"Future of the position" currently stands at shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals have reported to Jupiter and officially finished their first full-squad workouts at the newly renovated facility. As will be the case for the next few weeks, mini stories will squeak out as guys try new positions, pitches, and techniques.

One story that could actually end up being a talking point all year, though, surrounds Cardinals star shortstop Masyn Winn, who continues to be overlooked by the national baseball experts. Despite being a Gold Glove winner and a former top prospect who has demonstrated 20/20 potential at the minor league level, Winn somehow finds himself off of many of the league's best shortstop rankings.

MLB Analyst Xavier Scruggs sees Masyn Winn as the next breakout star.

Former Cardinal Xavier Scruggs used his media spotlight from MLB Network and ESPN to launch a mini-series of his own that points out players who he feels are being underrated around the league. Scruggs is such a fan of the Cardinals' shortstop that he chose Masyn Winn as the feature of episode one of his "Most Underrated Players" series.

Cardinal Nation is lucky enough to get to see the workhorse Winn take the field every day at shortstop, until the team had to step in at the end of last season and shut him down to fix his balky knee. When he was shut down, Winn was working on a 91 wRC+ season and making above-average difficulty plays look simple at short. That offensive performance was not the step forward that we were hoping for out of the former top prospect, but the injury could have played a role in that downtick in performance at the plate. The knee, though, did not stunt his growth on the dirt.

All season, Winn made a grand total of three errors at shortstop, and even those errors could have some argument of fault. Colleague Thomas Gauvain found those scored errors and included them in a tweet to show that, really, potentially two of those mistakes could be passed onto Willson Contreras, who was spending his first season at the cold corner and handled it well. When Scruggs brought this up, of course he had to do so in the same breath as "The Wizard" Ozzie Smith.

Ozzie is a Hall of Famer, and did so without much contribution with the bat, putting up an 87 OPS+ throughout the entirety of his 19-year major league career. Winn is right near that offensive output, being at a career 91 OPS+, but Cardinals fans expect that to progress towards or above league average as the almost 24-year-old matures as a hitter. After playing multiple games with maladies and having his season cut short by meniscus surgery, there is plenty of reason to buy stock in Winn's offensive future.

Scruggs agrees, calling Winn "the future of the position" even while being surrounded by talent like Bobby Witt Jr. and Francisco Lindor, but I have to admit I am locked into that hype. Winn has showed the ability to hit for average, solid pop, steal bases, and of course play his typical spectacular defense at points in his professional career. This could very well be the season that he starts to put every aspect of his game together and build towards a red jacket in St. Louis.