No Nootbaar, no problem? Cardinals turn left field into an audition stage
With five baseballs strategically arranged across the span of his right hand, Lars Nootbaar stalked around behind a protective screen not far from the first-base on-deck circle on a practice field.
The St. Louis Cardinals divided into two teams on Saturday morning to engage in some controlled situational hitting, with hitting coach Brant Brown perched on the bleachers behind the backstop to arbitrate whether balls were struck with the proper intent to record a run in the given situation.
It was about as close as Nootbaar has been able to get to game action thus far in spring, with manager Oli Marmol allowing him to pick a group to back and the winners receiving a pass to depart early from an exhibition game of their choosing. Nootbaar chose well, with his Red squad escaping with a 17-16 victory against the opposing Blue bunch, despite voluminous heckles echoing from both dugouts at all times.
After offseason surgery on both heels — Nootbaar volunteered that former teammate Brandon Crawford spent the winter calling him “Boots” in honor of his protective equipment — there is not yet an established time frame for the Cardinals’ would-be starting left fielder to return to game action.
The club has not yet been willing to say publicly that they expect Nootbaar to miss opening day, but with less than four weeks to go and a pair of spikes yet to be seen on his feet, that announcement will feel perfunctory when it arrives.
“When Noot gets back, he’s a guy that I want to be able to run out there every day,” Marmol said, describing both the need for his thorough recovery and some of the challenge in finding a temporary spot holder in left field.
That competition has been perhaps the clearest display of any in spring training’s first week of game action. Through eight games, the Cardinals started five different left fielders: Chase Davis, José Fermín, Thomas Saggese, Bryan Torres and Nelson Velázquez. Of those, Fermín, Torres and Velázquez started twice, with Saggese receiving one additional start in center field and Velázquez in right on the day Davis — ticketed for the minors — was in left.
Those games have been coupled with infield work for Fermín, Saggese and Torres, and the three of them have spent the vast majority of their careers to date on the dirt. That versatility is important not only for broader roster construction, but also for finding spots for each of them to fit in when Nootbaar returns, should they seize the job opening in front of them.
“That’s why I want to take the person that makes the most sense [in left],” Marmol said. “Shows well, plays good defense we can trust out there. I think there’s good enough competition [that] they can go a couple different ways.”
Choosing between the skill sets requires determining which of the group is most likely to reach his respective archetype. Velázquez is the slugger, and without many obvious sources of damage — especially from the right side — there are ways to cast him with an advantage.
Fermín is maybe the most likely of the group to put the ball consistently in play, Torres has the most advanced on-base skills, and the organization-wide desire to see Saggese handle center is proof of a broader belief in his skill set.
Ideally, there would be a left fielder available who could satisfactorily combine all of those traits. These Cardinals are not built in an ideal way for the present.
“If it’s not power, then what? And that’s where a couple of these guys fit a different mold,” Marmol explained. “It’s not your prototypical left field thump. It’s just what it is. But you still have to figure out a way how that adds value to your lineup.”
If Velázquez can make consistent enough contact, perhaps he slots in between or around Alec Burleson and Nolan Gorman toward the middle of the group in a run-scoring position. Fermín and Saggese are options more designed for the lower third, scrapping to get on, use their legs and add on runs from the bottom.
Torres, who posted an eye-popping .441 on-base percentage across more than 400 at-bats at Triple-A last season, could be a weapon batting eighth in front of Victor Scott II, who is newly committed to bringing bunts back to his repertoire.
With two walks and two hits in his first three spring games, Torres has looked the part and lived up to the billing. He may have been the least likely of the four to take the spot at the start of spring, due in part to his left-handedness being in strong supply throughout the system, but he has fought his way into real consideration. The presence of Ramón Urías also puts another righty bat in the bench mix that could relieve some of the necessity of putting a righty in left; all of Fermín, Saggese and Velázquez are righties.
Nootbaar’s looming return, uncertain as it is, takes some of the weight out of the opening day decision. The paradox, though, is that once he’s demonstrably healthy, interest in him will peak on the trade market, and he could well be gone nearly as soon as he arrives.
As leading the team in bases on balls in each of the last two seasons demonstrates, his boots were made for walking at least as much as they were for protection.