Why not Dylan Carlson?

Dylan Carlson is the next big thing. Make no mistake about it. You know it, I know it, and the St. Louis Cardinals know it.

The son of a high-school coach, Carlson has a high baseball IQ that is on display in every facet of his game. He takes big-league plate appearances that feature a command of the strike zone. Carlson does not waste a swing or a take. By most accounts, he is ready for the majors today. But that does not mean he will be on the Cardinals 25-man roster when St. Louis breaks spring camp for Cincinnati.

The Cardinals have made clear that Carlson was never in their immediate left-field plans entering spring training.  There are a few reasons for that. It’s up to you to decide whether the Cards are right to take the approach they seem intent on taking with their top prospect.

First, consider the incumbent in left, Marcell Ozuna. The Cardinals extended Big Bear the qualifying offer, which he rejected. Then they did their due diligence and monitored his market. However, they elected not to top the Atlanta Braves’ one-year offer and allowed him to leave via free agency. 

Why? Ozuna is not good at defense. His hitting was less than ten percent better than league average while playing left for the Cardinals. Facing MLB payroll limits imposed by ownership, the front office felt they could approximate Ozuna’s production with internal options at a fraction of the cost. That calculation is probably correct, if unsatisfying because it means pinching pennies instead of splurging after the club was swept out of the NLCS thanks to an anemic offense that too often reared its head during the regular season.

The Cardinals’ internal options include Carlson. But in a sport in which seniority still plays a prominent role, he falls in line behind:

•  Tyler O’Neill, for whom the Cardinals traded away Marco Gonzales; and

• Lane Thomas, whom St. Louis acquired at the suggestion of Stubby Clapp for internal signing money.

Both profile closer to fourth outfielder than starting left fielder. But O’Neill’s power merits giving him the opportunity to win the job, especially after his own health issues prevented him from getting a legitimate audition during Ozuna’s injured-list stints with the Redbirds. And Lane Thomas has the all-around polish that could play up, into an everyday job, either at left or in center if Harrison Bader’s batted-ball fortunes and whiff rate don’t improve. Both are a clear-cut fielding upgrade over Big Bear, which augments the Cards' run prevention at what was a fielding position of weakness a year ago. This makes the batting hurdle a little less high in order to approximate Ozuna's overall production.

Now consider Carlson’s current resume. He dominated won the Texas League Player of the Year award while playing most of 2019 in Double-A. Then he joined Memphis in Triple-A for a handful of plate appearances. Though not unheard of, it would be out of character for the Cardinals to have Carlson leapfrog Triple-A and join the major-league club—especially if he is not guaranteed the everyday plate appearances necessary to continue his development while competing for a big-league outfield spot.

What’s more, the limited sample size and quality of competition in spring training prevent anyone from getting a good idea of any player’s true talent, let alone how that talent would play in the majors. Consider the quality of competition to date for the Cardinals. Early in camp, the games feature more lower-level players. As camp progresses, the games tend to feature more upper-level players, especially veteran big-leaguers. 

Baseball-Reference has developed a stat that measures quality of competition for batters and pitchers, using the level at which the players they oppose in spring training played the year prior. The stat is measured on a one-through-ten scale:

Baseball-Reference Opponent Quality (OppQual) Key

Number	Level
1	Pitcher
1.5–3	Rookie and Short-Season
4	Full-Season A
5	High-A
8	AA
9	AAA
10	MLB

Note:  I tweeted from memory that one equaled rookie ball for this stat. I was going off of my memory and tweeted incorrect information. I double-checked for this post, and the above table is correct.

Entering play on March 4, 2020, Carlson’s OppQual ranks at 7.0, which is just below Double-A, though closer to that level than High-A. Put otherwise, Carlson’s excellent early-spring performance at the bat hasn’t told anyone anything they didn’t already know. The reigning Texas League Player of the Year can hit High-A and Double-A pitching well. It's still an open question how he might hit Triple-A pitching over a longer period of time, let alone MLB pitching, though my money is on Carlson succeeding and excelling.

Lastly, there is the seniority-based salary system codified in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between MLB and the MLB Players Association. It is designed to suppress the wages of young players such as Carlson. A player does not reach free agency under the CBA until the offseason after he accrues six years of MLB service time. If Carlson starts the 2020 season in MLB, he will almost certainly become a free agent after the 2025 season. If he starts the year in Triple-A, the Cardinals can make it so that he does not become a free agent until after the 2026 season. The Cardinals have not shown a tendency to manipulate major-league service time in the way the Chicago Cubs more likely than not did with Kris Bryant, but it is likely a consideration, given ownership’s self-imposed salary cap at the ability to get what amounts to an extra year of reduced-cost production that could be elite. 

No. 68 is currently behind Nos. 41 and 35 in the Cardinals’ left-field derby. He probably won’t be able to do much on his own to change his position on the depth chart this month. That’s because spring-training competitions are not blank-slate affairs. They occur against the backdrop of past performance and talent assessments, and also take into account future salary. Right or wrong, Carlson’s path to the majors will probably include playing in Memphis to start the 2020 season. So we will all have to wait for the next big thing.