As we do each fall, the staff of The Cardinal Nation will start this series with recaps of the 2011 season at each level of the St. Louis Cardinals system, including the major league club. We follow with the crowning of three award winners for each team. They will be our Scout.com/The Cardinal Nation Minor League Starters, Relievers and Players of the Year.
We will unveil our selections, one team recap or award per day, beginning on Wednesday, September 21, and running throughout October and into November. We start with the club recaps, then the Dominican Summer League (DSL) Reliever of the Year all the way through the Memphis Redbirds Player of the Year.
We’ll add some special awards and of course, name the top selections for the entire Cardinals minor league system for 2011 as well as the best rookies. The series will conclude with our selection as the top manager in the organization.
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 Josh Thompson, Paul Ivice, 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. All major league articles will be free for all.
They include 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 2011 season.
Again, we began the process with a daily series recapping each minor league club’s 2011 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.
2011 Scout.com/The Cardinal Nation Award Winners
( Subscribers: Click on the player name highlighted in the table above to be taken to that detailed article. In addition, select each team name to read the 2011 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 2010, 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 six winters.
Speaking of top prospects, that annual top 40 countdown will begin in late November after this series concludes. Please remember that the two are separate and distinct. This effort is to recognize the top performances on the field in 2011, whether or not the players are projected to have a major league future down the road. In other words, this is about current results, not future potential.
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