The St. Louis Cardinals need to keep playing the rookies when others return from COVID

I hate that several of the St. Louis Cardinals have had to suffer through COVID-19, and I’m certainly glad that it seems they’re all doing well with their recovery.

But the blessing in disguise from all of this is that the Cardinals were forced to use some of their rookies during this odd season. And it looks like the team will be better for it both in 2020 and beyond.

Would Dylan Carlson be in the majors right now if half the roster hadn’t gone on the shelf with the virus? I sincerely doubt it with the way things were being handled. But I’m positive we wouldn’t have seen Jake Woodford, Max Shrock and Genesis Cabrera — or Andrew Knizner getting regular playing time. Are these guys better than the guys the have, in some cases, temporarily replaced? Time will tell. But it’s good they’re at least getting a look so we can find out.

At the very least, it’s good to see some internal competition for playing time to keep all the guys at the top of their game. I hope the front office doesn’t just automatically award roster spots and playing time to guys who were there before. This is the real world and the guy who plays the best should get to play the most.

Besides, the St. Louis roster currently has some holes in it and it’s important to see how the pieces fit together for the sake of roster construction in 2021. This team needs to know who is a contender and who is a pretender. But they also need to identify spots where they have some depth and rank their athletes to prioritize who they want to keep and who can be dealt to try to bolster weaknesses. One commodity this team has in excess is pitching. It would be wise to try to deal some of it to try to find a middle of the order bat to pair with Paul Goldschmidt.

They say you can never have too much pitching. But in the Cardinals’ case, that’s just not true. They have 15-16 guys good enough to be on a major league roster and at least seven who are good enough to be MLB starters. Unfortunately, there just isn’t room for all of those guys on a big league roster, so someone is going to be unhappy sitting in Class AAA Memphis in 2021.

The more I watch this team play, the more I conclude that another place it can afford to deal from depth is second base. I know this is going to rub some people the wrong way, but I think the Cardinals ought to save their money and send Kolten Wong out in trade. Is he a very talented player? Sure. But is he 20 times as talented as Tommy Edman? I don’t think so. So why pay him 20 times as much money for Wong when that money could be used for a down payment on a slugger? Once you get past Edman, you could use Schrock at second base who appears to be a very similar player to Wong except that he doesn’t have the foot speed. But he’s got a solid glove, some pop in his bat for a smallish guy and he’s a hard-nosed ballplayer who could make a very nice option on a team that is offensively stacked.

Wong could be traded to a contender or packaged with some pitching in a blockbuster for a slugger. I just don’t see St. Louis retaining Wong beyond his $12.5 million option. I think paying him $15 million or more on a multi-year deal to keep him in 2022 and beyond is a bad risk. The Cardinals have been burned on extensions for Matt Carpenter and Miles Mikolas in recent seasons. After passing out bad contracts to Dexter Fowler, Trevor Miller, Brett Cecil and others, the Cardinals can’t afford to again invest too much money in an inconsistent under-performer.

It’s time to be wise and figure out what spots you can fill with cost effective kids and spend money not on aging middle of the road players, but on true difference makers like this club used to do when it had Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.