Greetings. I’m at my desk in The Lair, typing again, and I’ll probably be wordsmithing, hacking or scribing this piece of humble home journalism during the early part of Wednesday’s Cardinals-Dodgers game.
The statistics used here today will not be weeded from today’s STL vs. LA drama that will cap the series. This matchup pitted the Hollywood team with a star-studded $341 million payroll and its Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label champagne taste and international flair against the impoverished little Midwest franchise rostered modest men who do the best they can and gnaw on full slabs from Pappy’s.
The Dodgers have Ohtani, sure.
But we have Pozo.
BIRD BYTES:
1. I keep hearing and reading stuff like “Brendan Donovan is by far the Cardinals best player and this team must sign him to a long-term contract extension as soon as possible or this fading franchise will simply die.”
2. OK, no one is saying the franchise will perish. But the we-love-Donny club is busy working the internet hustings to campaign for their dude.
3. May I please have a word? With respect to Donovan – and who doesn’t like him? – I would like to present Masyn Winn. You know, the young man who is one of the best shortstops in the majors at age 23. And, at this moment in time, I would argue that the best player on the 2025 Cardinals is Winn.
4. Winn leads the Cardinals with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement. That’s more than one win better than Donovan’s 2.3 WAR. (FanGraphs version.) Donovan has the edge over Winn on offense, but let’s calm down just a bit. One fella is 14 percent above league average offensively (Donovan) and his teammate (Winn) is two percent above league average. I don’t see Hornsby out there.
5. This “debate” which I will resume in a moment, presents a fine look at the state of the Cardinals franchise and the diminished radiance of star power. Donovan vs. Winn? OK. Remember the MV3 debate in 2004? Well, this ain’t exactly choosing between Pujols, Edmonds and Rolen – know what I mean? Or even sorting through the 2011 gallery of position players that included Pujols, Molina, Holliday, Berkman, Freese.
6. Goodness, 2022 wasn’t that long ago. The Cardinals had the National League MVP and the third-place MVP finisher in the same lineup. Paul Goldschmidt. Nolan Arenado. But hey, if we want to compare Donovan and Winn in a Best-Cardinal wrangling, this is what we must work with and I’m here for it.
7. Donovan has better offensive numbers than Winn for the season. But Donny is functioning on reduced mojo as of late. He went into Wednesday’s matinee with 3 hits in his previous 33 at-bats. Since the All-Star break, Donovan has a .180 average and .523 OPS. Since the end of May, Donovan has a .224 batting average and a .642 OPS. But Winn has endured some cold spells of his own.
8. Donovan and Winn share a trend. Both hitters have been below league average offensively since the end of May, with Winn only slightly higher. But Winn has emerged from a prolonged slump to hit .328 with a .348 on-base percentage and .452 slug in his last 17 games. So I suppose we can say Winn has the momentum here.
9. Donovan was chosen for the NL All-Star team. Winn was not. But the Donny-Masyn palaver isn’t over. It’s a 162-game season. More evidence awaits.
10. The All-Star selection people were obligated to choose one Cardinal, and Donovan was the pick. This was an obligatory reward, and the All-Star game deciders never fill a roster based on merit and merit only. And I’m not steamed about it in any way. Donovan was a worthy choice. This isn’t Bryan LaHair in 2012. My dated reference was intentional. Google LaHair, kids
11. If we’re talking about STL’s best all-around player in 2025 it’s Winn over Donovan. And right now I don’t think it’s a close call. Obviously this could change over the Cardinals’ final 47 games, and I may have a different take on this depending on what happens between now and the final game on Sept. 28.
12. This is a blow-out defensively. Winn has 14 Fielding Value runs. Donovan has one. In Outs Above Average, Winn leads Donovan 19 to 1. In defensive runs saved, Winn leads Donny by six. No player in the majors – at any position – has more outs above average than Winn.
13. Winn is second to Victor Scott among Cardinals in base-running runs above average. Winn has advanced an extra base on 61 percent of the opportunities to do so. With Donovan, that bases-taken percentage is 39 percent. This does not include stolen bases.
14. Batting average with runners in scoring position: Winn .322, and Donovan .258
15. Positional difficulty is an important consideration. Winn is a full-on shortstop. Donovan has mostly played second base, with some left field mixed in. And 40 innings at shortstop. I appreciate his defensive flexibility, which provides value. But when we incorporate the positional adjustment used by FanGraphs, Winn is 17.8 runs above average defensively. Donovan is slightly below average at minus 0.7.
16. I think we’d agree that the two toughest positions to play are catcher and shortstop. And with that in mind, you may be surprised to see where Winn rates among MLB shortstops in WAR. And this includes only the WAR accumulated by a player when he’s used at shortstop – no other positions, such as DH, are in the equation. WAR blends offense, defense and base running.
Bobby Witt Jr., 5.0
Jeremy Pena, 4.1
Trea Turner, 4.1
Geraldo Perdomo, 4.1
Elly De La Cruz, 3.8
* Masyn Winn, 3.5
17. Shortstop is a prestigious position, stocked with impressive talent in both leagues. So to see Winn ranked 6th overall at shortstop is pretty special, given his age and experience level. Winn is the youngest shortstop on that list. (De La Cruz is also 23, but is 69 days older than Winn.) And Winn’s defensive value makes him particularly essential. He’s in the 99th percentile among all players (every position) in Fielding Run Value.
18. Winn is 4th in WAR among National League shortstops. He has more WAR than Francisco Lindor, Mookie Betts, Dansby Swanson, Xander Bogaerts, Willy Adames and CJ Abrams, among others.
19. Winn also has more WAR than American League shortstops Corey Seager, Gunnar Henderson, Bo Bichette, Trevor Story and Jacob Wilson.
20. I’d have to go with Winn as the Cards best all-around player, so far, in 2025. And he’s only 23. Donovan is 28, and the aging curve is a factor when teams look at long-term deals for a player.
So if we’re talking about a long-term contract extension, well, what about Masyn Winn?
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX, and he is a regular guest on the “Cardinal Territory” video show hosted by Katie Woo of The Athletic. Bernie happily does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. You can also catch Bernie every Friday morning (10:30 a.m.) as a guest on the Randy Karraker Show here on our site.