Patrick Wisdom – Memphis Flyer

The Memphis Redbirds are enjoying a season for the ages. In beating Las Vegas Sunday afternoon at AutoZone Park, the Redbirds improved their record to 65-35, reaching 30 games above .500 for the first time in the 20-year history of the franchise. With more than 40 games still to play, the team record for wins in a season — 83 by the 2000 Pacific Coast League champions — is all but sure to fall. The winning continues as the club continues to sacrifice talent to the parent St. Louis Cardinals.

No fewer than four of the eight position players who took the field for Memphis on Opening Day can now be found wearing Cardinal uniforms. Outfielder Tommy Pham and shortstop Paul DeJong are playing every day for St. Louis. (DeJong is just the second player to hit 10 home runs for both the Redbirds and Cardinals in the same season. The first was Rick Ankiel in 2007.) Slugger Luke Voit is playing some first base for the Cards and delivering right-handed pop off the bench. Just last Friday, St. Louis promoted Carson Kelly, the top-ranked catching prospect in baseball. Memphis has won all four games (through Monday) since Kelly’s departure.

What has kept this team so steady, so consistently strong despite the roster fluctuation? The first place you might look is third base, where 25-year-old Patrick Wisdom — in a supporting role — has put up numbers that could earn him team MVP honors by season’s end. Through Monday, Wisdom has clubbed a team-leading 22 home runs, driven in 66 runs (also tops on the team), while hitting .251 with a .506 slugging percentage. The power numbers are already career highs for Wisdom, a 2012 supplemental draft pick of the Cardinals. (He entered this season with a career batting average of .237 and hit 14 home runs in each of two seasons at Double-A Springfield.)

Patrick Wisdom

Wisdom spent the 2016 season with Memphis, but missed 64 games with an injury to his left hand (broken hamate) that required surgery. He’s been healthy since spring training, though, and has focused on the same development priority of every Triple-A player from Pawtucket to Tacoma: consistency. Instead of muscle memory, though, Wisdom’s emphasis has been on the organ that controls muscle memory. “It’s being able to switch off from baseball once you leave the field,” he says. “Finding an outlet, whether it be reading, video games, hanging with the guys, a TV show. This game is so mental. Leave baseball at the field.”

Wisdom’s quick to credit Redbirds manager Stubby Clapp for instilling a don’t-quit, never-panic culture in the Memphis clubhouse. This has come in handy not just in game situations — the Redbirds are 7-0 in extra-inning contests — but in adjusting to the roster fluctuation as the Cardinals continue searching for a winning mix. “We just have an expectation to win,” says Wisdom. “Individually, we all bought into that mindset. We know what we need to do to be successful. When that comes together, you see the results. We have a lot of high-character guys in the clubhouse, and that carries over to the field. Whether we’re playing card games, or just sitting around the table, we’re laughing, having fun together. We come to the park ready to win. And we bounce back after a loss.”

Wisdom has heard stories of Clapp’s playing days in Memphis, which hasn’t hurt the rookie manager’s standing among the players he now must lead. “When he played, he played with a lot of grit, liked to get dirty on the ground,” says Wisdom with a smile. “He’s rubbed that off on us. Have fun, but play hard. He allows us to be ourselves, and that’s a big part of [our success].”

Barring a calamity of Hindenburg proportions, the Redbirds will return to the PCL playoffs in September, their first postseason venture in three years. And Wisdom offers a confident nod when asked if this team can win the franchise’s third PCL championship. “I like our team,” he stresses. “I like the way we play baseball. There’s no panic. Our pitching has kept us in games, we play solid defense, and we’ve been hitting the ball. I like our chances. It’s been a fun year.”

A native of California, Wisdom grew up rooting for the San Diego Padres and L.A. Angels. He confesses to having to do some research upon being drafted by the Cardinals. “I knew they were one of the two top franchises, along with the New York Yankees,” he says. If Wisdom continues to produce as he has in 2017, he may soon be able to continue that research in the clubhouse at Busch Stadium.

