St. Louis Cardinals: Protection (or better) waiting in the wings

The St. Louis Cardinals farm system promises not only pitchers and infielders but support for outfield as well.

Here’s the thing that we have heard all offseason: the St. Louis Cardinals have a surplus of outfielders. The thought was that the organization had plans to use this surplus to make trades. This was not the case.

At the Winter Warmup, fans were able to meet and hear from Ozuna who shared his excitement at joining the Cardinals, Randal Grichuk who shared that while he is always working for playing time that he is happy to still be with the Cardinals, and the aforementioned Jose Martinez.

The Winter Warmup also brought with it an exposure to the power outfielder who was acquired during the 2017 season, Tyler O’Neill. O’Neill, the number-four prospect in the Cardinals system, came to the organization with great promise and did not disappoint in 2017.

Here’s a look at his career:

To me, O’Neill carries incredible promise and incredible threat to Grichuk (and perhaps others as well). In addition to the batting numbers shown above, O’Neill has appeared at both corner outfield spots predominantly in his career which also lends to the supposition that Grichuk might have a short live span as the incumbent backup to the outfield.

My take is this: Grichuk is to be short-lived with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2018. I’m not really sure if he even makes it to the opening day roster. Either (1) he will be traded during spring training after he shows that he has the chops for another MLB team to take the rider, or (2) he starts the season on the Memphis roster.

My take on O’Neill is this: Tyler will start the season as the starter in RF for Memphis but this will be short-lived. O’Neill is basically MLB-ready today and keeping him in Memphis doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Should O’Neill see himself climb to the ranks of St. Louis, then this might be the displacing piece to Jose Martinez. But wait! What about Harrison Bader…?

These are Bader’s numbers (who, by the way, was heard from at the Warmup as well):

Bader is impressive and between him and O’Neill, only their performance during spring training stands in the way of who will rise to the surface.

Here’s my take on Bader: depending on his performance in spring training he will either start as a backup in St. Louis or as the starting CF for Memphis. I think the latter makes the most sense but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Bader traded before the start of the 2018 season in some package deal (maybe with Grichuk). The ceiling for Bader just seems made of steel rather than glass.