***Official 2024 STL Cardinals Thread ***

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Looking like another possible 5th starter in a system where Tink Hence MIGHT project to be a 3rd starter and the organization won't pay to acquire a top of the rotation guy.

If you're lucky, Hence, Robberse and Graceffo can make a viable 3-4-5 (and realistically, one of those guys won't make it so you're looking at hoping someone like Hjerpe makes a leap to backfill there; and as a 23 yr old with middling numbers in his 2nd go round through A+, there's little reason to truly hope there).

There's just very very little to look forward to in this entire organization. I mean our recent 1st round pick, Chase Davis, is down in A ball (not even High A) and has a sub-600 OPS for the 2nd straight year despite being overaged for the level.

I mean ultimately we have 2 guys in our top 10 prospects in Crooks and Bernal who are A) Catchers (so buried by our best young player AND the only veteran we have who was actually hitting and has 3 years left on his deal after this one) and B) Just not great prospects. They're that high by default - If your lucky, Cooks and Bernal are quality backup catchers someday.

But when you use trade capital on guys like Cesar Prieto, this is going to be the state of your system. When you don't know who's actually good so every trade you make is just a poo poo platter of C- prospects, you probably shouldn't be shocked when your system is full of JAG prospects.

In no world should this team have been eager to add Cesar Prieto or Drew Rom to the system. Except that Mozeliak knows he sucks so he's content just throwing numbers at the problem in the hopes he gets lucky.

Things just look awfully dim for a very long time. We're 5 years away from relevance. If we're lucky.

BUT...BUT we have so much talent we have a logjam keeping our talent down on the farm.