Ranking the 15 best St. Louis Cardinals players under 25

#3 OF Jordan Walker

Jordan Walker was once a top-three prospect in all of baseball. He was a dynamic offensive player who literally stood tall amongst his peers. Drafted out of high school as a third baseman in 2020, Walker converted to the outfield in 2022 due to a logjam of corner infielders for the Cardinals. He was quite raw at the position, and he's still experiencing speed bumps in his development in right field. He has a cannon of an arm, so hopefully with more reps in the corner outfield, he can fine-tune his craft.

Walker is still a potent offensive player. His slash line this year was underwhelming (.201/.253/.366), but he turned it on in the month of September to close out the year. The 22-year-old outfielder slashed .253/.296/.494 with five home runs and 16 runs batted in in the final month of the year. He still struck out quite a bit (16 times), but his power had returned. Even if Walker can inch toward being an average defensive outfielder who provides pop in the heart of a lineup, that's a success in my eyes.

#2 LHP Quinn Mathews

Quinn Mathews went from being known as a kid who threw a lot of pitches in one game in college to being one of the best left-handed pitching prospects in all of baseball. Mathews was drafted in the fourth round of the 2023 MLB Draft, but he's shown that he should have been one of the top draft choices that year. He made it all the way up the minor-league ladder this year, starting at Low-A Palm Beach and finishing the year with Triple-A Memphis.

Mathews, 23, led all of MiLB this year with 202 strikeouts in only 143.1 innings. His best work came in Springfield this year where he had a 2.41 ERA in 52.1 innings pitched. He struggled at Memphis to close the year, as he had a 6.48 ERA in only 16.2 innings across four starts. However, Mathews has shown that he is capable of being a top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher in the near future. The Cardinals have been searching for a player of his pedigree since Jack Flaherty nearly seven years ago, and he's already racking up minor-league accolades.