Is this Cardinals outfielder the team’s ‘most promising player’? It sure looks like it

When St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol was asked about his view of the offensive flexibility of outfielder Dylan Carlson, he offered a droll assessment of his own lineup construction.

Mused Marmol, “it’s starting to show that we pick out of a hat, huh?”

Despite Carlson’s having started at least one game in each of the nine lineup spots thus far this season, his slotting has been anything but random. As Tommy Edman struggled through a tough training camp, Carlson became the logical option to hit leadoff. When he fell back and Edman took off, he moved down and around the lower third of the order. And recently, having posted a .288 batting average and .542 slugging percentage in 20 June games, he’s been at the heart of both the lineup and the team’s run production.

“Just taking into account all the different situations in the game, no matter where you’re at,” Carlson said of his strategy for adjusting his approach in varying lineup positions. “Trying to understand what’s going on around you.”

There has been no shortage of things going on around Carlson that could have threatened to derail his progress. After an ice cold April — he recorded only a .488 OPS — he started to find his stride in the season’s second month. But pressed into duty in centerfield in Pittsburgh in late May, he strained his left hamstring tracking down a fly ball over his head.

Young outfielder thriving

After two and a half weeks on the injured list, it would’ve been easy for the progress he’d made over the previous month to recede. Instead, Carlson has thrived, and since returning to the lineup June 10, has been the club’s most productive hitter other than MVP favorite Paul Goldschmidt.

“I don’t think I’ve gotten to a point yet where my game could get to or should be,” Carlson said at his locker after Tuesday’s win over the Miami Marlins. “In my mind, I have a lot to work on and a lot to do on both sides of the plate still.”

Switch hitting, fading art though it is, is another weapon which expands Carlson’s arsenal. By any measure, he’s been a superior hitter from the right side of the plate, facing lefties, in his young career. This season, though, in an admittedly small sample, the gap between the performances is narrowing. His power stroke from the left side may not yet be fully developed, but as his comfort and consistency improved, the numbers are likely to follow.

“It’s a matter of how he’s going,” Marmol explained. “(Tuesday), putting him in the (second spot) was more so because he kills left-handed pitching and we wanted two guys to set the table for our big boys. He’s been swinging it well from the left side, but with Edman out (on Wednesday night), we wanted to see what it looked like there.”

Patrolling centerfield every day

Carlson’s promotion to the big leagues amid the pandemic-altered 2020 season came at a time when both his readiness could no longer be denied and the team was in desperation mode, patching holes that sprung up on a leaky roster. Since his debut, he’s been utilized as that same sort of all-purpose player, spackling over the rough spots just long enough for him to smooth himself out before being redeployed elsewhere.

With Harrison Bader now on the injured list for an as-of-yet undetermined amount of time as he deals with plantar fasciitis, Carlson will be expected to patrol centerfield every day while maintaining his enhanced level of production.

“I’ve played a decent amount of center in my career,” Carlson said, referring to both the majors and the minors. “You know, it’s different, for sure. I just think, kind of as we were alluding to with the lineup, just go out there and play.

“At the end of the day, wherever you’re at, honestly, that’s kind of the mindset. Just go out there and be a ballplayer.”

‘We liked what that looks like’

He has done it. He can do it. He’s happy to do it. But those are all truths that highlight reasons why the Cardinals have been so willing to be so fluid with arguably the most promising position player prospect they’ve brought to the big leagues in the last five years. He’s able to be a ballplayer — seemingly a ballplayer of nearly any kind.

“He started in that leadoff spot, and we liked what that looks like,” Marmol said, running through the batting order. “He’s able to bring some pop and some doubles in that spot, which I don’t mind at all.

“He’s got enough thump in there depending on the matchup to hit in the middle of the order, three through five. And then obviously the rest of it makes sense, and then when he’s not going well, you can slide him to eight and nine.”

Nearly any spot on almost any day. This is Dylan — and with very few people noticing, he may already be the player it was said he could someday become.