It isn’t easy to process the necessity of rebuilding a distinguished baseball franchise that has sprayed, splashed and quaffed rivers of victory champagne through the decades. But here we are.
The St. Louis Cardinals, squaring up to a different type of challenge, will have to go through some hard times before the good times can resume. Hopefully the reconstruction – under the guidance of new president of baseball ops Chaim Bloom – won’t encounter delays or setbacks that will slow the project.
I’m not trying to do a Fredbird here, but there are some positives to point to … or cling to. You grab hope where you can find it.
And the Cardinals continue to draw praise – and accolades – for their obvious improvement in their farm system and enhanced player-development operation. And that’s certainly an encouraging sign for a baseball organization that is going through a dramatic leadership change, a substantial overhaul, and is planting the seeds of a regrowth. The rebuilding teams that can do this – and do it well – can get back up to speed, sooner than anticipated.
In recent days the Cardinals have been praised by Baseball America and the MLB Pipeline for their accelerated progress down on the farm.
Sam Dykstra (MLB Pipeline) put the Cardinals on his list of the “nine farm systems that improved the most” in 2025. There was no individual team ranking; Dykstra believed all nine were worthy of recognition.
“The Cardinals were joyed to get JJ Wetherholt with the seventh overall pick in 2024, but they deserve credit for helping the former West Virginia star bloom into one of the best infield prospects in the sport with his plus-plus hit tool carrying nicely into the upper levels,” Dykstra wrote. “Catcher Rainiel Rodriguez's dynamic age-18 season would be the headliner in many other organizations, and outfielder Joshua Baez erased the strikeout concerns that plagued his early career to post a 20-homer, 54-steal campaign.
“Like many other orgs on this list, the Cardinals got deeper by being sellers at the deadline, but the Sonny Gray trade last month brought in the best prospect in lefty fireballer Brandon Clarke. Speaking of southpaws, the addition of Liam Doyle in the first round and nice breakouts by Ixan Henderson and Brycen Mautz helped offset pitching losses via injury (Tekoah Roby, Cooper Hjerpe and Tink Hence).”
Baseball America is way up on the Cardinals’ swift rise as a farm system. The first to cite this was FanGraphs, which ranked the STL farm system No. 1 in the majors late during the 2025 regular season.
During their podcast last week, Baseball America analysts JJ Cooper and Geoff Pontes singled out the Cardinals for having the most improved farm system in the majors in 2025.
To go with that, Cooper and Pontes went with Joshua Baez – the Cardinals’ developing outfielder – as the most improved prospect in the minors for 2025. I have great respect for the outstanding work done by Baseball America, so this recognition is especially meaningful to me.
“I think we just look year over year from where they were to where they are now,” Pontes said. “The J.J. Wetherholt breakout – confirmation is a good way to put it. Because we thought he was a great prospect coming into the year … maybe even got a little bit better.
“The breakout of (teenage catcher) Rainiel Rodriguez is a big one. The breakout of Josh Baez, who we'll probably talk about a little bit later. And then drafting (pitcher) Liam Doyle, drafting (pitcher) Tanner Franklin, a really good season from (pitcher) Ixan Henderson … and they got two of the better catchers in the minors in their top ten.
(Pontes was referring to Rodriguez and Leonardo Bernal.)
“They acquired (pitching prospect) Brandon Clarke (from Boston.) So even when they had sort of down seasons from Quinn Mathews, or an injury from (pitcher) Tekoah Roby, and (pitcher) Tink Hence taking a big step back … Or injuries to guys like (pitcher) Cooper Hjerpe, who was a first rounder a few years ago. They were able to acquire enough talent through all these different acquisition windows, whether it's trades, even a Rule 5 pick that's kind of interesting,” Pontes said.
Pontes added: “In the draft, I think you can kind of look at the system and say, all right, it's gotten a lot better. And then they were able to add (more pitching) again this week (in the Willson Contreras trade.) And you know, pitchers like Blake Aida and Yhoiker Fajardo are not probably Top 10 guys in their system. Aida is more like 25 to 30. And Fujardo is probably nine to 13, somewhere in that range.
“But they have a lot of different types of prospects in the system. They have a lot of pitching depth, and they have a lot of variety within that pitching depth,” Pontes continued.
“And you should be at least somewhat intrigued by what Chaim Bloom can do in terms of building out the development structure, which was part of his key focus over the last couple of years as he was sliding into that POBO role.
“So, you know, I think this is an up and coming system … and there’s a handful of veteran players here that could potentially be on the move (in trades) that could further sort of stockpile this system. I don't think they're going to end up with anyone who's going to rival either Wetherholt or Doyle or Rodriguez at the top of the system, or probably Baez, for that matter. But this sort of five to 30 (prospect) group will, I think, continue to improve between now when we're recording this and February 1st.”