In mid-May, not long after the Memphis Redbirds reeled off a franchise-record 11-game winning streak, I asked first-year manager Stubby Clapp about the secret sauce he’d concocted at AutoZone Park. Once a blue-collar player, the blue-collar manager responded with a blue-collar answer: “Our pitchers attack the strike zone and our hitters grind through every at-bat.”

It was an understated evaluation, to say the least. Using even fewer words, Clapp could have responded: “We have a lot of talent in this clubhouse.”

Redbirds manager Stubby Clapp is head over heels about his team’s success. (This shot, of course, is from Stubby’s playing days.)

Not since 2013 — when Baseball America ranked the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system the best in the business — has Memphis been stocked with the kind of talent we’re seeing these days at the corner of B.B. King and Union Avenue. You’ll recall that 2013 club included outfielder Oscar Taveras, second-baseman Kolten Wong, and a pair of top pitching prospects, Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez. Taveras died tragically in 2014, but the other three are now regulars at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (If you read last week’s column, you’ll know performance this season hasn’t matched projection with the exception of Martinez.)

The 2017 Redbirds have featured three everyday players who will soon be seen in big-league batter’s boxes. Infielder Paul DeJong (who turns 24 in August) enjoyed a 12-game cup of coffee with St. Louis recently when Wong landed on the disabled list, returned to Memphis for less than a week, and can now be found again in the Cardinals’ dugout (Wong back on the DL). He became the sixth former Redbird to homer in his first major-league at-bat and has played stellar defense at second base. Here in Memphis, DeJong has it .299 and hammered 13 home runs, the kind of pop that increases a middle-infielder’s value exponentially. (DeJong homered 22 times and drove in 73 runs at Double-A Springfield last season.)

When I watch centerfielder Harrison Bader (23) play, I see a shorter (and whiskers-free) version of Charlie Blackmon, the Colorado Rockies’ All-Star. The former Florida Gator brings speed and a dose of power (12 home runs) to the Redbirds lineup. And he’s perfectly willing to crash into walls to rob opposing hitters of extra bases. It will be interesting to see how the Cardinals manage Bader’s rise in light of the multiyear contract their new centerfielder, Dexter Fowler, signed last winter.

Then there’s catcher Carson Kelly. Yadier Molina’s presumed heir will turn 23 next month but handles backstop duties with the aplomb of a 30-year-old big-league veteran. Kelly’s offensive production — .290 batting average, 7 home runs — feels like a generous bonus package. He could be catching every day for a few major league clubs. Similar to Bader, Kelly’s rise is blocked somewhat by a Cardinal player with a multiyear contract manning his position. For now, he simply helps the Redbirds win baseball games, the man Clapp trusts with those pitchers tasked with attacking the strike zone.

And those pitchers? Three members of the Redbirds’ current starting rotation — Luke Weaver (24 in August), Marco Gonzales (25), and Jack Flaherty (21) — have been ranked among the Cardinals’ top-10 prospects (Gonzales topped the list in 2015). Among all position groups and across all levels of the farm system, the Cardinals enjoy their greatest abundance in starting pitching. Which means flexibility between Memphis and St. Louis and bargain chips should the Cardinals remain in contention when the trade deadline arrives in late July. (As noted in last week’s column, the Cardinals lack “The Guy” in their batting order.)

Prospects don’t necessarily translate to winning baseball. (The 2013 Redbirds finished 69-75.) But this year’s club has a supporting cast that steals the spotlight one win after another. First-baseman Luke Voit has been a right-handed-batting Matt Adams (and then some), belting 12 home runs while putting up a slash line of .322/.404/.572. Healthy and manning third base has been Patrick Wisdom (12 home runs, 41 RBIs). Through Sunday, the Redbirds are 42-27 and five-and-a-half games ahead of second-place Nashville in their division of the Pacific Coast League. Triple-A baseball may be about development first, but take this as gospel: Winning spurs development.