St. Louis Cardinals’ top prospect Dylan Carlson set to make big-league debut
In a season defined more than any other by the necessity of patience, two of the St. Louis Cardinals’ most difficult waiting periods are set to come to an end at the same time on Saturday in Chicago.
The team is set to get back on the field after a coronavirus outbreak which rampaged through the roster, and top prospect Dylan Carlson is set to make his major league debut.
Carlson, 21, is MLB.com’s 18th rated prospect in all of baseball and first in the Cardinals system. The switch-hitting outfielder hit .292 with a .372 on base percentage and .542 slugging percentage while splitting time between double-A Springfield and triple-A Memphis in 2019, socking 26 home runs while stealing 20 bases.
He’s considered the team’s most impactful position playing prospect since the late Oscar Taveras, and he arrives at a time when the club needs a spark perhaps as desperately as it has in recent memory.
“It’s been incredible getting out here every day,” Carlson said in July during the team’s summer camp. “Stepping out at Busch every night is definitely special. Hearing your name called, being announced when you’re walking up to the plate, it’s something you always dreamed about. This gets you that much more excited for what’s to come.”
What’s to come is a starting spot in the outfield. The Cardinals have been consistent when asked about Carlson — when he arrives, it will not be with the intent to take up real estate on the bench.
President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak reiterated that during a news conference on Thursday evening.
“I would imagine he’s going to play, just like I stated all along,” Mozeliak said.
Message received.
Finding playing time will be less difficult for Carlson now than it has been at any point this season. With starting shortstop Paul DeJong out after recording a positive COVID-19 test, Tommy Edman is expected to slide to his left and take over at short. That opens up third base for Matt Carpenter, clearing room at designated hitter. That may well be filled by Tyler O’Neill, creating a vacancy for Carlson in left field.
Two other outfielders, Austin Dean and Lane Thomas, are also out due to the team’s COVID outbreak. Thomas had been cast thus far as the primary backup in centerfield, Carlson’s natural position. Harrison Bader, ostensibly the starter there when the team last took the field, is 1-for- 11 with five strikeouts in the early-for-the-Cardinals part of the season.
Carlson spent most of his time at summer camp in center despite a more obvious vacancy in left. That, combined with Bader’s continued struggles, likely provides the lodestar for his path to the field.
Perhaps most crucially, there are three double headers set to be played in Chicago over the five days which the team will spend in the city. With 60 innings of baseball set to be played over five days, there is room at the inn.
“I think Dylan’s done a nice job,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said late in summer camp. “Good baseball player. You put him in center, you put him in right, he’s paying attention, he’s conscious, he’s moving, he’s looking in, he’s paying attention to counts. Paying attention to situations. Getting good jumps on the ball...He’s doing what he’s capable of doing.”
Shildt’s careful compliments of Carlson were revelatory of another, less palatable truth — part of the reason to tamp down expectations and talk up Carlson’s competitors for playing time was to lend credence to the idea that he was not one of the team’s three best outfielders from the outset of the season’s resumption.
Indeed, though he showed somewhat limited power, Carlson drove the ball to all fields and turned in more consistent at-bats than perhaps any other player at his position. But, by keeping Carlson from the major league roster for just six days in this speeded up season, the team was able to delay his free agency by a full year.
The calculation then was five games for 162. It was a reasonable trade-off, if an unsavory one.
Now, 15 days after he first could have arrived, Carlson’s wait is done. In those 15 days, he didn’t miss a game; he’ll be an option for the sixth game of the year, just as was anticipated.
Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser has compared Carlson to retired outfielder Andre Ethier, who played 12 seasons in the majors, made two all-star teams, and once finished as high as sixth in MVP voting.
Ethier was a career .285 hitter who, by OPS+, was 22 percent better than league average over his career, including three injury-riddled seasons among his last four.
Another intriguing comparison is Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich, who didn’t hit more than 10 home runs until his fourth season in the big leagues with the Miami Marlins. He did, however, show outstanding contact skills, and once the power arrived, he ascended to the echelon of
MVP-caliber talent, being named the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 2018.
Carlson has endured the waiting and questions about his pending arrival with the good humor and head down posture expected of him in the baseball hierarchy. Those in his orbit have been somewhat less subtle.
His father, Jeff Carlson, is the baseball coach at Elk Grove High School near Sacramento, California — Dylan’s alma mater. Jeff, as fathers and coaches are wont to do, has taken to sharing media coverage and praise of his son and former player through his Twitter account.
One piece he shared was written by Scott Wuerz for the News-Democrat and headlined “It’s a crime that Dylan Carlson isn’t on the St. Louis Cardinals roster right now.”
That tweet was deleted. The message was received. The waiting is over.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 9:06 AM.
