When the St. Louis Cardinals were outbid by the Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds in the lottery for picks in the 2024 MLB Draft, it appeared to be the final ignominious nail in a season of indignity.
The 2023 Cardinals were the franchise’s first team to finish last in more than three decades, and their reward was a drop from fifth overall to seventh just days after forfeiting their second-highest selection by signing Sonny Gray from the Minnesota Twins. Still, luck in the selection can change quickly.
The Cardinals got a lucky break when JJ Wetherholt got a bad one. A serious hamstring injury forced the then-West Virginia shortstop to drop from the expected No. 1 overall pick, and the financial wranglings that come with a stagnant pool of draft bonus money allowed him to fall all the way into St. Louis’ lap.
He is now the Cardinals’ top prospect, ranked 18th in the game by MLB Pipeline, and the team’s highest draft pick since selecting JD Drew fifth overall in 1998. That feat, at least, will soon be erased from Wetherholt’s record, as the Cardinals jumped from 13th-best odds at the number one choice – and a less than ten percent chance of cracking the top six – to fifth place in Tuesday night’s lottery results.
It was a pleasant surprise, and for a team that has never selected in the top ten consecutive years since the selection began in 1965, it represents an extraordinary opportunity. “Now you have a chance to pause and think about the historical aspect of it,” said Randy Flores, Cardinals deputy general manager and director of amateur scouting. The pause will be temporary.
Flores and his lieutenants are about to hit the road, and their expertise from last year will be important as they navigate a now-familiar scene among the game’s top young talent.
“Last year, there was so much newness in prepping for it,” Flores told me. “Crosschecking, scheduling, meetings, and discussions. We talked with our baseball development staff, understanding that when drafting at 23, the board often clears itself. But at seven, there are more possibilities. So we can use a similar approach in meetings in terms of conversation depth and length.”
Flores described a basic mathematical problem. There are only so many hours in the day, and organizations who choose later in the first round face an opportunity cost. Every minute spent focusing on a talent who is almost surely going to be off the board by the time your club chooses is a minute lost on a player who is considerably more likely to be in your range.
Last year’s knowledge baseline also serves to supplement this year’s extended procedure. Due to Gray’s signing, Wetherholt was the only Cardinals pick higher than 80th overall. This season, they not only have their own first and second round picks, but MLB also confirmed last week that they will receive a competitive balance round B pick, giving them three picks in the top 75.
The increased lottery odds will also provide the Cardinals with a larger bonus pool, allowing them to take more chances on more talented players as the draft progresses. That talent boost couldn’t have come at a better moment for a team that is in the process of revamping its player development machinery and moving deliberately inward in an attempt to not-quite-rebuild its roster. The Cardinals do not want to be at the bottom of the standings for an extended period of time, and the only way to avoid that is to bring in more talented players.
“Now we have those two things in our favor this year,” Flores told the crowd. “We’ll be welcoming a lengthier discussion, because the pool of players that we’re in play on is much, much larger.” Currently, the top overall prospect in next year’s draft has a recognizable name and has previously played on Cardinals fields and in Cardinals clothing. Ethan Holliday, Matt’s son and the younger brother of Baltimore Orioles superstar Jackson, is a prep shortstop who has the potential to become the Hollidays the first set of siblings to be picked first overall.
“Now we have those two things in our favor this year,” Flores told the crowd. “We’ll be welcoming a lengthier discussion, because the pool of players that we’re in play on is much, much larger.” Currently, the top overall prospect in next year’s draft has a recognizable name and has previously played on Cardinals fields and in Cardinals clothing. Ethan Holliday, Matt’s son and the younger brother of Baltimore Orioles superstar Jackson, is a prep shortstop who has the potential to become the Hollidays the first set of siblings to be picked first overall.
It rarely makes sense to choose for positional need at the major league level in the MLB draft, and it is certainly not a suggested tactic at the top of the first round. The Cardinals will select the guy they believe is the best available when their time comes, and he will almost probably be a peer of Wetherholt at the top of the team’s prospect rankings.
That was not the situation the Cardinals anticipated to be in on Tuesday afternoon, when their chances of winning the lottery were so slim that they chose not to send a representative to see it drawn. Instead, they learned the results live on stage before the television audience.
Flores stood uneasily at a podium as the team’s representative for the results presentation, recalling that retired Red Sox pitcher Jake Peavy leaned over to whisper (in good spirit) that he was cheering for him. In this context, Peavy may have been the first to wish Flores well, but a large portion of the Cardinals organization and fan base immediately followed suit. Some of that luck came from the pick itself.
The remainder will come from the hard work of combing through the draft board, and the Cardinals now have a basis on which to build that process.
