Cardinals: This minor-league outfielder is getting tough to ignore

The St. Louis Cardinals have an outfielder prospect who’s getting hard to ignore.

The St. Louis Cardinals entered this season intending on overtaking the Brewers in the NL Central and making a deep push into the playoffs. While the club is still hanging with the Crew in the standings (44-40 and 3.0 GB of Milwaukee), there is a glaring hole on the lineup card that the team is putting out everyday: the outfield.

Entering the year, St. Louis made a move to bring aboard Corey Dickerson as an everyday corner outfield option, but he has been on the injured list for over a month now with a strained calf. Incumbent starters Tyler O’Neill and Harrison Bader have both missed time as well, furthering the big weakness in the Cards’ lineup.

As things currently stand, the Cardinals are rolling with utilityman Brendan Donovan in left field, promising switch-hitter Dylan Carlson in center field, and unproven rookie Conner Capel in right field, with Lars Nootbaar coming off the bench as an oft-used fourth outfielder.

Down in the minor leagues on the club’s Triple-A Memphis affiliate is Alec Burleson, a 23-year-old outfielder who is absolutely destroying the opposition.

Cardinals: Outfield prospect Alec Burleson can’t be kept down for much longer

Burleson is on the younger side of players in Triple-A but he has more than earned the right to be there. Last year, in his first season in professional ball, Burleson went from A+ to AA to AAA in one season, no small feat. He played a combined 119 games, hitting 22 home runs and driving in 76 while putting up a .270/.329/.454 slash-line.

To begin this year, Burleson has been on fire. Through his first 70 games in 2022, the slugging corner outfielder already has 16 home runs and 60 RBI with a ludicrous .341/.383/.566 slash-line. The former two-way collegiate player has spent the majority of his time in the Cardinals system in the corner outfield but also has a (very) small amount of playing time at first base, giving him some positional versatility that St. Louis has been known to love.

The recent promotion of Conner Capel over Burleson was a bit of a head scratcher. Capel had not been performing as well offensively as Burleson has been all season. The main difference between the two players is Capel’s ability to regularly play center field.

Now, the Cardinals have been giving Capel the majority of his playing time (albeit a still very small sample size) in right field and with the presence of Dylan Carlson in center on a daily basis with Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman and even Brendan Donovan available as center field-capable backups, a Burleson promotion could be in the cards (pun intended).

Even with Nootbaar available off the bench as a fourth outfielder, his bat has been ice cold so far this season so a reasonable path to the majors for Burleson could be in the form of Harrison Bader returning from the injured list with both Nootbaar and Capel going down to Triple-A.

No matter how exactly it shakes out, Burleson deserves a promotion and certainly seems ready for one.