A major revival in the minors: Cardinals player development goes on the power play

Two years into their overhaul of the minor-league system to modernize it, staff it, and reanimate it, the Cardinals are on the power play.

By adjusting their scouting focus and expanding their avenues for acquiring talent (i.e., trading All-Stars during one whirlwind winter), the Cardinals have radically changed the potential within the system, especially when it comes to power. An example of this was a recent exercise by Baseball America that had hosts of the Prospect Podcast draft teams of power hitters and also power pitchers. The Cardinals had five hitters, including top prospect Rainiel Rodriguez and breakout talents Joshua Baez and Jose Baez, selected, four of them by one BA writer. The same BA writer chose several rising talents for his power pitching team.

Geoff Pontes, a prospect writer at BA, joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss his selections and the state of the Cardinals' farm system with Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold.

Pontes sees not only the Cardinals' answers at third base and for the middle of the order ascending (and fast) in the system, but for the possibilty of two pitchers arriving in 2027 who could be the left-right, Nos. 1-2 combo in Liam Doyle and Tanner Franklin, respectively. 

Prospects specifically discussed include: Jake Gurevitch, Doyle, Franklin, Rodriguez, Jesus Baez, Joshua Baez, Josiah Ragsdale, Sandro Santana, Daniel Eagen, Jack Martinez, Nate Dohm, Brandon Clarke, and more.

During the conversation, both writers reference the 20 to 80 scale used by scouts to describe upside for various tools, such as 70 power or a 60 slider. Eighty is rarely given, but the higher the score the better.

And this episide of the BPIB is an 80 conversation. 

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In its 14th season as one of the first and most widely heard podcasts on baseball and the Cardinals, the Best Podcast in Baseball has reached a new season-high with 30 episodes. Each episode is sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and lead baseball writer Derrick Goold.