St. Louis Cardinals: Potential 2021 bounce back candidates

Paul DeJong

Paul DeJong was not his normal self in 2020, not only struggling at the plate but also being a lot more error-prone in the field. There is certainly room for improvement from the Redbirds shortstop in the coming season.

DeJong was one of the St. Louis Cardinals main offensive performers in 2019 with his 30 home runs being the second most on the team. Prior to 2020 he had never posted a below average wRC+, showing he has the offensive pop which the Redbirds desperately need! That offense just didn’t show up in the shortened season.

He ended 2020 with just an 84 OPS+ that ranked fourth worst of all qualified hitters on the Cardinals and had the lowest slugging % of his career by over 100 points. This was further backed up by DeJong’s career lowest barrel percentage (7.5%) which shows that although DeJong was still hitting for average, he was really struggling to make an impact with minimal extra bases.

Historically whenever DeJong has struggled with the bat, he has always excelled with his defense. DeJong finished 2019 with the 13th most Outs Above Average in the majors, ranking as the sixth best shortstop in all of MLB. That though didn’t translate last season.

In 2020, this strong defensive performance took a dive with DeJong finishing in the bottom four percent of all qualified fielders and with 36 qualified shortstops finishing above him! Looking into the Outs Above Average numbers, per Statcast, this was predominantly due to DeJong not being able to convert some of the easier plays. DeJong had 15 attempts at plays that were classed as having an estimated success rate of between 75 % – 90% (so some of the simpler plays) but managed to convert only ten of these. This was the key factor to his defensive drop-off.

Now this decrease in defensive efficiency and lack of power could well be due to the interruptions to game time, noting DeJong missed more games in 2020 than in the entirety of 2019. So there is certainly room for improvement with, hopefully, a full offseason and minimal missed time in the coming year!

Overall, DeJong finished 2020 with a career low WAR / G (0.5 fWAR through 45 games) and if he can rekindle his previous numbers then the St. Louis Cardinals could certainly do with a return to old Paul DeJong next season!