JUPITER, Fla. — After the infielder who hopes to prove he’s capable of replacing a two-time Gold Glove award winner made the kind of play Gold Glove award winners make, second baseman Tommy Edman was asked if the web of defensive gems the Cardinals have been weaving this spring has reached the point of feeling something like contagious.
People say that about hitting. When one guy drills a pitch, it makes it easier for another to do the same. Pass the baton. Keep the line moving, and so on. But can the same phenomenon happen for a defense determined to rob hits?
Edman is a good person to ask, because in addition to being a good baseball player, he’s got a good baseball mind.
Whenever his playing days are over, Edman is going to transition nicely into whatever front office is smart enough to hire him. Few guys can blend an on-field view like his with the front-office kind of analysis that is dominating modern baseball. And the best part? Edman doesn’t see a war between narrative and numbers. He finds the truth in between.
So, after Edman dropped jaws with a diving catch early in the Cardinals’ 7-7 Grapefruit League tie Monday with the Marlins, I asked him if this spring routine the Cards have going in which they produce multiple outstanding defensive plays every time they take the field has become the equivalent of a baton-passing hitting hot streak.
“It definitely plays a part in it,” he answered. “As an organization, we take a lot of pride in our defense. If you see the way the starters go about our business during pregame (drills), just working on our groundballs, I think the younger guys will see that as well. They will have that incentive to be working on it as well.”
Edman’s lunging snag of Chad Wallach’s rapidly sinking liner during Monday’s third inning might have been the best play made by a Cardinal so far this spring. From his starting point at second base, he sprinted to shallow left-center field to secure the out that ended the inning. His catch rescued reliever Roel Ramirez after he had just walked the bases full.
“His break was just immediate,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said. “His route was perfect. I don’t know what the catch probability was on that, but it could not have been very high. That’s about as good of a display as you are going to see. Heck of a play.”
But the best so far this spring? Definitively? Hard to say.
“We’ve made a lot of them,” Shildt said.
Fact check: True.
The list includes Lane Thomas throwing out an Astro at home plate with a laser unleashed from center field. Don’t forget Nolan Arenado bull-rushing a slow roller and whipping the ball to Paul Goldschmidt fast enough that you nearly forgot 95% of other third basemen pass on the chance and eat the infield single. And then there is the other Nolan, as in Gorman, who has looked so vastly improved at third base I feel foolish for wondering if his glove would catch up to his bat.
So, no, I won’t be doubting Gorman’s defensive potential now that he’s adding second base to his skill set. Unless Matt Carpenter (0 for 11) starts hitting, it is going to be fair to wonder if Gorman should be getting the first chance to challenge Edman there.
But while concerns about Carpenter’s bat are fair game, let the record show his second-base defense this spring has been quite strong, especially for someone who had not played there since 2018. Carpenter’s first play back at second base, for example, was a diving backhanded play to his right. And it was Carpenter who put a slick tag on Yadier Molina’s unforgettable throw Sunday.
You saw that one, right?
In what will go down as one of the most memorable spring moments for Molina, in part because he still was catching in the seventh inning of a Grapefruit League game, the future Hall of Famer taught Astros rookie Jose Siri a very public lesson. After the pinch-running Siri barely got back to first base to avoid Molina’s throw behind him, he made the mistake of giving Molina a finger wag that would have made shot-blocker extraordinaire Dikembe Mutombo proud. Molina responded with baseball’s version of Michael Jordan dunking over the 7-foot-2 rim protector.
Molina gestured toward second, as if to say, take it — if you can. Hey Siri, how did that end? With Molina throwing out Siri on his steal attempt by a country mile, despite the fact the pitch had been a change-up.
“Special stuff,” Shildt said.
The same quote can be applied to his club’s defense this spring. Up and down the depth chart. In front of fans, and out of view on the back fields.
Young outfielders Scott Hurst and Lars Nootbar have robbed opponents with a diving catch (Hurst) and a pinpoint throw (Nootbar). This weekend, on a backfield B-game against the Astros, infielder Edmundo Sosa ended an inning with throw that was so deep in the hole, it should have been called The Well.
After Shildt was promoted to manager in 2018, he began making it clear that the ragged fundamentals that had started to tarnish the team’s proud and long tradition of strong play defensively were going to be cleaned up. He has followed through. The Cardinals went from committing the most errors in 2018 to the fewest in 2019. It seems this spring as if the Cards are reaching for an even higher level.
Molina (nine), Arenado (eight) and Paul Goldschmidt (three) own a combined 20 Gold Glove awards. Tyler O’Neill won his first in left field last season. Harrison Bader, like Paul DeJong, has been a finalist.
The Cardinals’ offseason decision to not pick up second baseman Kolten Wong’s contract option left former utilityman Edman a gold standard to chase as the new starter at second base. He looked the part Monday.
Defense alone won’t win a World Series ring, but the Cardinals are looking like a team capable of playing defense at a championship level. Second base included.
