The Cardinals announced they’ve selected the contract of top shortstop prospect Masyn Winn. In a corresponding move, St. Louis is placing center fielder Lars Nootbaar on the 10-day injured list with a lower abdominal contusion, tweets John Denton of MLB.com. The Cardinals already had two vacancies on the 40-man roster.
Winn was St. Louis’ second-round pick out of a Texas high school three years ago. The canceled minor league season kept him from playing in a professional game until 2021. Winn has rapidly climbed the minor league ladder, spending most of last season in Double-A at age 20. He stole 28 bases while hitting .258/.349/.432 in 86 games against generally older competition, cementing himself as one of the sport’s top prospects heading into last winter.
The Cards assigned Winn to Triple-A Memphis this year. He has spent the entire season there, posting a .283/.356/.465 batting line in 494 plate appearances. The slash stats are aided by an offense-heavy Triple-A environment. Of the 107 International League hitters with 300+ trips to the plate, Winn ranks 57th in on-base percentage and 43rd in slugging.
That production is partially weighed down by a very slow start to the year. Winn hit only .223/.287/.321 in April but has an OPS of .763 or better in every subsequent month. The right-handed hitter has feasted on southpaws, hitting .353/.425/.639 with the platoon advantage. His production against same-handed pitching is more modest — .258/.331/.401 — but that’s a small concern for a 21-year-old hitter at the top minor league level.
Winn has shown advanced contact skills, drawing walks at a decent 8.9% clip while striking out in only 16.8% of his plate appearances. He has connected on 17 home runs, 15 doubles and seven triples and gone 17-19 in stolen base attempts.
In addition to those promising offensive traits, Winn has a chance to be an impact middle infield defender. Prospect evaluators credit him with elite arm strength and the athleticism to stick at shortstop. While the Cards gave him 25 starts at the keystone in Memphis to broaden his flexibility, Winn has logged more than 2300 professional innings at shortstop.
Given the well-rounded profile and his upper minors success despite being so young, Winn is unanimously regarded as one of the top minor league talents. Baseball America ranked him the game’s #30 prospect on their recent update; Kiley McDaniel of ESPN slotted him 16th on his own refresh of the sport’s top prospects earlier in the week. Evaluators peg Winn’s power potential as solid-average while praising the rest of his profile.
The 5’11” infielder is generally viewed as the Cards’ potential long-term starting shortstop. St. Louis dealt Paul DeJong to the Blue Jays at the deadline. Tommy Edman has been the primary shortstop of late but is capable of moving around the diamond. Nootbaar will be out of action for at least the next week and a half after fouling a ball off his groin last night, while second baseman Nolan Gorman hit the 10-day IL this afternoon because of a lower back strain. Edman can cover the keystone or center field while the Cards give Winn regular run at shortstop over the season’s final six-plus weeks.
Along with the injuries to Nootbaar and Gorman, the calendar itself opened a path to Winn’s promotion. Players enter a season with rookie eligibility so long as they’ve spent fewer than 46 days on an MLB active roster and tallied 130 or fewer big league at-bats. Beginning Friday, there’ll be 45 days left in the regular season. Assuming the Cards limit his playing time to keep him from topping 130 at-bats, he’ll retain his rookie eligibility into 2024.
Before 2022, a player’s rookie status wouldn’t matter much to clubs in timing their promotions. The Prospect Promotion Incentive in the ’22 collective bargaining agreement now makes that a factor in some cases. A position player who had appeared on at least two Top 100 lists at BA, ESPN and MLB Pipeline the preceding offseason can earn his club a bonus draft choice if a) the team carries them on the MLB roster for a full service year and b) the player wins Rookie of the Year or finishes top three in MVP voting during his pre-arbitration seasons.
Winn will certainly meet the prospect criteria next winter. Whether the Cardinals carry him on the MLB roster for all of 2024 and if he plays well enough to merit award consideration can’t yet be known. By waiting until August 18 to bring him up, however, the Cardinals are keeping that possibility open (again assuming Winn stays under 131 at-bats through season’s end).
