Top 20 St. Louis Cardinals 2010 Pre-Season Prospects in Review
by John Sickels on Aug 9, 2025 7:00 PM EDT
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Here is a review of the 2010 Cardinals prospect list, originally published December 12, 2025. THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE OLD LIST AND PRE-SEASON GRADES. THIS IS NOT A NEW LIST. The 2011 list and new grades won't be ready until the season is over and I start writing the book.
1) Shelby Miller, RHP, Grade B: 3.86 ERA, 103/25 K/BB in 79 innings for Low-A Quad Cities, 79 hits allowed. Strict pitch counts keep his innings down, but you have to love the K/BB and K/IP. He's doing well.
2) Jaime Garcia, LHP, Grade B-: 2.53 ERA, 97/46 K/BB in 121 innings for the Cardinals, 113 hits. Excellent rookie season.
3) Lance Lynn, RHP, Grade B-: 5.34 ERA, 107/49 K/BB in 128 innings for Memphis, 135 hits, 17 homers. Pitched well in May and July, mediocre in April, horrible in June.
4) Robert Stock, C, Grade B- .213/.301/.269 in 249 at-bats for Quad Cities. Rookie league performance last year looks like an illusion, although he's still drawing a few walks. I wouldn't give up on him as a catcher just yet, but pitching is always an option if he can't get the bat going again.
5) Daryl Jones, OF, Grade B-: .246/.341/.359 for Double-A Springfield, 13 steals. His skills just aren't evolving in the way I had hoped.
6) Eduardo Sanchez, RHP, Grade B-: 3.10 ERA, 43/17 K/BB in 41 innings, 32 hits combined between Springfield and Memphis. Not bad at all, looks like he can be a good reliever, gets lots of grounders.
7) Allen Craig, OF, Grade B-: .322/.389/.558 in Triple-A, .205/.265/.318 in 17 major league games. He'll hit if he gets the playing time.
8) David Freese, 3B, Grade C+: .296/.361/.404 in 70 major league games. I think the power will increase in time, if he can stay healthy.
9) Jon Jay, OF, Grade C+: .321/.394/.491 in Triple-A, .371/.417/.553 in 54 major league games. He's not really that good, but he should be a solid player for a long time.
10) Joe Kelly, RHP, Grade C+ 3.38 ERA, 78/38 K/BB in 93 innings for Quad Cities, 83 hits, 3.07 GO/AO. Love the grounders, need to see him at higher levels.
11) Dan Descalso, 2B, Grade C+: .272/.349/.413 for Memphis. Blah.
12) Tyler Henley, OF, Grade C+: Started off .205/.255/.295 in 26 games for Memphis, then .367/.397/.600 in 16 games for Springfield. Now out with Tommy John surgery.
13) Blake Hawksworth, RHP, Grade C: 5.37 ERA, 45/32 K/BB in 70 major league innings, 96 hits. Obviously that's not very good.
14) Tyler Greene, SS, Grade C: .291/.362/.465 for Memphis, .265/.359/.412 in 28 major league games. Greene is quite interesting...he has very good tools but it has taken him a long time to develop skills, and he'll always strike out a lot. This is the kind of player who could have a stunningly good year at some point (say 2011 at the age of 27) then struggle to repeat it.
15) Steven Hill, C-1B, Grade C: .280/.353/.538 with 21 homers, 38 walks, 89 strikeouts for Springfield. Opinion hasn't changed; he's got a lot of pop but his plate discipline would be troublesome in the majors.
16) Pete Kozma, SS, Grade C: .237/.313/.354 in 396 at-bats for Springfield. Blah.
17) Francisco Samuel, RHP, Grade C: 3.18 ERA, 35/24 K/BB in 28 innings between Florida State, Texas, and PCL, 20 hits allowed, seven saves. Good K/IP and H/IP marks, needs to lower walks.
18) Scott Bittle, RHP, Grade C: His arm was slagged in college.
19) Mark Hamilton, 1B, Grade C: Has been limited to 57 games (48 Triple-A, nine GCL rehab) by injury but has hit well, .284/.380/.518. 26 years old now, could have a Garrett Jones-like breakthrough next year if he finds a different position or a new team.
20) Tyler Norrick, LHP, Grade C: 5.03 ERA, 42/36 K/BB in 39 innings between High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A. Nice strikeout rate, too many walks.
A blah farm system. There are some interesting older prospects who can be useful, even very good major leaguers under the right conditions, but the lack of high ceiling guys on the list beyond Miller was obvious heading into the season and even more obvious now. On the other hand, Garcia has been great, Freese wasn't bad, and the development of Jay made Ryan Ludwick expendable.
