St. Louis Cardinals: Predicting the 26-man roster one month out

We are about one month from the start of the St. Louis Cardinals’ 2020 season. Although only nine spring training games have been played, certain trends have emerged and some injuries have cleared a path. How could the 26-man roster look?

My colleague Matt Graves took a stab at calling the St. Louis Cardinals’ two-month away roster. Boldly so. Now it’s my turn. With the benefit of more time on the clock, perhaps a 26-man roster can be predicted with a little more certainty.

Let’s first take a look at some of the developments of the early spring.

• The Cardinals have a Grapefruit League record of 3-5-1. Not that much can be read into a spring training record. Unless you’re the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose 1-7 record on top of already poor projections, has to be a cause for concern. The Cardinals have not been blown out a game this Spring (yet). That record is adequate to the task at hand of repeating as Central Division champions.
• Injuries to Miles Mikolas, Paul Goldschmidt, Matt Carpenter, and Yairo Munoz have necessitated, at worst, replacements, and at best, back-up plans which may affect roster construction.
• 22-year old outfielder Dylan Carlson is on a hot streak. He reached base in eight consecutive plate appearances through mid-game Saturday. He is hitting .500 with 1.400 OPS.
• Fellow outfielders Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill are both resting comfortably over 1.000 OPS as well.
• Carpenter seems to have found his stroke and is at least at a cool 1.000 OPS in limited at-bats. That should dash any thoughts of a Plan B roster shakeup.
• Dexter Fowler has turned in an OPS that not even a mother could love: .237. But, even if writ large to the entire Grapefruit season, that OPS alone is not going to be enough to cause the veteran free agent to default on his roster spot. You can count on Fowler heading north as much as you can count on President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak heading north. But Fowler’s struggles may put outfield depth at more of a premium, or cause the “rushing up” from the minors of players with whom the organization may have thought they had more time.

Therefore. let us venture forth with a prediction, not of whom I may personally want at each roster spot, but rather of whom Mozeliak and his staff are likely to choose.

Starters

Moving from left-to-right, the first three positions are about as no-brainer as it gets. Paul Goldschmidt, Gold-Glover Kolten Wong, and Paul DeJong (who is the Cardinals’ leading hitter this spring) are a lock as starters and roster spots numbers one to three.

As we have said, Matt Carpenter is going to get every opportunity to reclaim his spot at third. Everything Carpenter has done so far has looked good: 1.000 OPS and errorless fielding at the hot corner.

But the back tightness which has kept him out of a few spring games should be a warning that it is best not to overuse Carpenter. He has had a history of back problems and is now 34-years old. And have a Plan B for Carpenter.

That Plan B for the third sack is Tommy Edman and, I believe, Brad Miller, representing roster spots five and six.

Edman was the WAR-leader for the Cardinals since making his debut midway through last season. He is the famous Swiss Army knife for the Cardinals in 2020. He is a player you can insert in the outfield or infield without feeling like you are losing one whit of offense at any position. Miller is similarly versatile and has already seen action at third base, shortstop, second base, and left field this spring.

The decision for Brad Miller was just recently made easier by an injury to Yairo Munoz. Although Munoz’ injury is likely to be a short-term one, it gives the front office an excuse to give him a long rehab spell in Memphis. There was a growing consensus, anyway, that Munoz was not done any favors by being rushed to the majors at a young age in order to realize some quick recoupment in the Steven Piscotty trade. More reps will likely yield a better Yairo for the future.

I would also point out that Goldschmidt’s arm-tightness this spring may indicate that even he could use more rest than previously. The slugger will turn 33 before season’s end. The Cardinals have a long-term investment in Goldy through age 37 (unlike short-termers like Marcell Ozuna, Mike Moustakas and Josh Donaldson whom teams will have no reason not to wear out.).

The plan for getting Goldschmidt some rest may well be to move Carpenter to first, simultaneously giving Matt a breather from the back-breaking work at third-base. Goldschmidt’s lineup replacement in this scenario may well be Miller, who is a long-ball threat. Late last season he became the only Philadelphia Phillie player in history with three multi-home run games in a nine-game span. This spring Miller sports a home run and a .917 OPS.

Catchers

The Cardinals will go with a two-man catching corps in 2020: Yadier Molina and veteran Matt Wieters. These are the same catching corps they opened with last year.

Wieters was upgraded considerably from the $200,000 minor-league contract with incentives he labored under in 2019 to a $2M guaranteed contract with $1M in incentives for 2020. When the Cardinals go to great lengths to onboard somebody, either through trade or by paying top dollar to a free agent, their history is to use that player, not have him sit.

Wieters’ substantial guaranteed salary, plus heavy use so far this spring (more at-bats than DeJong, O’Neill, Goldschmidt, and Wong) gives us a key to the Cardinals roster thinking: Wieters is not here to be a third-string catcher or a break-glass catcher for Yadier Molina.

