Ixan Henderson is your #16 St. Louis Cardinals prospect

After being relatively close to winning for the last few votes, Ixan Henderson won the vote for the 16th prospect pretty handily. Both polls I ran in fact weren’t really contests at all. I am been pretty vocal in wondering if Henderson would be higher if not for his current injury scare. I don’t think there’d be a huge difference, but he probably would be higher.

Comparable Player Poll

We call this comparable player poll: doing my due diligence. All three of these guys have never been in this section, but all three have a fairly good argument to being among the top 30 prospects at least and since 29 players will ultimately go on this vote, I should see if there’s a favorite among this group. Every conceivable starting pitching prospect who could get broad support has already been voted on in some way.

Blake Aita was selected in the 6th round of the 2024 draft. He had a fairly good debut last season, mostly on the strength of his command. His slider is his best pitch, but the successful version of him will feature a good mixture of pitches with good command. He will be 23 next season and he’s in the mix of pitchers who seem somewhere between High A and AA.

I already said I wasn’t going to add Sem Robberse to the vote, but I think the healthy version of him probably lands in the top 20, so I’ll at least give him a chance. The successful version of him too will be more of a command guy than a dominant pitch guy, although he does have good secondaries, just a not great fastball. He will be 24 and probably missing the whole season.

Lastly, Leonel Sequera is another command guy with a strong slider. These pitchers were actually a lot more alike than I had realized. He at least has been groundball-heavy with just enough strikeouts to post respectable numbers. He will probably be in High A at the age of 20 this coming season.

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New Add

You know I’ve always remembered the adds towards the end of the top 20 to be kind of stressful because I felt like I had too many options. Don’t really feel that way this year. It feels extremely low stakes, because we are certainly getting close to adding people who just have no shot at the top 20. But not the guy I’m adding today. Today we are adding Pete Hansen to the voting.

Jesus Baez, IF – 21

Stats (High A): 416 PAs, .244/.327/.397, 10.3 BB%, 18.5 K%, .153 ISO, .270 BABIP, 116 wRC+, 121 DRC+

Scouting (FG): 30/45 Hit, 35/50 Game Power, 50/55 Raw Power, 40/40 Speed, 40/45 Fielding

Scouting will really be put to the test with Baez, who I’ve seen reports that he is chase-heavy (which I’m sure is support by underlying swing metrics), but so far in his young pro career, it’s not really appearing in the stats. He has a good walk rate and a very reasonable K rate. If the scouting is correct, he will at some point reach a level where his K rate jumps up a bit and/or his BB rate takes a huge hit.

Yhoiker Fajardo, RHP – 19

Stats (CPX): 6 G, 20.2 IP, 31.6 K%, 9.2 BB%, 51.2 GB%, .205 BABIP, 0.44 ERA/2.41 FIP/3.29 xFIP

Low A: 13 GS, 51.1 IP, 27.8 K%, 9.4 BB%, 50 GB%, .326 BABIP, 2.98 ERA/2.50 FIP/3.14 xFIP

Scouting: 40/45 Fastball, 55/60 Slider, 30/50 Change, 35/50 Command

I’m pointing out this point for Fajardo, but it could be just about any pitching prospect. The scouting I give you is from one source. Go to a different source, someone will be higher or lower from a scouting perspective. For example, Baseball Prospectus, definitely higher on this dude than Fangraphs, shared that he added a kick change last season and that it immediately flashed above average. That tells me it disagrees with the characterization of 50 potential scouting that Fangraphs gives it. Fangraphs happens to be easy access and actually has easy scouting to post, so that’s why I use it.

Pete Hansen, LHP – 25

Stats (AA): 26 GS, 137.1 IP, 21.1 K%, 6.3 BB%, 46.2 GB%, .306 BABIP, 3.93 ERA/3.65 FIP/3.71 xFIP

Scouting: 35/35 Fastball, 45/50 Slider, 40/40 Curve, 50/55 Change, 55/60 Command

I sort of accidentally stumbled into a theme for this post, between the comparable players and adding Hansen. Because yeah here’s another command prospect. He gets just enough Ks, keeps a good amount of balls on the ground, and doesn’t walk batters. In other words, these guys are all McGreevy lite.

Blaze Jordan, 23 – 1B/3B

Stats (AA): 176 PAs, .320/.415/.513, 12.5 BB%, 10.8 K%, .193 ISO, .333 BABIP, 167 wRC+, 145 DRC+

AAA: 368 PAs, .248/.291/.423, 5.7 BB%, 11.1 K%, .175 ISO, .247 BABIP, 83 wRC+, 101 DRC+

Scouting: 40/50 Hit, 40/50 Game Power, 60/60 Raw Power, 30/30 Speed, 40/45 Fielding

Well the good news about Jordan’s season is that it seems you can blame it on the BABIP, feeling kind of snakebip, gotcha feeling screwed, yelling come on dude, the ba-a-a-a-ated balls (I hate myself). But seriously, based on the Baseball Prospectus stats deserved runs created+, Jordan had a very good season, very much not deserving of his final line. Granted, you’d hope better from a probable 1B than a 101 wRC+, but it was also his first crack at AAA, so it’s not the final word.

