2024 Cardinals Draft Analysis – JJ Wetherholt

The Cardinals got a steal at 1.7

The MLB draft was last week and since I was on vacation I didn’t do any coverage or analysis or even pay as close attention to it as I usually would. But now that I’m back I have spent some time diving into the Cardinals draft class and want to provide my thoughts on every player, which picks I liked and which ones I didn’t, and some overall trends that I noticed.

My initial plan is to do this in 3 posts – 1 for each day of the draft – and that mean’s we’re starting with day 1 and JJ Wetherholt, who deserves a whole article to himself.

Background

JJ Wetherholt was my dream target for the Cardinals, I just didn’t think he would be available at 7. Most mock drafts had Wetherholt going before pick 7, although a few did have him making it to the Cardinals selection. If we look back to the start of the college baseball season, most draft experts considered him either the best prospect in the class or the second best, only slightly behind eventual 1.1 pick Travis Bazzana.

While Wetherholt’s game took a little bit of a step back this year and didn’t match Bazzana’s level of production, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if his well-rounded game made him one of the very best players to come out of this draft.

The problem for Wetherholt was that just 4 games into the year he suffered a grade 3 hamstring strain that kept him off the field into April, and even when he returned he wasn’t back to 100%. He himself has stated that he really just started feeling like he was back to full speed movement in the final weekend of the season and much, if not all, of his small step back this season can probably be attributed to that hamstring injury.

And even though he did take a step back I again want to emphasize that it was a small step back as he still put up a 1.061 OPS with nearly twice as many walks than strikeouts, 8 home runs, and 6 stolen bases in just 36 games.

Those are impressive numbers by themselves and they pale in comparison to his sophomore year numbers when he was fully healthy.

The guy can flat out hit. And he can hit with a wood bat too, as evidenced by his performance at the Cape and in the Northwoods League. Those are the numbers of a top college prospect.

Offensive Profile

His profile is even more enticing once you look past the surface level stats.

One thing that has always stood out to me about Wetherholt is just how good his approach is at the plate. The guy rarely chases but he’s also pretty aggressive against pitches in the zone and that kind of selective aggression is rare. Usually hitters that don’t chase are more like Brendan Donovan or Lars Nootbaar in the sense that they simply don’t swing very much at all, whether the pitch is thrown in the zone or outside of it.

But Wetherholt isn’t like that. He’s not a passive hitter; he’s simply a hitter with a fantastic eye for balls and strikes.

He’s also a hitter who makes a ton of contact and hits the ball consistently hard. The first-rounder actually ran lower contact rates in 2024 than he did in 2023 but, again, it’s hard to ding him for that considering the hamstring injury that he played through. And either way, he still made a lot of contact with both his in-zone and out-of-zone contact rates in or near the upper quartile of all college hitters.

What’s really interesting, though, is how Weatherholt was able to increase his exit velocities from last season despite playing hurt.

If you don’t know, those aren’t just good exit velocities; they’re flat out elite in the college game.

Wetherholt’s average exit velocity ranked in the 98th percentile and his 90th percentile exit velocity ranked in the 96th percentile among all college hitters. His max was a little lower, in the 87th percentile, but that’s still impressive territory.

He’s not quite the slugger that some of the other early first rounders are but he also plays a premium position and has no major concerns in his offensive profile.

Approach? Check. Hit tool? Check. Power? Check.

If there is a concern with Wetherholt, it’s the type of contact that he makes. While he did increase his exit velocities this season, he didn’t do a great job of elevating the ball consistently or elevating the ball to the pull side. That does cap his power potential a bit. He also didn’t dominate 94+ mph heat the way he dominated everything else.

I have a hunch that these issues were likely caused by the hamstring but I don’t want to sweep them under the rug and not mention them. Still, to support my theory, here are Wetherholt’s batted ball metrics from the 2023 season, when he fully healthy and a year less developed:

Note that he made more contact, dominated 94+ mph heat, and had better spray angles and batted ball types in 2023.