If he’s in the majors through year’s end, Winn will conclude this season with 45 days of service. He won’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2026 campaign at the earliest and is controllable through at least 2029. Future assignments to the minors could push that trajectory back further.
The more immediate focus for both Winn and the club will be on his initial exposure to big league pitching. He’ll have a month and a half to try to stake an early claim to the shortstop job heading into 2024. St. Louis has Edman, Gorman and Brendan Donovan (who’s out for the season after undergoing elbow surgery) also in the middle infield mix. If Winn puts a strong foot forward over the coming weeks, perhaps that’d increase the front office’s willingness to part with a middle infielder in an offseason trade as they look for ways to overhaul three-fifths of their rotation.
Katie Woo of the Athletic first reported Winn’s promotion.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
For a last-place team, sounds like a Win-Win move!
Winn-Winn!
I love to see how he can handle himself up in the majors playing next to Nolen Arenado on one side and Nolen Gorman on the other side when he comes off the IL.
The proverbial ‘meat’ on a Nolen sandwich, so to speak.
Actually, it would be a Masyn sandwich. Sandwiches are named by the things that are in between the bread.
Oh but then there’s a CLUB!
*insert Mitch Hedberg Meme/.GIF Here*
And what do paleos know about bread? I’m just asking a question.
Stop commenting. You talk too much.
Having a bad day, Buff. It’ll be okay.
He may not be playing with Nolan for too long.
The Arenado situation is the #1 story of the off-season, as to whether they will be in contention next year. Mozeliak is scrambling because he knows he screwed up and he’s giving the fans what they want in a last-ditch PR attempt.
Wasn’t Arenado’s opt out last year? He had 5 yr/140 left on contract and chose to play it out. Who’d have thought the Cards would be in last place in August. Or are you referring to something else?
He can always be traded to the Dodgers. That’s where he wants to be. If the “opt-in” assures you of his Cardinal HOF bust, so be it.
If Arenado is a HOF. Defensively he absolutely is. Currently witb 324 Homeruns, over 1600 hits its very possible. When/if h3s elected. I think he goes in with tbe Rockies. Unless the Cards induct him into their own HOF.
He’s a sure-fire HoF’er IMO.
“lower abdominal contusion”? C’mon, what are we, third graders here? Call it what it is – he took a ball to the ball.
Yes, Arenado’s opt out was last year.
And then he looked like one of the three stooges… Curlyisthesmartstooge? Is that you?
Ohhhhh! OHHHHHHH! OHHHHHHHH! You work for a Los Angeles media outlet and love circling fake news to get Arenado to BASH the STL front office like he did Colorado? I don’t think Arenado is willing to stick his foot into that yellow jacket hive a second time? Try again…. TO BAD THE ROCKIES DONT DEAL TO LA HUH? Only Coors beer trucks leave the Rockies for LA… only cause they want ur 50 mil
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Learn to swim
Arenado isn’t going anywhere. He has no opt-outs left, and the Cardinals have no reason to trade him while trying to compete again in 2024 and beyond.
Hahahahahah little Stevie high yet again
It depends on the rest of the lineup. Right now, the team is short on outfielders, so Edman will be playing out there most of the time until either Nootbaar or Carlson return from the IL, not to mention that Gorman will still be on the IL for at least the next few days anyway.
Meanwhile, the DH spot is sometimes needed to give a half day off to one of the veterans. Also, Gorman has actually played decent defense at 2B, so it would be better to play either Walker or Burleson at DH even after one of the other outfielders returns.
This site’s equivalent of Doofy… “Have you seen my baseball?”
His name was Goofy and Max is still searching the grand canyon looking for that damn ball… gonna miss the whole Powerline show and everything
Meanwhile Polly Shore is like “the leaning tower of cheesa!”
