Cardinals listed among brightest futures in all of Major League Baseball

Over the last two years, the St. Louis Cardinals have made their priorities clear: Get younger, acquire more young talent, do a better job of developing said young talent. They've excelled at all three of those things, and that has the baseball world excited about their future.

On a recent episode of the Just Baseball Podcast, Aram Leighton and Peter Appel discussed the teams in baseball with the brightest futures, and Leighton had high praise for where the Cardinals are right now.

"I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the St. Louis Cardinals," said Leighton, one of the premier voices in the prospect evaluation community. "Rainiel Rodriguez is putting up one of the best teenage seasons we've seen. Now, I don't know what the glove is going to look like, but my gosh, is he good offensively. Liam Doyle, I was very low on him relative to others, and I still have some doubts, but he has taken a big step forward. You look at what this team has controllable talent-wise at the top, they did a really good job at the deadline, trading major pieces and still bringing in exciting prospects like Alexander Frias, Josiah Ragsdale, and some others. I like where the Cardinals are at big time."

Cardinals are drawing attetion around baseball for their bright future

Ranked as the second-best farm system in baseball by Baseball America and fourth-best according to MLB Pipeline, the Cardinals have so much young talent coming through their farm system right now, and they'll be joining an already successful young core at the Major League level.

The Cardinals have legit middle-of-the-order bats in Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson, with Ivan Herrera finally heating back up as well, who will soon be joined by Rainiel Rodriguez, who has the highest ceiling of them all. JJ Wetherholt, Joshua Baez, and Leo Bernal all made their MLB debuts this year, and Masyn Winn is one of the best defenders in baseball.

Even beyond those guys, they have so many exciting position player prospects like Ragsdale, Frias, Trevor Condon, Jesus Baez, Yairo Padilla, Tai Peete, Won-Bin Cho, Sebastian Dos Santos, Rocco Maniscalco, and even more we could name.

On the pitching side of things, Cooper Hjerpe made his debut on Sunday and joins a young rotation of Kyle Leahy, Michael McGreevy, and Quinn Mathews, who all have promising futures. Top prospects like Doyle, Tanner Franklin, Yhoiker Fajardo, Brandon Clarke, Jurrangelo Cjintje, Jacob Odle, Tegan Kuhns, and so many other arms are on their way as well.

On top of all of that, outside of a very team-friendly extension with Wetherholt, the Cardinals have virtually no money on their books moving forward, giving Chaim Bloom and the rest of the front office the ability to extend anyone they want to and go after upgrades in the trade and free agent market.

2027 looks to be another "building" type of year for the Cardinals, but they could easily be a strong playoff contender, having already found themselves in the race this season. But by the time 2028 rolls around, they seem primed to be a major problem for the rest of the league.

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