St. Louis Cardinals: Predicting the 26-man roster two months out

Starters

The starters on the infield are one of the easier groups to decide for the St. Louis Cardinals assuming there are no injuries.

Starting at third base, the Cardinals have made it clear that Matt Carpenter is going to get every opportunity to reclaim his spot at third. Paul DeJong should have no competitors at shortstop. Kolten Wong will look to build on his 2019 season at second base and Paul Goldschmidt will look to bounce back in his second season with his new club. Lastly, as always, Yadier Molina will be behind the plate.

Those guys are all pretty set and the odd name out is last year’s breakout player, Tommy Edman. While I would hope Edman gets to play at least four games a week, I wouldn’t see him as a starter on Opening Day in Cincinnati.

Bench infielders

This is where things begin to get interesting. There are a few locks here led by Edman and Matt Wieters. From there, I would expect that Yairo Munoz and Edmundo Sosa will battle for the other backup infield spot but there is a good argument that Sosa should beat out Munoz. Rangel Ravelo will likely get his shot to prove he belongs in the bigs out of spring training, but if he doesn’t pan out, I could see him being an early-season roster casualty.

With the five starters on the infield, then Sosa, Edman, Wieters, and Ravelo, these nine infielders will be a very productive group as there are a ton of bounce-back candidates all over the place.