But then where do they play 78 Million dollar Contreras who has been over performed by 750,000k Andrew Knizer all season long? Andrew would have more WAR with Contreras playing time than Contreras does? John Mozeliak should just sell Gorman, and trade Knizer and Herrera since clearly Wilson Contreras is our Savior! Just like Bader and O’Neill when they projected better THAN Arozarena and Garcia
While Knizner is playing much better this year, Contreras still beats him out in wRC+ 123 to 118 and has a much better offensive track record. Defensively, Knizner’s not all that good either, and Contreras at least has a better throwing arm.. Contreras will be playing most of the games at C the rest of the season as he always has and deserves to do so. If Herrera isn’t traded, Knizner will probably be non-tendered this offseason in favor of Herrera becoming the new backup next year.
As for the outfielders, while losing those two is regrettable in hindsight, that’s because Bader and O’Neill DID project much better back then.
Besides, a healthy Bader actually is pretty close in overall value to Garcia, as is a healthy O’Neill to Arozerena. They’ve just had trouble with injuries these past couple of years.
The problem with Contreras is that he isn’t a full time catcher. Not really. He’s caught 80 games this season, and I believe he’ll finish under 100. These numbers are NOT going to improve as he ages.
EDIT: For the technicality police… Obviously he’s full time if he gets the majority of the games, but the point is he’s going to share duties more than most. Looking back at Yadi, only his first and last season did he have under 100 games caught. He had 130+ most of the time. Not happening with Contreras.
But that’s actually true for the majority of catchers, especially now that the NL has adopted the DH. Guys like Yadi who regularly catch 120+ games a season are very rare. (Also, Contreras would have more games caught this season if it weren’t for the couple of weeks the Cardinals foolishly demoted him to DH only.)
Meanwhile, I believe that’s part of the point of the Contreras contract in the first place. As he ages and spends more time at DH, Herrera (or Knizner if Herrera is traded) will then gain more and more playing time at C as he develops.
All fair points. I do expect him and Herrera to share the job, and see Herrera catching >100 after next season. I think the biggest question regarding Contreras is if he can be a productive DH as he ages too. Especially when we have players like Burleson and Walker.
Cards other choice was tuff loss, white Sox to call up when Winn
And so it begins… the next Winn-ing era in Cardinals Baseball!
Is that followed by the next Cheat-ing era of cards baseball? Company espionage never forget what they did
Do you still blame the White Sox for the Black Sox era?
They all accepted bribes to throw the World Series. Who else do you blame? Jesus?
Jesus Aguilar?
Yeah, and everyone involved in the Black Sox scandal has been dead for decades. The cheaters were even kicked out of baseball just one year later.
Meanwhile, the only man proven or even implicated to have been involved in the Cardinals hacking scandal has long been fired and sent to prison.
Please don’t blame Charlie Comiskey. He was one of those Good Guy owners ‘back in the day’ that paid and treated his players fairly. He was a Real American Hero, not a fascist, socialist, communist, cuck lefty.
Funny you believe that. Ever heard of a patsy? Stop living under a rock
It appears you’re unfamiliar with satire and nuance. This is what happens when kids don’t pay attention in school. I fully understand, and I’m also here to help.
My comment was to the guy above you who said Chris Correa was the only person dirty from the cards organization. What a funny joke
It’s possible, but no such evidence has ever turned up. As such, there’s nothing to do but assume that Correa acted alone. Even if there were others involved, it’s impossible to know who or if they’re still in the organization or possibly even working for a different team these days.
Lets have a little balance here. The Astros stole proprietary cardinals intelligence and didnt even have the brains to change the password to there stolen data.
Nothing happened to the astros for that. What Correa did was wrong but he felt justified whatever you think. And he sure paid a steep price.
About time
Welcome to The Show, Masyn!
