Baseball America makes cringeworthy prediction for Cardinals' next top draft pick

Baseball America might not yet have its finger on the pulse of the current St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals have long preached drafting and developing quality players as the center of their model for sustained success, and throughout much of that time under former president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, the team targeted the same type of polished, low-upside pitcher at the top of the draft. On the hitters side of the coin, the Cardinals have recently taken bigger swings, choosing Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Dylan Carlson and Nick Plummer in the first round out of high school over the past decade.

Plummer and Carlson didn't pan out with the Cardinals, and the sky is looking increasingly ominous for Gorman and Walker, but under Chaim Bloom and a revamped player development staff, the Cardinals need to continue aiming high with the young hitters they choose in the first round. Baseball America, however, seems unaware of this new strategy, as its initial projection of each team's 2026 first-round pick saddles the Cardinals with a low-ceiling high school shortstop at the 13th overall selection.

Baseball America predicts the Cardinals to draft Tyler Spangler in the first round.

Spangler, a Stanford commit, is more of a finished product than most prep hitters, owning strong strike zone awareness and an ability to hit the ball the other way. The left-handed hitter could still grow into more power if he puts more loft into his swing and fills out his frame. Defensively, Spangler has sound fundamentals and should be able to stick at shortstop if his body allows it. If not, he should profile well at third base.

Drafting Spangler would be a disservice to the new development staff that Bloom hired. A player who is seen as a solid all-around piece but doesn't have a plus-plus tool suggests that the front office doesn't believe its scouts can get the most out of a player with a higher ceiling. That philosophy may have resonated with previous versions of the Cardinals, but this iteration of the team should hold higher goals and put more faith in its developmental acumen.

The last player to fit this profile whom the Cardinals took in the first round was Pete Kozma, a shortstop out of Owasso High School. Kozma was better defensively than Spangler is, but similarly to Spangler, he was seen as a player who had four tools that were at least average and owned a smooth line-drive stroke. However, Kozma never panned out as hoped, holding a career .213 batting average and a .564 OPS. Of course, it's far from a guarantee that Spangler will wind up with a career similar to Kozma's, but he remains a poster child of the Cardinals' low-risk, low-reward draft style of days gone by.

If the Cardinals' most recent draft is any indication of their choices in the future, St. Louis will likely forgo Spangler for a hitter or pitcher with higher upside. In 2025, the Cardinals' first draft under Bloom, they grabbed Liam Doyle, an intense flamethrower who could front a rotation within a few seasons. They opted for a safer choice in the second round with Ryan Mitchell, a high-contact hitter in a similar vein to Spangler, and followed up with Tanner Franklin, a college teammate of Doyle's who also boasts a significant ceiling.

Unless Bloom radically alters the Cardinals' lauded new draft strategy, Spangler doesn't make much sense as a first-round pick for a team that looks to hold renewed confidence in its ability to develop players with high potential and plenty of room to grow.