St. Louis Cardinals 2018 minor league awards
The St. Louis Cardinals had a topsy-turvy 2018 season at the major league level, but how did their minor league system perform?
As part of our continuing coverage at Call to the Pen of the minor leagues, we will be covering each organization’s top players for 2018. The coverage will go in reverse order of record. Today, we will look at the St. Louis Cardinals.
We are going to review the system’s leaders for each organization statistically, then choose one hitter and one pitcher to honor for every team. This will be primarily based on statistical performance, though some “age relative to level” could come into play, so a very impressive season from a 28-year-old in AA will rank below a nearly as impressive season from a 20-year-old at the same level.
After we review each organization’s hitter and pitcher of the year, we will close out October with Call To The Pen’s Minor League team of the year. That will lead into November starting our team top 10 prospect lists. In other words, there will be plenty of minor league content on the way at CTTP, so keep coming back for more each day this offseason!!
St. Louis Cardinals minor leagues
The St. Louis Cardinals have developed a reputation for drafting players that many were not viewing as impact players and seeing them come up to be significant contributors on playoff baseball teams. After missing the playoffs for their third straight season, the Cardinals are looking to their system more for impact than contribution at this point.
From the pitching side, they certainly can’t ask for much more than what they got in 2018, with nearly their entire rotation by the end of the year being rookie-eligible. Almost certainly 2 of their top 3 starters in a playoff series would have been rookies as well.
Before we offer up awards on the season, let’s take a look at the system’s statistical leaders:
Organization Leaders (min. 150 PA, 50 IP)
BA: Malcom Nunez .415
OBP: Malcom Nunez .497
SLG: Malcom Nunez .774
OPS: Malcom Nunez 1.272
R: Tommy Edman, Lane Thomas 84
H: Tommy Edman 156
2B: Elehuris Montero 37
3B: Diomedes Del Rio 13
HR: Lane Thomas 27
RBI: Lane Thomas 88
SB: Oscar Mercado 31
TB: Lane Thomas 252
W: Dakota Hudson 13
G: Jacob Patterson 51
GS: Jake Woodford 28
IP: Anthony Shaw 156 2/3
SV: Edward Mujica 13
K: Anthony Shaw 130
ERA: Julio Puello 2.05
WHIP: Alex Fagalde 0.99
K/9: C.J. Saylor 13.6
K/BB: Hector Soto 8.33
Let’s look at the award winners…