While the Memphis Redbirds must wait another excruciating month for their first Opening Day in two years, the team’s parent club takes the field — with a significant new addition — this Thursday in Cincinnati. Few “lid-lifters” in St. Louis Cardinals history have been as eagerly anticipated as this one, a broad fan base desperate for the daily version of normality baseball has delivered for well over a century now.
His name is Nolan Arenado, should you not happen upon baseball-related media, social or otherwise. The Cardinals acquired Arenado — one of the ten best players in the sport — in a January trade with the Colorado Rockies that cost St. Louis little more than a back-of-the-rotation starting pitcher named Austin Gomber. Arenado’s contract is massive ($214 million over seven years), and he has opt-out clauses after this season and again after the 2022 campaign. But the Rockies agreed to pay $50 million of the contract (in order to “save” more than $150 million), and the general impression is that Arenado fits St. Louis in much the same way Mark McGwire (1997) and Matt Holliday (2009) did upon arriving in trades prior to free agency. Arenado’s resume is staggering, considering he turns just 30 on April 16th: 235 home runs, eight Gold Gloves at third base, and four Silver Sluggers. He’s the kind of player who transforms a team’s batting order while, at the same time, dramatically improves a defensive position that’s been a Cardinal Achilles heel for more than a decade.
While the Cardinals gain a Gold Glove third-baseman, they’ve lost one at second base, Kolten Wong having departed for Milwaukee after St. Louis chose not to pick up the option on his contract. Another former Memphis Redbird, Tommy Edman, takes over at second after playing a utility role the last two seasons. With Paul Goldschmidt (three Gold Gloves) manning first base and Paul DeJong back for his fifth season at shortstop, the Cardinals are fortified on the infield, with a pair of sluggers at each corner, both in the prime of their careers.
The Cardinals’ outfield is more complicated, with several one-time prospects expected to shoulder a larger load offensively. Tyler O’Neill won a Gold Glove in leftfield last season, but batted only .173 with a .360 slugging percentage in the abbreviated campaign. He’s hit the ball hard this spring, though, and would be a difference-maker if he could raise that slug average about 150 points. The franchise’s top prospect, 22-year-old Dylan Carlson, is expected to play every day, either in rightfield or, as he will on Opening Day, centerfield. (The team’s incumbent centerfielder, Harrison Bader, will start the season on the injured list with arm discomfort.) Justin Williams, Lane Thomas, and John Nogowski are three more outfield candidates Memphis fans will recall seeing at AutoZone Park as recently as 2019.
At a time with so much uncertain, two players will make the 2021 Cardinals feel much the way they felt in, oh, 2015 . . . or 2006 (when the franchise won its first World Series in 24 years). Catcher Yadier Molina is back for his 18th season with the franchise and pitcher Adam Wainwright is back for his 17th. The two men are 26 starts shy of becoming only the fourth battery in baseball history to start 300 games. (They’re scheduled to start the Cardinals’ home opener on April 8th.) And this is no farewell tour for either player. Wainwright led St. Louis in wins last season and no Cardinal starter performed better this year in the Grapefruit League. Jack Flaherty is classified as the team’s ace, but the 25-year-old needs to flash his 2019 form (2.75 ERA, 231 strikeouts) and confirm 2020 (4.91 ERA) was a pandemic-muddled aberration.
A loaded bullpen — headlined by flame-thrower Jordan Hicks and former top-prospect Alex Reyes — will be relied upon to counterbalance a shaky starting rotation for St. Louis, with Carlos Martinez, Kwang Hyun Kim, John Gant, and Daniel Ponce de Leon among the men expected to support Flaherty and Wainwright. A pair of starting pitchers will headline the Memphis roster: Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson. If the Cards’ rotation cracks, one or both could make the trip north this summer.
Baseball is back. The crowds will be limited to start the season. (No more than 15,000 at Busch Stadium.) But as vaccination efforts expand and temperatures warm, here’s to a healthy dose of the National Pastime to help bring the rest of us back, too.
