最新杏吧原创

When he arrived at the invite-only Arizona Fall League last year, Cardinals rookie Matt Svanson knew 鈥渨hat the stakes鈥� were as he pitched against some of baseball鈥檚 top prospects.

Coming off a season spent as Class AA Springfield鈥檚 primary closer, a role in which he was 27 for 27 on save attempts, Svanson approached the AFL like a 鈥渢ryout鈥� for a 40-man roster spot since he was Rule 5 Draft eligible last December if he wasn鈥檛 protected.

Look, I get it. A decision like this would be a baseball decision. The Cardinals are in desperate need of starting pitching 鈥� and with a looming lockout after 2026, it would make sense to get a guy on a one-year deal. Free agent Miles Mikolas would sure check some boxes. First of all, as they say in baseball, he posts. He starts most every start, pitches through pain and eats innings. There is so much value to that, especially with younger starters in a rotation who might tax the bullpen. Oh, and Mikolas likes 最新杏吧原创. And Mikolas had a nice September to finish off his season.

OK, with that out of the way, I鈥檓 sorry, but they can鈥檛 do this.

It wasn鈥檛 until he saw his name as a finalist for a Silver Slugger award earlier this fall that Alec Burleson thought the first offensive accolade of his career was within reach.

Fresh off a 2025 season during which he produced career highs in batting average (.290), on-base percentage (.343), slugging percentage (.459), and doubles (26) in 139 games for the Cardinals, Burleson was named a finalist for the award at the utility position alongside teammate Brendan Donovan and Padres infielder Jake Cronenworth for the hardware.

Before plunging into the Hot Stove season and the arrival of the GM Meetings, a look at the performances this past season by the top 12 prospects in the Cardinals system, as ranked in the annual Post-Dispatch Dozen. For several years now, baseball writer Daniel Guerrero has ranked the top 12 prospects in the Cardinals organization, but what sets this ranking apart is the eligibility (players cannot have a moment in the majors) and rubric. Each players is considered through the four Ps of Prospects: proximity to majors, overall potential, how prominent and demanding is his position, and, of course, production or performance.

Guerrero joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to explain the process and discuss the 2025 PD 12.

It has been 21 seasons since Ken Wilson broadcast his last Blues game, having a messy exit to what had been a high-profile sportscasting run in 最新杏吧原创 that spanned two decades.

Wilson also called Cardinals contests as well as being on sports-talk radio, and he reflects on that era, as well as his life and overall career, in a new memoir he has written: 聽Part of the title is an homage to his signature call, 鈥淥h Baby,鈥� which he used to punctuate momentous developments as part of his crisp, detailed broadcasting style.

A Class AAA batting champion during the 2022 minor league season whose strong bat-to-ball skills have carried to the majors, Cardinals slugger Alec Burleson claimed the first offensive award of his big league career Thursday night.

Burleson, 26, was named the winner of the 2025 utility Silver Slugger Award in the National League. He was a finalist for the award alongside Cardinals teammate Brendan Donovan and Padres infielder Jake Cronenworth. Burleson and Donovan were the only Cardinals nominated for a Silver Slugger this year.

With Major League Baseball鈥檚 free agency officially beginning late Thursday and teams clearing space on their 40-man rosters, the Cardinals removed four pitchers from their 40-man roster, including former first-round draft pick Zack Thompson, and added a Class AAA standout.

Along with Thompson, who becomes a minor league free agent after being waived, left-hander Anthony Venezeiano was also outrighted and becomes a minor league free agent.

The Hot Stove sparks and the doors to the free-agent marketplace open wide to all 30 clubs on Thursday afternoon to invite that mad, shopping-spree dash to bid on available stars that won鈥檛 happen again.

Baseball, different from the haste of other major pro sports, adopts a more laborious pace to its offseason with multiple deadlines to force roster movement and transactions but no real deadlines to spur free-agent signings.

For Cardinals infield prospect Deniel Ortiz, the introduction to professional baseball was worth the wait.

A 16th-round draft pick out of Walters State (Tennessee) Community College in 2024, Ortiz did not appear in a game with a Cardinals affiliate before the minor league season wrapped. The wait for Ortiz, who played winter ball in Puerto Rico last year, came to an end in early April when he saw his name in Class Low-A Palm Beach鈥檚 starting lineup three games into the season.

As he paced the stage at Dodger Stadium, played to the crowd and prepared to stop just shy of unleashing an R-rated adjective on Hollywood, three-time World Series champion Enrique Hernandez refused to apologize for shouting what so many have been thinking for years.

鈥淓verybody has been asking questions about a dynasty,鈥� he said at the Dodgers鈥� celebration Monday afternoon. 鈥淗ow about three in six years? How about a back-to-back? Yes. We鈥檙e a (expletive) dynasty, baby.鈥