Gary LaRocque was standing in front of 42 of the St. Louis Cardinals’ best young prospects at the team’s instructional camp in Jupiter, Fla., just the other day when he settled on a message most of them likely had heard before.



“You hear players talking all the time about where they’re going to start the season. I told them, ‘Worrying about where you’re going to be in April is fine, but where you are in July and August is what really matters,'” said LaRocque, the team’s director of player development. “That’s the game within the game for the players.”



The Cardinals have always done things a little differently when it comes to their minor-league system, which is entirely appropriate considering they were the team that invented the very concept of a minor-league system nearly 100 years ago.



Under LaRocque, the Cardinals have focused heavily on the process that prepares players for longevity as...