Bernie’s Redbird Review: Yo, Cardinals! Give Lots Of Playing Time To Thomas Saggese, Luken Baker and Victor Scott II.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

I was pleased to see the reports of Triple A Memphis infielder Thomas Saggese being promoted by the Cardinals.

Saggese entered the season as the Cardinals’ No. 3 prospect according to the respected baseball analyst R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports.

“Saggese, acquired from the Rangers as part of the return on Jordan Montgomery, might end up being a better player than he is a prospect,” Anderson wrote. “That is to suggest that he’s consistently outperformed expectations, to the extent that there might be something under the hood that the eye test doesn’t capture. Saggese projects to be an above-average hitter with enough defensive versatility to ping-pong between second and third as needed. This may prove to be sweet on the profile, but that’s the catch with this type: you risk being too high (or low) on them until they force your hand. We think Saggese has done just that.”

The promotion is good timing for reasons:

1) After a slow start at Triple A this season, Saggese has hit much better since early June. In his last 76 games for Memphis he had a .271 average, .328 onbase percentage and .476 slug. Those numbers were accentuated by 14 home, 14 doubles and 42 runs batted in.

2) Rookie Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn has been on fumes for a while, having just four hits in his last 40 at-bats. The intense Winn has been worn down by the long season and the physical demands of playing the shortstop position. It’s understandable. Winn has logged 1,143 innings at short for the Cardinals in 2024. Before now, Winn had never played more than 991 innings at short in a season. The combined 991 innings were cataloged in 2024 when Winn spent most of the season at Triple A before joining the Cardinals for 37 games. Saggese played 593.1 innings at short for Memphis this year. Saggese can also be used at second base and shortstop. Brendan Donovan has been bothered by a foot infection, so Saggese figures to see some action.

Which takes us to the next opinion on my mind

3) It’s past time to move forward and go with younger players. The Cardinals can say and think they’re still in the race for a wild-card playoff spot, but that’s a fantasy. It may even be a hallucination. The objective should be to live in the real world right now, and do what’s best for the team. Giving playing time to hitters that need experience is the rational way to go. Saggese should be in the lineup virtually every day, to speed up the acclimation to life in the majors against big-league hitters. The 2023 Cardinals brought Masyn Winn up from Memphis late last season for that very reason. But Winn’s promotion came earlier last season than Saggese’s promotion came this season. Time is running out, and the Cardinals wasted an opportunity to give Saggese a few weeks of at-bats at this level.

4) This move gives the Cardinals a chance to show why they made the trade with Texas last summer. You’d hate to look back on the deal and realize the Cardinals get nothing of significant value in exchange for starter Jordan Montgomery and reliever Chris Stratton. Saggese has a chance to be a good MLB hitter. Starting-pitching prospect Tekoah Roby came to St. Louis in the same deal but can’t stay healthy. So for now, the spotlight is on Saggese … provided that he actually plays a lot.

The Cardinals are 6 and ½ games out of the No. 3 wild-card position with only 19 games remaining on their schedule. The Cards have three teams ahead of them – Cubs, Braves and Mets. FanGraphs lowered STL’s playoff odds to 0.6 percent.

The Saggese call-up fits the traditional late-season initiative to play different dudes. But to this point, manager Oli Marmol hasn’t done that. There are a couple of glaring examples.

In the last six games – even though the St. Louis offense has conked out again – Marmol has barely used second-year slugger Luken Baker, and rookie outfielder Victor Scott II.

In the team’s previous six games, the Cardinals have averaged 3.3 runs, scored more than four runs only one time, and batted .179 with a faint .299 slugging percentage and 27 percent strikeout rate.

The Cardinals had 236 plate appearances in the six-game stretch; only six of the 236 were made by Baker and Scott.  Three for each hitter. 

This is absurd. Before getting subbed out in favor of Michael Siani, who returned from the IL, Scott had batted .297 with a .350 OBP and .487 slugging percentage over 11 games. His confidence was inflating by the day. Scott, 23 has only 140 major-league at-bats. I’m a Siani fan, and he plays exceptional defense in center field. But Scott has been credited with three outs above average in center. Though Scott’s defensive runs saved rate is slightly below average, he isn’t a liability in CF.

Scott has more upside offensively than Siani. The Cardinals have taken a long look at Siani, playing him in 107 games this season. They know what he does best. They know what he needs to improve. But the Cards are still learning about Scott, and with the team out of the race, it makes no sense to use him so sparingly. Scott needs as many reps as he can get at the big-league level, and this is the perfect time to do that.

