Cardinals' Top Ten Prospects by Baseball Instincts

By Aaron Schafer Mon., Dec. 5 2011 at 1:32 PM

Categories: Aaron Schafer, Cardinals

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It's that time of year when prospect publications both digital and analog publish their top ten lists for the various organizations. Usually not the best time of year for Cardinal fans, really, seeing as how the farm system has typically been somewhere between moderately weak and completely barren most of the time.

Things are different this year, though. The Cards have a brilliant farm system, one of the best in all of baseball, and they're beginning to get some serious attention for it.

Baseball Instincts published their list a few days ago, and it's really quite good. I honestly had never heard of the site before, and have to give a tip of the hat to the guys over at Future Redbirds. The best part of this list, honestly, is the links to a couple other in-depth pieces they've done and the outstanding video of Carlos Martinez throwing. There's a real dearth of video on Martinez out there, so it's a serious treat to find over eleven minutes of footage.

The list itself is fairly close to most others, unsurprisingly, with one somewhat notable exception. The Baseball Instincts guys like Trevor Rosenthal more than most, putting him at number five in the system, just behind the pitching troika of Martinez, Shelby Miller, and Tyrell Jenkins and hitting machine Oscar Taveras. They also put Rosenthal in their list of the top 100 prospects in all of baseball, at #92.

Rosenthal, you may or may not know, is a big right-handed pitcher from Lee's Summit, Missouri. Good, good stuff, nice delivery, took off in a big way this season.

I have to admit, seeing Rosenthal ranked that highly is very exciting to me personally, both in terms of seeing the amazing depth the Cards have in terms of arms and just out of pure selfishness. I pegged Rosenthal as a system sleeper last year writing for the Maple Street Press Cardinals Annual, and he's actually managed to make me look pretty smart for a change.

Overall, it's a really good list, and looks like an excellent site just in general. Head on over and check it out.

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