When looking at the shape of our team in St. Louis, I can't help but wonder what may be on the way, in the future, to help the club. Certainly, there's been some call-ups this year which have been nice. However, I wondered what our farm looked like position-by-position.

All in all, we're not stocked well in the areas of need (except second base), but we have some trade chips available - just not enough. Not to mention, trading any of them only makes the farm that much weaker. Anyway, here's what I found and my thoughts on them:

1B sure seems like a log jam. At Memphis, Tagg Bozied, Rico Washington and Joe Mather have contributed. Tagg's spent the most time there, collecting 264 ABs. While his .258 average isn't very hot, his .843 OPS and .343 OBP are respectable. Rico sure seems to be producing better results. In 168 ABs, he's got a .315 average with .374 OBP and .909 OPS. He's only struck out 24 times for crying out loud. Joe Mather was a call-up from Springfield it seems and has 63ABs at Memphis and only a .206 average. Looks like he needs to go back to Springfield where he was hitting .303 with a .994 OPS. I realize Mike Ferris is there also, as is call-up Mark Hamilton, but Hamilton hasn't been working out at AA ball, so perhaps Mather and Ferris should remain in Springfield until there's room cleared out above. Also, since Brandon Buckman is the only other 1B at Palm Beach, it makes sense. Honestly, if Ferris doesn't improve at AA soon, Buckman could leap-frog both of those guys in to Springfield. Overall, the farm looks good at 1B.

2B also seems to be in good shape. Edgar Gonzalez and his .298/.363/.801 line looks excellent and so does call-up Mike McCoy - .288/.394/.803. Additionally, Jarrett Hoffpauir has recently joined in the log jam and so far is .471/.526/1.291 (however, that's just over 17 ABs - pretty small sample size). With St. Louis' troubles at 2B, I sure wish there was a way to clear room for the future. With Juan Lucena being the only 2B at Springfield (and struggling there I might add) and the guys lower in the farm not putting up great numbers, there's no immediate need to clear room.

Certainly no log jam at 3B. Travis Hansen is the only one at Memphis and he's struggling - .219/.247/.549. Juan Richardson is the only one at Springfield, but he's doing all right - .275/.351/.813. The guy strikes out 27% of the time though, so it's not like he's ready to join Travis just yet. However, since Allen Craig has been tearing up High A ball in Palm Beach, maybe some help is on the way. Allen has a great line through 316 ABs this year - .320/.370/.911 with 17 HRs and 7 SBs. Other than his performance, there's not much to get excited about down on the farm. This position is a tough one to stockpile talent at, but you'd hope Travis would be performing better as well as having more than 6 players at the position between Low A and AAA.

Brendan Ryan is seeing some time with the parent club, but was mediocre at Memphis. Seems to be a good defender as he has 6 errors through 64 games, but his offense was lacking - .266/.315/.663. Springfield has had 2 guys playing short this year, but none of them have been performing well. Tyler Greene has a .244 average and 13 errors and call-up Jose Martinez has gotten off to a .190 start. Since Ryan's offensive line is the best across all 10 short stops in our farm, there's just not a lot to get excited about for the future.

Our catchers also appear to be struggling this year. At Memphis, call-up Matt Pagnozzi leads in BA with .213 (albeit in 47 ABs). I have to wonder when they're going to make room for Bryan Anderson who's the gem of our farm at this position. So far this year, his line looks like this - .320/.375/.808. He only has 5 errors in 62 games and sure seems to be ready for advancement. Since Molina is probably going no where, I'm guessing the only way we'll see Anderson play in the big league is with another team. However, it's nice to have a guy playing so well when we could use a good trading chip. Outside of that, Danilo Sanchez came up to take Pagnozzi's place in AA and seems to be trying to find his way. In his brief time, he has .161/.308/.598 to compare to his .270/.403/.879 with Palm Beach, but with 7 BBs and only 1 SO, he's sure to improve as he gets more experience.

For the outfield, Skip and Ludwick have been serving time in St. Louis, but Ankiel, Stavinoha and J-Rod have also been performing well. Ankiel and Stavinoha need better plate discipline and J-Rod's .266 batting average should be better, but all are good prospects (although, can you really call J-Rod and Ankiel "prospects" at their age?). Lots of quality in AA as well - Rasmus has put up .256/.353/.861 and has 16 HRs. Jon Jay was .344/.355/.879 at Palm Beach before putting up a .235/.333/.706 line at Springfield. He hasn't had an error yet this year, but then again, fellow call-up Sean Danielson's only had 1 this year. He's also had a great year at the plate, putting up .355/.375/.762 in Palm Beach and .295/.362/.763 in Springfield (234 ABs). Neither of these guys are power hitters, but they are quality hitters who can find the gaps and still get extra bases. This is the problem, to me though - Rasmus is really the only power prospect at Springfield. There's also nothing to get too excited about in A-ball. We really should have more appealing players in our farm for the outfield positions.