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Carlos Matias
What’s the deal with him? He is having a great year for the DSL Cards and I really think he can be something special.
Any thoughts/reports on him?
by jepmotors on Aug 9, 2025 7:11 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
matias
john answered a question about him earlier and i believe the answer was something along the lines of he doesn’t know much at this point and DSL stats don’t have the same meaning as minor league stats, particularly given the small sample size.
about all we know is that he can bring the heat.
by dmb60614 on Aug 10, 2025 11:34 AM EDT up reply actions
Gotta agree
I also like what I’ve seen out of Nick Longmire and Cody Stanley thus far. Hopefully neither have Robert Stock Syndrome.
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by Whiteyballer on Aug 10, 2025 8:42 AM EDT up reply actions
FWIW
If anyone goes looking, it’s Taveras, and he does look interesting.
by blackoutyears on Aug 10, 2025 11:40 AM EDT up reply actions
He does look interesting
One thing that jumped out at me even in this very small sample size is his home/road splits. It may be nothing but he’s killing the ball at home and maintaining strong BB and K rates but he’s nowhere near as successful anywhere else.
http://bullpenbanter.com
by gatling on Aug 10, 2025 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Splits
are so hard to gauge in the low minors. I put him in the same boat as Arcia and a lot of others: let ‘em do it in full season ball before we get excited, right? It’s certainly worth noting the splits, though, for historical purposes.
by blackoutyears on Aug 11, 2025 2:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Right
I was just surprised how drastically different his home/road numbers were. You don’t hear much about Short Season leagues/parks being either hitter or pitcher friendly that I recall. The K rate/BB rate is what I found most odd, because it is radically different.
http://bullpenbanter.com
by gatling on Aug 13, 2025 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions
The K:BB
splits in particular are what I’m referring to; I think you need a lot more time than SS samples provide. I was just looking at Scott Cousins’ home/road the other day and it’s bizarre. 100 point difference in ISOP and strikes out twice as much at home as on the road. Hard to know why that’s happening or how significan it is, eh? Power discrepancies make more sense, bit still, based on this few PAs? What did you find out about Arcia’s home park?
by blackoutyears on Aug 14, 2025 12:11 PM EDT up reply actions
Joe Kelly
Has one of the biggest fastballs in baseball, I would say that is kind of high ceiling.
by bigboy1234 on Aug 9, 2025 7:29 PM EDT reply actions
HIgh A?
Shelby Miller, RHP, Grade B: 3.86 ERA, 103/25 K/BB in 79 innings for High-A Quad Cities
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I checked Quad Cities was in the Midwest League which is Low-A ball. Did they get promoted to a higher league like they do with teams in the English Soccer Leagues?
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
by Fla-Giant on Aug 9, 2025 7:37 PM EDT reply actions
John, I didn’t point that out as a snide remark. I appreciate all the great work that you do and time that you put in to make this a go-to site. It was just that when I frist read the blurb I did a double-take, I thought that Miller would have to be one of the top 2 best pitching prospects in the country if he was dominating high-A ball at the age of 19 in his first pro season. Not being wholly familiar with Quad Cities, and I actually had to go check it out for myself at milb.com.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
by Fla-Giant on Aug 9, 2025 10:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I think teams can move leagues btw
Minor league teams definitely switch between major league teams. The major hindrance to switching levels, though, seems that most minor leagues are populated in just one region.
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by OldProspects on Aug 10, 2025 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions
2010 Draft
Adding Zach Cox, Seth Blair, Tyrell Jenkins, Jordan Swagerty, and Austin Wilson (obvious longshot) would go a long way in improving the system.
3B Matt Carpenter has had a heck of a year. Not sure what will become of him, but he’d have to fit into a revised Top 20 somewhere.
by cardinalpride on Aug 9, 2025 7:38 PM EDT reply actions
Agreed
Wilson and Cox slot right behind Miller right away if they sign.
by Toddius on Aug 9, 2025 10:32 PM EDT up reply actions
The Cardinals have had a few guys make progress at the lower levels...
But overall a weak farm system hasn’t really had much in the way of breakthroughs this year, unless you count a decent draft and international signing in Matias.
Depending on who they sign from the draft I shouldn’t have to be as embarrassed about the system, so hopefully things work out.
by oplaid on Aug 9, 2025 9:25 PM EDT reply actions
I'd be tempted to call Carpenter a breakthrough.
And what more can you ask of Jon Jay? Even if his BABIP declines by 50 points (which is not unlikely), I don’t think “breakthrough” overstates what he’s doing.
StanTheManFan
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Except when writing for this list.
by StanTheManFan on Aug 9, 2025 10:04 PM EDT up reply actions
I could ask him not to steal Allen Craig's playing time!
