MLB Columnist Praises St. Louis Cardinals Farm System

MLB Pipeline’s Jonathan Mayo has praised the St. Louis Cardinals farm system for their performance over the past five years.

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Mayo comments that “the sheer volume of big league contributors, from All-Stars to role players, promoted from within has made the Cards of the past five years a model franchise.” Along the way, players such as Shelby Miller, Joe Kelly, Allen Craig, and David Freese have been traded. The trade of Freese paved the way for Matt Carpenter‘s move to third base and opening up the door for Kolten Wong at second base.

These trades were made possible “because of the confidence everyone in the front office has that the farm system will produce more talent,” Mayo writes. At the same time, some of these trades had to be made because the Cardinals have worked to rebuild their farm system with regards to some positions. Some players are a few years away from their debut and trades worked to plug one hole with the realization that there’s a surplus of outfielders in the system.

Mayo writes:

"There might be few certainties in baseball, but one is that St. Louis will always have a productive farm system. It’s the Cardinals’ way, and the only way for them to continue to be at or near the top of the NL Central. And it’s why I’ll claim the Cards right now for when we write this Pipeline Perspectives again in 2020."

The column comes on the heels of MLB.com ranking the top 30 prospects in the St. Louis organization and Jim Callis breaking down the top prospects in the organization. Understandably, the Cardinals didn’t make MLB.com’s top ten farm systems for 2015. With only one top prospect listed in MLBPipleline.com’s Top 100 Prospects, there’s no need to be upset about this.

In the positional breakdowns, first base and third base are where the Cardinals do not have depth of top prospects. With Matt Adams at first base and Carpenter covering third base, I do not see any reason to worry about this but the Cardinals may want some depth when it comes to a potential mid-season trade but, of course, everything is about pitching, pitching, pitching! With three left-handers and ten right-handers, the Cardinals are loaded with pitching arms.