St. Louis Cardinals: Harrison Bader for Rookie of the Year

The St. Louis Cardinals have a wunderkind in their center fielder and the baseball world is taking notice. Will he win the Rookie of the Year for the NL?

The St. Louis Cardinals have finally installed Harrison Bader as their all-time center fielder after having sent Tommy Pham packing for Tampa. By the way, Pham is making the most of his time in Tampa and is on a tear of late. Advantage remains with the St. Louis Cardinals in my book.

With his good fortune of late, Bader is currently sitting with a nice .273/.345/.434 and a nice .779 OPS. His real flash, however, is in the field and via his speed on the bags.

If you missed Dan’s love fest for Bader, you can read it and watch the clips he posted by following the link below.

Let me add the following speedster video to the collective of Bader’s amazing work:

This speed on the bags is definitely impacting the competition and impacting the St. Louis Cardinals in impressive fashion. As a matter of fact, in a recent game, Bader ran from first to home in 9.2 seconds.

I challenge anyone out there to run anything in 9.2 seconds!

Yes, the above graphic shows how he is as fast as the assumed MLB speedster, Billy Hamilton.

Here’s some more praise for the should-be Rookie of the Year:

That’s right: first place, first place, first place… just one step away from ROY. To me this is a no-brainer. This 3.9 WAR wunderkind deserves the ROY nod and I, for one, hope that he lands the award.

Let’s take a look at his current competition to see how they stack up to our youthful speedster who patrols CF at Busch Stadium.

The St. Louis Cardinals have a wunderkind in their center fielder and the baseball world is taking notice. Will he win the Rookie of the Year for the NL?

The St. Louis Cardinals might have found themselves back in the race in the NL-Central, but the Atlanta Braves have battled themselves to the top the entire season. The Braves push was made easier by the addition of their own wunderkind in the form of Ronald Acuna, Jr.

Acuna has taken MLB by storm this season through impressive play all around. His batting line is outstanding at .289/.359/.570 with a .929 OPS. Just imagine how good the St. Louis Cardinals would be if Bader was slashing the same numbers!

Adding to his ROY campaign, Acuna is carrying a 3.9 WAR– the same as Bader.

Acuna’s range, speed, and fielding percentages pale in comparison to the St. Louis Cardinals center fielder, but remain respectable. Have a look:

Remember that Bader has a .993 fielding percentage with a 2.97 RF/9 in CF.

What stands out to me in the comparison between Acuna and Bader (actually between Bader and any of his competition) is the fact that Acuna is four runs below average at his position while Bader is an impressive 10 runs above average at his position.

Bader is clearly the defensive value that should be exemplified by the Rookie of the Year.

The St. Louis Cardinals have a wunderkind in their center fielder and the baseball world is taking notice. Will he win the Rookie of the Year for the NL?

Let me get right to it. The St. Louis Cardinals do not deserve a great deal of rewards this season other than maybe comeback team of the year if there was such a thing. Harrison Bader, however, should take a gold glove at the very least.

If the top three names on the NL list remain, he has the offensive challenge ahead of him in Soto AND Acuna but this shouldn’t be the thing to keep the reward from his mantle. He sits only a few hundredths of a point away from both batters in average, is even closer when it comes to on-base percentage, but is most definitely the caboose when looking at slugging percentage.

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As has been noted in the previous slides, Bader is the best defender of all three of the current front-runners in the National League. To me, the fact that he outshines in all defensive categories by far should overshadow his deficiencies offensively.

Add to all of this the fact that Bader suffered under Mike Matheny and a lackluster club for the first half (and then some) of the season. The St. Louis Cardinals were far more disappointing than were the Nationals in the first half of the season and certainly throughout the season as compared to the Braves.

The St. Louis Cardinals sit with a record of 78-62 while the Nationals- who have faded since the All-Star break- carry a current 69-71 record and the Braves sit firmly atop the NL-East with a 76-63 record. The St. Louis Cardinals record was helped by the dramatic turn-around at the hands of Mike Shildt and an outstanding August.

Prior to the Mike-to-Mike swap, the St. Louis Cardinals were at a 47-46 record. This at the same time as the Nationals were playing well and were battling back and forth with the Braves for first place in the NL-East. The Cardinals’ pitiful season may have contributed to Bader’s lack of voting throughout the season.

At current, Bader is not in first, but he should be first and I pray that he will continue to show why as the St. Louis Cardinals push toward October.

What do you think? What will it take for Bader to overtake his competition in voting? Thanks for reading and go Cardinals!