JJ Wetherholt on the cusp of Cardinals history after recent prospect ranking refresh

It's not every day that the St. Louis Cardinals have a top-three prospect in all of baseball, but according to The Athletic's Keith Law, that is exactly what they have on their hands in the form of JJ Wetherholt.

The buzz surrounding Wetherholt couldn't be any higher right now amongst Cardinals fans, as the 2024 first-round pick was recently promoted to Triple-A and just mashed two home runs last night to raise his slash line at Memphis to .379/.455/.966 (1.421 OPS) in his first 29 at-bats at the highest minor league level. Across both Double-A and Triple-A this year, Wetherholt is slashing .310/.429/.524 with 11 home runs and 29 XBH total to go along with 48 walks and just 45 strikeouts in 70 games.

Law just revealed his new top 60 prospects in the sport, and Wetherholt checked in as the third-best prospect in the sport behind Detroit Tigers' prospects Kevin McGonigle and Max Clark.

For context, outside of Wetherholt, the only Cardinals prospects to even sniff or achieve a top three ranking in the game are guys like J.D. Drew, Oscar Taveras, Alex Reyes, and Jordan Walker.

JJ Wetherholt is seen as one of the very best prospects in all of baseball and is knocking on the door of his big league debut

Law appeared on 101 ESPN's midday show "BK and Ferrario" recently and shared that he sees Wetherholt as a future superstar due to his elite hit tool and ability to do damage to all fields. Wetherholt was supposed to be the number one overall pick in last year's draft, but slipped to number seven overall due to concerns about a hamstring injury during his final year at West Virginia.

Other teams' loss is the Cardinals' gain, as now they appear to be sitting on a true difference maker in Memphis, but for as high as I am on Wetherholt as a prospect, I do think it would be wise for us to exercise some patience with him and not advocate for St. Louis to rush him to the big leagues.

I do think there is a very real show that, if Wetherholt keeps producing by the middle or end of August, we'll see him make his big league debut to get his feet wet before 2026, much like Masyn Winn did back in 2023. While Wetherholt is mashing the baseball at Triple-A right now, if you look at the small sample size of at-bats so far, he's done the majority of his damage against pitches that are not big league caliber. He's hitting the meatiest of meatballs, high-80s fastballs, or hanging breaking balls in the middle of the zone, while doing so in super-hitter-friendly counts.

Look, I'm not trying to be a pessimist! I can't say enough how highly I think of Wetherholt as a prospect, but something that has to be considered when watching prospects is the context of their production. I'm not sharing that tidbit to take away from Wetherholt's success in his brief Triple-A stint, I'm sharing it to make sure we analyze it in its proper context. Yes, still uber impressive, but I'm not sure we've actually learned anything about him yet from his time with Memphis.

Wetherholt's "superpower" as a prospect is his truly special feel for the strike zone and ability to lay off "pitcher's pitches" while hunting things he can do damage with. That means that we should expect Wetherholt to be a guy who does a lot of damage against bad pitches when they are thrown to him at the big league level, which is a great trait to have. The best hitters know how to lay off, fight off, or do what they can against well-executed pitches, while unleashing on mistakes. Wetherholt may end up being in rare air with his ability to do that at the next level.

But since we already know he does that better than probably any other prospect in baseball, I want to see Wetherholt tested more by better pitching before I'm ready to stamp him a big leaguer. I'd love to see how he fares against some of the best pitching in Triple-A when they have a true game plan for how to attack him. In the minors, pitchers are working on stuff all the time, so it is not a true reflection of how pitchers would approach him in the Major Leagues.

If Wetherholt keeps this up for a sustained stretch, I don't know how they'll hold him down in Memphis much longer. But for now, let's just enjoy the ride it's been so far!