would agree.

I am not sure why you didn't get the point, I thought it was pretty clear. We got Rolen for those three guys two of whom we drafted and brought up thorugh our system. Wainwright WAS a Brave draft that we traded Drew and Marrero to get, both once again drafted by the Cards. Edmonds and Kennedy may have been a while ago but were still involved in deals that were done by Jocketty.

So to make my point again here are the current players whgo were either drafted by or aquired via trades for guys who were drafted by the Cards.

Starting 8
Pujols (drafted)
Kennedy (drafted, traded, re-signed)
Rolen (Aquired for Smith, Polonco)
Molina (drafted)
Edmonds (Aquired using Kennedy)
Duncan (drafted)
Once again 6 of the starting 8 are here either because of being drafted or using players who were drafted by the Cards.

I am pretty sure Wainwright and Reyes will be in the 5 man this year so 2 of the starting 5 will either be draftees or aquired through trading drafted players and if Looper cracks the starting rotation he will be a third or when Mulder comes back he was aquired by trading Haren, Barton (draftee's) and Calero( a nice scouting find from the KC oprganization).

The bullpen will have 2 or 3 drafted guys in the mix. So regarless of where or how the experts rank us we are getting pretty good production from the system.

It could be better sure but I don't think it is a dire as many make out.

[Phyrkrakr]

The thing about our farm system is that it's pretty solid, but not spectacular. We have a lot of good pitching talent (good, but not great) and very few good position player prospects.

When people rank the Cardinals system low, it's not because we don't have potential big leaguers in our system. It's because we don't have top notch prospects who are capable of being either Cy Young pitchers or MVP position players. Obviously, not all of the best prospects in the league are going to win one of those awards, but, outside of Rasmus, I don't think any of our prospects have that kind of ceiling right now.

Note: I'm only talking about guys who aren't starters on the MLB roster right now.

[cardfaninfla]

In addition to Rasmus I think Garcia and Anderson are starting to get into the possible top of the rotation future star at his position range.

[TheoSqua]

The point of a farm system to me is the ability to fill in needs when they are present. The card's farm-system has been able to do that to an extent. Think of players like J-Rod, Wainwright, kinney, Tyler Johnson, Bo Hart , and a lot of the players already named in the thread and you notice that the farm system is doing it's job.

I won't say it's amazingly good because the cardinals have been forced to scour the scrap heap for depth (Weaver, Vizciano....was that his name?) because the farm system couldn't supply it. I mean the fact that we had to sign José Vizcaíno (i looked it up) to cover our backup utility spot over 16 games and 23 abs is a testiment to the fact that our farm system is lacking.

I concede to the experts who say were middle-of-the-pack at best and generally looked down as below-average, but that doesn't mean that our system has been utterly stagnant.