The same goes for Baker. Since hitting a two-run homer on Sept. 1 at Yankee Stadium, Baker has come to the plate only three times, going 1 for 3. Even though the Cardinals have had 43 plate appearances vs. lefty pitchers over the last six games, Baker has taken only three of the 43.

How can that be? Baker crushed left-handed pitching all year, slugging .636 against them in Triple A. In his brief time with the Cardinals, Baker is 3 for 6 against lefties with two homers, a double and six RBI. I’m not saying he’s Mark McGwire circa 1998, but the big man is a bad man when a left-handed pitcher is on the mound.

Baker, who bats right, is clearly more effective against left-handed pitchers. He’s 1 for 14 with three RBIs against righty pitchers since the promotion from Triple A. For Memphis, Baker batted only .204 against right–handed pitchers this season but managed to slam them for 19 homers, 57 RBIs and a .445 slug. Have the Cardinals foreclosed on the idea of using Baker against RH pitchers more often?

If so, that seems rash to me. The left-handed swinging Alec Burleson has been stuck in a horrible slump, and he’s done little against righty pitchers. Burly has also been used as the DH in five of the team’s last games. Maybe Baker can get some of those DH at-bats over the final 19 games.

And what about the starting pitching? Lance Lynn is coming off the IL to start Wednesday’s game against the Reds. I’m not trying to be disrespectful here, but what’s the point? Unless the Cardinal decision makers are completely goofy in the head, Lynn won’t be back with St. Louis in 2025. In the remaining games, wouldn’t it be smart to use his rotation slot for a young starting-pitcher prospect such as Quinn Mathews or Michael McGreevy? Before anyone gets the vapors over the idea of using Mathews, the Texas Rangers just called up their top pitching prospect, Kumar Rocker, to start their game on Thursday.

The Cardinals can’t learn more about the future and give the beneficial experience to young players as long as they continue to exist in their make-the-playoffs delusion.

BIRD BYTES

1) Saggese can expect to see a lot of four-seam fastballs from big-league pitchers. This season at Memphis, Saggese batted .190 with a .328 slug and 31 percent strikeout rate against four seamers. But I should point out that Saggese had a 49 percent hard-hit rate when he connected on a four-seamer. Curveballs also gave Saggese a lot of trouble at Triple A, but he put up robust power numbers against sinkers, sliders, changeups and sweepers. But the MLB will want to test him with four seamers.

2) Saggese didn’t walk much for Memphis. This could be a minus in his quest to develop into an above-average big-league hitter. I don’t think we’ll see him take walks up here. Not many, anyway. His strikeout rate was too high at Triple A for the first two months this season but he brought that down over the last three-plus months.

3) Since July 22, Burleson has a .229 average, a poor .312 slug and only three home runs in 157 at-bats. Burly hasn’t homered since Aug. 17. And in his 70 at-bats since then, he’s hit .243 with only two extra-base hits and a sallow .286 slug.

4) In 42 plate appearances with the Cardinals since Aug. 12, Jordan Walker is batting .214 with a .250 OBP and .381 slug. Another negative is 16 strikeouts and only one walk. That’s a 38 percent strikeout rate. Terrible. And if you subtract his five-hit day at Yankee Stadium, Walker is 4 for 37 (.108).

5) Walker obviously needs to do much better than that, and at least Marmol is keeping him in the lineup. That’s the only way he’ll get better.

6) There are some encouraging signs for Walker. In his last six games Walker has two homers, six RBI and a .609 slugging percentage. And he has a 46 percent hard-hit rate when playing for the Cardinals (not Memphis) since Aug. 12. Walker has been fed a large percentage of sliders by opposing pitchers, and he’s had a lot of whiff-swings and strikeouts against the pitch. But Walker has also done some damage against the sliders, going 3 for 8 with a double and homer. (And, unfortunately for him, four strikeouts.)

7) Miles Mikolas has a 6.75 ERA in his last 13 starts — the worst earned-run average by a major-league starter since June 27. For the season, his 5.55 ERA is the second worst among MLB starting pitchers. And Mikolas has the worst strikeout rate (16.7%) and swing-miss rate (7%) among starters. I don’t see why the Cardinals would possibly bring Mikolas back for 2025. He’s been awful for two seasons.The team should eat his guaranteed salary for 2025 ($17.6 million) and just cut ties and move on.

8) Happy 37th birthday to Paul Goldschmidt.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

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Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Statcast, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise noted.