The four-time former all-star is here to get in games: either to spell Molina and thereby prolong the latter’s career or be the valuable switch-hitting pinch hitter that he is: offering a late-inning power threat from both sides of the plate.

But neither do the Cardinals want to have top prospect Andrew Knizner mold away on the bench. I do not believe the Cardinals will use a roster spot, even with the new larger 26-man roster, on having a third-string catcher.

It is not that Knizner has performed that poorly (though his spring slash line of .182/286/364 is not exactly screaming “play me”). It is that he has a future, but they do not want to mismanage that future the way they did Carson Kelly.

There is another reason I believe that the front office may want to have Knizner spending a full season in AAA Memphis. And it is a reason derived from having spent some time in Jupiter, Florida watching the Cardinals in action on the back (practice) fields. It is that Yadier Molina’s heir apparent may well come from one of the nine (count ’em) non-roster invitees to camp this year, and not Knizner.

With Yadier Molina giving every indication he will play at least through the end of the 2021 season, it would make Knizner 27-years old before he ever tips his mask to the crowd as the Opening Day catcher at Busch Stadium.

Meanwhile, Ivan Herrera, who has opened my eyes at camp this spring would be 21-years old on Opening Day 2021, the same age as Yadier Molina began his reign as starting catcher. Herrera, by the way, was the mlb.com #5 prospect in the Cardinals organization and even #4 in Fangraphs, which puts him two places higher than Knizner.

Hererra has impressed in live action this spring as well. On February 26 against the Houston Astros, Herrera figured prominently in a 7-5 besting of the Team America Loves to Hate. In the top of the fifth with the bases loaded, Herrera ripped a base hit past Carlos (ROY, All-Star) Correa to drive in two runs and aggressively take second base on the throw to the plate.

The Cardinals will go with two catchers, at least at the beginning with a light schedule. Once the hot summer kicks in, they may want a third-string/emergency catcher, but it won’t be Knizner, whom I believe the Cardinals want to have fulfilled the entire season at Memphis so that he can become off-season trade bait. A third-string catcher, if it is needed, will come from one of the many deep-roster catchers.

Knizner, I believe, will not do much at Busch this year at all, except an occasional showcase-cameo from the Memphis shuttle. He may even be traded at the trading deadline to a team needing catching help. This is all barring an injury to Molina or Wieters. And Yadi seems to spend at least one short spell on the Injured List every year.

Either way, Knizner needs maximum reps. And will always need reps until such time as he is either traded or gets the shot at being the everyday Cardinal catcher that his scouting report says he deserves.

Outfielders

Outfielders, in order of seniority, will be Dexter Fowler, Harrison Bader, Tyler O’Neill, newcomer Austin Dean and prize rookie Dylan Carlson making his major-league debut.

Carlson has been too good at spring training, to hold down on the farm any longer. Meanwhile Bader and O’Neill both started the spring season with bangs, literally, and are among the leading batsmen on the team. Bader and O’Neill seem to have benefited from off-season adjustments of batting stroke and weight-loss respectively.

I know that taking Carlson north will involve the cutting of a player from the 40-man roster. But projections like ZiPS project which predict Carlson to be the team’s second-most productive outfielder in 2020, will prove too intriguing to Mozeliak.

The front office is desperate to be found correct in attempting to replace Marcell Ozuna‘s offensive numbers with the famous “internal options” and not going after him too hard in the free-agent market. They will not want to leave Carlson’s ability to do offensive damage laying on the table.

What about Lane Thomas you ask? Thomas was seemingly higher on the depth chart than both Dean and Carlson. Austin Dean will get the nod, at least to begin with, because Dean is two years older and more experienced than Thomas. Dean will be mostly sitting on the bench anyway as the number five man on the OF depth chart.

The Cardinals probably don’t see sitting on the bench as a good place for Thomas at the moment. They will want him to get plenty of reps in AAA as he attempts to get back in the swing after a season-ending wrist injury. Wrists have little blood circulation and are notoriously hard to heal.

Thomas committed a gaffe in diving toward the infield on a line drive hit directly in front of him in centerfield by Myles Straw on Wednesday, which turned into an inside-the-park home run. Was Thomas diving tentatively because he was conscious of protecting that wrist? Thomas has been mainly a center fielder and where the Cardinals need the most help is in left, the spot vacated by Ozuna. Dean has been primarily a left-fielder in his career.

Dean’s contract is highly fungible however and depending on how quickly Thomas can get his sea-legs at Memphis he will be back up soon, even at the expense of Dean. But don’t forget that Tommy Edman will need to fund some of his at-bats from outfield starts as well.

P.S. This roster construction, you may note, leaves out Rangel Ravelo. This is sad, but he is effectively blocked by Paul Goldschmidt. Being 27 years old, not being fully-trusted in the outfield and not hitting enough (.717 OPS) to really pop anyone’s eyes out as just a pinch hitter, makes Ravelo, who has a look not unlike Albert Pujols, expendable from a roster standpoint.