Regular followers of Future Redbirds—that should be everyone who is fan enough of the St. Louis Cardinals to wonder about who will be wearing their uniforms in 2013—will have noticed a heretofore-unheralded name creeping across the Daily Farm Reports with increasing frequency back here in 2011. It's Andrew Brown, who, two months into his AAA debut, is hitting .352/.435/.607. Best known before now as one of a number of sketchy sluggers who were, by virtue of playing first base, out of luck in St. Louis, Brown now spends most of his time in the outfield.
↵At 26, Brown has always been old for his league and not quite impressive enough to merit a continued examination, but he's peaking at the right moment, if still in the wrong organization; at 26 he has nowhere else to go, and the player with whom he's switched positions, Nick Stavinoha, parlayed a similar career path into an admittedly halting and unsuccessful career as a bench cog.
↵Brown is behind too many similar players on the depth chart—Allen Craig, Mark Hamilton, Stavinoha, with Matt Adams coming up behind him in AA—to forecast great things in the big leagues, but he's put himself in a good position to reach the Majors somewhere at some point, which is more than could be said for him last year.