5 Cardinals Players With the Best Chances to Make the All-Star Game

Brendan Donovan, Utility

The St. Louis Cardinals have gave a lot of different players chances this seson including top prospects Matthew Liberatore and Nolan Gorman. Surprisingly though, Gorman and Liberatore haven’t been the prospects to watch. The player to watch is utility, Brendan Donovan.

Case For Brendan Donovan:

Donovan was this years newest Spring Training standout. In the past, we had Jeremy Hazelbaker and Magneius Sierra. This year, however, we had Brendan Donovan. And unlike the others, Donovan has seemed to make an imprint on the Cardinals.

This season, Donovan has played in 41 games for the Cardinals and is absolutley crushing the baseball all over the field. He is slashing .310/.424/.431 with a home run, 17 RBI, two stolen bases and a 1.0 WAR.

In terms of his offense, there are not many people who have seemed to match him this season. With an oWAR of 8.0 he ranks amogst some of the leagues best hitters. When looking at his bat, the stats do the talking for him.

Case Against Brendan Donovan

Brendan Donovan, although he’s been very good offensively, has not really done a great job defensively, which is a little strange because he’s a utility player. But the defense just hasn’t been there this year. He’s cost the team many runs due to misplaying a ball in the outfield or taking a bad route on a ground ball.

Tommy Edman, Infielder

Similar to Brendan Donovan, Edman is a utility guy. He can play absolutley any position you need him to play. Or so it seems. However. unlike Brendan Donovan, Tommy Edman should be a lock for the all-star game this year.

Case For Tommy Edman

Tommy Edman has done everything right for the Cardinals since getting his chance in 2019. He’s a switch-hitting, utility fielder with a terrific approach at the plate that allows him to be the Cardinals leadoff hitter for a greater majority of the seasons.

This season, he’s hitting .278/.355/.418, seven home runs, 25 RBI, 15 stolen bases, and a WAR of 3.2 which is currently tied for sixth in MLB with Mike Trout. The only players with a higher WAR is Aaron Judge, Manny Machado, Rafael Devers, Jose Ramirez and Mookie Betts. That’s some pretty good company if you ask me.

I also mentioned his bat earlier in this article and that stands true to this point. The stats back it up as well.

Edman this season has a oWAR of 15.4, which is ranked 15th in the MLB. Saying he is underserving of going to the All-Star Game is pretty ridiculous. He has been a reliable Cardinal for multiple seasons now and is having one of his best statsitical seasons to this point.

Case Against Tommy Edman

Tommy Edman is one of the few players on the Cardinals that I can’t really find an argument against. In order to find something against him is just knit picking.

But when looking at Edman’s stats, he hasn’t outperformed many NL second basemen. Jeff McNeil and Gavin Lux both have better averages than Edman. Additionally, he has a very high strikeout rate (16.9%) which is much higher than some of the other competing second basemen.

Paul Goldschmidt, 1B

Paul Goldschmidt is the frontrunner for NL MVP. What he has done this season has been something to behold. I mean, the last time we saw a player dominate with the bat like he has this season was when Matt Carpenter began tearing it up in the second-half of the season and actually received votes for the MVP.

What Goldschmidt is doing is just remarkable.

The Reason Why Paul Goldschmidt Will be in Los Angeles

Paul Goldschmidt is dominating in all statistical categories. He is currently second in baseball with a .347 average, he is tied for seventh in home runs with 16, he is third in RBI with 56, and leading all of MLB in OPS with 1.070.

To add onto those stats, he is currently posting a 35.2 oWAR which ranks first in all of the MLB and by quite a large margin. That’s when you look at his WAR and see a 3.6. Which, in case you are curious, ranks fifth in the MLB.

There is no reason good enough to justify keeping Goldschmidt from the All-Star Game. He deserves it without a doubt.

Ryan Helsley, RHP

Giovanny Gallegos, Genesis Cabrera, Jordan Hicks and Alex Reyes were the names to watch in the bullpen going into the year. However, now we are getting close to halfway through the season, and we should’ve had Helsey in that conversation.

Helsey has taken on his role in the bullpen this year with so much more confidence than what I’ve seen from him in the past. He’s gained control over his fastball, he’s got his stuff breaking, and he is able to go in and finish the inning.

The Case For Ryan Helsley

Ryan Helsley, by this point, should probably be the Cardinals closer. He’s not, but he should be. This season, he is third among relievers with a WAR of 1.2. He is 12th among relievers with a 12.60 K/9 and and third in ERA.

Helsley only has five saves to his name so far this season, but that shouldn’t nor does it take away from just how good he has been for the Cardinals this season. He definitely could benefit from taking on the closer role, but they like to rotate closers and maximize matchups, so Helsley hasn’t gotten many chances.

I expect that if Helsley keeps this up, sooner or later he’ll get the closer role.

The Case Against

As I was saying above, the Cardinals have yet to give him a true chance for the closer spot which could be a downfall to him. He doesn’t have the save numbers to really back it up. He hasn’t proven anything before this season either, so his name may not be big enough for people to vote him in.

Helsley’s been excellent this year, but he hadn’t done much prior to this season. So his name doesn’t really pop to other teams fanbases who are also voting.

Nolan Arenado, 3B

This is Nolan Arenado’s second season putting on the Cardinals uniform and I still can’t get enough of it. Never thinking the day would come, seeing it for 150-162 games a season is very, very, very exciting. What’s even more exciting is seeing him represent the Cardinals at the All-Star game and hopefully holding up the World Series trophy at the end of the year.

The Case For Nolan Arenado

Nolan Arenado seems to be improving which is a good sign. Since last season, in which he finished with a .255 BAA, 7.7 BB%, and a 14.7 K%, he has seemed to improve pretty much every statistical category except WAR which I’ll be too in a minute.

Last season, Arenado slashed .255/.312/.494 with 34 home runs, and 105 RBI in only 157 games. This season he is slashing .271/.342/.476 with 11 home runs, 41 RBI in only 61 games played.

He is improving in just about every statistic which probably represents his health. When players have down years, it generally is due to injury and trying to play through the pain. However, when it comes to a player like Arenado, it makes it difficult.

Last season he had a hard time driving the ball because of the fatigue in his shoulder. This season, we’ve still seen that he isn’t 100%, but he is doing a better job at getting the bat on the ball and finding away around that.

The Case Against Nolan Arenado

Nolan Arenado has had an up-and-down year this season. Which, it pains me to say, is very similar to last season which I considered a slight dissapointment. That may just be me, but I feel as though he was not the player I thought we were getting last year. This year, he is closer but not quite the player he was in Colorado.