Scout.com Cards Minors Players of the Year

During the entire month of October, we’ll again be rolling out our choices as the top players in the St. Louis Cardinals minor leagues from the summer of 2008. Who will take Colby Rasmus’ crown as the Player of the Year?

Once again here in 2008, the staff of The Birdhouse, stlcardinals.scout.com, will crown three award winners from each level of the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league system, our Scout.com Minor League Starters, Relievers and Players of the Year.

We will be unveiling our selections, one award per day, throughout the entire month of October, starting with the Venezuelan Summer League (VSL) Reliever of the Year all the way through the Memphis Redbirds Player of the Year and finally, the three selections for the entire Cardinals System for 2008.

With winning clubs at the top six levels of the system, coupled with a strong draft and aggressive in-season promotions, our team of writers have their work cut out for them. Yet, this most knowledgeable group is again ready to accept the challenge. Players are eligible at the level at which they had the most at-bats or innings pitched.

While the winning names will be made available daily in this article to all, the detailed commentary will be available to Scout.com subscribers only. This includes analysis from our local writers in affiliate cities as well as Cardinals executives such as Jeff Luhnow.

We explain what tradeoffs were made and what we saw in the best players to take the field at each level of the Cardinals minor league system during the 2008 season.

2008 Scout.com Cardinals Minor League Award Winners

	Relief Pitcher	Starting Pitcher	Position Player
Venezuelan Summer League	David Brito	Geney Rios	Gerardo Mannbel / Alberto Rivero
Dominican Summer League	Eduard Estalis	Angel Cruz	Audris Perez
Gulf Coast League	David Carpenter	Chris Notti	Ryde Rodriguez
Johnson City (SS)	Samuel Freeman	Deryk Hooker / Scott McGregor	Curt Smith
Batavia (SS)	Adam Reifer	Thomas Eager	Colt Sedbrook
Quad Cities (A)	Pete Parise	Nick Additon	Pete Kozma
Palm Beach (A+)	Francisco Samuel	Shaun Garceau	Daryl Jones
Springfield (AA)	Fernando Salas	Jess Todd	Allen Craig
Memphis (AAA)	Jason Motte	Mitchell Boggs	David Freese
System Players of the Year (free!)	Jason Motte	Jess Todd	David Freese
New: System Rookies of the Year (free!)	Adam Reifer	Scott Gorgen	Brett Wallace
Manager of the Year (free!)	Mark DeJohn (Batavia)

( Subscribers: Click on the player name highlighted in the table above to be taken to that detailed article.)

If you ever forget the location of this article, remember to use the permanent link on the lower left of The Birdhouse homepage. You can also access our 2007 Cardinals Minor League Players of the Year from there, too, as well as our Top Prospect lists from each of the last three winters.

To receive our leading in-depth Cardinals major and minor league news year-round, join stlcardinals.scout.com today!

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Mailed in the spring to our annual subscribers, our third annual Scout Prospect Guide is a full color publication with team-by-team breakdown of the top prospects in each of the 30 MLB organizations and this year, the FOX Sports Fantasy Guide is also included in one publication.

Brian Walton can be reached via email at .

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