St. Louis Cardinals: Starting the year without Dylan Carlson

From the beginning of Spring Training, it has seemed that Dylan Carlson only ever had an outside shot to make the St. Louis Cardinals Opening Day roster. This is what the team might look like without him.

Coming into Spring Training, it was apparent that John Mozeliak & Company would prefer Dylan Carlson to start the year in AAA. This way, he would not gain Super 2 status and the St. Louis Cardinals would have an extra year of contractual control. This is seen by many as foolhardy and in rather poor taste. Carlson starting in AAA also would let the team figure out what they have in terms of current 40-man outfielders.

Of course, it is both of those things. But Captain Bowtie (Mozeliak) hasn’t done much in recent years for Cardinals Nation to allow him the benefit of the doubt. Without Carlson, the Cardinals outfield situation becomes rather fluid.

To start the year, I believe the outfield will consist of Tyler O’Neill, Harrison Bader, and Lane Thomas. This situation would become a competition for the first two months of the year, until Carlson gets called up. The odd man out would then become the fourth outfielder.

In the event that all three of these guys way overachieve expectations, the Cardinals will probably roll out a four man outfield rotation to get all of these guys at-bats. This becomes much more viable with the sudden and bizarre release of Yairo Munoz.

Based on Spring Training results, Dexter Fowler will not be a starting St. Louis Cardinals outfielder in 2020. Hitting .080/.179/.080 simply doesn’t cut it for a player who has had questionable (at best) offensive output in the last couple years. As much as I like him as a person, the time has passed in Dex’s career where he is productive on a daily basis.

Harrison Bader, and Tyler O’Neill, however, have had themselves quite nice springs so far by hitting .296/.441/.481 and .280/.438/.560 respectively. Both have shown significant progress from lackluster 2019 seasons.

Bader struck out in 33.7% of his at-bats in 2019, compared to just 22.2% so far in spring. This is a significant improvement on one of his biggest flaws. Bader is one of those guys that you really like to see put the ball in play due to his elite speed. A reduced strikeout rate would allow him to be at least Major League average as a hitter, which, combined with elite defense, would make Bader one of the top 5 center fielders in baseball.

O’Neill will always have some swing and miss to his game, which is unfortunate. However, he is drawing more walks this spring and looks very comfortable at the plate. Tyler is walking in 16.7% of his plate appearances, compared to just 6.6% of his plate appearances in 2019. This represents a huge change for the blossoming slugger, and will more than likely win him the open job in left field.