OK, so what about Baseball America’s choice of Joshua Baez as the most improved prospect of 2025? Pontes was happy to address BA’s decision.
“Staying with the Cardinals theme, it's Josh Baez. I think you just look on what his career trajectory was kind of out of the draft. A lot of injuries, the body and the athleticism backed up. They were major hit-tool questions. As a power hitter from the Northeast that maybe didn't have as much high level experience as other guys, he generally had a decent amount of swing and miss on the circuit that came to fruition over his early years as a professional,” Pontes said. “He really struggled with approach, struggled with swing and miss, always had power, but just was not making enough contact to consistently get to it.
“He revamped his swing coming into the year, made some more further adjustments over the first month (last season),” Pontes said.
“I think the biggest thing, though, is you kind of look (at him) physically year over year and everything just got a lot tighter – like the athleticism was back. He might have even looked and moved better than he even did in high school, when he was an impressive sort of athletic freak. That's all back again, plus running ability, huge power, and now not selling out for it.
“And, you know, it's a little bit more hitterish just in terms of his approach … and the underlying data and all that sort of stuff. Do I think he's a long term center fielder? Probably not. But I think this could be like a power-speed, corner outfielder for a whole bunch of years in the majors that, you know, has some pretty impactful seasons.
“He was not in the top 30 for the Cardinals coming into 2025. And now he's a likely top 100 (in the majors). Pretty, pretty strongly likely a Top 100 prospect going into 2026. That's about as big a jump as you're going to see for a guy who was a known quantity.”
A few quick things here:
– Last season Baez, 22, jumped out in a major way while tapping into his potential at two different levels, Class High A and Class Double A. In 418 at-bats for the year, Baez hit .287 with a .384 onbase percentage, .500 slugging percentage, and .884 OPS. He had 46 extra-base hits (including 20 homers) and swiped 54 bases in 59 attempts. Per wRC+, Baez produced a level of offense that was 45 percent above league average.
– Fajardo is already at No. 9 on the Cardinals Top 30 prospect list as chosen by MLB Pipeline. And the other pitching prospect obtained from Boston – Brandon Clarke – is No. 7 on STL’s Top 30.
– At the start of the current offseason, Baseball America listed these players on STL’s Top 10 Prospect list:
1- Infielder JJ Wetherholt
2- Pitcher Liam Doyle
3- Catcher Rainiel Rodriguez
4- Outfielder Joshua Baez
5- Pitcher Quinn Mathews
6- Pitcher Tanner Franklin
7- Pitcher Ixan Henderson
8- Catcher Jimmy Crooks
9- Catcher Leonardo Bernal
10- Infielder Yairo Padilla
Switching back to MLB Pipeline, the Chaim Bloom impact can be spotted – both directly and indirectly – by the number of Top 30 Cardinal prospects that were brought into the organization over the last two seasons. (Don’t forget, before taking over as POBO, Bloom was an advisor for all of 2024.)
Anyway, 17 of the top 30 prospects joined the Cardinals organization in 2024 (five) or 2025 (twelve.) Five others entered the STL system in 2023. The influx of fresh talent is obvious. And that can only help the organization’s rebuild. Prospects can graduate to the majors and help your team win. Or prospects can be traded to acquire help that will help your team win. Especially in today’s baseball economy, prospects are a precious commodity.
I chuckle at folks who point out that prospects can fail – as if they’ve made a crucial discovery that no one else had thought of.
Just as a refresher, here is a partial list of prospects developed by the Cardinals who were on at least one of STL’s four pennant-winning teams – 2004, 2006, 2011 and 2013.
Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Ray Lankford, John Mabry, Matt Morris, Dan Haren, Rick Ankiel, Jaime Garcia, Jason Motte.
And:
Lance Lynn, Matt Carpenter, Chis Duncan, Fernando Salas, Skip Schumaker, Kyle McClellan, Seth Maness, Sam Freeman, Matt Adams, Joe Kelly, Jon Jay, David Freese.
And:
Allen Craig, Michael Wacha, Trevor Rosenthal, Kevin Siegrist, Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, Colby Rasmus, Daniel Descalso, Pete Kozma, Braden Looper, Brad Thompson, Anthony Reyes, Josh Kinney, Tyler Johnson and Tyler Lyons.
Even with the prospects that flunk out … prospects are valuable. Prospects are good. Enough prospects come through in the construction of successful teams in ways that really matter.
And as the St. Louis rebuild gets rolling, it’s a helluva boost for the Cardinals to have a farm system that’s thriving.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil.
Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.