Bernie’s Bird Watching: Why, Hello There J.J. Wetherholt! Great To See Ya!

BIRD WATCHING

It’s Monday and a brand new week for hobbyists to resume their springtime birdwatching with the most intriguing Redbirds in the Jupiter springtime habitat.

Today my short-take focus is on JJ Wetherholt, the 7th overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. The infielder is the organization’s top hitting prospect and Baseball America’s No. 25 prospect in the majors. Baseball Prospectus has him even higher as the No. 13 overall MLB prospect going  into 2025. Which isn’t bad for a dude with only 126 minor-league plate appearances.

Opening statement on Wetherholt: Wow.

Wetherholt made his first Grapefruit League start as a Cardinal Sunday against the Astros and promptly banged a three-run homer clocked at 100.6 miles per hour. Oh, and he was in the lineup at shortstop and started two double plays. It was another highlight of a debut that included two hits and two runs scored.

The inside-out swing: Wetherholt’s smooth left-handed swing is pleasing to the eye. Photogenic. You just want to watch him hit. Sorry for the cliche, but he’s a natural-born hitter.

The prospect scouts tell us Wetherholt must pull the ball more often to generate more power – which isn’t wrong. OK, but some swings are just beautiful and don’t require modification. He’s an extremely confident and self aware individual who has an advanced feel and instinct for hitting. You don’t need coaches watching over him trying to “fix” him. It’s good and necessary to make tweaks – part of the game and all of that – but save the overhaul for a young hitter who needs it. Jordan Walker is the primary example.

Wetherholt has the classic inside-out swing, which doesn’t produce high-percentage rates for pulling the ball. But he hits. Swings don’t come in a one-size-fits-all box.

Wade Boggs, a left-handed batter, built a Hall of Fame career with an inside-out swing that produced a stream of hits to the opposite field or middle. We’ve seen plenty of inside-out swings generate wondrous numbers. Off the top level of my head, I think of Tony Gwynn, Joe Mauer, Rod Carew, Mike Trout, Derek Jeter, Manny Machado and Ichiro. There are many, many more – but I just wanted to cite a few examples.

No, I’m not suggesting Wetherholt will become a Hall of Famer. I don’t see him having 3,101 hits in a Boggs-like career. Gee, I’m more restrained than that. I wouldn’t do something so outlandish until (1) Wetherholt appears in the bigs for the first time and (2) has an impressive first week at the plate. At that point I shall promptly declare that he’s better than Boggs. And from there, I will quickly evolve into “Wetherholt is Tony Gwynn with more power.” Probably not. But I’m just trying to have some fun here, so roll with me.

It’s OK to get excited. It’s good to get excited. Go crazy, folks. No need to apologize for getting fired up about Wetherholt’s talent, his gift for hitting, and long-term potential. There are legitimate reasons to let the positive feelings flow when thinking about what Wetherholt can do for the Cardinals. And when certain prospects come along that just have That Look, part of the fun is getting overly excited … and carried away. Careers are sculpted over many years, and many a phenom has come up short.

That said, having abundant enthusiasm over Wetherholt this spring isn’t like getting charged up over, say, John Nogowski or Justin Williams. The Cardinals have had many a player pass through spring training and spark temporary excitement. But there’s nothing temporary about Wetherholt except his stay in the 2025 major-league camp. But he’ll be making his way to St. Louis in short time.

Haven’t we overhyped St. Louis prospects before? Yes, and so does every MLB team, its fans, and the media that covers the sport. I know this is a more recent Cardinals tradition. I won’t review them all, because we’ve been there and done that over and over again. So I’ll go with a more recent example. I know that former No. 1 draft choice Dylan Carlson was a source of excitement going into 2021 spring training. Carlson had been summoned by the big club late in the 2020 season, and didn’t do much in his first 35 big-league games. But in the wild-card series against San Diego, Carlson announced himself by hitting .333 with a .571 onbase percentage and 1.016 OPS. He had a good 2021 – and really took off after the All-Star break – but we didn’t know something about Carlson that we later recognized in hindsight: he lacked confidence and tended to spiral as soon as he went into a downturn.

Carlson also had a difficult time keeping his weight and strength up, and that unplugged his power. Carlson never slugged higher than .437 after 2021, and by the time he was traded by the Cardinals last summer, his hard hit-rate was 26 percent – down from his career high of 43% in 2020.

By contrast, Wetherholt will be 23 by the end of the 2025 season. He was drafted after starring in three seasons of college ball at West Virginia. Carlson was drafted out of high school and didn’t turn 23 until his third major-league season. When we compare the two players, Wetherholt had more time to develop and physically mature than Carlson was at a similar age.

