St. Louis Cardinals: Worries for Kolten Wong

St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong committed his fifth error of the spring in today’s 7-0 loss to the Washington Nationals

Everybody knows about the highlight plays that St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong is capable of making. Those are great.

The troubling theme for the Cardinal second baseman has been his propensity to boot the routine ones.

With the infield drawn in and the Cardinals already trailing 2-0 in the top of the 4th, Wong came up on a two-hopper off the bat of Danny Espinosa. The ball went undeflected through Wong’s legs and into shallow right field. Two runs would score on the play.

Wong’s error was the first of five on the afternoon for the Cardinals. Both Matt Carpenter and Greg Garcia committed a pair of errors as well.

A season ago, Wong committed a team-worst 17 errors en route to a .977 fielding percentage. Those numbers aren’t amongst the worst in baseball or anything, but it does hint at what could be considered a relative lack of attention to detail.

Going back to the start of his St. Louis career, it’s always going to be tough to forget the game ending pickoff in the World Series against Boston.

With the Cardinals trailing 4-2 in the bottom of the 9th and Carlos Beltran at the plate, there was absolutely no reason in the world to be picked off in that spot. In a two run deficit, stealing second gets you nothing, and with your biggest power threat at the plate in Beltran, Wong might as well have just stayed on the first base bag.

As it played out, Wong relaxed, shuffled towards second on a quick move by Koji Uehara and became the final out in that pivotal Game 4 at Busch.

I felt as bad for Wong as anyone when that happened, but you can’t ignore the fact that “lack of focus” has been a bit of a trend at times for the 25-year-old.

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You can only chalk up lack of focus errors like the ones that Wong has suffered to youth for so long. Eventually, it turns into a trait you associate with a player, and it needs to stop for Wong.

He has all the defensive tools to be a perennial Gold Glove winner, and his overall game could be all-star worthy one day soon.

Wong is way too talented to commit five errors (so far) this spring. The Cardinals cannot afford for him to carry any of that over to regular season action.

If Wong is going to be our second base guy for the foreseeable future, he’s got to lock in and start handling his business on the simple plays in front of him. If he doesn’t, he’s going to start losing time to Jedd Gyorko and Ruben Tejada.

I’m not the biggest fan of the five-year deal that Wong signed this offseason. I’m not against it for the dollar figure attached or the fact that it allows both parties to avoid salary arbitration, those are certainly good things.

I don’t like it for the sense of security that I think Wong gets from it, something I’m not entirely sure he’s earned yet.

I think that Wong needs to have it in his mind that it is going to be a daily competition for starts at second. That’s the most effective way (to me) to minimize the lack of focus things that come when you relax.

There’s no doubt that Wong has had some nice moments as a Cardinal, as well. It’s just getting frustrating for me to see what he is capable of, only to watch him suffer lapses in attention to detail like he has.

At 25-years-old and entering his third season of full-time big league action, it’s time for Wong to really grow up and start taking more pride in the little things that need to be done out there.

The Cardinals gave him five years of financial security to do so. It’s time to get started.