So the concerns I mentioned with Wetherholt may not be concerns when he’s fully healthy. We’ll just have to wait and see. But that brings us to the health concern, which is a legitimate one as he has dealt with two not insignificant hamstring injuries recently.

You may have noticed from the baseball reference screenshot above that Wetherholt only played in 8 games in the Cape Cod League. That’s because he was also sidelined by a hamstring injury over the summer.

So those are basically consecutive hamstring injuries that have kept him from laying and kept him from playing at full health for a large amount of time. It’s possible that he could be somewhat prone to that kind of injury in pro ball and it’s possible that he will never have a hamstring issue again.

It’s simply worth mentioning that there is some injury risk here and that risk is specifically tied to his hamstring.

Overall, though, this is an offensive profile with a ton of impact potential and no true limiting factors. Obviously there’s a transition to pro ball that he has to make but this is about as good a player as you could ask for at pick number 7.

Defensive Profile

Besides the injured hamstring, JJ Wetherholt had another challenge this year – adapting to a new, more demanding defensive home. After primarily playing third base as a freshman and second base as a sophomore, Wetherholt moved to shortstop in 2024 and made some really nice plays in his 27 games at the position.

There are two things I want to mention up front before we get into his defense. The first is that I will freely admit that I haven’t watched enough of him defensively to make a definitive judgement on his potential to stick at short long term, although I will certainly rectify that once he takes the field in the Cardinals system.

The second is that regardless of Wetherholt’s ability to play shortstop, he will likely not be playing it very much in the majors as the Cardinals seemingly have their shortstop of the future in Masyn Winn. With that said, that shouldn’t stop Wetherholt from getting exposure to the position in the minor leagues as it’s good for him to have the versatility and ability to play a more demanding position even if it won’t be his full time home.

Alright, with that aside aside, we can actually look at the profile now.

Most experts doubt Wetherholt’s ability to stick at the position with some questioning his feel for the spot and some questioning his arm strength.

Again, I will refrain from offering my own definitive judgement on this issue but I do feel like this play speaks for his potential to stay at the position long term.

That is both range and arm strength and I’ll also point out that, according to Wetherholt himself, this is a time of the year when he felt like he could move full speed again.

Wetherholt also seems to have a heck of a vertical which he can use to snare line drives:

And here is one more great play that Wetherholt made at second base in 2023:

I understand the skepticism that many have about Wetherholt’s ability to stay at the 6 long term but he has plenty of athleticism and flahsed an ability to make the throw from deep in the hole. Because of that I do feel he has a legitimate chance to stay at the most premium infield position…that is, if he didn’t play in an organization that employs Masyn Winn.

So if we put the shortstop question aside for a minute, I do have a fairly high level of confidence that Wetherholt can more than handle second base as he’s a good athlete with good range and familiarity at the position. His versatility is also a point in his favor as he can handle third base and shortstop and has even played some outfield prior to his time at West Viriginia.

This isn’t just a guy that can hit; this is a guy who can be an average or better infield defender.

Final Thoughts

Wetherholt plays the game with a lot of passion and genuinely looks like he has fun on the field. He also has no major holes in his game with a strong defensive profile, a great eye at the plate, good contact skills, and good power.

He’s a really fun and really talented player who had been in the public conversation at 1.1 for a long time. It’s only been half a year since he was considered the premier player in the class and there were even rumblings of him signing an underslot deal to go to Cleveland at 1.1 leading all the way up draft day.

I have seen some people try to refer to Wetherholt as a lower ceiling player and that simply isn’t true. This is a guy who could be above average at every facet of the game with some plus tools mixed in as a well.

That’s absolutely a player with a ton of ceiling and it’s one who could give the Cardinals one of the best double-play combinations in the league in a few years. The Cardinals absolutely maximized their opportunity to pick in the top 10 for the first time in a long time and, personally, I can’t wait to see Wetherholt suit up in the St. Louis Cardinals system.

Thanks for reading.