Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com has started to publish his organizational previews this past week, and he takes a pretty nice look at the Cardinals. He gives you ten players to watch, his under the radar players, and predictions on who will be the organization’s player and pitcher of the year, comeback player of the year (is there such a thing?) and the team to watch. I thought for fun we could do the same. AZ, Roarke can feel free to jump in on the fun with their own posts or just in the comments if they wanna.
Organizational Player of the Year: My hope is it’s Pete Kozma, but I won’t be disappointed if he isn’t. I can see Allen Craig, but my gut for some reason or another says David Freese. I’m not sure why, but I think he’s poised to have a monstrous season. My personal Hunchmaster 3000 thinks he’ll hit .305/.390/.500 with 20 or more homers while driving in a bunch of runs for Springfield.
Organizational Pitcher of the Year: Adam Ottavino, edging out Mortensen. With Brent Strom asking him liberating Ottavino to go back to the mechanics that got him drafted, I think he is going to have a big year. If he’s done well in “granny gear”, what will happen when he revs it up?
Comeback Player of the Year: Jeff Luhnow believes Greene will bounce back in a major way this year, I’ll get into agreement with that. If not Greene, then I look for Jon Jay to bounce back from injuries and hit close to .300 for Springfield.
Who are your picks?
Future Redbirds 
Pitcher- Mortenson
Player- D. Descalso
Comeback- Jay
Big Risers
Andres Rosales
David Kopp
Beau Riportella
Jameson Maj
Tyler Henley
Travis Mitchell
Brad Furnish
I wanted to add that Jaime Garcia should be a very close runner up, and I actually think McCormick might finally have a good season.
Pitcher: Jaime Garcia (healthy, 2nd turn in AA should dominate)
Hitter: Jon Jay (polish, gets to run free in CF at AA and should post great numbers)
Come Back: Tyler Greene (still K’s a ton, but will finally tone it down and put together his best year as a pro)
Interesting choice of Descalso RB. Can you tell me what you’re seeing for him? I just can’t see him as a third baseman so I hope the plan is to put him full time at 2b.
My choices:
Hitter: Jose Martinez. Get’s moved to 2b, shows emerging power and great glove and is poised to start for the Cards in ’09.
Pitcher: Have to go with Garcia.
Comeback: Agree that Jay’s a sure fire comeback and that Greene will re emerge as the top SS prospect. I’m going to take a flyer though on Daryl Jones.
Player – Allen Craig (He’s the best hitter in the organization after Rasmus — and I’ll predict that Hamilton bombs next year badly)
Pitcher – Garcia (Although I think Mortensen could be here too)
Comeback: Jon Jay (Takes walks, hits 10 HRs ,plays a solid CF, moves back up the prospect lists)
erik, i think the plan is for freese to go to AAA, but you are right if he goes to springfield i think he will mash.
here’s my predictions
pitcher: jaime garcia-he is healthy and ready to go. look for a return to his 2006 form.
hitter: allen craig-if his performance in palm beach and his early intro to AA are any indication, he is going to mash this year in springfield.
comeback- i was thinking about going with mccormick, but i never have been a big fan so i will go with david kopp. i think he is going to dominate in low-A to start the season with his power sinker and pitch well in palm beach in the second half.
My 2cents:
Player of the Year: Bryan Anderson…I think he’ll have a really good year repeating AA. I think he will make great strides with his defense as well.
Pitcher of the Year: I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Tyler Herron. His command of his arsenal of pitches will allow him to continue to post great stats as he moves up to AA.
Comeback Player: Greene.
Risers:
Deryk Hooker: Great pitchers name
Jon Edwards
Ryde Rodriguez
Steven Hill
im going to say its a repeat or 3peat,
player- rasmus i think he stays in memphis long enough to win it for a 3rd yr. (freese is my runnerup)
pitcher-walters again..(herron runnerup again)
comeback- jay ,he can hit & he will even show some power in the small parks of the texas league.
& AZ i think your way off base on hamilton..
BTW Monday prospect smackdown at John Sickels’ site:
http://www.minorleagueball.com/
Colby v. Jay Bruce!
Player of the Year: David Freese. I got the same reading erik got. I really like what Freese brings to the system, and I think a lot of people are underestimating him because he was an older player in Single A and because of the bluechipper ahead of him in the Padres organization. The biggest thing I like? When he was drafted, the biggest mark against Freese was his defense; yet, last season, he was voted the best defensive player in a hitter’s league. That tells me he’s got a productive work ethic, and that he’ll only continue to improve beyond where he is right now.
Pitcher of the Year: Jamie Garcia, with Mortenson and McClellan in a close tie for second (how’s that for hedging my bets?). If Garcia remains health, he’ll dominate. I suspect that even if the Cardinals are careful with his return from injury, he’ll be in Triple A by mid-season.
Comeback Player: Jon Jay. I think when healthy, he’s the best OF prospect the Cardinals have behind Rasmus.
