Draft Preview - St. Louis Cardinals

The twenty-third team draft preview on my blog focuses on the St. Louis Cardinals and their scouting director Jeff Luhnow.

Here's an excerpt from the writeup, which features small writeups on 25 players involved with Luhnow's work:

Jeff Luhnow is one of only a few scouting directors around baseball that also handle the player development department at the same time. This means that Luhnow is now solely responsible for prospects within the Cardinals’ organization, from drafting them to getting them to the Major Leagues. Needless to say, that’s a lot of pressure. The great thing about Jeff Luhnow is that he uses Twitter, and you can know where he is at times, though he hasn’t updated since last Monday. We’ll see if he sticks to that through the spring draft season. I, for one, would love to see what comes of that account. He has run five drafts with the Cardinals so far, and it would be interesting to see some form of public interest in his sixth. Looking at the trends from his first five years, I think you can see a specific Cardinal style of drafting and development. On the hitting side of things, it’s pretty obvious that he prefers players with good defensive value. Stock and Jackson were both considered questionable bats when they were picked a year ago, though no one doubted their defensive tools. That’s been fairly universal throughout the drafts that Luhnow has run, and I think it’s an interesting philosophy. He hasn’t shown a solid preference for prep or college bats, though he does like the solid college bats with some pop in there. That’s a pretty solid philosophy, though he’s been fine with going after up the middle prep bats, too, such as Kozma, Vasquez, and Rasmus. On the pitching side of things, he has shown a general preference for finished products with solid secondary stuff. This has led to more collegiate picks than prep picks, but he was quick to jump on the Shelby Miller train last June when he fell down to the Cards at the 19th pick. Generally, though, Luhnow greatly prefers college arms with durability and developed secondary stuff. These are general trends, and Luhnow has shown a willingness to go almost anywhere for talent.

Direct link here.

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What do you think? What will the Cardinals do?