At the risk of sounding like someone who does not understand the awesomeness of Juan Soto — I do, I promise — this feels like a good time to remind folks that Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson is producing in the present while also providing plenty of reasons for future optimism.
Nothing can make a fan base forget what it has in hand like the allure of a player it really, really wants.
The many calls from Cardinal Nation for Soto are understandable. He’s one of baseball's best. He’s just 23 years old. A team that pays what is said to be a monstrous asking price will get three shots at winning a World Series championship with him if the deal goes down before Tuesday's trade deadline. There’s a compelling argument to be made for any competitive club to look long and hard at what it would take to acquire a generational talent when one becomes available. Even if a deal depletes the top shelf of a farm system, prospects are about potential until proven otherwise, and potential and proven are very different things.
Which is why I have a hard time understanding why so many trade-deadline hypothesizers are rushing to send Carlson to Washington.
It must be a side effect of Soto Madness.
The point of making a Soto-type sonic boom at the deadline would be to act on the idea that he can be a rocket booster for three legitimate swings at a championship. While the notion of extending him would be great and could be pursued by an acquiring club, banking on a Scott Boras client not reaching free agency when he could be in line for a record deal is a risky bet. The team that gets Soto — if any team gets Soto before the deadline, that is — can only really count on two and a half seasons with him. Three postseasons. The rest? Unknown.
Painfully parting with prime prospects would make sense for the team that believes the juice is worth the squeeze. But including your most reliable major league outfielder this season in a deal that secures one of the best outfielders in baseball would water down a win-now transaction. And not just this season, either.
Some are not giving Carlson enough credit for being the Cardinals’ most reliable outfielder in a position group that had high hopes after last season's 17-game winning streak. While Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill have battled various ailments, Carlson ranks fourth on the team in at-bats, and third behind All-Stars Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado in on-base plus slugging percentage (.751 OPS) among Cardinals with 250 at-bats this season. Those three are the only three Cardinals with 30-plus extra-base hits.
Some are forgetting neither Carlson nor Soto need to be confined to right field. Soto played mostly left field until the 2021 season. We knew Carlson could play center, but his strides forward there in Bader’s absence suggest he can master it. His confidence and courage at the position have turned down the sirens that sounded when Bader's plantar fasciitis started causing problems.
More than anything else, some are overlooking Carlson's age. He's still just 23 years old. He's only two days older than Soto. Carlson is closer in age to tantalizing Cardinals prospects Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn than he is Bader, who turned 28 in June. Carlson’s first crack at free agency won’t come until 2027.
Just two major league outfielders who are 23 or younger have totaled more than 1,000 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 season Carlson debuted in. One, of course, is Soto (1,270). The other is Carlson (1,054). No one else on the list has reached 600. Keep that in mind when analyzing Carlson's growth. Context matters.
If you buy into Baseball Reference’s comparison data, it suggests Carlson’s early career has been somewhat similar to that of Dave Winfield, who debuted in 1973 at the age of 21 and posted two solid, above-average offensive seasons at 22 and 23 before taking off for a stretch of what became 12 All-Star seasons during a Hall of Famer career. Maybe Carlson isn't on that kind of trajectory. Maybe he is. What we do know is this. He was thrust into the deep end very early. He got his head above water fast. And now he's showing signs he can excel.
Since the start of May, Carlson has averaged .286 with a .362 on-base percentage and a .485 slugging percentage. That’s an OPS of .848.
During that same span Soto has averaged .244 with a .398 on-base percentage and a .492 slugging percentage. That’s an OPS of .890.
I’m not saying Carlson is Soto. And I’m not saying a team can entertain the thought of getting Soto without giving up pieces that hurt. What I’m saying is a team pushing its chips into win-now mode for three postseasons should not greenlight a package that ejects its best current outfielder to add a better one. That kind of team should want those two outfielders sharing the same outfield. That kind of team should prioritize trading players not yet ready to impact the major league level, or major league players who are not doing much to impact the team in the moment.
Whether Soto comes to the Cardinals or not — my preferred, probably unrealistic, blockbuster would be a trade for Shohei Ohtani instead — it would be shortsighted to let a side effect of Soto Madness cloud the clear picture of the cusp Carlson has reached. He is no longer a prospect whose upside is rooted only in unknown potential. He is an important contributor to a winning team who is providing compelling reasons to believe his best baseball is ahead.
