Cardinals rookie Masyn Winn opens audition to be starting shortstop with a one-man show

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — If the eye contact they made on the field wasn’t enough for shortstop Masyn Winn to make his point in the third inning Sunday, then he made sure to find pitcher Gordon Graceffo in the dugout.

That grounder that glanced off Graceffo’s reach was headed right for Winn.

“After I tried to barehand that ball, he was like, ‘What are you doing?’” Graceffo recalled less than an hour later. “What do you mean? I thought I could get it. (He says), ‘I was literally right there.’ So that’s a hit they shouldn’t have had.”

That’s a play Winn was sure he would have made.

Delayed by a day because of muscle tightness, the Cardinals’ 21-year-old rookie shortstop began his bid to be their everyday starter by making up for missing a box score. He made Sunday a showcase for all he can do at short.

Against his hometown’s Houston Astros, Winn singled to lead off the game and stole second base. He singled two innings later at Cacti Park of the Palm Beaches and doubled two innings after that. His punctuation came in the fifth when an Astro flicked a ground ball the opposite way and Winn, shading toward right, glided over, backhanded the ball and from near the grass lip lasered a throw few infielders have the arm to make.

“We had two games going (Saturday), and I couldn’t be a part of either of them,” he said. “It (stunk). … I’m just trying to go out there, have a good time, catch a few barrels, make a few plays, try to give the fans something they want to see.”

What Winn put in motion a year ago is about to reach fruition as the former fireball pitcher and 2020 draft pick attempts to prove the Cardinals right.

Rather than drape their decision in all of the usual verbal ornaments and rites of spring such “it’s a competition” and “nothing is certain,” the Cardinals are direct when they say they want Winn to open the season as their everyday shortstop. The job is his to lose.

A brief cameo appearance in the majors last year was limited for the purpose of giving him experience without exhausting his rookie eligibility. Choices made elsewhere on the roster are reflective of the Cardinals’ confidence that their young shortstop, who plays with bravado, is ready for the jump.

“He’s got a certain confidence and he doesn’t scare, and I think when he goes through struggles — we saw some of it last year … he never backed down,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “You want to put good voices around him. (That’s) one thing you definitely want to do because he’s going to go through ups and downs, and as long as he’s continuing to take a step forward every game — and I mean that every game he’s learning something new. Whether it’s a big part of the game or something very minute, having people around him that can push him is important.”

Winn has found one of those “good voices” in Brendan Donovan, and some of what he hears from Donovan he knows is an echo of what Donovan heard from fellow teammate Paul Goldschmidt.

And he saw the benefits Sunday.

After hitting .172 in 37 big league games, Winn sought adjustments in his swing to make him steadier at the plate, not as vulnerable, especially to off-speed pitches. He spent the winter back in Houston reducing the moving parts of his swing and building from a stable back leg. There isn’t a lunge toward the pitch that sometimes made his back foot kick out like a speed skater’s. Asked Sunday if he felt his swing was shorter, he said, “Quieter for sure.”

He gets part of it from Donovan.

“Legs are a little bit further out, not taking a huge step toward the pitcher, not lunging at him quite as much,” Winn said. “I’m prepping my hip now like ‘Donny’ does, if you notice him swinging. I almost want to not mimic ‘Donny,’ but he’s such a great hitter, I definitely want to take notes from him.”

Against Houston’s Hunter Brown on Sunday, Winn opened the game with a single up the middle. He stole second base to give a teammate a two-out swing at an RBI. His next two at-bats came against lefties, and in the third inning, he laced a single that turned into a rally on the way to the Cardinals’ 3-0 victory. He doubled down the line in his final at-bat before being stranded at third base.

In the bottom of that inning, he stole a hit with the backhand play.

Sidelined for a few days because of tightness, Winn got up to speed — fast.

“I mean the dude is just an absolute freak out there,” starting pitcher Drew Rom said. “Everything he does is just unreal.”

“I heard stories about him in Low-A when I first got drafted from the guys who were still there after he got called up,” Graceffo said. “How he was real young and raw and trying to throw every ball as hard as he could. Just seeing the progress that he made. He impacts the game in so many different ways.”

Drafted as a two-way player, Winn pitched one inning as a pro before he and the Cardinals committed to him being a shortstop. Pitching was a skill he could turn to if he stumbled in any of the skills necessary turning into a shortstop.

First, Winn learned not every throw had to dazzle a radar gun. He committed 44 errors in the minors, but that’s misleading. He had 24 in his first 718 1/3 innings as a pro. That means, including three errors in the majors, he’s made only 23 in his past 1,939 1/3 innings as a shortstop. He has six in his previous 1,000 innings — all of them played at the two highest levels.

He followed a .294 average at the Arizona Fall League with a .288 average and an .834 OPS at Triple-A Memphis. He paired it with 18 homers for the Redbirds. In between, Winn attended his first major league spring training, and his performance there, a year ago, sold the Cardinals on the idea that by 2024 he could be their starter.

“We really did,” Marmol said. “It was one of the more impressive springs from a player. The way he went about it. The at-bats were super-professional. So he showed his ability to do it. Now it’s a matter of consistency and guys who are trying to execute against you and not just working on stuff. The end of the year was by design to let him (gain) experience, so he’s not guessing what that feels like coming into this spring and this season.”

Said Winn: “Compared to last year, (I) definitely feel a lot more confident, a lore like I belong up here, for sure.”

His confidence is one of the reasons the Cardinals are ready to trust him because he wears it like the chain around his neck, the one with his middle name on it, “BLAZE.”

That confidence is there in the velocity of his throws from shortstop — when he needs it — or the willingness to steal a base the first time he’s on one this spring. It’s there when he’s talking video games. It’s there when Graceffo said Winn reminds the pitchers “three or four times a day” that he could “take our job whenever he wants.”

Oh, he had that grounder, too.

“I love that,” Marmol said. “He believes in himself. We believe in him. And he plays like it.”