Missing the playoffs by just two games, the 2017 Springfield Cardinals had a solid season overall. Loaded with pitching prospects, Springfield was almost as exciting to following this year as the Memphis Redbirds.
Cardinals hurlers and eighth-, ninth, and fifteenth-ranked prospects, respectively — Dakota Hudson, Sandy Alcantara, and Austin Gomber — were three of the toughest pitchers in the league. Hudson boasted the lowest (by far) HR/9 rate of 0.39 in the Texas League, the second lowest in all of Double-A. Alcantara enjoyed a 19.1 strikeout percentage, and Gomber’s .218 batting average against was the third-lowest in the level, behind Michael Kopech (.