St. Louis Cardinals: Dylan Carlson has started hot at AAA
One of the St. Louis Cardinals’ top prospects was recently promoted to AAA and hasn’t missed a beat. How good has he been so far?
It may have only been a week, but Dylan Carlson is already proving to the St. Louis Cardinals that AAA hasn’t been too big of a challenge.
Just over a week ago, Carlson was moved from AA where he spent the entire season to AAA Memphis as he continues his meteoric rise through the Minors. We chronicled Carlson’s season so far when he got moved up and the biggest point made was that he is being pushed and pushed continually by this organization and the question is going to be if the most recent push would be too much for him.
He is clearly not overmatched.
More from St Louis Cardinals News
- Cardinals: Latest updates on rumored catching targets for St. Louis
- Cardinals: Tyler O’Neill not going anywhere this offseason, report says
- MVP voter listed Cardinals’ Arenado 8th on ballot
- St. Louis Cardinals non-tender former All-Star closer Alex Reyes
- St. Louis Cardinals sign Oscar Mercado and four others to MiLB deals
Through his first seven games, Carlson is batting a monster slash of .552/.606/.931 which if you don’t want to add it up is a 1.537 OPS. In 33 at-bats, he has six extra-base hits (two homers) and in the last three games, he has three hits in each.
For as hot as he was prior to his callup, he found another gear now that he’s hit AAA. Other than Wednesday night’s game, he has manned one of the corner outfield spots but has played two-thirds of his games in left field. I would assume that’s more about the players around him (a rehabbing Harrison Bader) than any potential planning for next year as he has played center field the majority of the season.
As the second-youngest player in all of AAA, playing against players who are an average of 6.3 years older than him, Carlson is producing. As the #50 prospect in all of baseball right now, it’s fair to say that this season has warranted a bit of a big jump in those standings.
Nolan Gorman has cracked the top 30 after the most recent update and now sits at #29 in the sport, but Carlson could be pushing the top 30 at the beginning of the season next year if he continues to produce this Summer and then goes to the AFL and shows up there.
It seems all that’s left to do with Carlson is to debate whether or not to call him up this September or not. My vote is still what it has been for a long time, it’s that Carlson should be the Opening Day left fielder in 2020. Whenever he does break into the league, he seems to be showing himself up more and more that he is going to be a star. That’s where all the excitement lies.