Wetherholt’s confidence won’t be an issue. I laughed this morning when I saw quotes and comments that told us Wetherholt hasn’t looked nervous in his first big-league camp? This is so funny. Why the heck would Wetherholt be nervous? He hasn’t been a Cardinal for long, but by now we should have a really good understanding of Wetherholt’s persona. Geez, you could see it as soon as he got drafted and shook hands with commissioner Rob Manfred. You could see it in his first round of televised interviews. This isn’t some guy who gets overwhelmed and thinks, “I shouldn’t be here.” This isn’t some bumpkin who shares space with big-league teammates for the first time and gets overwhelmed. He is the EXACT OPPOSITE of that. He has competitive arrogance at the plate in a good way. He goes into the box with a bold mindset. He thinks he’ll win every battle against any pitcher in every at-bat.

In the fifth inning of Sunday’s game vs. Houston, Wetherholt had a swing and miss. That didn’t look great. This frustrated him. Reporters asked: what were you thinking after that?

“Flush it, stick to my approach, get ready for a fastball,” Wetherholt said.

Home run.

“I put a good swing on it,” JJ said.

Yes. Confidence.

Here’s something else to add to his swagger index: “JJ” is his name, and I don’t know what it stands for … and I don’t really care. Just call him JJ. At some point we won’t have to worry about saying his last name,

We know something else about Wetherholt: he just excels at the art of hitting. As a sophomore at West Virginia, JJ hit .449 in 55 games to lead the nation in hitting. He followed by hitting .331 with a .472 onbase percentage and .589 slugging percentage as a junior. And in his professional debut at high Class A Palm Beach last summer. He cranked a 90th percentile exit velocity of 105.3 mph and had a fantastic 55% hard-hit rate.

The report from Baseball America: “Wetherholt entered pro ball as an advanced hitter with an adjustable, left handed swing geared for stinging line drives and punishing mistakes in the zone. He is adept at attacking all pitch types, producing near-identical underlying metrics against fastballs and breaking pitches. Wetherholt rarely expands the zone and should walk at a high rate in the majors. Power is not the primary focus of Wetherholt’s approach, but he shows above-average impact and the ability to elevate the ball consistently, portending mid-20s home run power at peak.”

Wetherholt’s only problem along the way were some hamstring issues during his stay with the Mountaineers that caused him to miss time. Then again, that’s why the Cardinals were able to take his name off the board with the seventh pick. And I don’t see why the hammy problem will linger.

The report from Keith Law of The Athletic: “Wetherholt might have gone No. 1 in last year’s draft had he had a full, healthy spring for West Virginia, but a hamstring injury limited him to 36 games for the Mountaineers, just 27 of them in the field, so he ended up going No. 7 to the Cardinals — and that looks like a steal for St. Louis. Wetherholt had one of the best swings in the draft class and a long track record of hitting for average and high contact rates … he’s not very physical, but makes plenty of hard contact thanks to a short, efficient swing that gets the most from his lower half when his lower half is intact.”

There’s a lot of flair and charisma in Wetherholt’s personality. Let us declare the obvious: The St. Louis Cardinals have a shortage of star power among position players. A distinguished procession of All-Star caliber hitters or all-world defenders has come and gone. The names include Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, Matt Holliday, the sadly underrated Edgar Renteria, the peak-form Matt Carpenter, and Paul Goldschmidt. Nolan Arenado is still here with his Hall of Fame resume, and he’s looking to bounce back after his mediocre 2024 at the plate.

Masyn Winn is a star in the making. Cardinal fans have already taken to him, and for good reason. And Winn figures to only get better – and more popular. Winn looks like a ballplayer. Wetherholt looks like a ballplayer.

When I say that someone looks like a ballplayer, here’s what I mean: you just know. Jim Edmonds was like that. It wasn’t just talent; Edmonds gave the fans a helluva show. The young Bryce Harper was like that, too. And still is.

Given the fairly low level of magnetism within the current collection of St. Louis position players, Wetherholt will be good for business. He’ll give the fans a reason to watch. And he’ll give the fans hope at a time when hope is way down.

Sunday night, I playfully wrote this to my Seeing Red podcast partner Will Leitch: “JJ Wetherholt will save the franchise from defeat and despair.”

What position will Wetherholt play? Hard to say. As usual, the St. Louis front office has built another positional logjam. With Arenado here – and possibly through 2027 if he isn’t traded – the Cardinals have too many infielders and not enough playing time to go around. And Wetherholt is another left-handed bat for a team that has too many left-handed at-bats. Wetherholt was a shortstop in college ball. Needless to say, the Cardinals have Winn at shortstop so that spot is taken. Some of the prospect evaluators believe Wetherholt will end up at second base; others see him eventually taking over at third. One suggestion that’s making the rounds is eventually moving Wetherholt to center field. But that’s not in the plans for 2025. It will be up to incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom to solve this perennial puzzle.

What’s the major-league timetable? As noted, Wetherholt won’t make the big-club roster coming out of Florida, but I don’t think minor-league pitchers will halt his progress in a way that keeps JJ in the minors for a long period of time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Wetherholt arrive in St. Louis late this season – much like Winn did in 2023 – to get acclimated to the majors for a full 2026 season.

No matter how we look at this, JJ is on the way.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

I was inducted into the Missouri Hall of Fame in 2023 and have been writing and talking about St. Louis sports since 1985.

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