Inbox: When might St. Louis call up top prospect JJ Wetherholt?
The 2025 season is coming into homestretch time, with Minor League teams soon to hit the postseason and the big leaguers to follow a month later. September callups aren't what they used to be, when roster expansions could be vast, but we're still seeing some big names get called up for the last month and change of the season. More on that below, as one of this week's selections for the MLB Pipeline Inbox.
We answered this one on the most recent episode of the MLB Pipeline Podcast, when we also had No. 1 overall pick Eli Willits on for a chat, so be sure to give that a listen. This isn't an uncommon occurrence, and we often get questions when a guy a bit lower down on the Draft rankings jumps ahead of some of his Draft classmates on the Top 100.
Here's the truth: Rankings of any sort are far from set in stone, and we will readily admit that while we stand by our process as being as thorough as possible to reflect the scouting industry's evaluations on players, we're willing to course correct if things tell us otherwise. When we launched our full re-rank of the Top 100 earlier this month, we had a dozen players from the 2025 Draft on it. Schoolcraft, the top high school lefty in the class and the second-best prep arm overall (behind Seth Hernandez), made it 13. While there are players ranked ahead of him on our Draft list -- Schoolcraft was No. 19 overall -- none have his enormous ceiling. We're talking a 6-foot-8 southpaw with the chance for three plus pitches. Plus, he'll be pitching only for the first time, so who knows what that will unlock. In the end, we're banking on his upside over the draftees ranked higher.
George, the Dodgers' pick at No. 36 overall in 2023, currently comes in at No. 25 on a very deep Dodgers Top 30. As his report states (and I can hear Jim Callis say it), scouts joke he might have 90 speed on the 20-to-80 scouting scale. But they also might say he has 10 power. During his first full season in 2024, he did swipe 36 bags in 86 games. This year, he's upped that part of his game even more, leading all of the Minors with 83 steals in 101 games for High-A Great Lakes.
But the impact, or lack thereof, is the question. While he has cut his strikeout rate to 15.5 percent, down from 21 percent in 2024, while upping his walk rate, and he now has a career .289 batting average (.277 this year), he still has a career .354 slugging percentage. After hitting just one home run in 2024, he has three this year, but just 18 of his 106 hits are for extra bases (.081 ISO), and he's produced a very high ground-ball rate (59.9 percent) this year. Getting on base, making contact and using his legs will always be his game, but he has work to do to drive the ball enough to gain respect from pitchers. We haven't always known how to rank pure speedsters like this, but he'll move up if he can impact the ball more at the plate.
I don't want to pick just one. Why can't I, say, put De Vries at short, Made at third, Peña at second and Griffin in center? There's room for all of them on my roster.
OK, fine, I'll answer the direct question, though it's a boring response. You've ticked off four of the top 8 shortstops on our top 10 list at the position. All are teenagers, with Griffin the oldest at 19. Griffin is our No. 1 prospect on the Top 100, De Vries is No. 3, Made is No. 5 and Peña comes in at No. 16. It wouldn't be consistent if I didn't take our No. 1 guy, right? He's atop our rankings because we think he's the best prospect in baseball, so it stands to reason that he'd top this quartet. He has the proverbial five-tool potential, and they've all shown up and then some in his first full season of pro ball. I also think he is going to play shortstop for a very long time (even though you gave me the out by not worrying about eventual positional home). Even if he lands in center, I probably take his 30-30 potential first anyway. But I'd be happy with any of them, and Brewers fans should be particularly excited about having two of these four.
We've talked a lot lately about prospects who could get called up and even picked one potential prospect for each team in a recent story. Two of the players in that story -- Bubba Chandler of the Pirates and Rays shortstop Carson Williams -- have already been summoned, and while he wasn't our choice for the Red Sox, Jhostynxon Garcia gave us a Top 100 callup trifecta this week. Wetherholt, it should surprise no one, was the entry for the Cardinals.
The Cards are facing a 40-man roster crunch that could make adding Wetherholt, their 2024 first-round pick, more challenging this season. An argument could be made that they should wait so they can sort out roster/Rule 5 decisions this offseason and then worry about adding their prized infield prospect to the roster if and when he makes the team next spring. But he sure is making it difficult. He has a combined .931 OPS with nearly as many walks as strikeouts, 16 homers and 18 steals. He's been even better since he got to Triple-A, with an OPS over 1.000, so he clearly deserves a chance to get his feet wet in the big leagues, especially since he's gotten work at three infield positions, increasing ways to get his bat in the lineup. But if it doesn't happen, he should be given every opportunity to make the Opening Day roster next spring.