St. Louis Cardinals’ 2016 Top Prospects: #21 Arturo Reyes

Today we will talk about the St. Louis Cardinals’ pitching prospect who is moving through the system like a rocket.

The St. Louis Cardinals might want to give the scout who made the trip to scout Marco Gonzales a raise, as while he scouted the former top prospect and first round draft pick, he found a gem in Arturo Reyes. Reyes is the prospect that came out of nowhere last season and surprised everyone with how he pitched.

Reyes was a 40th round draft pick in 2013 and teammates with Gonzales at Gonzales. So, obviously the Cardinals saw something they liked in the 2013 draft pick, but what makes him so special?

#22 Arturo Reyes SP

Season Stats:

Scout Grade: Fastball: 60 | Slider: 50 | Changeup: 50 | Command: 50*

Analysis: “Artie” as some call him, could be a bit higher on this list. He had a strong season that saw him pitch in three different levels this year. He was one of the dark horse minor league performers that I talked about during last season.

Reyes shot through the system with his ability to keep hitters in the ballpark. Hitters did manage to have a decent amount of success against him, as had some fairly high H/9 numbers, but Reyes kept them at bay, as is evident by his low ERA. According to his FIP numbers of 2.94 at AA Springfield, this was no fluke either.

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Reyes struggled quite a bit once he got to AAA Memphis, as hitters teed of him to a tune of .333 average and 7.82 ERA. This was a tad bit more than we should expect from him in the future, as hitters had a .382 BABIP against him (according to Fangraphs).

According to his profile on Baseball Prospectus (slider and changeup), he has plus command of his fastball and has good movement on the other two pitches. Reyes likely projects as a decent 3-5 starter, much in the way of a right-handed version of Tim Cooney. He is a definite gold mine find for the Cardinals’ organization who seems to have a knack for developing mid to low round picks.

Much like Cooney, Reyes is a pitch to contact type guy and he is going to need to improve on that a bit at AAA Memphis in order to get hitters out like he did at AA Springfield this year.

Roster Prediction: AAA Memphis

Reyes is likely an extreme long shot to end up in St. Louis next year, unless he comes up as a bullpen arm. There still would have to be an significant amount of injuries in the pen before even that would be a consideration. However, as he improves he could make someone like Seth Maness expendable in the future.

Next: Cardinals' 2016 Top Prospects #22 Daniel Poncedeleon

As good as he sounds, I simply don’t see a sustainable future in the rotation for Reyes with the Cardinals, which makes him an intriguing bullpen option.

Scout Grade via Baseball Prospectus