The Cardinals' next star may be this little known prospect

While JJ Wetherholt, Quinn Mathews, and Tink Hence rightfully sit at the top of St. Louis Cardinals fans' minds when they think of the farm system, the name Yairo Padilla needs to be added to that list as a potential star in the making.

If you're not familiar with Padilla, the 17-year-old shortstop was signed by the Cardinals for a mere $760,000 during this past international signing period, and according to Baseball America, he's a rising star among scouts they talk to.

Geoff Pontes of Baseball America led a chat discussion over the Cardinals' top 10 prospects going into 2025 (subscription required), and while Wetherholt, Mathews, and Hence notably led the list, Padilla launched his way into their fifth spot. I asked Pontes about Padilla's meteoric rise onto their top five prospects, and he had high praise for the young shortstop.

"The feedback has been off the charts," Pontes said. "Most scouts viewed him as the second-best DSL prospect behind Jesus Made in 2024. He ranked that way in the list Josh Norris put out back on October 7th. He's a plus athlete, defender at short, plus-plus runner with excellent bat-to-ball (12.6% z-miss) and swing decisions (low chase, higher swing, high heart swing). All we need to see if power and the reports from the offseason camps. All say he's the standout player in camp."

As of now, scouts can dream on Padilla's future as a regular at the big league level due to his elite speed (reminiscent of Victor Scott II) and smooth defense at shortstop. As a switch-hitter, Padilla is showing signs of someone whose bat can project long-term, and even if those are the only tools that he can hone in over the course of his career, that should give him a future long-term.

Obviously, as a 17-year-old, there is high risk in his profile. But the exciting part of his outlook right now is the potential to grow into power. If that were to happen, it sounds like scouts think the sky is the limit for him long-term.

Padilla is coming into the organization at the perfect time, as the Cardinals are heavily investing in player development and working consistently produce difference-makers. While the Cardinals have been pretty good at developing position players in recent years, they haven't seemed to be able to reach their potential consistently. Maybe that can change here with Padilla.

Any time we start to talk about a prospect in the organization, people immediately start to wonder what that means for their current Major League roster. Padilla's development will have zero impact on Masyn Winn, Nolan Gorman, JJ Wetherholt, Thomas Saggese, or Brendan Donovan for the foreseeable future. He hasn't even made it to Low-A yet, so there is quite a bit of time before he could even knock on the door of the Majors, and that's if he even pans out.

Padilla's development should be exciting to follow for Cardinals fans, but I do think there's a larger narrative to keep an eye on here. The Cardinals' farm system right now is actually much stronger in terms of pitching talent, with MLB Pipeline recently ranking them as one of the best groups in baseball. The development of names like Wetherholt, Padilla, Chase Davis, Jimmy Crooks, Leonardo Bernal, Rainiel Rodriguez, and others will go a long way toward improving the position player depth within the organization.