St. Louis Cardinals: Wong disabled, DeJong promoted and debuting

The St. Louis Cardinals have announced that they are placing one of their young infielders on the disabled list and promoting and debuting a rising prospect in his place.

I am super excited. Super excited, in all honesty, might not accurately reflect my full gut feelings about today’s news. Released moments ago, the St. Louis Cardinals released that Kolten Wong is going on the 10-day disabled list with an elbow strain and rising star Paul DeJong will be taking his place.

Prior to his DL placement, Wong has experienced an up-and-down year. Sadly, of late, he has been better rather than worse. In the last ten games, Wong has recorded nine hits in twenty-nine at-bats. He started the season roughly having posted a .148 batting average through April fifteen but then start climbing out of the cellar.

Since April fifteen, Wong worked hard to build his batting average. His efforts paid off as he increased his average steadily and only dropping to a low of .198. His highest average this season has risen to .296. Despite never eclipsing the .300-mark, Wong currently sits with a slash of .278/.378/.414.

Defensively, Wong has also experienced an up-and-down season. He is noted as having the greatest number of errors of all second basemen in the majors with seven errors on the season. Wong has accrued these errors in just thirty-nine games. The majority of these occurred in April. Since May started, Wong has recorded only three (“only” is used with a touch of sarcasm).

With his disabling, this makes space for one of the St. Louis Cardinals rising stars, Paul DeJong. I am a huge fan of DeJong as is evidenced by the number of times that I have written about him. If you’ve missed any of these, jump here and have a read.

DeJong currently owns a .294/.331/.541 through 170 at-bats in Memphis. He has recorded nine doubles and eleven home runs. Thirty-one plated runs have come care of DeJong.

Defensively, DeJong- who started his career as a third baseman- has appeared at second base in five games, short stop in thirty-seven games, and third base in three games for the Memphis Redbirds. In these, he has recorded eight errors on the short season.

Of important note, however, is that six of his eight errors were recorded at short stop where he has appeared the most on the season. In the five games when he manned second, he has recorded only one error.

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Here’s the question: is the DeJong call-up something that is being done to expose DeJong to MLB action, test his abilities, and/or expose his abilities to entice his trade value? I wish I knew these answers. My gut tells me that DeJong is not as protected as other prospects so the likelihood of his exposure to trade seems high.

Regardless of the reason, I love the call-up. I am a big fan of this player. Having said that, I think that he and Greg Garcia now own the same spot on the roster which could lead to some head scratching by management (something I seriously doubt happens) and the organization: which will stay and which will go.

Next: Cardinals story lines

These next ten games will be important for both DeJong and Garcia. Keep an eye on both of these young guns. To Garcia’s credit, DeJong has options that Garcia does not. Still… DeJong has much about which to be proud and he can now add this MLB debut to that list. Go Cardinals!