St. Louis Cardinals: Looking to 2018, Kolten Wong

The St. Louis Cardinals season did not go as planned this year, but there is a lot to look at for 2018. The second edition of the looking ahead series continues with the team’s 2018 second basemen.

The St. Louis Cardinals season has ended, so the only logical thing to do is looking to 2018. In a previous post we looked at Harrison Bader and his 2018 projection. In this look ahead to 2018, we will take a look at the Cardinals’ second basemen Kolten Wong. The oft-injured, seemingly frustrating player had quite the 2017. But what does that mean for 2018?

For the first time in his career, Kolten Wong had a season where he hit over .262. Given, he was out for a chunk of the season and ended the year with 354 at bats, the numbers show growth. Possibly the most impressive growth that Wong has shown is his patience at the plate. Not only is that obvious in his average, but also in his walks. Wong set a career high in walks in a shortened season with sixty-one.

His previous high was in 2015, where he had thirty-six walks in 557 at bats.

The patience at the plate is obvious. Wong looks more confident and far closer to the player everyone hoped he would become. Another impressive stat was his doubles; Wong was one off of his career high of twenty-eight doubles, which he also achieved in his 2015 season. This all comes back to Wong be smarter at the plate and finding pitches that he can put into gaps.

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Confidence has always been key for Wong.

Last season was a low point for Wong. An injury plagued year saw him sharing time at second with Jedd Gyorko and never really finding extended periods of success.

This year the Cardinals made a concerted effort to let Wong be the guy and it paid off big.

A big reason that Wong got his chance to be “the guy” at second base was his complete turnaround against left-handed pitching.

Before the year started, there was concern Wong would have to be part of a platoon, to avoid having him face off against lefty pitchers. It is obvious Wong made hitting lefties a priority in the offseason. After a .242 average against lefties in 2016, Wong improved that split to .274 in 2017.

At their end of the season press conference, John Mozeliak made a statement that has Cardinal fans a bit taken back. He said that the only guaranteed spot on next year’s team was catcher and that would be going to, of course Yadier Molina. While this may just be Mozeliak trying to express to fans they are committed to improving this team, there should be no reason Kolten Wong isn’t the starting second basemen of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2018.

Next: Finding Matt Carpenter

Wong will be twenty-seven next year, right around where people believe a player’s “prime” is. This will be a big year for Wong to continue to progress into the player everyone hoped he would be when he signed his contract extension after the 2015 season. He made quite the step in the right direction this season and should be looked at to continue to move forward in 2018.