St. Louis Cardinals: Two of our writers debate Kolten Wong

Trevor

Larry, you make very good points about his ability to get on base.  I will concede to you that the OBP can be an enticing number, but look at what is behind it.  As I mentioned before he is hitting .298, which is the base number.  Now add in his nineteen walks… but the thing about his walks is that eight of them are intentional.

He was gifted free passes, so really he has only worked eleven walks this season.  The intentional walk number cannot be counted on from Wong; before this season he had only been intentionally walked seven times total.  When a player has struck out twenty-five times in a season and worked fewer than a dozen walks, that OBP becomes a less attractive number.

And I feel the need to bring up Wong’s injury again.  It lingered and put him back on the DL.  Even if he is healthy and playing great at the trade deadline, that is a huge question mark that teams will have: Is Wong going to be 100 percent, and is his durability there?

The second injury in a short time period really does appear to cut off the rest of what I would summarize as little trade value that he had before.  The time to sell him would have been the off-season, but the St. Louis Cardinals waited and it didn’t pan out.