Astros<\/a>. And because he\u2019s not, he\u2019ll have less than a year of service time after this year (even if he gets called up tomorrow and spends the whole year in the majors), which means he\u2019ll have six more years until he\u2019s eligible for free agency after this year.<\/p>\nAs you can see from the players above him, nobody is leaving without a trade within a reasonable timeframe for Saggese. Which is why I think Gorman will be the odd man out. I think the Cardinals like the type of player Saggese is more than the type of player Gorman is. Also, in theory, Gorman might get more back in a trade (though he has to have a good 2025). Saggese does have two more options and is dirt cheap for at least three seasons, although I don\u2019t know how much longer you can keep a guy with a 132 wRC+ in AAA down there. I assume he\u2019ll see some MLB time this season.<\/p>\n
JJ Wetherholt<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t need to put the service time aspect up, he has all six years of service time left. One thing I didn\u2019t note in the Winn section is that Wetherholt is being groomed to be Winn\u2019s injury replacement. I think Wetherholt probably starts next year in AAA, but if Winn got hurt week one like this year, I think he would be the starting SS while Winn was on the IL. So we only have a few more months of Brendan Donovan or Thomas Saggese as the backup plan to Masyn Winn.<\/p>\n
These are the major players but it\u2019s not all of the depth. So I feel compelled to mention backup infield options who could also be called infield depth. I don\u2019t think Jose Barrero will make it to next season, so I\u2019m not going to include him on this list.<\/p>\n
Jose Fermin<\/p>\n
If only Fermin could even fake playing SS. He currently has a 136 wRC+ after a slow start. He had a 144 wRC+ last season in AAA. I find it somewhat odd that there are Mike Antico believers but not many Jose Fermin believers. Fermin is in the wrong organization, but I pretty firmly believe he\u2019ll carve out an MLB backup career in the same vein as a Greg Garcia. Like Garcia, Fermin\u2019s profile will be of little power, but taking a bunch of walks and not striking out. Can\u2019t quite play SS either. I don\u2019t mean to pat myself on the back, but aside from batting on a different side of the plate, this is a perfect comp for Fermin.<\/p>\n
Cesar Prieto<\/p>\n
To the extent that calling Fermin a Greg Garcia backup is believing in him, I am not a Cesar Prieto believer. He was a below average hitter at 25 last season. But this year, he\u2019s getting the old for the level boost and has a 124 wRC+ on the back of a perfectly reasonable .321. His potential is limited because of a brutal glove, but he\u2019s basically a poor man\u2019s Alec Burleson.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Rivas<\/p>\n
If you consider Wetherholt a real shortstop, the shortstop depth gets pretty strong next year. Assuming, that is, that Rivas is still here. Because he was signed in 2019, I believe he\u2019s eligible for minor league free agency at the end of this season. The Cardinals can get around this by putting him on the 40 man or giving him a minor league extension. I think he\u2019s shown enough to get that 40 man spot and be in AAA next season. He\u2019s a 22-year-old defensive wizard at SS who currently has a sustainable looking 101 wRC+ in AA. He probably isn\u2019t anything more than a backup, but having a guy in the system who can actually play SS outside of Winn would be appreciated.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s where we are today. The Cardinals have arguably one spot that is open and it\u2019s really only open because technically speaking Brendan Donovan can play the outfield. Winn will play SS as long as he\u2019s here and he\u2019ll be here, Contreras will play 1B, and Arenado will play 3B. I will say that I think in the last year of his deal, I wouldn\u2019t go as far as to say Arenado will be a part-time player, but I suspect he would sit a lot more than this year. Doesn\u2019t really solve the logjam this year or the next of course.<\/p>\n
The DH is barely an option with Alec Burleson and Ivan Herrera also existing. Gorman isn\u2019t playing everyday because of this, Saggese is MLB ready with nowhere to play, and Wetherholt is not very far away, like if it wasn\u2019t for the current state of the infield, he\u2019d be a strong contender to start next year on the Opening Day roster. Still might be somehow. There is no solution as easy as moving a player to a different position like there was at catcher. It\u2019s really just a matter of who is getting traded to help make some room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the past, I have noted that the Cardinals were going to be facing tough roster decisions with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,2015,160,2014,181,11403,25069,4,214,2016,673,67,4311,4310,173,2013],"class_list":{"0":"post-115406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-birdos","10":"tag-cardinals","11":"tag-el","12":"tag-front-page","13":"tag-infield","14":"tag-logjam","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-of","17":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-sabermetrics-analysis","18":"tag-st-louis","19":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","20":"tag-stlouis","21":"tag-stlouiscardinals","22":"tag-the","23":"tag-viva"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114709974701827422","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}