The St. Louis Cardinals have started Spring Training this week and things have been looking up since the beginning. There have been ups and downs throughout the beginning of the season but that team is looking real good. Some of the players have picked up right where they left off from last season and others are looking worse.
Top Players for the Season
There are some players that have not skipped a beat from the numbers that they were putting up last season. Matt Carpenter has been playing super well so far this season. I have been watching all the games on TV when they play and Matt Carpenter has been getting so much stronger over the course of the offseason. Not only has his looks gotten better but his swing has also gotten a lot better. He used to never be able to take a baseball opposite field and now he has found a way to hit the ball the other way. That is going to benefit his a lot in the long run because now they can no longer put a shift on him when he hits and he will be able to spray the ball all over the field.
Paul Dejong has also been putting on a clinic over the course of spring training. I have watched about half the games of spring training so far and it seems that every time I have watched him step into the batter's box it seemed as though he hit a home run. He is going to be a stud this year and he is not going to disappoint and do exactly what he did last year.
Players from the Minors I'm excited to see
Jordan Clarkson has been standing out immensely throughout this spring training. He played on the Peoria Chiefs last year and I watched him play and I wasn't very impressed with his play. he surely has picked up his game this year though. He is going straight from the lowest rank of professional baseball to now making it to the majors. There are also some pitchers that are standing out well this year, but just not quite good enough yet, that's because they haven't done good enough for me to remember their names.
My pick for the starting line up
My starting for the 2020 Cardinals is:
1. Matt Carpenter -3B
2. Kolten Wong -2B
3. Paul Dejong -SS
4. Paul Goldschmidt -1B
5. Tyler O'Neill -LF
6. Yadier Molina -C
7. Harrison Bader -CF
8. Tommy Edman -RF
9. Jack Flaherty -P
Although there are still a lot of games left to play in Spring Training I believe the Cardinals are going to have a stand out season this year. They had a couple of tough seasons in the past and now it is their turn to lead the NL central. They just seem so dominant early on. I watch them play and I see a different lineup every game and every lineup is even better than the last. I am excited to watch as this is supposed to be Yadier Molina''s last season of his career after getting drafted in 2003. The next blog will be about how they have been recently in all of their trades.