Baseball America projects the Cardinals to tap into the college ranks in the MLB Draft

Now that the days are longer and parts of the country are finally starting to warm up, fans can turn their attention to Opening Day coming up at the end of the month. The real baseball sickos, especially those who may not believe their team has a shot at the World Series in 2026, may be looking even further down the road. That may be true for some St. Louis Cardinals fans who refuse to buy into the hype surrounding the young squad we will see take the field at Busch Stadium this year.

Baseball America's first mock draft has the Cardinals grabbing LSU outfielder Derek Curiel in the first round.

The Cardinals have started the trimming of their Spring Training roster and have maybe tipped their hand at what the Opening Day roster may look like with their recent moves. The expectation is that outfielder Lars Nootbaar will begin the season on the injured list and the team may simply want him healthy just to increase his trade value and move on. That would create the currently vacant left field position into a long-term opportunity for someone to grab hold of that spot, but it might take a cycle of players before that finally happens.

While that shuttle of players in the outfield happens, the Cardinals will also be focusing their attention on the June First-Year Player Draft, where the lottery luck evaded them this year, so they will be picking 13th overall. The college baseball season has been underway for just about a month, and draft pundits are already throwing out their predictions for the event taking place during All-Star week. After focusing on high-upside arms last season, Baseball America's first mock draft (subscription required) has the Cardinals going with offense this time.

Carlos Collazo from BA noted how scouts feel that this year's crop of talent is pretty predictable at the top, so Collazo feels that this Mock Draft 1.0 could be more accurate than year's past, barring injury or someone making headlines for better or worse. As usual, plenty of shortstops and polished pitching prospects make up much of the top 10, and when it gets to the Cardinals, they will have an interesting decision to make whether to go pitching or offense, high school or college.

Collazo feels that, based on the Cardinals' typical strategy from years past when looking at hitters, Derek Curiel, an outfielder from LSU, fits the organization's preference for bat-to-ball skills. In that sense, the selection makes sense, as Curiel hit .345 last season with a wild .990 OPS and a 56:53 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his sophomore season with the Tigers. Both Baseball America and FanGraphs rank Curiel as a 55-60 grade hitter with great speed and the ability to play all three outfield positions, but hopefully center field. While FanGraphs gives the outfielder a 70-grade speed ranking, the lefty has only stolen a total of eight bases so far in his college career.

A pitch that matters has not yet been thrown in the MLB yet this year, but that did not stop scouts and insiders from doing their homework on the next crop of professional talent. Since it is March, it is likely that this mock draft will change a handful of times before the real thing, but it will be interesting to follow if the Cardinals are searching for pitching again or make the switch to offense.