The Cardinals’ Messy Outfield Situation

Last year’s Cardinals were successful. Thanks to a solid rotation, a good bullpen, and excellent defense and baserunning, St. Louis won the division and advanced to the NLCS. The Cardinals’ main weakness was at the plate, where they were mostly average. Excluding pitchers, the team’s wRC+ for the season was 100, and ranked 14th in the game. The team’s outfield was no exception; the group put up an identical 100 wRC+, which ranked 17th among major league outfields, with their 7.0 WAR occupying that same ranking. Despite allowing Marcell Ozuna to leave in free agency and trading Randy Arozarena and José Martínez to the Rays, the team still has a glut of outfielders competing for roles this spring. They have quantity and they might have quality as well, but sorting out playing time could be a mess.

The Cardinals have three players who accumulated at least 100 plate appearances in the outfield last season. Here’s how those players performed:

That trio probably doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. Fowler had a bounce-back season, but with an average batting line and most of his time spent in a corner outfield spot, he was slightly below average overall and turns 34 years old before Opening Day. Bader saw his walk rate improve, but hitting in the eighth spot the majority of the time probably helps account for some of that uptick, and might have made Bader too passive. His overall numbers against righties last season were in line with his breakout 2018 at about 10% below league average, but his numbers against lefties plummeted, unusual given he has hit well against them his entire career, including in the minors. Despite Bader’s weak year at the plate, his fantastic defense makes him an above-average player. As for O’Neill, he struggled mightily as a pinch hitter last season; he put up a slightly above-average line as an outfielder and a 116 wRC+ in July in more regular starting duty before he injured his wrist. Given his somewhat inconsistent minor league history — sometimes crushing, sometimes hitting closer to average — it’s fair to say we still don’t know much about O’Neill’s abilities as a hitter against major league pitcher or how he might fare given extended playing time.

So the incumbents, if you want to call them that, consist of an aging, should-be fourth outfielder, a glove-first center fielder, and a 24-year-old with a lot of power and strikeouts who may or may not be capable of starting at an average to above-average level. The outfield situation is emblematic of an offseason that seems to have passed St. Louis by. The Cardinals do have other outfield options in camp, including one of the better prospects in baseball, Dylan Carlson. Here are the 2020 projection for Carlson and a few other options who are in the mix:

Projections aren’t perfect, but they don’t paint a sunny picture for the Cardinals’ outfield. One of the better projected players is Tommy Edman, and he is a better fit on the infield; he’s likely to be more of a super-utility player this season, which would take him out of a starting role. While Lane Thomas, Austin Dean, and Justin Williams are in the mix for roster spots, Thomas has put up mostly average numbers in Triple-A, Dean is a 26-year-old with defensive issues, and Williams hasn’t been able to put the ball in the air consistently. That leaves four starters for three spots.

Bader plays center field so well, it’s tough to see him not getting the starting spot out there. While O’Neill, Fowler, and Carlson have all shown some ability to play center, those days are mostly behind Fowler, O’Neill has been a corner outfielder for most of his career between the majors and minors, and Carlson might not be a center fielder long-term, as Eric Longenhagen noted in his prospect write-up when he placed Carlson 39th on this year’s Top 100:

Carlson is an average runner and a large dude for a 20-year-old. His instincts in center field are okay, but not good enough to overcome long speed that typically falls short at the position. Because of where we have his arm strength graded, we think he fits in left field or at first base.

So if we put Bader in center at least most of the time, there are two starting spot for Carlson, Fowler, and O’Neill. The projections say Carlson is the better outfielder of the three, and his prospect status indicates his ceiling is probably higher as well. There are going to be some service time considerations; Carlson could be held down in the minors for a few weeks to gain an extra year of service time, though that’s not a tactic that has been used by the Cardinals in the past. Carlson is not yet on the 40-man roster, but that’s an obstacle easily overcome.

A neutral evaluation of the three players would give Carlson one of the remaining corner spots, creating a toss-up between O’Neill and Fowler. While spring stats aren’t indicative of talent level (given the small sample size of plate appearances and the potential disparity in opponents’ skill levels), it should be noted that none of the play so far this spring has served to change the order of the projections, with O’Neill and Carlson producing and Fowler not. It’s reasonable for the Cardinals to want to actually see what they might have in O’Neill; while perhaps less reasonable to play Fowler due to his contract status, it is something that teams do all the time. It’s possible those two factors might be enough to keep Carlson in the minors.

Carlson isn’t a sure thing, but his projections make him out to be a clear rung ahead of the other potential outfielders. The “path of least resistance” so often used by the Cardinals would put the veteran in one corner outfield spot and the young, but uncertain talent already on the 40-man ahead of a top prospect with a high floor. But the Cardinals as a team already have a pretty high floor. It’s the ceiling that is in issue. If the club is going to beat their 82-win projection this season, the outfield provides the biggest opportunity. The outfielder with the lowest ceiling also makes the most money. Dexter Fowler would make a solid fourth outfielder for the Cardinals as the team looks to see just how good a young outfield of Bader, O’Neill, and Carlson could be, but that’s a tough conversation to have with a veteran whose been starting for more than a decade. It’s a bit messy, but in order for the Cardinals to see what they have, they have to play the most promising players who project to have the best performance.