Exit Poll: Sophomore Surge
TOWER GROVE — A “transition” year by any definition implies not only the integration of younger, less-experienced and prospect-like players, but also those players abilities to construct a bridge to the next season, one where they will be better and, thus, the team will be better.
The Cardinals at least have numbers on their side.
A total of 10 rookies made their major-league debut with the Cardinals this season, from Rule 5 pick Brian Barton to a whole host of starting pitchers. There is no doubt which one of the rookies was the most impressive — he was from the first day he took the mound in spring training all the way through finishing tied with Carlos Marmol for the league lead in holds. Righthanded reliever Kyle McClellan was the clear rookie of the year for the Cardinals. But what rookie put himself in the best position to have a sophomore spike, to, as the club needs them to, transition from prospect to producer.
Several of the Cardinals listed below still have their rookie eligibility despite making considerable contributions at the major-league level, like Chris Perez and Joe Mather. Of those listed, only Barton and McClellan played enough to no longer be considered “prospects,” by the Baseball America definition. (Perez, for example, pitched 41 2/3 innings, coming 8 1/3 shy of no longer being eligible for the BA Top 30.)
A couple won’t have that opportunity because of surgeries — pitchers Jaime Garcia and Mike Parisi – but a handful of the others at-bats and innings await. There are roles to be seized.
Who will?
That’s the question posed in this, the final EXIT POLL of the week.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Well, McClellan’s surge is based on whether or not he winds up replacing Looper in the starting rotation. If he does so, and he does well, he could “surge” from being a solid middle reliever to being a 13-15 game winner as a starter, and he would be perceived as a “surge” by the general baseball public who would be wondering “where did this guy come from?”
You’re right about Motte, though - he’s probably got the highest upside potential of the bunch.
As for Mather - he’s gotta get the playing time in order to have any sort of surge, and with all the outfielders hanging around, he’s gonna be hard-pressed, even in a TLR lineup, to get more than 250-300 AB’s.
It’d be kind of neat, though, if we went ahead and found new homes for Schumaker, et al, and just went with a more-or-less everyday outfield of Mather/Ankiel/Ludwick for 140-150 games next season and see what happens.