While the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system is largely bottom heavy, there are some players to like that could find themselves making an impact at the big league level in the next year or two.
One of those players is a player the St. Louis Cardinals’ 2015 draft pick Harrison Bader. Bader broke onto the scene last season showing that he was more than ready for the challenge of moving fastly through the Cardinals’ system. He started the season out with Sate College and finished the season with the Peoria Chiefs.
Bader is a guy that I have talked about a lot. He has the tool set to be a fantastic outfielder and great hitter. He is someone who can definitely play himself into a potential role with the big league club as early as next season.
This is all stuff you have already heard me say, so let’s take a look at how the 2016 season is shaping up for him. We will break this down into the two parts for Bader, as we will take a look at what is going well for the outfielder from the Univeristy of Florida and what isn’t going well for him.
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The Good
Things are going well for Bader offensively right now, as he sports a .305/.339/.373 slash line so far. Those aren’t crazy good numbers, but what is nice to see is the average being at a decent mark this far into his first full professional season.
Bader has played in 14 games so far and has 18 hits so far, so the center fielder is definitely making good contact, which is what you want to see for a guy like Bader. So, keep an eye on that to continue for Bader moving forward.
The Bad
While Bader is a really impressive talent, he is not doing much with his hits so far, as he only has two extra base-hits thus far, as he has just one double and one homerun. The next concern for Bader is that he has struck out in 21 of his 59 at-bats and has only walked twice. So, it is clear that Bader is having issues with his aggressiveness so far and it shows in his .339 OBP.
While I am very high on Bader and believe that he is a very good talent, he is going to need to show more reserve at the plate and get his swing back to where it was last season when he was mashing for Peoria and State College last season.
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This will need to happen soon and it will need to be consistent if he is going to get a promotion to AAA Memphis this season. I believe that Bader will start to hit the ball with more regularity and authority as the season goes on.