The Cardinals must take two steps to begin an exciting major-league partnership with No. 1 prospect JJ Wetherholt.
(And I’ll bring Masyn Winn into the discussion later.)
First, promote JJ to the majors, and don’t be wimps and look for reasons not to.
If the Cardinals want to reconnect with their bored and disenchanted fans, then give them something to buzz about. Something to stir excitement. Something to change the subject in a positive way.
This dude is ready for the show. To hold Wetherholt down would be the latest example of the Cardinals’ preposterous, myopic failure to read their place in a declining baseball market.
So what would be the reason for keeping Wetherholt at Memphis? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This would be remarkably stupid.
This idea – that JJ must stay in Triple A because the Cardinals are fretting about having enough 40-man roster spots open for other minor leaguers – is so absurd as to be laughable.
This is an opportunity to give your apathetic and detached fan base a reason to give a damn. You want them to buy in? Then you have to have something to sell. And the Cardinals can sell the charismatic Wetherholt
I keep hearing and seeing all of this phooey about how the Cardinals are worrying about keeping those slots open on the 40-man roster – because if they bring JJ to The STL, he’ll take one of those spots.
OH, NO! CAN’T DO THAT!
Really? This a thing? And the sad part is, this bizarre anxiety is being spread by media types that are apparently afflicted with some sort of baseball Stockholm Syndrome. What the heck has happened to this baseball market?
JJ Wetherholt will be a big part of the 2026 Cardinals. And I assume he will be a centerpiece of their offseason marketing efforts leading to 2026.
Unless, of course, there is simply no one down there at the Stadium/Village complex that possesses any business sense … or common sense, for that matter.
As I said in a video here on STL Sports Central earlier this week: you want the people to come back? You want them to buy the tickets and the streaming subscriptions?
You want them packing into the places at Ballpark Village before and after home games?
Do you want to reverse the humiliation of ranking 19th in MLB home attendance again?
Well, give the people a sneak preview of coming attractions.
Get the fans fired up instead of leaving them more disillusioned.
Keeping Wetherholt locked in Memphis is something that we’d expect from some hopelessly idiotic cheapjack franchise like the Pirates or Rockies.
Second, when Wetherholt gets established in the bigs, which won’t take long, then get to work on a long-term contract.
The Red Sox just did that with their thrilling outfielder-DH, the rookie Roman Anthony … who, by the way, was astutely selected in the second round of the 2022 draft by Chaim Bloom, Boston’s chief baseball officer at the time. Yeah, that Mr. Bloom.
Anthony signed an eight-year, $130 million extension that can keep him in Boston through at least the 2034 campaign. The rook – who was MLB’s top-rated prospect going into 2025 – has a .276 average and .806 OPS since making his big-league debut June 6. Anthony’s OPS+ is 26 percent above league average offensively.
"It's very difficult what he's doing," Boston teammate Alex Bregman told reporters. "Just the on-base ability, the swing decisions in pressure pack games, the ability to hit the ball with power from line to line. He's a really good base-runner and has played really good defense as well. But just the quality of the at-bat against the best of the best has been what the real difference maker has been.”
Added Red Sox manager Alex Cora: "The way [Anthony] is, he dominates the strike zone. I'm not saying its easy but that's the way it should be, right? Like, when you do that, good things are going to happen. You know, he has a great swing. He has a pretty good idea of what he wants to accomplish in every at bat.”
These are the same things that independent talent evaluators say about Wetherholt.
This trend is nothing new, and I’ll offer two examples.
1. The Milwaukee Brewers gave phenom outfielder Jackson Chourio an eight-year, $82 million contract before he ever played in a regular-season MLB game.
The contract includes two club options that could extend the deal to 10 years and increase the total value to $142.5 million. If the Brewers – who play in the smallest market in the majors – can do this, certainly the Cardinals can and should do something similar with Wetherholt.
2. Before shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. reached his third MLB season (2024), the Kansas City Royals signed him to an 11-year, $288.7 million contract that can grow to $377.7 million over 14 years if a three-year team option is picked up.
Milwaukee ain’t New York.
Kansas City ain’t Los Angeles.
So what would be the Cardinals’ reason for behaving like some cheapskate, podunk, small-minded franchise?
And the Cardinals shouldn’t stop with Wetherholt.
The Cardinals must show Masyn Winn the same level of respect and faith.
At age 23, Winn is just a year older than Wetherholt. Winn is fiercely competitive, already the best defensive player in the majors, and is a good bet to improve his offense above the league-average level.
Securing Winn and Wetherholt for a long stay in St. Louis? Giving them a chance to be front and center in a rebuild? Developing and rewarding your own stars?
Now that would send a message to your fans, many of whom call St. Louis ownership “cheap” and uncommitted to winning.
From the Cardinals’ standpoint, they would benefit financially by buying out at least two or three (more?) seasons of free agency with each young player.
There are long-term savings here for the DeWitts. The Cardinals would have Winn & Wetherholt – hey, that’s catchy! – in their primes and make it less likely that they’ll ever wear another team’s colors.
And chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. has done this before.
– In 2004 the Cardinals gave the young Albert Pujols a seven-year deal worth $100 million.
– And while Adam Wainwright was older, age 32, the Cards signed him to a five-year contract for $97.5 million that ran from 2014 through 2018.
I think those deals worked out well for the players and the owner.
Something else to consider: over time, as these contracts (Winn & Wetherholt) mature, it would give the Cardinals the opportunity to reallocate payroll dollars.
For an example of what this looks like, here are the basics of Anthony’s deal:
A $5 million signing bonus and these yearly salaries:
2026: $2M
2027: $4M
2028: $8M
2029: $15M
2030: $19M
2031: $23M
2032: $25M
2033: $29M
2034: $30M option
The big money doesn’t start to kick in until 2031. And by 2031, will $23 million be so large? Probably not.
Sure there’s a financial risk.
For the DeWitts, there’s also the risk of losing more fans and doing more damage to the business and the brand, and receding deeper into irrelevancy.
The Cardinals have a chance to not only reset their franchise as the team enters a rebuild, but the DeWitts can begin to repair their ruptured relationship with the fans.
And reestablishing that bond with the fan base will also increase the passion – and the flow of revenue.
This would be a positive thing, yes?
That’s my Winn & Wetherholt Plan.
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.