Baseball America’s 2027 prospect shake-up shows how loaded the Cardinals’ farm has become

Want to know how loaded the St. Louis Cardinals farm system is right now? In Baseball America's top 10 prospects ahead of the 2027 season, Joshua Baez fell to the fifth-best prospect, and guys like Quinn Mathews, Alexander Frias (who they had as a top-100 prospect in 2026), and Cooper Hjerpe don't even make the top 10.

That just goes to show you how good this system is.

The biggest move on this list may be that of Tanner Franklin, who Baseball America now has slotted in as the Cardinals' number three prospect and seemingly guarantees he'll be a top 100 prospect once their list is unveiled. For context, Joshua Baez, who slid down to their fifth-ranked prospect, was the 55th-ranked prospect in all of baseball in Baseball America's final top 100 update.

Franklin had an incredible season in his first full year in the Cardinals system. Transitioning from being in the bullpen at the University of Tennessee, Franklin posted a 3.94 ERA in 105 innings pitched, striking out 29.8% of the batters he faced. Franklin's stuff has graded out as among the best in all of minor league baseball, and I fully expect him to be in the top 50 on BA's next list.

The other fun part of looking at Baseball America's updated list is seeing the prospects who earned themselves in a climb into the top 10 of their rankings ahead of the 2027 season

Tekoah Roby and Jesus Baez surged into Cardinals top 10 prospect ranking on Baseball America

It should come as no surprise to any Cardinals fan that Jesus Baez and Tekoah Roby are now in the top 10 prospects in their system after their performances this year.

Baez, who was acquired in the Ryan Helsley trade at the 2025 trade deadline from the New York Mets, has firmly put himself into the Cardinals' future plans now after hitting over 40 home runs between High-A, Double-A, and the Double-A postseason this year. He has one of the more unique profiles in the sport, swinging a ton, yet having a pretty darn good feel for the strike zone, rarely walking, and pumping huge, game-breaking power in his bat.

Most figure that Baez will be the Cardinals' third baseman of the future, but president of baseball operations, Chaim Bloom, isn't ruling out a future at shortstop.

Roby was close to making his MLB debut in 2025 as he started to carve up Triple-A hitters, but Tommy John surgery ended up knocking him out for the second half of that season and all of the 2026 regular season. Roby did get to make his way down to the Arizona Fall League, absolutely dominating opposing hitters. The Cardinals see him as a real contender for a rotation spot in 2027, and he'll surely impact the club throughout the year.

This just goes to show how hard, in a good way, it is to rank the Cardinals farm system right now. There are so many exciting prospects down on the farm, and so there are guys who don't rank highly on Baseball America's list who for sure would in other systems.

When talking to one Cardinals official, they stressed that many of the prospects in the Cardinals farm system who won't even crack their top 30 would be seen as top 20, 15, or even top 10 prospects in other farm systems. That's how loaded they have become in such a short amount of time.

It's an exciting time to follow the Cardinals farm system. Some of those young prospects began to break through in 2026, and 2027 should be the year that gets turned up another notch.

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