The St. Louis Cardinals' token ex-prospect, former Top-50 guy Eric Duncan, hit for the cycle Sunday at AA Springfield, which reminded me that Eric Duncan was in the Cardinals' system. Back in 2005, when I was just getting started blogging, Eric Duncan was one of the best prospects in baseball and a teenaged future star with the New York Yankees, which made him just about ubiquitous. As a 19-year-old in A ball he hit 43 doubles and 16 home runs, and while he struck out a ton people expected him to continue making gains as he moved up.
↵Instead he stalled in AA and then AAA, and finally ended up with the Cardinals in 2011, a 25-year-old ex-prospect who is now very old for his age. But forget about that for a night: He hit for the cycle! The triple was his first one all year! He's got 22 home runs and 20 doubles, which isn't especially terrible! At this point in his career Duncan is without a position and his .880 OPS is going down in a major hitters' park in a major hitters' league, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Cardinals stick with him another year in AAA. Stranger things have happened; he could always turn out to be Ryan Ludwick.
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