STL Cardinals latest roster move is first step into franchise’s future

The St. Louis Cardinals are giving fans a glimpse of their future by calling up one of their top prospects.

Last year, the St. Louis Cardinals went on a second-half run to the postseason, highlighted by Albert Pujols’ chase for 700 career home runs. While that did end with a Wild Card Series sweep at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies.

This year, the Cardinals didn’t live up to their preseason expectations, are well out of a postseason berth, and opted to sell at the trade deadline. With that, the Cardinals had some incentive to call up some young prospects to see what they can bring.

Well, the Cardinals are calling up one of their top prospects in their farm system.

On Friday, the team is calling up shortstop and No. 1 prospect Masyn Winn to the major league roster. He will wear the No. 0, the team announces.

Winn is scheduled to make his major league debut on Friday against the New York Mets, where he will be starting as shortstop and is batting ninth in the order.

Cardinals call up top prospect Masyn Winn

Winn joined the Cardinals organization back in 2020 as a second-round draft pick out of Kingwood, Texas. In each year since, Winn moved up in the team’s minor league system, including this year to Triple-A Memphis.

Here is what MLB Prospect Pipeline has to say about Winn:

"“Any discussion of Winn has to start with his arm, a true 80-grade howitzer. He fired a 100.5 mph seed at the All-Star Futures Game in Los Angeles that broke the Statcast-era record for hardest infield throw. The Cardinals have worked with Winn on knowing when to let it fly and when to be more in control, but he’s still good for a few eye-popping lasers each week. With his near-plus-plus speed and promising hands, Winn has the skills to be a strong overall defender from deep in the hole.“What launched Winn into Top 100 standing were his offensive improvements in 2022. He became a more patient hitter in his second full season and also started elevating the ball more, leading to a jump in total home runs from five to 11 and extra-base hits from 29 to 56. Continued gains this season at Triple-A Memphis have only helped the case that he’ll add value with his bat too, making him a potential five-tool shortstop.”"

In 105 games this season, Winn recorded a .288 batting average, a .359 on-base percentage, a .474 slugging percentage, 18 home runs, 61 RBI, 99 runs, 128 hits, 83 strikeouts, and 44 walks in 445 at-bats.

To start the year, the Cardinals named then-top prospect Jordan Walker to the Opening Day roster. While he was sent down briefly, Walker returned to the major league roster and has been there ever since.

With the Cardinals’ season essentially over, the team decided to bring up Winn to see what he can do against major league hitters and how he can field at shortstop. Why not look at the future now instead of waiting for next year?