The Cardinals and Mariners summon that devil magic
MLB Winter Meetings have been occurring this week since Sunday! Today was the first BIG NEWS and that news favored the Cardinals with a rare Top 5 draft pick in 2025! This is incredibly exciting news especially since they just had the 7th pick overall in 2024. A hope for the rebuild looks much brighter now, if you had a hope before it’s not going away and if you didn’t, well, what more do you want?
The reset is in full blossom now, with only the Mariners getting luckier than the Cardinals. Well, they were much luckier than anyone, but I’ll take what happened with the Cardinals. It rewards loyal fans of the team and surely will annoy fans of other NL Central teams who have been putting up with us their whole lives, as well as inflame Cardinal Nation haters in general. A #5 pick is no joke and is really important to any team.
There is more happening with the winter meetings besides the draft lottery, of course. Arenado supposedly has narrowed down the list of teams he would accept a trade to, to six. There’s that number again. Seriously. Who will he bring back? A trade seems inevitable at this point. Ok, I can’t stop thinking about the #5 pick.
The Cardinals were one of the least likely teams to get the #1 pick, with only the Cubs, Mariners, and Diamondbacks even less likely. While the Cardinals and certainly the Mariners defied the odds, the Cubs and especially the Diamondbacks are drafting where one might predict.
We have an early mock draft here: https://www.mlb.com/news/first-full-2025-mlb-mock-draft?t=mlb-draft-coverage
I think I would keep it simple and recommend drafting the fifth overall ranked prospect: Seth Hernandez, who is a 6’ 4” power pitcher with a devastating fastball and curveball.
If the Cardinals are trying to stock the outfield with this high of a draft pick, the options are pretty slim within the top 10: Jace LaViolette who likely will be picked before #5 (and has swing and miss issues anyway) or Brendan Summerhill, who the mock draft linked to above suggested. Even though Summerhill is ranked #10, he would make more sense for the Cardinals and is probably the safer bet. Other outfield options could be Max Belyeu or Cam Cannarella. Maybe pick a fast track center fielder?
Or maybe they should select one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball? What do you think?
Album Hall of Fame
To continue with the prog rock theme of last week, this week another perfect album selected to my hall of fame. All killer no filler start to finish. This week it’s ‘Larks Tongues in Aspic’ by King Crimson. I’ve always wanted a tattoo or at least a t-shirt of the album cover. Going to have to cut it short this week, and express my excitement for the future! #5!