Colton Ledbetter, 24 – OF

Stats (AA): 535 PAs, .265/.337/.378, 9.5 BB%, 23.9 K%, .114 ISO, .339 BABIP, 112 wRC+

Scouting: 30/35 Hit, 40/50 Game Power, 55/55 Raw Power, 50/40 Speed, 50/50 Fielding

Ledbetter has one real flaw in his game, it also happens to be the one flaw that plagues many hitters who can’t quite hit in the major leagues: the hit tool. He took one important stride last season by cutting down his K rate, but it did come at the expense of his power. He’s shown power before and he’s shown the ability to keep his strikeout rate reasonable, he hasn’t quite combined those abilities yet and he may never, but stranger things have happened.

Chen-Wei Lin, 24 – RHP

Stats (Low A): 12 GS, 38.2 IP, 27.2 K%, 17.2 BB%, 50 GB%, .283 BABIP, 4.89 ERA/3.69 FIP/4.17 xFIP

High A: 4 GS, 9.2 IP, 41.7 K%, 18.8 BB%, 50 GB%, .412 BABIP, 9.31 ERA/4.80 FIP/2.76 xFIP

Scouting: 60/70 Fastball, 40/45 Slider, 40/60 Change, 30/40 Command

It is somewhat interesting to me that Lin has lost a lot of his luster from last year even though it seems like his stats were affected in some way by his injury problems. Like part of me wonders if he’d rank higher on the list if he just got hurt for the entire year instead of throwing a few innings per appearance and mostly being kind of disappointing. The swing and miss is very much there, but he’ll probably have to have better command.

Ryan Mitchell, 19 – OF

No stats

Scouting: 25/55 Hit, 25/50 Game Power, 40/55 Raw Power, 60/60 Speed, 25/50 Fielding

The scouting reflects the appeal of Mitchell. He is considered to have a very well-rounded game, with currently no flaws, although obviously that may change when we see him play. He also doesn’t seem to have a tool to latch onto, being average or slightly above average at just about everything. That’s the kind of thing that will land you on a prospect list when you have stats, but is harder to get excited about when he’s not yet played.

Deniel Ortiz, 21 – 1B/3B

Stats (Low A): 320 PAs, .285/.406/.446, 15.3 BB%, 27.5 K%, .162 ISO, .386 BABIP, 145 wRC+, 119 DRC+

High A: 130 PAs, .336/.438/.500, 13.8 BB%, 22.3 K%, .164 ISO, .436 BABIP, 168 wRC+, 97 DRC+

Scouting (Baseball Savant): /45 Hit, /55 Power, /55 Arm, /45 Field

I will once again mention that those scouting grades are his potential, but that Savant has not posted the “current” scouting grades. Although if you think about it, the current is not super relevant for a guy in High A. You can kind of draw your own conclusions based on the stats to some extent. Also you don’t necessarily care if they don’t have trouble with swing-and-miss at the lower levels, you want to know if he will have trouble. Ortiz cutting down his K rate upon promotion strikes me as a fairly good sign.

Yairo Padilla, 19 – SS

Stats (CPX): 38 G, 148 PAs, .283/.396/.367, 12.2 BB%, 14.2 K%, .083 ISO, .340 BABIP, 119 wRC+

Scouting: 25/55 Hit, 20/55 Game Power, 40/60 Raw Power, 50/40 Speed, 30/40 Field

Padilla is a pitch perfect example of the Cardinals system improving. No matter where he lands on this list, he will be lower than last year’s list and at least in theory, there’s no real reason that should be the case except for an improved system. Statistically, he didn’t change much, although he did it at a higher level. The same lack of power was present in 2024, and he had a 120 wRC+, so it was about as close as you can get.

Tai Peete, OF – 20

Stats (High A): 529 PAs, .217/.288/.404, 8.7 BB%, 30.6 K%, .187 ISO, .282 BABIP, 79 wRC+, 79 DRC+

Scouting: 20/30 Hit, 30/50 Game Power, 50/60 Raw Power, 60/60 Speed, 45/55 Fielding

That pesky hit tool is getting in the way of a really glowing scouting report. But the 30% K rate and 30 grade hit tool are not great, to be honest. On the positive side, he’s being scouted while being an 19-year-old playing against High A competition. I’d venture to say most 19-year-olds will look like they don’t have a good contact tool in that context. If he played the next two seasons in High A, and then got promoted to AA the following season, he’d still be kind of young for AA. There’s some context.

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Ixan Henderson is your #16 St. Louis Cardinals prospect

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