Nothing Jay has done this year was outside of what I expected of him after last year. Last season in AAA he posted a 6% BB% and an 11.3% K% in over 500 PA with a .113 ISO and a .306 BABIP, a BABIP low compared to his previous minor league results at AAA and lower levels. This season, repeating the level, in better health, he posted a higher BABIP in AAA which led to a higher ISO and he managed to increase his BB% a tic while maintaining the K rate. He’s managed to transition to the MLB very quickly, but he’s been in AAA since 2008 and has plenty of experience in the high minors, so it’s not surprising to see him doing well in the MLB at the age of 25.
Jay is a good player, but without his massive BABIP he’s not going to be all that valuable of a hitter. Granted, I think he’s probably the type of guy who can maintain a pretty decent BABIP around the .320-.330 range but that’s not going to be enough to make him any more than a 4th outfielder/second tier regular when you take into account the rest of his skills. He’s definitely a good player, and farm systems need to produce guys like him for their teams, but he’s not a prospect to really get excited about.
by oplaid on Aug 10, 2025 5:21 AM EDT up reply actions
+1
IMO, Craig and Ludwick are comparable hitters - solid corner OF bats, wheras Jay seems more like a useful 4th OF.
by guru4u on Aug 10, 2025 9:20 AM EDT up reply actions
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this system has been great.
Garcia could be starting games in the post season this year. David Freese was the starting third baseman for a playoff bound team until he got hurt. Jon Jay made Ludwick expendable which made acquiring Westbrook a possibility, which allowed the team to stop running Hawksworth as a starter and will allow them to eventually move Suppan somewhere else. Craig and Greene have helped the team at different points during the season and will keep doing so going forward.
This system lacks the typical “high ceiling” prospects, but they generate a lot of major leaguers. At some point, actually fielding a Major League team has to be the priority, and that’s why systems like this one and the ChiSox are always under-appreciated while they are successful at what they are supposed to be doing, which is, helping the major league team win.
Homegrown Starters: (Top Prospect Y/N?)
C: Molina (N)
1b: Pujos (Y)
2b: Shumaker/ Ryan (N)
3b: Freese (N)
SS: Ryan/Greene (N)
CF: Rasmus (Y)
RF: Jay (N)
S: Wainright (Y)
S: Garcia (N)
by Cesar V on Aug 9, 2025 10:23 PM EDT reply actions
From watching 8 AA games
It’s a BLAH team…. Hill is good. I think he’ll do okay in the future… but other than that, anyone at AA ? Carpenter has done okay.
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by 306008 on Aug 9, 2025 10:52 PM EDT up reply actions
AA is the blah team in this organization
But Springfield has had some really good teams the past few years. It happens. Now it’s NW Arkansas time to have an exciting team!
Overall this organization is better than I thought. I’m a Cardinals fan in non-Cardinal country so I don’t keep up with the minors like I used to when I lived in Memphis. But this organization has a few rays of hope. As someone else pointed out they have produced. Once Jocketty left and the propensity to trade prospects for geezers (like Jocketty trading Dickerson for Edmonds today) you can tell just how well the farm system has done in the past few years.
by KSM on Aug 9, 2025 11:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Pujols top prospect?
Was Pujols a top prospect? I don’t think he was. When he came to Memphis in 2000 for the playoff run we were thinking…who is this?
by KSM on Aug 9, 2025 11:04 PM EDT up reply actions
prospect retro
john had a nice prospect retro on pujols. some of publications were high on him for the 2001 rankings. he just kind of shot through the system too quickly to make a huge impact on the rankings.
https://www.minorleagueball.com/2010/3/19/1381585/albert-pujols-prospect-retro
by dmb60614 on Aug 10, 2025 11:39 AM EDT up reply actions
Wainwright
Came from the Braves in the JD Drew deal.
by gogotabata on Aug 9, 2025 11:05 PM EDT up reply actions
He was a Cardinals farm hand, though.
He didn’t reach the Show until quite a while after the trade. We can’t take credit for shrewd drafting, but he was still a product of the farm system.
StanTheManFan
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He's normally a nuclear physicist
Except when writing for this list.
by StanTheManFan on Aug 9, 2025 11:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Little of this, however, says anything about
what the system looked like as of December 2009. Most of those successes (and a system that produces a Pujols every ten or even twenty years has to qualify as “successful” in certain regards…) have been around for long enough to have no bearing on the current state of the system. What major-leaguers will there be 3 to 5 years from now who are currently farm hands? The pessimistic answer to that is the reason for John’s low ranking.
