Also I had to do something drastic because the voting did not add up
My original plan was for this to be a Winter Warmup post, but I changed my mind. I kind of want to do this right and not feel rushed. There’s not really a timeliness aspect to Winter Warmup. Oh sure all the Arenado stuff is irrelevant if he gets traded, but that was kind of addressed in my Mozeliak post and I wasn’t really planning to revisit that. The ideas I have could function as season previews written during spring training. I actually think, in some way, the post or posts could work better if the season were closer.
The reasoning is pretty simple. I would have prioritized certain interviews to write the idea I had for today, and that would mean ignoring other interviews. I didn’t want to be in the position where one of the people I ignored had something insightful to say that applied to the article topic idea. So you’ll get it at some point, I would say the earliest would probably be in anticipation of spring training games starting, that would be a good time. And we’ll see if I have more ideas as I go through the quotes.
The winner was Cooper Hjerpe, but it ended up being a close race.
- JJ Wetherholt, SS
- Quinn Mathews, LHP
- Tink Hence, RHP
- Thomas Saggese, 2B/3B
- Jimmy Crooks III, C
- Michael McGreevy, RHP
- Chase Davis, OF
- Leonardo Bernal, C
- Cooper Hjerpe, LHP
Comparable Player Corner
Okay I got a good one for you guys. These are two starting pitchers who are both 22-years-old and are both right-handed. The way they arrived where they are at on the Cardinals is very different though. One of them is already Rule 5 eligible, the other hasn’t pitched an inning. We’ve actually featured him before. Here are your choices:
Brian Holiday, the Cardinals 3rd round choice out of Oklahoma State who has not thrown a professional inning yet. He’s a control guy without great stuff who sounds very similar to Michael McGreevy in the way he is described.
Juan Salas, who fits more of the Saladin mold of prospect. He’s been around without making much of a splash until he arrived in Low A this year. He is so little known that The Cardinal Nation calls him Gerardo Salas, and I assume they’re correct, but both B-R and FG have Juan as his first name. Anyway, he’s Saladin with worse stats (though still good) and without a promotion to High A.
New addition
I don’t necessarily have an obvious candidate, so to me it makes sense to use this as an excuse to add another AAA pitcher. I realized I had a bit of a conundrum after the results of the comparable player poll between Gordon Graceffo, Max Rajcic, and Ian Bedell. The reason for that is because Rajcic and Bedell got an almost equal amount of votes in that poll. And since Graceffo dominated the voting, just because one of the guys barely got 2nd doesn’t mean he’d do better in the voting. The conundrum is that I’m adding one player at a time from now on. Thus, I feel I have to be a bit early in adding one of the two players.
This feels like a good time to do that. Graceffo received 9% of the votes in the last poll, so he’s clearly a contender to win this vote. I’ll add the third place guy once Graceffo finds his way on the top 20 list. Feels like a good solution to me. The 2nd place winner, barely, was Max Rajcic.
Won-Bin Cho, OF – 21
LYR: #11
Stats (High A): 107 G, 428 PAs, .227/.307/.305, 8.4 BB%, 31.3 K%, .078 ISO, .343 BABIP, 81 wRC+, 74 DRC+
BP: “Cho profiles favorably in the field, a solid corner outfield defender thanks to above-average speed and adequate reads, but is likely stretched in center field.”
There is no question that Cho had a huge setback last season. Some may even call it a lost year. Hopefully, he uses the lessons from that year to improve his game. He still has time. He is entering his age 21 season and playing at High A, which is still pretty young for his level despite the “lost” year.
Gordon Graceffo, RHP – 25
LYR: #6
Stats (AAA): 27 G, 130 IP, 18.4 K%, 8.6 BB%, 40.2 GB%, .328 BABIP, 4.85 ERA/5.17 FIP/5.17 xFIP
BP: “He averaged 92.8 in Triple-A and 93.5 in a brief spell in the majors this season, and at that velocity his fastball shape really isn’t enough to miss bats and his changeup doesn’t play as well as a swing-and-miss pitch.”
I don’t really know where they’re getting this intuition, but Roster Resource has Gordon Graceffo making the Opening Day roster as a reliever. I assume he would make the bullpen with the same logic that led to Matthew Liberatore being in the bullpen. Which is to say, let him prove he can get hitters out in short bursts and then we’ll see where we stand. Or they’re wrong and he’ll be in Memphis to start the year as a normal starting pitching prospect.
Travis Honeyman, OF – 23
LYR: #20
Stats (Low A): 14 G, 60 PAs, .321/.367/.446, 5 BB%, 13 K%, .125 ISO, .375 BABIP, 133 wRC+
BP: Honeyman has a punchy little line-drive oriented swing, a tight barrel loop that generates explosive impact out in front of the plate. He’s geared to turn and burn, sending most of his contact to the pull side.
It’s not uncommon to see a prospect like Honeyman as a pitcher. It’s less common when the injury-prone player is a position player. And that’s even more unpredictable honestly. It’s entirely possible he got unlucky and his first two pro seasons are not representative of how much he’ll get injured in the future. Hopefully he is at least healthy enough to display his tools.
