National writers place six Cardinals in top-100 prospect list

Baseball Prospectus released its annual top-101 prospect list on January 16th. While most top-prospect lists stop at 100, the authors, Jeffrey Paternostro, Jarrett Seidler, and a collection of other Baseball Prospectus Prospect Staff members, always add one extra prospect to make the final list sit at 101 prospects. The St. Louis Cardinals featured six players on the list.

While they don't have any top-fifty prospects on this particular list, to have six in the top 101 is noteworthy. This makes them tied with the second-most amount of prospects with the Baltimore Orioles among all teams in baseball. Only the Chicago Cubs have more top-101 prospects. Six is the greatest amount of players St. Louis has had on this list since 2013 when they had seven top-101 prospects.

SS Masyn Winn (#53), RHP Tink Hence (#54), OF Victor Scott II (#64), INF Thomas Saggese (#83), RHP Tekoah Roby (#93), and OF Chase Davis (#101) represents the Cardinals' farm system on Baseball Prospectus's list. Winn and Hence were on the list last year, but they fell twenty-three and eleven spots, respectively. OF Jordan Walker (#2 last year) graduated, and RHP Gordon Graceffo (#58 last year) fell off the list.

Masyn Winn, Tink Hence, and Victor Scott have been in the organization for at least a couple of years now. The shrewd Trade Deadline move to acquire both Thomas Saggese and Tekoah Roby by John Mozeliak gave the team two additional prospects, and th draft of Chase Davis deepened a farm system that hasn't had more than four top-101 prospects in a decade.

The young players both on the MLB roster and in the farm system are beneficial to the team in a variety of ways. Nolan Gorman, Brendan Donovan, Jordan Walker, and Lars Nootbaar are primed to become leaders in St. Louis. Meanwhile, these other prospects are waiting in the wings to provide at the highest level of baseball.

These top prospects also grant John Mozeliak and Michael Girsch more bargaining power in trades. The farm system is deep, especially at the top. Trading one or two of these top prospects won't make so deep a wound to the farm system that it won't recover. St. Louis's prospects now measure up to others in the division, and it has even surpassed those of the Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, and Pittsburgh Pirates.