As of today, we\u2019re almost exactly two weeks from the day when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. I would say there\u2019s at least an even chance that Brendan Donovan will remain a St. Louis Cardinal once the season begins. If that\u2019s the case, what do you think the St. Louis Cardinals opening day infield should be?<\/p>\n
Until I have reason to believe otherwise, let\u2019s assume for the sake of argument that Brendan Donovan<\/a> remains a St. Louis Cardinal through Spring Training and remains untraded once the regular season starts. What should the team\u2019s infield look like on opening day? There are some easy assumptions, but there are also some complicated questions, too. I\u2019ll share what I think this might look like, but I\u2019m more interested in what moves (or not) you would make. Here\u2019s my St. Louis Cardinals starting infield against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, March 26:<\/p>\n If Brendan Donovan is still a part of the St. Louis Cardinals roster on that day, I start him in left field with Victor Scott II in center and Jordan Walker in right field. If Lars Nootbaar were healthy and ready for opening day, I\u2019d start him in right and let Jordan start the season in AAA. I still think one more trip to Memphis would help Walker until he shows consistent plate discipline, but I\u2019d be thrilled if I had to change my mind because he was so impressive in Spring Training.<\/p>\n For my opening day infield, I\u2019ve made the assumption that JJ Wetherholt is ready for the show. If there\u2019s an unforeseen hiccup with Wetherholt\u2019s development, then Brendan is the obvious choice to be opening day starter at second base. I\u2019m also frustrated that I don\u2019t have a place for Thomas Saggese. I would like to see what Thomas would do if given the chance to be an everyday player. I\u2019m fine with Jos\u00e9 Ferm\u00edn being the off-the-bench utility man to fill in roster holes.<\/p>\n I\u2019m torn on how I feel about the St. Louis Cardinals possibly hanging on to Brendan Donovan. On one hand, we are no doubt a better team with him on our roster and in our lineup, but I also think his trade value will never be higher than it is right now. As I was trying to envision what the St. Louis Cardinals infield would look like, I understand why Chaim Bloom isn\u2019t in a rush to trade him. Beyond opening day, Brendan is a great solution to take over third base if Nolan Gorman fails to solve his strikeout woes. He\u2019s also insurance if JJ Wetherholt isn\u2019t ready for the big league roster and the team needs Brendan at second base. His versatility also means he\u2019s a backup if Masyn Winn were to be injured again. The Athletic\u2019s Andrew Baggarly<\/a> says the San Francisco Giants \u201cremain engaged\u201d with the St. Louis Cardinals on Brendan Donovan, so where he fits in the opening day lineup may become a non-issue soon, but we also have to anticipate that the Giants (or any other team) won\u2019t meet the Cardinals demands.<\/p>\n If you were making the call, what do you think the St. Louis Cardinals opening day infield should look like? I look forward to see what you think the priorities should be and how you would fill in the missing pieces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of today, we\u2019re almost exactly two weeks from the day when pitchers and catchers report to Spring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,65076,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-545256","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-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-analysis","14":"tag-stlouis","15":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115982098975080154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545256","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=545256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}