Chen-Wei Lin, RHP – 23-years-old
LYR: Unranked
Stats (Low A): 22 GS, 116 IP, 26.6 K%, 7.8 BB%, 45.3 GB%, .282 BABIP, 2.79 ERA/2.94 FIP/3.38 xFIP/3.82 DRA
BP: “Lin turns 23 next week and has yet to pitch above Low-A, but whenever a pitcher pairs this sort of velocity on his fastball with an extremely high-whiff changeup, the right dev team is going to have a lot to work with.”
Lin is a 6’7 giant who was old for his level, but did the three things you’re supposed to do as a pitcher: strike hitters out, don’t walk them, and get groundballs. He wasn’t necessarily elite at any of them, but he was good at two of them and a little better than average at the third.
Max Rajcic, RHP – 23
LYR: #12
Stats (AA): 25 G, 131 IP, 23.1 K%, 7.7 BB%, 39.2 GB%, .314 BABIP, 4.33 ERA/4.41 FIP/4.03 xFIP/4.59 DRA
BP: “He has a very pretty looking but humpy curveball, though his changeup has actually taken a step forward to claim the title of his best offspeed offering (to go along with various flavors of slider).”
It is slightly surprising to me that Rajcic is not a groundball pitcher. I don’t know why that is surprising. I guess I associate the pitchability prospects as groundball pitchers automatically. Maybe blame Michael McGreevy for that one. He was essentially average at AA at 22-years-old.
Sem Robberse, RHP – 23
LYR: #10
Stats (AAA): 16 G (14 GS), 84.1 IP, 21.8 K%, 7.8 BB%, 44 GB%, .273 BABIP, 4.59 ERA/4.77 FIP/4.61 xFIP/5.25 DRA
BP: Robberse at least has some whiffier offerings in his sweeper and hard changeup—which is only four mph off his fastball—and his cutterish slider has utility too, so of this group he might have the most relief conversion potential.
Robberse had a strong start to his year last year – he allowed 2 or less earned runs in his first six starts – then had a mixture of good and bad starts before an injury knocked him out for two months. The rest of his season was building back up his stamina, but really his season was completely derailed by the injury.
Rainiel Rodriguez, C – 18
LYR: Not in organization
Stats (DSL): 41 G, 184 PAs, .345/.462/.683, 16.3 BB%, 13.6 K%, .338 ISO, .345 BABIP, 186 wRC+
BP: “He hits the ball pretty hard for his age, makes enough contact, controls the zone well, and might stick behind the dish.”
The good news with Rodriguez is that he’s a catcher. His bat can fall off quite a bit and he’d still be considered a legitimate prospect. And for now at least, his bat was good enough that he might still be considered a prospect even if he did move off catcher. So there are at least multiple avenues to success.
Tekoah Roby, RHP – 23
LYR: #4
Stats (AA): 7 GS, 33.1 IP, 21.4 K%, 7.8 BB%, 37.4 GB%, 6.75 ERA/6.59 FIP/4.19 xFIP/5.47 DRA
BP: “Roby is a stuff-model darling. The problem is that Roby just can’t stay healthy, and even when he pitched this year his stuff wasn’t as sharp and he got tattooed.”
Lost year. Statistics probably influenced by his injury that knocked him out for most of the year. If injuries were not a massive red flag, he’d be right up there with the other top pitching prospects of the system. He was last year.
Darlin Saladin, RHP – 22
LYR: Unranked
Stats (Low A): 11 G, 60 IP, 26.8 K%, 7.4 BB%, 44.7 GB%, .287 BABIP, 1.95 ERA/2.61 FIP/3.29 xFIP/3.16 DRA
High A: 12 G, 63 IP, 27.9 K%, 6.2 BB%, 42.8 GB%, 42.8 GB%, .344 BABIP, 3.43 ERA/2.73 FIP/3.29 xFIP/4.00 DRA
BP: “Saladin is another low-VAA fastball oddity king; you can really see the Cardinals trending hard in this direction over the past few years. After three years mostly bopping around the complex, he showed up in A-ball this year and torched both levels working primarily off a low-to-mid-90s heater from a flat angle.”
Saladin was probably the big surprise of the system. You could maybe give that to Quinn Mathews, but we at least knew who he was. Even prospect hounds were caught off guard by Saladin’s ascension. For a guy who spent two years in the DSL and an another in the complex league with not particularly impressive stats, he managed to spend half of his first season in Low A in High A as well.
Zack Showalter, RHP – 21
LYR: #21 (He was close to winning 20th vote)
Stats (Low A): 24 G, 34.1. IP, 38.6 K%, 11.8 BB%, 43.9 GB%, .373 BABIP, 2.62 ERA/2.48 FIP/3.02 xFIP
BP: “His low-90s, sub-4 VAA fastball out of an extremely funky delivery was absurdly dominant against Low-A hitters, and he also weaponized a sweeper against same-side batters for a very tough look.”
Drafted in 2022 and with a 2023 and 2024 that both ended early, Showalter has not yet experienced a full season in pro ball. The innings target that the Cardinals probably had for Showalter was not quite reached, although he did throw more innings than in 2023. Hopefully, he will start some games and throw more innings per appearance than last season.