Great baseball teams put their best on the field day in and day out. That is the way you endure over a 162-game season and come out with one of the best records in the league. One of St. Louis Cardinals' manager Mike Shildt's greatest strengths is fielding the best nine guys, knowing when and where to make a change or give a boost.
So, why can't Patrick Wisdom get into the starting lineup more than once a week?
General Cardinals practice is giving young men a chance to succeed as an alternative to pulling an older body off the open market and rolling the dice. On Friday night, the Cardinals decided not to pick up Josh Donaldson off waivers, even though the Toronto Blue Jays were willing to hand him over for nothing except the remaining portion of his salary, which was around $4.5 million. The Cardinals declined, and that's fine as long as they present Wisdom with an opportunity.
In his lean Major League experience, Wisdom has gone 5-15 at the plate with a couple home runs. Three of those five hits have come in pinch-hit duties. The man has only gotten two starts since he was first called up around three weeks ago. This would be understandable if Jedd Gyorko and Kolten Wong didn't suffer leg injuries in the same week, rendering the infield depth thin and soft.
Yairo Munoz can swing the bat, but his defense is shaky, and he doesn't have to start every day. The only reason Greg Garcia should start is if the entire infield rosters at St. Louis and Memphis acquire food poisoning and can't play the field. He's best coming off the bench late in games to chip a grounder up the middle or enter to pitch in a game where the Cardinals are losing 15-1. That's it.
The Cardinals don't have a lot of infield depth up the middle with their two best defenders being out, and while Matt Adams has acquired a couple base knocks recently, his swing has too much golf upswing in it to playing the field each night.
The excuses to keep Wisdom out of the lineup has gotten short. The reasons for this club resisting the urge to turn him loose is odd, because the amount to lose in the endeavor is quite small. He didn't get a Major League call-up until he was 26 years old, and that was after smashing 31 home runs and slugging .507 in Memphis last year.
Before he stepped foot on Major League ground last month, Wisdom hit 15 home runs and slugged .480 at the Triple-A level, but also improved the batting average (.288), on-base percentage (.363), and increased the walks (43). The strikeouts were still there, but those can be tolerated if your slash line is nice to look at.
Here's the thing: there's no reason not to start Wisdom right now. He gives you some extra thump in the lineup, and he is dependable at first and third base. In his short MLB stint, he has two walks and three strikeouts. Wisdom has shown the ability to do more with less, slapping singles into the outfield instead of aiming for the AT&T Rooftop deck across the street. With a little more wisdom (no pun intended) and playing time, the older "kid" could become a useful weapon for the Cardinals.
He's a unique asset. Definitely not a prospect and more like a minor league veteran, Wisdom saw everyone else go up to the big-league club before he did. Imagine how he felt when Luke Voit kept getting cups of coffee at Busch while he was served a bland cup of decaf. A chip grows on a shoulder when you know you are doing everything possible to get the call and the phone doesn't ring for you.
The Cardinals have nothing to lose by running with Wisdom this month. Gyorko and Wong aren't coming back anytime soon, and Donaldson will take his sore legs to Cleveland for the month. John Mozeliak didn't see the need to super-size this lineup with an MVP-type hitter, so he should be giving Shildt the advisement that Wisdom is the horse to run with. There are no excuses now.
I don't care if the Cardinals are winning. A 22-6 record doesn't mean there aren't a few chinks in the armor of this team. Show a weakness at one area and watch the record start to cave in one game at a time. Stay strong and above-average at each position.
In other words, field your best nine and give the other team all they can handle. If the Cardinals want to avoid a do-or-die wildcard game, they need to win just about every single game. Patrick Wisdom can help with that.
Put him in, coach. He's ready to play and mash.
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