Baseball America mock draft sends Patrick Bailey to the Cardinals

It’s never to early for draft season! Okay, well it’s a little early, but that’s half the fun, right? The next crop of St. Louis Cardinals prospects wait until June and hope to hear their name called. It’s an exciting time.

For now, there is still a full season to play for the prep and college draft prospects where they will improve or decrease their stock in front of the watchful eyes of their potential employers.

That doesn’t stop the early mocks and the too-early mocks, or even the way-too-early mocks from happening. Carlos Collazo of Baseball America came out with the most recent mock draft for round one.

The Cardinals have the 21st pick in the draft, but it’s a draft class that’s considered extremely talented. And with that pick, C Patrick Bailey is slated to become the newest member of the St. Louis Cardinals organization. Bailey is a solid backstop according to Colazzo.

Bailey has some of the best defensive skills in the country, with excellent receiving, blocking and throwing ability and solid power from both sides of the plate as well.

Bailey would be joining the ranks of an organization with a solid history of developing catchers. Carson Kelly was drafted a third baseman and turning into a top catching prospect before heading to the desert in the package that netted Paul Goldschmidt. Andrew Knizner is also a great catching prospect. Let’s add Ivan Herrera is getting there too.

At one point the first two were deadlocks to be the heir to the Yadier Molina thrown. Knizner still could be, but continuing to bring catching talent into the organization will be important. I can’t prove this, but Yadi will eventually retire....probably.

The odds of Bailey actually being the Cardinals pick on draft day is extremely low. Especially with a pick this late in the first round, the impending season will breed tons of risers and fallers. So take this one with a grain of salt.

For the sake of trying, Nick Bitsko is a likely riser, but he is a very interesting name, Collazo has him going to the Indians two picks behind the Cardinals. Bitsko is potentially the best prep arm in the class, so his path will be very interesting.

As it gets closer, there will be more information available on some of these guys and hopefully I will be able to put together my own list of targets. For now though, there’s at least one prediction that has catcher Patrick Bailey going to the Cardinals on draft day.