St. Louis Cardinals’ 2016 Top Prospects: #23 Sandy Alcantara

As if the St. Louis Cardinals didn’t have enough good pitching, they have another potential stud here in Alcantara.

The next prospect in our Top Prospects series is a pitcher who St. Louis Cardinals‘ fans could enjoy following extremely closely over the next few years. Sandy Alcantara is a guy who could be rated much higher on this list, and likely will move up on this list as time goes on, but for right now #23 is a good spot for him.

As the season progresses, we will get to see what Alcantara can bring to this organization, and how good he could potentially be. However, how good is he right now? What makes him so good?

Let’s take a look at that right now.

#23 Sandy Alcantara SP

Season Stats:

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Scout Grade: Fastball: 65 | Curveball: 45 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 45

Analysis: Alcantara is a solid starting pitching prospect that will be worth keeping an eye on. He’s at 6’4 170 right now and was signed by the Cardinals in 2013. Listening to Derrick Goold’s “Best Podcast in Baseball”, John Manuel was a guest and he listed Alcantara as a potential sleeper prospect for the Cardinals, much like Eliezer Alvarez, whom we talked about yesterday. 

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He has a good fastball that like fellow top prospect Junior Fernandez topped over 100 MPH and was listed as one of the Top 20 GCL prospects at #12. He’s got a couple good potential secondary pitches in his curve and changeup, as MLB.com reports.

Derek Shore of Scout.com has this to say about Alacantara’s offerings:

"“He has a plus fastball, and the more comfortable he is within his delivery; his stuff will take off. The right-hander also throws a “hard” breaking ball, that is “unbelievably sharp at times” then just rolls it over other times and his change is a work-in-progress pitch.”"

As Goold mentioned on the podcast, Fernandez, Sierra, Alcantara, Reyes, Sosa, etc. are different from the norm. Guys like Wong, Matt Carpenter, Michael Wacha, etc. were easy developmental guys from college.

These guys are young raw talent type guys that take a little more work than the College guys. Derrick Goold mentioned that this is the Cardinals’ challenging themselves.

You could say that the first of these was Carlos Martinez and with his success they have dipped their toe back into those waters and it seems to be working so far. Alcantara will continue to get better, and as he fills out his frame, it will be interesting to see how his repertoire improves.

Roster Prediction: Class A Peoria

While he has yet to have a full season yet, at age 20 and with so many other Latin players playing at Peoria next season, Alcantara is almost a lock to start there and stay there in his first full season.

Next: Cardinals' 2016 Top Prospects: #23 Sandy Alcantara

The Cardinals can be patient with Alcantara, with Alexander Reyes and others ahead of him, but as the Cardinals lose guys like Adam Wainwright, Lance Lynn, and Jaime Garcia over the next few years, Alcantara could fill in nicely in one of those slots in a few years.

Scout Grade via MLB.com