Cardinals fans calling for promotion of surging top prospect from Red Sox trade

If Cardinals fans had it their way, many of them would call up prospect Blaze Jordan today to be on the 26-man roster. But the Cardinals seem to be a lot more cautious about making that decision.

Jordan, who the Cardinals acquired in the Steven Matz trade at last year's deadline from the Boston Red Sox, was originally drafted by the Cardinals' president of baseball operations, Chaim Bloom, when he was running the Red Sox. As soon as the Cardinals acquired him, fans began to speculate about his future with the club, and many were very upset, including Jordan, when he was not added to the 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 draft.

Jordan went unselected in the Rule 5 draft, and after a really rough spring with St. Louis, has been on a heater for Triple-A Memphis, slashing .322/.379/.558 with 10 home runs and 33 RBI in 51 games this season. This has caused many fans to plead for Jordan to make his debut for a Cardinals lineup that needs a bit of a boost.

Well, if you read the tea leaves, the Cardinals do not look like they are close to making that decision for multiple reasons.

Blaze Jordan will likely have to wait on his call to Cardinals until major changes occur

The first and most glaring issue with promoting Jordan to the big leagues revolves around his defensive home. Many fans want to see Jordan replace Nolan Gorman in the everyday lineup, but Jordan has only been getting a bit of time playing third base for Memphis this year. Since Jimmy Crooks was promoted to St. Louis, the Cardinals have had Jordan as a primary 1B/DH once again, since they don't need to rotate Crooks and Leo Bernal to first base for their development.

If the Cardinals were serious about getting Jordan ready to play third base at the Major League level on a consistent basis, they would have him playing the position all the time in Memphis. The Cardinals have real concerns about Jordan's profile as a defensive third baseman, so while he could perhaps improve there, he still has a long way to go.

The second issue with getting Jordan to St. Louis actually involves his offense. While he's been producing at a super high level, which is awesome to see, it is hard to ignore how bad his chase percentage is (39.04%, seventh percentile), how little he is drawing walks (6.9 BB%). Crooks, on the other hand, was showing improvements to his profile in those areas that gave the Cardinals reason to believe it could translate against the best pitching in the world.

So while Jordan is certainly doing damage to the baseball often, if he's chasing outside the zone on almost 40% of the pitches he sees outside of the zone against Triple-A pitching, imagine how much more Major League arms will exploit that weakness.

The third issue is one that lands in the Cardinals' court, but I see why they don't have a desire to shake up as much. Jordan is not currently on the Cardinals' 40-man roster, and even if he was, with the number of players returning from injury this weekend (Lars Nootbaar) and in the coming weeks (Nathan Church and Ramon Urias), it's unlikely that the Cardinals can find a semi-consistent role for him in St. Louis any time soon.

Now, that could change if they are comfortable with him in a platoon role, as if Nelson Velazquez cools off, he could fill that right-handed bat off the bench who DHs against left-handed pitching.

I understand why fans want to see Jordan, and selfishly, I think it would be fun too at some point. But for right now, a move just does not make sense, and the best thing for Jordan's development will be every day at-bats down in Memphis.

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