Scout.com/TCN Cards Players of the Year: 2010

Each day into early November, we’ll again be rolling out our choices as the top players at each level of the St. Louis Cardinals system from the summer of 2010. Who will take Allen Craig’s crown as our Player of the Year?

As we do each fall, the staff of The Cardinal Nation will crown three award winners from each level of the St. Louis Cardinals’ system, our Scout.com/The Cardinal Nation Minor League Starters, Relievers and Players of the Year.

We will unveil our selections, one award per day, throughout October and into November, starting with the Gulf Coast League (GCL) Reliever of the Year all the way through the Memphis Redbirds Player of the Year, some special awards and of course, the top three selections for the entire Cardinals minor league system for 2010.

Though they watched these clubs and reported on them all summer long, our team of writers still have their work cut out for them to select the very best of the best from over 300 players. Yet this most knowledgeable group is more than qualified and again up to the challenge. They include Dustin Mattison, Leonda Markee, Shawn Kerrick, Jon Popham and Josh Jones.

While the winning names will be made available to all as this article is updated daily, the detailed commentary for most articles in this series will be exclusively for Scout.com/The Cardinal Nation subscribers.

This includes analysis from our writers as well as comments by Cardinals players, coaches and executives. We explain what tradeoffs were made and what we saw in the best players to take the field at each level of the Cardinals system during the 2010 season.

We began the process with a daily series recapping each minor league club’s 2010 season in depth, looking at records, injuries, player movement, key stats and much more. Subscribers can click on the highlighted team names below to read those articles if you missed them the first time.

2010 Scout.com/The Cardinal Nation Award Winners

2010 Team Recaps	Relief Pitcher	Starting Pitcher	Position Player
Venezuelan Summer	Alberth Almeida	Deimer Bier	Breyvic Valera
Dominican Summer	Juan Bautista	Carlos Martinez	Robelys Reyes / Luis Perez
Gulf Coast (Rookie)	Manuel DeLaCruz	Javier Avendano	Anthony Garcia
Johnson City (SS-R)	Hector Corpas	Boone Whiting	Oscar Taveras
Batavia (SS-A)	Jose Rada	John Gast	Nick Longmire
Quad Cities (A)	Jesse Simpson	Eric Fornataro	Matt Adams
Palm Beach (A+)	Ramon Delgado	Kevin Thomas	Alex Castellanos
Springfield (AA)	Eduardo Sanchez	Brian Broderick	Matt Carpenter
Memphis (AAA)	Fernando Salas	Brandon Dickson	Mark Hamilton
St. Louis (all free)	Ryan Franklin	Adam Wainwright	Albert Pujols
Rookies of the Year (all free)	Hector Corpas	John Gast	Oscar Taveras
Players of the Year (all free)	Fernando Salas	Brandon Dickson	Matt Carpenter
Manager of the Year (free)	Mike Shildt

( Subscribers: Click on the player name highlighted in the table above to be taken to that detailed article. In addition, click on each team name to read the 2010 overall summary for that level.)

If you ever forget the location of this article, you can always use the permanent link on the lower left of The Cardinal Nation homepage. You can access our 2009, 2008 and 2007 Cardinals Minor League Players of the Year from there, too, as well as our Top Prospect lists from each of the last five winters.



Brian Walton can be reached via email at [e-mail]. Also catch his Cardinals commentary daily at The Cardinal Nation blog. Selected TCN content appears at FOXSportsMidwest.com. Follow Brian on Twitter.

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