St. Louis Cardinals: Greg Garcia is better than Kolten Wong

The St. Louis Cardinals have a decision to make when it comes to Greg Garcia at the end of spring: he makes the MLB team or must be released.

Let’s face it, I’m a huge Greg Garcia fan and I will be completely devastated if he doesn’t make the MLB squad out of spring training. If this happens, I will be very disappointed in the St. Louis Cardinals and will wonder just what the organization saw that I missed, or what they missed that I saw.

I like Garcia so much that I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I’m beginning to encamp myself in the opinion that I would rather have him over Kolten Wong patrolling second base. There, I said it. I’m beginning to completely believe that Garcia is a better bat on the squad and at the plate than Wong.

I feel that I’m going to be mutilated for this opinion but let me justify it. Let’s take a moment and look back at 2015. In 2015, Wong appeared in 557 at-bats and posted a slash line of .262/.321/.386. While these numbers aren’t incredible, they don’t overly disappoint.

Comparing those numbers to Garcia seems slightly unfair since Wong is thought of as a starter who should appear in more at-bats while Garcia is the backup who should not appear in as many. Considering those factors, however, Garcia appeared in seventy-five at-bats in 2015 in which he posted a slash line of .240/.337/.387.

So, 2015 seems somewhat of a wash. Okay, okay, I must admit that 2015 goes the way of Wong since his numbers are equalized across a greater number of at-bats. That said, considering the core numbers makes me begin to scratch my head.

It was after the 2015 season, however, that the St. Louis Cardinals organization decided to reward Wong with a his five-year, $25.5M contract. The idea here was that the extension would provide a touch of security for Wong and allow him to settle into the role and produce a higher level. 2016 was a season where this was not witnessed.

In 2016, Wong appeared in 313 major-league at-bats thanks to him needing to spend some time in Memphis to work on his swing and experiment in the outfield. While his bat responded well in Memphis, he was not able to carry this progress back to St. Louis. Before I look at the numbers, let’s also immediately admit that the outfield experiment also did not go as planned.

In the 313 at-bats in 2016, Wong posted a slash line of .240/.327/.355 showing no improvement over his prior year numbers. In 2016, Garcia appeared in almost as many MLB at-bats as Wong (214) and posted a slash line of .276/.393/.369. Can we see now why I’m encamping in the idea that Garcia is better than Wong?

Let’s jump to this spring. This spring, Wong has appeared in thirty-six at-bats posting a .167/.250/.167. Snooze, right? In complete contrast, Garcia has become the massive king of spring training having appeared in thirty-four at-bats posting a .324/.368/.471 slash. Clearly Garcia is better than Wong in at least this spring.

Before you string me up, let’s take a look at the defensive metrics as well. Wong is noted as a career 9.0 UZR at second base. He earned a 0.4 UZR in 2015, progressed to a 4.5 UZR in 2016, and is projected to have a ZiPS defensive metric of 5.5 (for a deeper look, jump over to Fangraphs).

Looking at Garcia, he is noted as a career -1.0 UZR at second base. He earned a -1.1 UZR in 2015, progressed to a 0.3 UZR in 2016, and is projected to have a ZiPS defensive metric of 6.7. If comparing these figures, the UZR figures show a stronger bend for Wong. Garcia, however, had fewer changes to earn stronger UZR which could be what is contributing to his higher ZiPS figure.

Disclaimer: the ZiPS figure for Garcia is also likely higher thanks to his ability to play a greater number of positions than Wong.

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Let me jump to the chase here: I like Garcia and find myself liking Wong less and less. Looking at today’s game alone, Wong has sent himself to the back fields to attempt to generate more at-bats so he can work on his swing while Garcia has ripped a triple off of powerhouse Max Scherzer. Adding to this, Garcia has the seventh-highest number of total bases on the team this spring at sixteen (Wong sit back at sixteenth with only six).

All of this is to say that if it were up to me, in all honesty, I might choose Garcia as the starter at second when camp breaks with Wong starting in Memphis until he absolutely starts ripping the cover off of balls. Will this happen? It might. It is probably more likely that a “phantom” injury will befall Wong allowing him to hit the 10-day DL at the season’s start.

Next: Questions Facing the Pitching Squad

Either way, I want to see Garcia break camp with the club and not have to face the lacking options issue. I ultimately want to see the St. Louis Cardinals make the right decision and offer some kind of extension to this great, scrappy player. Finally, I want to see Garcia make a name for himself in 2017.