A lot of Cardinals fans have been clamoring for this promotion for a while. You have to remember that this kid is still only 21 years old with less than 3 full years of minor league ball out of high school. He’s tracking to be an above average MLB player but it won’t surprise me if he struggles in his first taste of MLB. It was smart of the Cardinals to wait this long to promote him as he’ll have much less pressure on him than if they were still in contention for a playoff spot. Plus he won’t burn a year of eligibility either.
Who gives a flying fart about a year of eligibility????
He should have been called up in mid July back when the team still had a chance.
Then if he hits .233 you’d be screaming how Mo rushed him and he needed more seasoning. The Cards were out of it in May might as well keep the extra year of control and let him get a taste of the bigs now
No the team was not out of it in May.
It’s not an extra year of control it’s an extra year of eligibility which means nothing except he loses his rookie status. And geez if we was terrible for a couple weeks back in mid July he could have been sent down. There was no reason at all to wait this long
The Cardinals were surely out of it in mid July when you said he should’ve been called up. Bringing up an extremely young shortstop would not have helped turn this season around for the Cardinals. The biggest problem for the Cardinals was and is starting pitching.
Even if Winn hits .200, he will still be much better than the players who started at short and second last night.
I want them to call up whoever they have to call up if it means I don’t have to see both Taylor Motter and Jose Fermin in the starting lineup for the rest of the season.
Except the middle infield wasn’t why the Cardinals were playing so badly. DeJong was doing a nice job holding down SS, and even while Edman was on the IL, the combo of Donovan (until he was forced to DH) and Gorman at 2B provided well above average offense and defense that was only a little below average at worst. If the idea is that the Cardinals were (slightly) still in contention back in June and early July, it was very unlikely that Winn would’ve been able to outplay any of the incumbents.
Motter and Fermin, probably yes. That’s why Winn is here now.
DeJong while he was still here, and Gorman and Donovan back when they were healthy, almost certainly not.
This poster has actually watched the games.
The Cardinals were surely not out of it in mid July. Heck today right now the Cardinals are only 9 games back in the wild card race. If the Cardinals had won 6 of 8 vs the Cubs in July instead of losing 6 of 8 they wouldn’t have sold.
The team promoted Walker to start in opening day when he wasn’t ready and didn’t earn it. They sent him down he had a 746 OPS at AAA which btw isn’t good and they promoted him again on June 5th.
Why handle Walker one way and Winn another when they are both the same age and drafted out of high school from the same draft class and been on the same developmental path since drafted?
Pitching and DEFENSE has been the problem all year. Winn is an excellent defender Walker is incredibly terrible.
DeJong before being dealt was having a 2 win season. Winn is a 2 win player with a 600 OPS. If he hits he’s a 5 or 6 win player. Yes the team is far better with Winn than it is with DeJong.
But the real problem is we traded DeJong and then Edman got hurt so we had to use Motte rand Fermin there while trying to fight for our playoff lives and that’s when it all fell apart.
I can agree with you that Walker is abysmal on defense. I’d be fine trading him for pitching.
You’d have to be a Gold Glover to have a 2-win season with a .600 OPS, and Winn isn’t that good at defense at this point. Even with a good offensive start to his career, it would take a miracle for him to be more than a 3-win player (prorated) at best. At the time, there was very little chance that Winn would’ve outplayed DeJong before Dejong went into that huge slump after being traded.
Also, Edman came back from the IL, while it was Donovan and Gorman who got hurt.
Winn could be a 2 win player with a 600 OPS. In fact I tend to think that’s exactly who he will be in 2024.
DeJong when playing well is a really good player when he’s not he’s a good defensive player who is a black hole in the lineup. More than talent it’s a money thing DeJong is going to make a lot more than Winn in 2024 and personally I think they have similar seasons but Winn of course more upside.
If I were a Cardinals fan I’d tell you to stfu. There is no way they were still in contention mid July.
Zero chance at that point. And why repeat the dumb mistake of bringing Walker up instead of him learning RF in AAA for at least half a season?
