St. Louis Cardinals Make Correct Call in Demoting Kolten Wong to Triple-A

The St. Louis Cardinals sent Kolten Wong to the minors on Monday in a move that should be beneficial for both Wong and the major-league team.

In an unsurprising move, the St. Louis Cardinals optioned second baseman Kolten Wong to Triple-A Memphis on Monday afternoon, clearing space for tomorrow’s anticipated activation of infielder Jhonny Peralta from the disabled list. Despite the rather expected nature of the transaction, it created controversy among plenty of Cardinals fans, especially those who already want to label the five-year, $25 million-dollar deal he received this spring as a failure. While the move is undoubtedly frustrating for the 25-year-old second baseman, who has spent nearly all of the past three seasons in the major leagues, save for an 18-game stint at Memphis in 2014, it will probably be best for both parties in the long run.

Wong clearly has issues at the plate that he needs to work through; he’s hitting just .233 since the All-Star break last season, and after hitting 23 homers between June 3 of 2014 and July 27 of last season, he has just one home run since. This season, his numbers as a hitter are simply unacceptable for a player who’s supposed to be a regular starter–a .222/.306/.286 slash line with one homer and five RBI–and he needs to find a way to work it all out if he wants to be a big-league starter again.

The place he’s heading, the Pacific Coast League, should do wonders for his confidence unless there’s an external factor that’s limiting his production at the plate.

More from Arch Authority

• St. Louis Cardinals: Randal Grichuk to begin Double-A rehab stint
• John Brebbia deserves a shot as the St. Louis Cardinals’ closer
• St. Louis Cardinals place Randal Grichuk on DL, recall José Martínez
• St. Louis Cardinals release RHP Corey Baker from organization
• St. Louis Cardinals activate Kolten Wong and Kevin Siegrist from DL, option Luke Weaver and Alex Mejia to Triple-A

Interestingly, there’s been quite a few young second basemen who, like Wong, have been prematurely anointed as cornerstone players and have needed to go back down to the PCL to work through their issues:

,

, and

are some recent examples. Each of those players went down to Triple-A last season, posted an OPS well above .800, and returned to thrive in the majors during the second half of the season.

Wong will get an opportunity to play every day down at Memphis, likely as a leadoff hitter, so he’s going to have a much better opportunity to correct his flaws than he would getting sporadic at-bats as a pinch-hitter with the big-league club. And make no mistake, that’s the most that he would have done in St. Louis. The Cardinals aren’t going to put Matt Carpenter, Jhonny Peralta, and/or Aledmys Diaz on the bench regularly in an attempt to get Wong out of his nearly year-long slump, and Matt Adams is too good of a hitter to sit on the bench. When you add in the fact that the Cardinals are also trying to justify the contract of Gyorko, who’s got more pop in his bat and is more defensively versatile than Wong, it’s plain to see that there wouldn’t have been much playing time for Wong.

Next: Profiling 15 Potential Cardinals First-Rounders

It’s doubtful that Wong will spend too much time in Triple-A; he’ll likely be the first player called up if the Cards suffer any infield injuries. Until then, though, Wong should take advantage of the low-stress environment in Memphis and try to get back to being the hitter that earned himself a five-year deal this offseason.