Baseball America, the pre-eminent prospect tracker, has posted the Cards' top ten prospects. I'll spare you the suspense:

1. Anthony Reyes, rhp
2. Adam Wainwright, rhp
3. Blake Hawksworth, rhp
4. Chris Lambert, rhp
5. Stuart Pomeranz, rhp
6. Brad Thompson, rhp
7. Brendan Ryan, ss
8. Chris Duncan, 1b
9. Cody Haerther, of
10. Carmen Cali, lhp

The good news is that Reyes really could be that good and he'll probably start the season at AAA. In other words he's very close to contributing, perhaps in a substantial fashion. If you sent Carpenter or Mulder down to AA, they probably wouldn't pitch any better than Reyes did last season. The other good news is that Wainwright, Thompson and Cali are close as well.

The bad news is that the Cardinals don't have a position prospect of note. I'd argue with their rankings and put Haerther first, but Haerther's not especially young and his numbers aren't especially impressive. Ryan's line in 2004 (322/356/404) is a stat-head's nightmare, especially considering he was a bit old (22) for the Midwest League in 2004. The party line on Duncan is that he finally put it together in 2004; the stat-head line is that he had a career year. His listing over Orlando Palmeiro clones Schumaker and Gorecki (well, Gorecki bats RH, has a little pop, and plays good defense, so maybe he's a younger, deluxe version of So Taguchi) suggests the Cardinals were lobbying for their former first round pick/pitching coach's son.