St. Louis Cardinals: Randy Arozarena is on the rise again

The St. Louis Cardinals have a plethora of young outfielders and one is facing another tough test with his second go-around at AAA Memphis.

Randy Arozarena signed with the St. Louis Cardinals back in 2016 after a bit of a wild two years prior. After defecting from Cuba in 2014, Arozarena sat out the entirety of 2015, then after signing was immediately brought in and put at High A-Palm Beach in 2017.

After a little over half the minor-league season, Arozarena was batting .275 with an OPS north of .800 so the Cardinals sent him up to AA Springfield where his numbers took a small hit but he didn’t get drowned by the higher competition at the age of 22.

In 2018 Arozarena was aggressively started at AAA Memphis where he did finally look overmatched. After multiple turns between AAA and AA in 2018, his AA OPS of 1.137 and AAA OPS of .676 were perplexing for the outfielder. He was much too good for AA but looked out his head in AAA.

After last year’s confusing season, the Cardinals started the now 24-year-old Arozarena at AA Springfield again.

Thanks to Derek Shore with the news, we can see that Arozarena is once again going to get his chance to show what he can do.

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Arozarena was never viewed as a potential perennial All-Star or MVP, but he has the chance to carve out a very nice career as a fourth outfielder who has a ton of speed, can hit for a little pop, can get on base and field any outfield position.

If he is going to live up to that potential or even beat it, this is the year to show it.

There isn’t any room for him in the Majors currently, but that doesn’t mean that a role couldn’t be found for him here eventually or with another team. Every team needs role players to come off the bench, Arozarena has the tools to do that and if he can finally make the jump to AAA successfully, I could see him getting moved.

Either way, the chances that the Cardinals have for Arozarena are just about up and this season is a big make-or-break year for the outfielder. He, along with Tyler O’Neill are big players to watch at AAA right now even if there aren’t many opportunities for either of them at the Majors.