St. Louis Cardinals: Evaluating All the Outfielders in This Year’s Camp

What will the St. Louis Cardinals’ outfield depth look like in 2016?

As St. Louis Cardinals position players officially report to spring training on Monday, perhaps the most drama will surround the outfield group. The club returns just one if its Opening Day starting outfielders from 2015, and that player, left fielder Matt Holliday, arrives in camp with major question marks following a season ruined by injuries and a poor second half performance.

With young outfielders Randal Grichuk, Stephen Piscotty, and Tommy Pham seeking to firmly establish themselves as reliable big-leaguers following breakout 2015 campaigns, and others trying to showcase themselves as viable alternatives in case something doesn’t go according to plan, the outfielders will be the most interesting position group to watch as spring games get underway in a couple of weeks.

On the following slides, we’ll rank all eight outfielders attending major-league camp on a three-grade scale, judging whether they’re “safe and sound” (virtually assured to be on the opening day roster unless they get injured), “on the bubble” (meaning that they’ve got a shot, but will have to compete for a job during spring training), or “not likely” (meaning that it would take an absolutely unbelievable spring training performance for the player to have even a minuscule chance of cracking the opening day roster).

We kick things off with those in the “safe and sound” camp:

Next: Safe and Sound