The NL Central is ripe with future stars but the Cardinals find themselves at the bottom

MLB Pipeline recently released their top-100 prospects heading into the 2025 season, and while the St. Louis Cardinals have three potentially MLB-ready names on the list, that actually puts them behind their division rivals.

The Cardinals need the redevelopment of their minor league system to work quickly

The NL Central, while not typically seen as the strongest division, has long been considered one of the most competitive. The division list shows that the Central is head and shoulders above the other National League organizations, but this may be the fact that the teams in the Cardinals' division must stress player development rather than big spending, as only the Cubs are in a major market. With their Central rivals developing budding stars like Elly De La Cruz, Jackson Chuorio, and Paul Skenes, the Cardinals need their minor league system to churn out a player or two to get the organization back in good graces with fans and executives around the league.

Masyn Winn had a stellar campaign in 2024 but the team needs him to parlay last season into an even bigger year in 2025. So far, former prospects like Dylan Carlson, Nolan Gorman, and Jordan Walker have failed to live up to their minor league hype and fans are starting to wonder if the team has lost their touch with their young players. The Cardinals had been seen as a model organization in terms of player development until recently being surpassed by teams putting more time, resources, and money into instructional tools like pitching and hitting labs while also restructuring their minor league systems.

To spin their bottom-of-the-division presence on the list into a positive, having three top prospects actually puts them into the top half of the league by a strict number sense. Another positive is that each of the three on the list (JJ Wetherholt #23, Quinn Mathews #45), and Tink Hence #77) are all seen as players that could potentially make their debut in St. Louis as early as this season. While that is encouraging, it also puts more pressure on the team's newly allocated funding towards their minor league development system.

If each of these three were to make the majors this year, it is possible that the Cardinals could be without a top-100 prospect going into 2026. With the Cubs topping the list for the entire league and the other Central teams being well above average in terms of their success with young players, the Cardinals could see themselves in an uphill battle for the foreseeable future. The organization is currently stuck in baseball purgatory and must make a change soon to get back on top.

Chaim Bloom, who most recently worked with the Boston Red Sox and is credited with building up their farm system from one of the worst into one of the top minor league organizations, is expected to take over for outgoing decision maker John Mozeliak after the season. Because of his success on the East Coast, fans were hoping that he would have a little more hands-on approach with the current roster, but he is currently in the background of the moves to be made.

The 2025 season is shaping up to be one of the more important campaigns for the St. Louis Cardinals as they look to bounce back into relevancy after back-to-back down seasons. While having three top-100 prospects is nothing to scoff at when compared with the rest of the division and the organization's past success, the team needs their allocation of resources into their minor league system to work quickly.