ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - 2024 will be Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn's first full season in the majors, with the position firmly in Winn's hand for 2024. But success is far from certain.
Winn was called up the Cardinals in August 2023, where he flashed his trademarked arm strength at the position, throwing an average of 92.4 miles per hour and topping out at 98.4 miles per hour, according to Baseball Savant.
While Winn showed every ounce of potential that made him recently a Top 20 prospect in 2024 by The Athletic's Keith Law, Winn did show that in first taste of major league baseball to end 2023, he still needed to continue working both in the plate and in the field, with Winn generating a -3 outs above average at shortstop in his limited 37 games sample size.
Cardinals manager Oli Marmol, unsurprisingly, was confident that Winn would be able to adjust to playing shortstop in the majors quite easily, particularly since he has two Cardinals legends around him to help with Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith and longtime Cardinals coach Jose Oquendo.
"We have the luxury as an organization to be able to have (Smith and Oquendo) around," said Marmol Thursday to reporters. "For Winn to just be able to have casual conversations about the game with Ozzie and Oquendo, that's important. It's one thing to go out there and work on some stuff, but to just have those conversations with some of the experiences both have and how they dealt with failure and the struggles."
Marmol says he already is loving the attitude Winn is bringing into camp, even though he's only a month away from turning 22-years-old.
"He's got a certain demeanor about him where it doesn't scare," said Marmol. "He's very honest, he'll tell you how he's feeling, what's he's thinking and he's a pretty good self-evaluator, especially at that age. To have those trait, it's impressive."
Marmol promised outright that despite the struggles at the plate last year in his limited 37-game sample, where he had a .172/.230/.238 slash line and only hitting two homers, there is no set benchmark at all for Winn at the plate for him to make the 2024 Opening Day roster.
"It's not so much that he has come outright here and have a certain OPS or anything like that," said Marmol. "It's as much as taking the right steps offensively and start to carry out some of the things he and (Cardinals Hitting Coach Turner Ward) are working on into the game. It's not just performance from a number's standpoint."