My guess is that pitcher of the year is going to be a tough call because I think that Ottavino, Garcia, and Mortenson will all three have great years and will be universally considered top prospects by the end of 2008. I’ll take Ottavino, though, because I think his ceiling might be a bit higher than the other two.
Player of the year will be Craig. I am going to enjoy watching Freese and Craig battle it out for the “future Cards 3B” label.
I’d like to see the Comback be Jon Jay (or Greene, but I have zero faith that he’s ever going to make it), but I’m going to go with Cody Haerther. I think he’ll be healthy all year and with his career potentially on the line, I think he’ll break out a bit.
Pitcher – Walters (again!)
Hitter – Hill
Comback – Haerther
Player: Craig, I just see him breaking out and setting himself up as a viable backup at 3B.
Pitcher: Mortensen, while I think PJ could repeat I think Mort will move up fast.
Comeback: Jay, after nearly disappearing off the radar he will mash his way back onto it and end up in AAA by the end of the year.
Player of the year: Jon Edwards – I wanted to say Bryan Anderson but I thought I’d go with a surprise pick. Hopefully he gets a chance to start/earns a spot at Quad Cities. Could see 20 home runs from him. Just got to get the average up and cut back on the Ks a little bit. I could also see Edwards following the same path as Terry Evans and Joe Mather. But his 1.035 OPS in 9 games at Batavia has me optimistic about his upcoming season.
Pitcher of the year: Jess Todd- as long as his arm holds up. I still worry about the amount of sliders he threw at Arkansas. I would imagine he’ll split time between Quad Cities and Palm Beach this year if he is putting up pitcher of the year type numbers.
Comeback of the year: Mark McCormick- Wouldn’t that be nice? Made a return to the mound last year at the end of the season and put up good results in 7.2 innings. Hopefully that small, successful comeback has given him confidence in both his stuff and his health for this coming year.
i agree with UB on todd. if he can learn to trust his fastball and not throw that slider so much he could have a pj walters type year except with better stuff. i really hope he starts the year at palm beach, but i think the numbers crunch might push him down to quad cities.
Just for fun:
Player: D’Marcus Ingram at QC — high OBP, low strikeouts, high stolen-base total and success rate, improved defense in the outfield
Pitcher: One of the Gonzalez non-brothers, Reynier or Carlos, whichever one walks the fewest and induces the most ground balls
Comeback: Blake King, for no particular reason other than I’d love to see a power arm succeed in our system
(I say “just for fun” because my real choices would be like everyone else’s — Craig because he’ll probably get to play all season in a hitter’s league; Mortensen or Garcia, whoever pitches fewer innings at Springfield; and Jay.)
Pitcher – I think he’ll be asked to handle a lower level of opposition than the other safe bets (Otto, Mort, Garcia), and will do so with aplomb. Jess Todd would be my backup.
Hitter – Craig, followed by Edwards or Mather.
Comeback – Jay. Safe, boring pick. I wish this would be Tyler Greene, though.
Ughh. Pitcher = Herron.
apparently the return to the old mechanics isn’t helping ottavino’s control much. he walked 2 in what should have been 2 scoreless innings of work if not for a david freese throwing error. on the bright side he didn’t allow a hit, had a strikeout, and had 4 groundouts to only 1 flyout.
The return of the old mechanics does not happen overnight. Once your body is trained to throw a certain way you can’t just stop and go back to a different way. And as much as they say they want him to go back to his old mechanics Duncan has been working with him to change his mechanics a diifferent way.
yeah, i heard. he was wild and freese had two crucial errors. both my picks really tanked it up today.
Glad to see so much report for Craig and Freese. One or both could make it unnecessary to resign Glaus after ’09. McCormick as comeback is a good pick too. Agree with Azruavatar about Hamilton. Don’t see him as a prospect.
Fast risers:
Kopp
Riportella
Derba
Zawacki
with some people giving break out picks, maybe we should add the terry evans/joe mather break out award.
Easy-
I think Descalso will move to 2b; if he stays at 3rd, I’m not sure if I feel the same about him. He may not have quite enough power over there. He does, however, have an absolutely beautiful stroke to go along with solid plate discipline. I think he’ll put up a big batting line this year while transitioning over to the MI.
Love your pick of Zawacki, by the way. He completely slipped my mind this morning, otherwise I would have included both he and Adam Reifer. Great pick.
Player – Mather, who doesn’t get a call up from AAA even when Juan gets injured (I say April 23rd)
Pitcher – Mort
Comeback – Greene
I really hope they let Freese skip Springfield and go straight to Memphis.
Player – Craig
Pitcher – Mortensen
Comeback – Greene
Pretty conventional list.
Player – Craig
Pitcher – Mortensen (Garcia and Walters could just as easily win)
Comeback – Greene
Breakouts:
Edwards
Rosales
Jose Garcia (2B)
Pitcher: Ottavino or Garcia
Player: Craig
Comback: Jay or Robinson
And I have a feeling that Jim Rapoport is going to have a big year.