St. Louis Cardinals: Nick Plummer’s struggles continue in 2019

The St. Louis Cardinals’ only first-round pick under Chris Correa is still trying to find a groove in A-ball. Let’s see how he is doing.

Nick Plummer was an exciting prospect coming out of high school when the St. Louis Cardinals drafted him in the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft. With a strong ability to get on-base, the former University of Kentucky baseball commit graded well. Unfortunately, a series of injuries in the minor leagues has led to a slower development for Plummer.

In 2016, his second year of professional baseball, Plummer missed the entire season with a wrist injury. After returning, an oblique injury cost him more time and failed to grow on the baseball field.

Compounding matters further is Plummer’s play when he was on the field. After finishing the 2019 season in Palm Beach, Nick Plummer’s career slash line was .199/.345/.315. Yikes.

One of the reasons behind his struggles is not making enough contact. He’s always had a patient approach to the plate, but that has also backfired on Plummer, even going back to his high school days. In his last three seasons, all of which are in some form of A-ball, Plummer’s strikeout percentage topped higher than 30%.

From A.E. Schaefer at Viva El Birdos back in January 2018:

"When on the field, Plummer has shown extreme patience at the plate, walking over 15% of the time at both stops where he’s played. The bad news? He hasn’t made contact at anything resembling an acceptable rate for the low minors.To wit, he walked 15.3% of the time this season in Peoria, which is good. He also struck out 31.5% of the time, which is not just bad, but damningly bad."

Damningly bad, indeed.

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From a Cardinals’ perspective, what makes Plummer’s struggles discouraging is that the next player selected in the 2015 MLB Draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers was none other than Vanderbilt RHP Walker Buehler.

Needless to say, Buehler has developed into an All-Star caliber starting pitcher.

In 2019, Plummer had a .176/.312/.294 slash line and his strikeout percentage jumped up to 33.4% which is his worst line yet.

In order for Nick Plummer to rise in the minors, he has to fix his approach at the plate and stay healthy. With so much time taken off the field because of injury, his development has slowed tremendously. FanGraphs’ has his Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) at 2021, but that is not going to happen unless Plummer creates more offense.

If Plummer doesn’t turn himself around quickly, he might end up with the dreaded “bust” label. At 23 years old already, time is running out.