St. Louis Cardinals: Three Rookie of the Year candidates for 2020

Randy Arozarena, OF

This is not a difficult pick as Arozarena was the most impressive outfielder in the St. Louis Cardinals’ system in 2019. He is also one of the outfielders that got the short stick in terms of playing time at the major league level when he did finally come up and play.

After getting his second attempt at AAA starting on June 12th, Arozarena hit a .344/.431/.571 slash line with 15 homers, 25 doubles, 17 stolen bases, and 53 RBIs over his next 400 at-bats. This wasn’t a small sample at all. This was an outfielder dominating the highest league of the minors at 24 years old. Arozarena also played all outfield spots at an above-average level.

Yet he wasn’t called up until August 13th.

When Arozarena was called up, he started on August 14th (2-4 with one RBI) then the 15th (0-3) then pinch-hit on the 16th before being sent back down until September callups. In September, he got just two starts in the final month’s worth of games while appearing in 14 other games as a pinch hitter or defensive replacement.

Does that sound like a smart way to use the hottest hitter in your entire organizational system? Especially considering where the Cardinals were sitting in the divisional race at the time?

Either way, Arozarena did enough to earn a spot as a pinch-runner on the postseason roster which is a good sign for how the team views him going into next year. The biggest question is playing time.

Arozarena proved he can hit big time at AAA in 2019, but wasn’t given any semblance of a chance at the MLB level to replicate that production. With Marcell Ozuna likely out for the year and the center field position looking like it’s going to be a competition, there could be plenty of playing time for Arozarena to show what he can do.

He has power, he has defense, he has speed, and he can hit. Arozarena is the real deal, he just needs the chance. If he gets it, Arozarena could take the league by storm.