Cardinals top prospect JJ Wetherholt's early exit from game sparks injury speculation

The St. Louis Cardinals have had terrible injury luck with their prospects to begin the year, and now their top-ranked player in the farm system may be dealing with one as well.

Wetherholt made the final out of the top of the first inning on Friday night for the Springfield Cardinals at second base, but once the bottom of the first came around, he was pulled from the game and did not take his at-bat. There has been no information given yet about why Wetherholt was removed from the game, but it is fair to say that more often than not, this is a sign of an injury.

Cardinals' top prospect JJ Wetherholt was removed from Double-A game on Friday night

Kyle Reis, who initially brought the situation to attention, stated later that the move was merely precautionary from the Cardinals, but we still do not have official word from the team.

I will update this piece once we hear more about why Wetherholt was removed from Springfield's game. There very well could be an easy explanation for it that doesn't mean he's going to miss significant time, but for now, I'm holding my breath a bit as we await news of what is going on.

If you watch that GIF that Reis shared on X, there's nothing clear an obvious that stands out from the play itself that would indicate an injury for Wetherholt, but considering the hamstring issue that he dealt with last year at the Unversity of West Virginia, I'm for sure concerned that something could have flaired up with that.

During the lead up to the 2024 MLB Draft, Wetherholt was widely expected to be the first or second player off the board along with Travis Bazzana, but a Grade 3 hamstring injury held him out for much of his final season, and that could over him caused him to slide on draft night and allow the Cardinals to snag his talent with the seventh overall pick.

While Wetherholt returned to play for West Virginia after the injury and has not had any issues with it since joining the Cardinals organization, but that is certainly an injury that you have to worry about beyond the initial issue. Hamstring ailments can come back on players, and so it would be great news if that has nothing to do with what happened here with Wetherholt.

While the Cardinals' first-round pick got off to a slow start this year, he's been on fire as of late. Even after failing to record a hit in his first 17 plate appearances (although he did draw a walk), Wetherholt now has a .364/.453/.523 slash line in 53 plate appearances, good for a 169 wRC+. That is already extremely impressive, and even more so when you take into account he had just 126 plate appearances at Single-A last year prior to skipping High-A going into this year.

I'll update the situation as we know more information on Wetherholt's status.