The first time Trejyn Fletcher took the field as a suddenly draft-eligible senior was only the third time Deering High’s club had been outside all spring. The 21 scouts who gathered to scrutinize Maine’s top talent were one more than the runs Fletcher’s team allowed.
A buzz — figuratively, of course, and literally with a swarm of text messages — sped through the Cardinals’ amateur scouting ranks a year ago when Fletcher transferred schools and reclassified from a junior to the Class of 2019. Less than eight weeks before the June draft, one of the best prep athletes in the 2020 draft flashed a jump so plus-plus few expected it — he skipped ahead a year.
Interested teams, such as the Cardinals, had the Northeast’s uncertain weather and Deering’s 16-game schedule to determine if the outfielder was worth a high-round pick and a seven-figure bonus. The few games scouts got to see Fletcher play that spring were a reminder of how much game experience the teen still needed.
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“Super toolsy, super raw,” echoed two evaluators.
The Cardinals mobilized, and scouts, crosscheckers and baseball operations executives all trekked north to Maine — some to the state for the first time — to see Fletcher. What they saw in that short window was clear when they selected him 58th overall. His percolating potential was worth even a long development.
The Cardinals’ outfield depth chart illustrates the extremes that exist in any minor-league system, where top prospects range from on deck to on the distant horizon. Three of the Cardinals’ leading outfielder prospects personify this spectrum.
Fletcher, newly 19, is considered a project and several years away, as is his teammate Jhon Torres, 20. Meanwhile, Uber-prospect Dylan Carlson is, as one executive put it, “basically a phone call away from the big leagues.”
When Fletcher and Torres come into view, Carlson, 21, will be a prominent fixture in the Cardinals’ lineup if the current forecast holds.
That’s the future, for now.
In an eight-part series that begins here, with outfielders, the Post-Dispatch will examine and identify the future at every position for the Cardinals, from outfield to infield, starters to closer. In addition to using scouts and scouting reports to illuminate the depth of the organization, the purpose will be to spot the next star ready to arrive — or the next hole that must be filled.
Much potential
“I think when you look at it from a high level, not at one specific position and consider the whole system, almost every position has somebody that you could project as a major-league contributor through a lens of two or three years from now,” said John Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations. “It becomes a question of who will make an impact. … In the outfield, you have young players, but they’re exciting in different ways with different performances at different places in their development.”
The Cardinals entered the 2020 season with two outfielders, center fielder Harrison Bader and slugger Tyler O’Neill, under control through at least 2023. Veteran Dexter Fowler is signed through 2021. In the wings, the Cardinals have challenger Lane Thomas and left-handed hitter Justin Williams.
The focus of this futurist series is on the players who have yet to spend a moment in the majors and yet could someday be the Cardinals’ answer at a position.
The heir apparent in right field is the club’s most celebrated prospect, Carlson. He is a top-10 prospect throughout baseball, a sleeper candidate for NL Rookie of the Year honors whenever he debuts, and one of the most-polished young hitters the Cardinals have had in a decade. Carlson is coming off a Texas League MVP summer and a compelling spring and is poised to arrive if a shortened season can start. He soon could be a top-of-the-lineup switch-hitter for a contender.
In left, Torres stands out from his peers. A spoil of the Cardinals’ outfield depth, the right-handed hitter from Colombia has become part of it.
Faced with a traffic jam of outfielders on the 40-man roster, the Cardinals traded Oscar Mercado to Cleveland for a much younger outfielder who was several years away. They had scouted Torres as an international free agent and acquired him in the deal for Mercado. Torres’ initial pro performance — 52 hits vs. 37 strikeouts in 162 at-bats — reinforced the reports the Cardinals already had. He torched an unsteady start at rookie-level Johnson City by hitting .310 with a .570 slugging percentage and an on-base percentage better than .400 in his final 100 at-bats.
Torres has the strongest arm in the organization and could nudge Carlson to left years from now — or find himself there, where he would be an above-average fielder. He “looks the part,” an American League scout said. Another evaluator put it this way: “Raw power hit tool.”
Torres has all the baseball tools to sharpen.
Fletcher has all the athleticism to become baseball tools.
A close look
Cardinals scouts, such as Jim Negrych and Sean Moran, were present for more than half of Fletcher’s high school games. In that opener, which Deering lost 20-4, Fletcher singled twice and reached on an error.
Fletcher, committed to Vanderbilt, closed high school by striking out nine, catching for his reliever, hitting a homer and scoring the winning run to bump the Rams to 4-12. Perfect Game considered him the No. 1 prospect for the 2020 draft, but moving schools and moving up a grade accelerated everything. Scouts saw an elite runner with alluring, teasing power who stood out against the competition, but also saw scarce competition. He was the highest pick from Maine since 2008.
“Fast-twitch, extremely fast-twitch,” Mozeliak said. “He’s someone who if you said he was going to line up at defensive back (in football) or go play guard in basketball or soccer — pick a sport — you’d believe it and he’d have success but he’d be so raw doing any of it. The experience isn’t there, the reps aren’t there. The talent is.”
Fletcher slipped in the draft because several teams didn’t have the necessary looks at him to be comfortable reaching the required bonus or to be confident he wouldn’t head to Vanderbilt. When the Cardinals selected him, his first text to assistant general manager Randy Flores was this: “I can’t wait to get to work.”
He signed for a $1.5-million bonus within two weeks and was in Johnson City within a month. Facing bolts of velocity he rarely had, Fletcher hit .228 in 34 games for the JC-Cards. A return was possible this season, but not before the Cardinals had something else in mind for his development.
Watching.
When minor-league activities resume or the 2021 season arrives, the Cardinals want Fletcher to “immerse” himself in baseball. That could mean being at extended spring training during the day — and attending, in the stands, a High-A game that night.
Not all development happens in cleats. They want Fletcher to take that time, because they’ve got it. What the Cardinals have for their youngest, distant protostar outfielders as they work their way to the majors is the same thing Carlson has needed as he waits on his imminent call to the majors.
Patience.