As others have said, perfect timing.
Perfect timing was mid July. The team needed Winn back then. The team still had a chance at the playoffs and the team wouldn’t lose any years of team control.
The ONLY benefit to waiting until now is the slim possibility he wins rookie of the year because if promoted in July he most likely would have lost his rookie eligibility. But heck if he didn’t perform we could have sent him back down and kept that intact too if that was really a big concern.
You are wrong.
I think you might be the only person that thinks Winn could have made a difference in July.
I think the Cardinals were 6 games back in mid July when DeJong and Edman were both hurt. Had Fermin start 2 games in a row then Motter team lost all 3 games.
It’s easy to say now in August that the team was out of it but that wasn’t the case at that time.
I will say it for the third time. If the Cardinals had won 6 of 8 vs the Cubs instead of losing 6 of 8 the team would not have been sellers. It’s those 2 4 game series that sealed the deal. Before that the team was still fighting for a playoff spot.
It doesn’t matter if they were 2 games behind, this team was not built to win. Sometimes you don’t need to look at games behind in order to tell if a team is out of it.
Also, imagine how bleak the future would look if they weren’t sellers. Winning 6 out of 8 probably the worst thing that could have happened lol.
What are you talking about????
What are you having trouble understanding? My point was that they could have been 2 games out and most can tell this team was not built to compete this season. Your argument is based on the cardinals at their peak and the rest of the division at their low.
You’re delusional if you think promoting Winn in July makes a lick of difference.
If the team is 2 games out by definition they are being competitive.
Now that Flaherty, Montgomery, Hicks and Stratton are gone the team is a lot worse.
Okay, you’re intentionally being obtuse, disingenuous, or just incapable of picking up tonality in text.
Nobody except you would believe Winn would have made a difference in July. The pitching situation would not have improved. Being outraged over him being promoted now instead of then is just nonsense.
He was ready in July. And I don’t think outraged is the correct word.
One of us is wrong, we can agree on that.
Extra bullpen help in blowouts too!
Might change views on position players pitching when he pings a couple 98mph fastballs in there
I wanted Detroit to draft him so, so bad.
He threw 98 off the mound as a high school senior, and he was drafted as a potential 2 way player. Man, I wish he had stuck with that because pitching is a dire need for us at the moment.
The real question is where Marmol will start Motter and Fermin today.
My guess would be Fermin at 2B and Edman in CF
The only real question is whether Fermin or Motter will start at second.
too bad Winn on the giants is injured and nothing on the schedule against the cards – it means it will be a while before we see a Winn-Winn matchup
The Cardinals traded (soon to be) back-to-back Cy Young award winners for Marcell Ozuna.
Marcell Ozuna and a ton of baggage to be named later.
Thanks for the relevant comment.
Welcome friend.
I wish the team had called up Preito as well. The team doesn’t dare start O’Neill in center due to his fragility. Carlson is out so Edman is the centerfielder until Nootbaar gets back. I know Preito has a limited amount of time at AAA but he’s killing it. He’s 24 so I’d rather see him with a chance to play and get his feet wet than the two journeyman minor leaguers available for second now. Those two will never be a part of the team plans.
I’m not sure whether Preito will become an everyday MLB player but I’m pretty confident he’ll at least become a good bench MLB player. That’s more than I can say for Motter and Fermin.
Totally agree. I would also consider Mike Antico, currently at AA Springfield. He’s 24, 14 HR with 40 SB.
So who goes to Memphis now? Scott, Mendlinger someone else?
Maybe. Saggese has been tearing it up. Antico should already be in Memphis too.
They have so much clutter, its a crap shoot who they move to fill that roster spot.
Of course it was Lopez. 28 years old and still bouncing around AA and AAA
Yep. One more roster-filler player. A poor-man’s Kramer Robertson. 😀 lol
Looks like baker might now get some legit pt as well