StanTheManFan
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He's normally a nuclear physicist
Except when writing for this list.
by StanTheManFan on Aug 9, 2025 11:12 PM EDT up reply actions
The Cards system definitely does a decent job of producing guys who can at least play at the Major League level, and I would agree that that is sometimes underrated
However at some point you need to produce star players or you’ll end up like the Pirates.
It’s useful right now that the Cardinals can plug in cheap talent around a core of star players like Pujols, Holliday, Rasmus, Wainwright, and Carpenter, but that only counts for so much, especially when you have to start paying Pujols a ransom in another year. The team can’t keep winning if all it gets are guys like Ryan and Jay and Schumaker who may be good for 1-2 WAR and maybe a little more if they have a lucky season.
Granted they’ve gotten a little more than that recently, but right now the future prospects are fairly dim past Shelby Miller and players acquired this year like Matias and Cox.
If Pujols leaves and Carpenter is gone at the end of his contract, what’s there to replace guys like that? Not much.
by oplaid on Aug 10, 2025 5:27 AM EDT up reply actions
I missed out on this discussion but I'll hop in now...
“Homegrown Starters: (Top Prospect Y/N?)
C: Molina (N)
1b: Pujos (Y)
2b: Shumaker/ Ryan (N)
3b: Freese (N)
SS: Ryan/Greene (N)
CF: Rasmus (Y)
RF: Jay (N)
S: Wainright (Y)
S: Garcia (N)"
Garcia and Molina WERE top prospects in the system. Molina was a 4th round pick and was always known as a potential gold glover behind the plate. We were expecting the next Matheny and we got him behind the plate with a better bat.
Garcia was always greatly underrated outside of St. Louis. Cards fans always had a good feeling that he’d be a potential #3 starter one day. He usually competed for the 2nd or 3rd spot in the Cards rankings behind Rasmus.
People were discussing Wainwright being a Brave draft pick. The trade off is that Dan Haren was a Cardinal pick. You also have to remember that Wainwright learned how to throw his cutter in the Cards system. He always had the curve but the cutter is a big reason why he is so successful.
by UncleBuck44 on Aug 13, 2025 7:26 PM EDT up reply actions
2004 & 05 he spent in the minors playing in the STL system
his 2004 was brutal, he was injured and his prsopec status was gone
by Cesar V on Aug 9, 2025 11:12 PM EDT reply actions
Who?
StanTheManFan
Contributes any way he can.
He's normally a nuclear physicist
Except when writing for this list.
by StanTheManFan on Aug 9, 2025 11:14 PM EDT up reply actions
I'd like to use a lifeline please
His arm was slagged in college.
Any help here?
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by Savoy on Aug 9, 2025 11:58 PM EDT reply actions
His arm
Was overused. Or used more than an MLB team would like a college pitcher to be used
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by Dttl89 on Aug 10, 2025 2:59 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
System "upside"
It’s quite fair to use “high upside” when discussing speedy centerfielder Oscar Taveras (.950+ OPS as the youngest regular in the Appy League) and strong-armed rightfielder Anthony Garcia (showing power & plate discipline as a teen in the GCL that hasn’t been seen since Hanley Ramirez nearly a decade ago).
Could they flame out? Sure, but the upside—especially with the stick—is stardom.
Bryan Anderson is FINALLY in an age-appropriate league (23 in AAA), has cut way down on the passed balls, he’s still throwing out a third of the thieves (33% this year, 34% career), and his isolated slugging is a solid .170; while he doesn’t show star potential, above-avg. regular seems likely if he gets a full shot somewhere.
Centerfielder Tommy Pham (phinally phreed phrom the Phlorida State League) is putting up a very nice AA line at age 22: .303/.397/.440, with sound strikezone command (17/27 BB/K). Pham’s a plus on the bases and in the pasture, so there’s surely 4-5 WAR “upside” in his prime years.
There are more, of course; guys like backstop Juan Castillo, a year old for the Appy, but hitting .340 with as many homers as strikeouts (four apiece in 66 PA’s). Or infielder Luis Mateo (19 on Opening Day), putting up a sturdy .770 OPS in the Midwest League. That twosome certainly has the upside of at least 3.5-4 WAR per season in their mid-late 20’s.
This was a mid-level system before the season began, and it remains mid-level now. Maybe even top 10-12, depending whether Matias gets his visa clearance and a start or two stateside.
by Mekonsrock on Aug 10, 2025 5:39 PM EDT reply actions
Garcia
any word on whether they’ll sincerely try him as a catcher? I was excited when I cam across him on First Inning and he was listed as such, but he’s only played a couple of games there.
by blackoutyears on Aug 11, 2025 3:06 PM EDT up reply actions
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