Alex Reyes, the best pitching prospect in baseball, is out for the year

Just yesterday, we noted that Baseball Prospectus ranked St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Alex Reyes the top prospect in all of baseball.

Today, one day after the beginning of spring training, Reyes is heading to the operating table with a ruptured ligament in his right elbow. He will have Tommy John surgery and miss the 2017 season.

The 22-year-old was 4-1 with a 1.57 ERA in 12 games (5 starts) with the Cardinals last season. He struck out 52 batters in 46 big-league innings.

Reyes was expected to compete for the fifth spot in the St. Louis rotation, and some were thinking he would be a candidate for National League Rookie of the Year.

The Cardinals had high hopes for Reyes, and obviously, this is not the sort of news any team wants early in camp. However, St. Louis has a rotation that is mostly set -- Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Mike Leake and Lance Lynn are penciled in for the first four spots.

The Reyes injury leaves Michael Wacha as the leading candidate for the fifth spot. Wacha dealt with shoulder issues in 2016 and went 7-7 with a 5.09 ERA. The Cardinals need him to bounce back, because their other fifth-spot options are not great -- 23-year-old Luke Weaver, who struggled in eight starts last year, and former closer Trevor Rosenthal.

Tying this news back to the White Sox, every time some team has a pitching injury this spring, my reaction is going to be the same: "Hmmmm ... might this team be interested in Jose Quintana?"

So, would the Cardinals be interested in Quintana? Yeah, of course, who wouldn't? However, the Cardinals are not the type of organization that makes knee-jerk moves. They like to fill spots from within, and it seems unlikely they would want to send all their high-level prospects to the Sox for Quintana, even though the fit might be good on paper.

Unless, of course, one of their veterans at the top of the rotation gets hurt. Then they might start to feel desperate.

This situation illustrates the fact that Sox general manager Rick Hahn isn't necessarily wrong for holding on to Quintana going into the season. The market might heat up for him as we go along, because injuries and underperformance might cause certain clubs who think they have enough pitching right now to realize they don't.

Wait long enough, and you might have 10 suitors for Quintana instead of three or four. The gamble in that is the possibility that Quintana himself could get injured. But if Quintana stays healthy, and pitches like he usually does in the first half, there's an opportunity to create a bidding war among clubs at the July trade deadline.

There are potential risks and potential rewards in any strategy. The injury to Reyes is just the latest reminder of how important it is for teams to stockpile pitching.

If the Red Sox win the World Series, do you think David Ortiz will win MVP?

Boston slugger David Ortiz is hitting .733 through the first five games of the World Series. In contrast, his Red Sox teammates have combined for a .156 batting average.

Yeah, I think we know who has been the best player on the field so far in this series.

The Red Sox have 33 hits as a team over the five games. Ortiz has 11 of them, in just 15 at-bats. He also has two home runs, six RBIs and four walks. His on-base percentage is .789. That's obscene.

Ortiz finished 3 for 4 in Boston's 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday in Game 5. His RBI double in the first inning opened the scoring. The Red Sox also got an go-ahead RBI double from journeyman catcher David Ross in the top of the seventh, and Jacoby Ellsbury chipped in with an RBI single.

The Red Sox now own a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series, which shifts back to Fenway Park for Game 6 on Wednesday night.

If it weren't for Ortiz's otherworldly performance, we would be talking about left-hander Jon Lester as a possible MVP winner. The Boston ace was masterful for the second time in this series in Game 5. He went 7.2 innings and allowed just four hits. He struck out seven, walked none and surrendered just one run on a solo home run by Matt Holliday. Lester is now 2-0 with a 0.59 ERA in two World Series starts. He also was the winning pitcher in Game 1.

The odds are stacked in Boston's favor now as it has two chances to win one game at home. Can St. Louis go into Fenway and win two straight? I doubt it, but you never say never.

The Cardinals have to feel good about their Game 6 starter, Michael Wacha, who has been every bit as brilliant as Lester in the postseason. The St. Louis rookie is 4-0 with 1.00 ERA in four playoff starts. He'll need to make it 5-0 for the Cardinals to stay alive. His mound opponent will once again be Boston veteran John Lackey.

Here's why the Cardinals still have a chance: If it goes to Game 7, who is Boston going to pitch? Lester and Lackey are their only two reliable starters. Jake Peavy has been inconsistent to say the least. Clay Buchholz is gutting it out, pitching through injuries. Neither of the two is a real attractive option to start a Game 7, but one of them will get the ball -- if the Cardinals can find a way to pull out Game 6.