ST. LOUIS -- The Cardinals' recent success in the MLB Draft has turned the St. Louis farm system into one of the best in baseball. Dan Kantrovitz would like to keep that run of good fortune going.
After hosting four regional workouts for prospects across the country, the Cardinals' director of scouting needs to catch up on some sleep before the final push of organizational meetings next week, which will lead up to the three-day draft that begins Thursday night.
"It's one of those things where it's kind of like going into an open books exam," Kantrovitz says. "You want to be as prepared as you can and take whatever information in that can help you, and just sort of be aggressive and be able to take all the information and preparation that you've put into it and apply it. At this point, we're still in the preparation stages. I'm just sort of sitting back at this point trying to figure out who may or may not be in our wheelhouse. That seems to be the biggest puzzle of this year's draft."
Yes, Kantrovitz reads the various mock drafts circulating throughout the Internet at this time of year, just like diehard Cardinals fans do.
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"They are exciting and interesting, but at this very point, I don't know who we would take or who's going to get to us," Kantrovitz says. "It's hard to read that, other people know that."
The St. Louis scouting director, who is going into his third draft in that role, likes the position the franchise is in because of the money they are allowed to spend on their picks.
The Cardinals won't select a player until 27th overall in the first round, but will have the 34th overall pick as compensation for the Yankees signing Carlos Beltran. They'll have four picks among the first 71.
"I think the one thing that we have working in our favor is that, despite picking at 27, we still have a pretty big pool to work with relative to the rest of the industry," Kantrovitz says. "I think our pool is maybe the 12th largest. That's because we have the compensation pick for Beltran at 34. We also were awarded a competitive balance pick at the end of the second round. ... That's going to give us some unique flexibility I think at 27 with room to be creative if guys slide due to signability or just to kind of spread some of that money around in different ways."
In Kantrovitz's first draft as scouting director, in 2012, St. Louis selected pitcher Michael Wacha at No. 19 overall, outfielder James Ramsey at No. 23 and third baseman Stephen Piscotty at No. 36.
Wacha has already made an impact in the majors, making a splash early on as the MVP of the National League Championship Series last fall. Ramsey is tearing up the Texas League at Double-A Springfield with a .305 average, 11 homers and .976 OPS. Piscotty, since moved to a corner outfield spot, is raking at Triple-A Memphis and looks like he's destined for St. Louis sooner rather than later.
A year ago, the Cardinals picked a pair of left-handed pitchers, Gonzaga's Marco Gonzales and New Jersey high schooler Rob Kaminsky, in the first round and high school shortstop Oscar Mercado in the second.
"Last year two of our first three picks were high school players, and I couldn't have told you before the draft last year that that was going to be the case," says Kantrovitz. "It's one of those things where you kind of have to react. It's a situation where you don't know who is going to be available and you don't know what their price tag is going to be. So if you constrain yourself to a certain class of player, then you're not flexible enough or flexible to where you need to be to improvise."
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The strength of this particular draft, Kantrovitz says, is pitching, both at the high school and college levels. He believes the quality of the college position players available seems about normal and the high school position players maybe a little bit less so than in past years.
Kantrovitz has seen plenty of prospects recently.
He just returned to St. Louis after the organization hosted four regional workouts -- in California, North Carolina, Florida and Texas -- which had anywhere from 10 to 30 players participating.
The Cardinals held a similar workout at Busch Stadium last year, but didn't feel the need to do that again this year because of the prospects who attended their workouts elsewhere.
The next step in the process for Kantrovitz and his staff will be all-day staff meetings at Busch Stadium on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday -- this is where the Cardinals' scouts will fight for their top prospects and the team will finalize its draft board -- and then even more meetings on Thursday before the start of the draft that night.
