Comments on: Baseball America’s Top 30 Cardinals

By: Bananas

Bananas — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:43:21 +0000

Why is Chris Perez so high on most everyones list? From what I hear he has major control issues. Now if he fixed that problem. You could compare him to Joba. He’s too high imo. I think Jaime should be higher than 5.

By: Jeremy Dahlstrom

Jeremy Dahlstrom — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:22:40 +0000

Nice to see Tyler Greene still clinging to a spot in the top 30.

And after seeing Jones a bit last season at QC I can say I am not surprised he didn’t make the cut. Watching him play you can tell he is a truly blessed athletic talent but I don’t know if things are ever going to “click” with him. At times he appears to be overwhelmed by the fundamentals of the game.

By: siddfynch

siddfynch — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:08:26 +0000

Tyler Henley?

Where’s he at? Surprised he doesn’t make it into the top 30.

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:10:40 +0000

The minor league depth will be a real challenge for Mo. He will need to pick the winners and losers (which won´t always be clear) and he´ll have to figure out how to package multiple good (but not great) talent to get better talent. I hope he is up to the task.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:16:17 +0000

Per BA:

St. Louis Cardinals
Signed: 1B Chris Gibson

The son of Hall of Fame righthander Bob Gibson, Chris played college ball for Southeast Missouri State. The lefty-hitting first baseman signed with independent Gateway (Frontier) for the 2007 season and batted .260/.316/.304. He was drafted in the 47th round out of Bellevue (Neb.) East High by the Cardinals in 2002.

By: easy

easy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:47:29 +0000

And Romulo Ruiz. Agree that the depth is unprecedented in this century but I don’t think that we can give Luhnow and company an A grade until we find out if any more of the recent high picks look like impact players. Without Colby this would still be a depressing list unless a few other guys really rock this year.

By: Swirls_AEPi

Swirls_AEPi — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:41:04 +0000

Don’t forget Ryde Rodriguez as well.

By: KCardinal

KCardinal — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:50:29 +0000

You may also see Edgar Lara and Andres Rosales, among others, getting nods in the top 30 after next year. It takes a little time, and sometimes more than 1 year, to get noticed coming from what had been an extinct Latin-American program. It will take some time to start convincing some of the scouts, although it sounds like De La Cruz already has quite a few believers.

Funny thing is, in 2004, Cruz, despite his entry-level status, had he been here, he would have likely cracked out top 10. Definitely another indicator that our depth has drastically improved.

By: Lou Schuler

Lou Schuler — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:43:31 +0000

Also, just two guys from the Latin American program are mentioned here, at 17 and 30.

It’ll be interesting to see if guys like Juan Mosquera (SS) and the Gonzalez non-brothers (Carlos and Reynier, both RHP) crack this list a year from now.

By: Silent George

Silent George — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:51:46 +0000

I find it interesting that there are so many players that don’t overlap between the various lists. In addition to the names mentioned above as not being in another list, Sickles mentioned Derby, Descalso, Eager, Henley, Kopp, Stavinoah, and Zawacki. So in the 5 lists, 46 different players are mentioned (if I counted correctly). I think that indicates good depth, but another explanation would be that after the first 15-20 players that everyone seems to agree on, the remaining players are interchangeable minor league replacement level players picked almost randomly to fill out the list. Sickles list could have stopped at 20, however, so by mentioning the others he must think they have true potential, so I’ll be optimistic.