It has, in many ways, been a banner year for the Cardinals’ minor league system. There have been a couple of notably frustrating occurrences, such as a down season for new acquisition Max Schrock, the deteriorating stuff of Junior Fernandez, and of course the vicious wolf attack which claimed the arm of Alex Reyes. The continued breakdown of Reyes, in particular, feels like a brutal piece of bad luck and even with the turnaround at the big league level casts a certain pall over the near-term future of the club.
However, while there have been some disappointments — and some outright failures — within the system, it has also been a year that has seen the emergence of something we haven’t seen in quite a while here in Cardinal country.