O’Neill ready to take on role of centerfielder for St. Louis. But are the Cardinals?
When the Cardinals made the decision to ship Harrison Bader to the New York Yankees in exchange for Jordan Montgomery at last year’s trade deadline, the calculation was at least in part swayed by knowing that Bader, set to miss most of the rest of the season, would be of little short term help.
Montgomery plugged an immediate hole in the rotation, and the Cardinals calculated that internal options could fill the hole they created in center field.
Nearly eight months later, that belief holds, even if the obvious successor hasn’t revealed himself. And now, at the opening of camp, an unexpected contender has raised his hand for consideration.
“I enjoyed my time out there at the end of last year,” Tyler O’Neill said Tuesday. “It’s a different look for me than in the past, and I’m preparing myself for a corner position ... in previous years, I would just bounce between the three (positions). But now, having a more clear idea if I’m going to be playing centerfield just to get those reps out there.”
Earlier this winter, manager Oliver Marmol described centerfield as “wide open,” even as he declared Lars Nootbaar would have the workload of a starting outfielder and expected O’Neill and Dylan Carlson to fill out the group. With positions up for grabs, there was flexibility in the offing, but O’Neill was widely expected to be the least likely of the three to find himself in that position.
That calculus, evidently, has shifted.
“No, it’s competing for a centerfield job,” Marmol said when asked if O’Neill’s early camp reps at the position were simply the result of preparation for the World Baseball Classic. “He came into camp wanting that. He came up through our minor league system and actually profiled as a pretty good centerfielder.
“It’s something that he wants and he’s going to compete for, and he’s going to have an opportunity to do.”
The WBC is indeed at least one factor. As the outfielder on the Canadian roster with the most success in the major leagues, O’Neill will be expected to play a major role for his home country. Canada’s manager, Ernie Whitt, contacted O’Neill before he reported to spring training to alert him to the country’s plans.
By that point, O’Neill had already been considering the possibility, and the ask from the national team simply pushed him in what seemed to be an obvious direction.
“It’s just a different feel out there,” O’Neill said of center. “I want to understand where I stood this year. The front office and management here, they believe in me, they believe in my ability, and I know I can track it down out there.”
If not for unfortunate luck for one of his teammates, the position might not be open at all. Carlson was the most natural successor to Bader at the time of the trade, and in the stretch between July 4 and July 27, turned in a .799 on base plus slugging percentage while playing outstanding defense.
But a nagging wrist injury did its toll, and rather than cementing his spot in the wake of a voice of confidence from the front office that he wouldn’t be dealt, his offense tapered again. He had a second stint on the injured list in September and was on the bench for the second game of the team’s Wild Card round sweep against the Phillies.
More on O’Neill
Enter uncertainty, and enter O’Neill.
“I’m not trying to boot anybody away from that position,” O’Neill emphasized. “It’s whatever they deem fit. I know they’re very analytically driven here, and I just want to be the best player I can be.”
O’Neill ran down a list of measurable attributes — sprint speed, direction with the first step, quickness, closing speed — that the team values at that position and that he believes work in his favor. His manager complimented many of those same vectors.
“He’s always moved around well,” Marmol said. “It’s just a matter of getting the reads in center. He’s done it before. There’s some things he’s worked on with first step and direction that’ll help as well. Does he have the ability to do it? Absolutely.”
There’s another, unspoken variable that no doubt is also a factor in O’Neill’s desire to prove himself capable at one of the game’s most physically difficult positions — free agency. With the open market potentially awaiting after the 2024 season, O’Neill’s representatives at the Boras Corporation no doubt have read the potential value in the market.
‘All comes back to just getting the reps’
Only four qualified hitters in the last two seasons have played at least 50% of their games in center while hitting at least 25 homers — Aaron Judge, Julio Rodríguez, Adolís García and Cedric Mullins.
George Springer accomplished the feat in 2019, and that winter, signed a six-year, $150 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Centerfielders who slug are in high demand, and it is not difficult to imagine a healthy O’Neill putting himself in that conversation. The Cardinals would enthusiastically welcome such an outcome.
“It all comes back to just getting the reps out there,” O’Neill said. “If they deem me capable to play centerfield every day, that’s what I want to do. I think I have the skill level for that.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2023 at 7:00 AM.