St. Louis Cardinals’ 2016 Top Prospects: #18 Patrick Wisdom

The St. Louis Cardinals have tried their hand at drafting power in the last few years, how is this prospect doing?

This next St. Louis Cardinals‘ Top Prospect is one who has been a bit of a disappointment up to this point in his career. As Patrick Wisdom, much like Wilson has plenty of power in his bat, but is struggling making consistent contact to make his power play.

Finding that rare prospect who has a mixture of consistent contact and power seems to be a bit of a hard thing to find for the St. Louis Cardinals, which is why the team drafted the players they did this past summer.

Regardless, let’s take a look at what Wisdom brings to the table.

#18 Patrick Wisdom 3B

Season Stats:

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Scout Grade: Hit: 45 | Power: 45 | Run: 40 | Arm: 70 | Field: 60 | Overall: 45

Analysis: Wisdom is one of those minor league guys who simply cannot adjust to the level of pitching in pro ball. Wisdom struggled mightily this season and was sent to down to extended spring training to work on his swing. It worked initially for Wisdom, but after a little while his bat regressed again. 

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The Cardinals sent him to the Arizona Fall League, so that he could continue to get at bats and try and gain some momentum for next season. Unfortunately, the lack of consistent contact was the story for Wisdom there as well. Wisdom had very similar numbers with Surprise, as he hit .238 with four homers over 24 games in Arizona.

For me, Wisdom is still a slight prospect. He will need to improve quite a bit in order to make much of an impact at the big league level any time soon. His stretch after returning from instructional league earlier this season, was very impressive, he seemed to have figured things out. However, maybe he simply got tired and didn’t have it in him towards the end of the season.

If Wisdom can seem to figure it out, he could be a very nice player for the Cardinals in the future, which is why he is here at #19. You simply cannot ignore that power right now and he plays a pretty slick third base, despite his unimpressive AFL that saw him gain time at first.

Next: Cardinals' 2016 Top Prospects: #19 Jacob Wilson

With that said, I would say Wisdom is an outside prospect at this point for the Cardinals. This will be an interesting year for him. Even John Manuel believes that there is “too much swing and miss to his game” in regards to his prospect status.

Roster Prediction: AA Springfield

After last year’s disappointing play in the Texas League, he won’t advance. However, a good start to the season may see him get a call up to Memphis, but I would think the organization wants to see long term consistency out of Wisdom first.

Scout Grade via MLB.com