One month check-in on Cardinals’ JJ Wetherholt rookie campaign

JJ Wetherholt is showing poise and consistency at the top of the Cardinals lineup

Every season, we are warned about reading too much into hot rookie starts due to the expected regression and the league learning about weak spots, but we have yet to see that extended slump hit Wetherholt. Even against tough pitchers, the second baseman has held his own and then some, including beginning the series finale in Pittsburgh with a homer off of to get the scoring started. The power has been a welcomed surprise as JJ was advertised as an ab0ve-average hitter with solid home run potential, but his seven long balls through April rank third among rookies, just two behind Reds’ rookie , who got his feet wet with a late season promotion last year. With the this weekend, the biggest team in baseball brings the spot light to , putting JJ Wetherholt front and center. With 31 games played this year, I think we can start to shift from “small sample size” to season-long expectations and compare to the other rookies around the league. Wetherholt and Herrera are the only two Cardinals to play in every game this season, and he is yet to show signs of breaking down despite the major league schedule. Through the series in Pittsburgh, Wetherholt has slashed .256/.378/.479, with his OPS and wRC+ ranking second on the team behind , who is still taking in the effects of an unbelievable start to the season. We get to see Wetherholt everyday and each game he does something to surprise us even more, be it a clutch homer, a veteran at-bat, or playing elite level defense at second base. I admit, I am locked into the Cardinals and my view of other teams usually relates to looking at FanGraphs or seeing who is trending on social media, so I decided to use this week’s column to take a look at the rest of the rookie hitters who have played enough to be a qualified hitter through April. I started this exercise by sorting the FanGraphs tool for qualified rookies by OPS, and the leaderboard shows up as expected for the most part. from the Cubs sits at the top as the bat-first “catcher” has a stunning 1.012 OPS, but has played the second-fewest amount of games for players in the top-10. The top five has a list of regulars, all of whom were expected to compete for the Rookie of the Year award in their given leagues. Behind Ballesteros sits another NL Central rival in Sal Stewart, then comes Japanese rookie of the , Tigers’ phenom Kevin McGonigle, before Wetherholt rounds out the first five with an .856 OPS. That offensive performance has Wetherholt measuring as 43% above league-average, which puts him among the top 30 hitters in all of baseball, regardless of age or service time. What is most impressive about Wetherholt is that he is performing this way while staying true to the approach that made him a highly coveted draft pick and one the game’s top prospects. After striking out nearly as much as he walked in the minors, that plate discipline has mostly followed Wetherholt to the majors. Through 143 plate appearances, the rookie has 25 strikeouts to 17 walks, with both rates checking in above-league average. His 11.9% walk rate comes in at fifth place among first-year players, and his 17.5% K-rate slots in as seventh-best. Just to show how impressive those rates are both top-30 in the National League among all players. Even with Wetherholt’s high ranking among prospects coming into the year, much of the hype went to his peers, including Stewart and Pirates’ rookie Konnor Griffin, but the comparison takes another turn when you look beyond the offense. Currently, Stewart is the better hitter, totaling more homers, a higher batting average, and walking more than Wetherholt, but on defense, the Cardinals’ rookie has performed better than his division foe. Wetherholt was originally selected as a shortstop, but everyone and their brother knew that St. Louis would have to move him off of that spot and they opted to shift him to the other side of the bag and handle second base. Stewart, on the other hand, has shown more defensive flexibility in terms of positions played as he has seen time at first, second, and third so far this year. That flexibility looks good on paper, but it looks like has settled on Stewart as their first baseman of the future as 30 of his games have been spent at the cold corner. While playing first, Stewart has checked in as a below-average fielder, measuring as a negative value with the glove and making FanGraphs look correct in their 30-40 grade fielding ability. Wetherholt, though, has not just taken the shift to second base in stride, he has done so while performing like one of the best at the position. Currently, Baseball Savant has Wetherholt measuring in the 98th percentile in terms of fielding run value, and is in the top 3% of the league by Outs Above Average. So far, Cardinal Nation has to be ecstatic for what Wetherholt has been able to show in his first taste of the majors, not only outperforming much of his rookie class, but competing with veterans who have been established in the league for multiple seasons. Among all major leaguers, Wetherholt’s 27 runs scored ranks 5th in baseball, showing that he is a capable leadoff man that can set the table for the rest of the Cardinals lineup. He has also been hit by a pitch seven times this year, just one behind Herrera for the major league lead to again show his knack for getting on base. Wetherholt has also swiped four bags, fourth among rookies, and second on the team behind Jordan Walker. He currently has 16 RBIs out of the leadoff spot, of course helped by his seven homers, but this also shows he can come through in clutch spots. Among leadoff hitters, that RBI total slots him in at fourth in the league, sitting behind division mates and , with the Nationals’ James Wood mixing in as well. Both Cruz and Wood were always expected to be run producers for their teams, and Wood has been productive with 10 homers, but he is striking out nearly 33% of the time. Cruz, like Wood, has strikeout concerns (35%), but he has made up for it with 10 stolen bases and nine homers among his production. Anyone who is upset with JJ Wetherholt’s performance thus far in his rookie year have to be nitpicking, and the only thing I could see being a talking point is his .256 batting average. The only reason that would even be a discussion is because he is a career .304 hitter in the minor leagues and has been handed an above-average hit tool grade, but for a 23-year-old getting his first taste at big league pitching, I think we can be plenty happy with him checking in at 13 points above the league average rate.