St. Louis Cardinals: Why wait to bring up Dylan Carlson?

The St. Louis Cardinals are sitting on a powder keg of a prospect that could come up and do damage at the MLB level. Why wait any longer?

“Youth will be served,” goes the proverb.  Dylan Carlson needs to be brought up to the St. Louis Cardinals as soon as possible. Patience is not a virtue, in baseball per se. The only thing that counts is squeezing the grape at the right time. That time is now for Carlson.

He is hitting 1.073 OPS at Memphis. He just hit a towering home run last night to dead center, his 25th of the short season.

He’s hot! Just to send him home on Monday to play video games for three weeks when he could be helping the franchise in a pennant race seems a waste. If the Cardinals were 10 games back, okay, then play the service-time rules game, hold on to another year of club control.

Who’s Carlson going to play for, you may ask? ‘Who’ve you got?’, is my answer. Marcell Ozuna is the only guy on the team over .800 OPS. Our offense, despite a recent spurt, is still officially “anemic”. And a guy who mashes 1.073 OPS is worth a look. He would probably play in place of Harrison Bader, with a little time coming from Dexter Fowler, who at age 33 will need a rest from time-to-time.

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Carlson will turn 21 during the World Series. He’s not too young. Do you think the Nationals wish they had not brought Juan Soto up at age 19? Skipping him past AAA?? His .955 OPS is leading them to playoff contention this year… which they never expected after losing Bryce Harper to free agency. Look at what Fernando Tatis Jr. is doing at barely age 20 for the San Diego Padres.

The baseball annals are full of Hall of Famers who started their careers well before age 21… and killed it: Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Frank Robinson, etc. Phil Cavarretta played every inning of the World Series for the Cubs at age 19.

Plus bringing up Carlson, and seeing how well he does, will give us an indicator of how all-in the Cardinals will need to be to keep Ozuna.

The Cardinals fan-base will not suffer a fourth consecutive season of failing to make the playoffs. Though the team looks to be in good shape at this writing, the doldrums of May and June could recur. The Cardinals did not make any moves at the trade deadline, controversially. Here is one move that can help them immediately and cost them nothing.

If the Cardinals do not win the division, they will always wonder why they did not avail themselves of the guy who rocked major league pitching in Spring Training, was Texas League MVP, and was hitting near 1.100 OPS when they sent him home to relax.