St. Louis Cardinals: How to Manage Budding Star Luke Weaver

2014 first round draft pick Luke Weaver has ascended the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league ladder quickly. How should the Cards handle him moving forward?

The St. Louis Cardinals have produced top level pitching prospects for years now. Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha and Trevor Rosenthal have been or are some of the best pitchers in baseball. The very unique quality these players all share is that they were trained to be who they are by the Cardinals.

For years, the Cardinals have been the best team with homegrown prospects who become major leaguers. In 2016, current minor league pitcher Luke Weaver is attempting to be the next St. Louis product to make the major leagues and be successful.

The Cardinals drafted Weaver in the first round of the 2014 draft after pitching 2012-2014 with the Florida State Seminoles. He signed with the team soon after and was placed with the Palm Beach Cardinals in July 2015.

He came out of the gate strong. After five starts and a sub-1.00 ERA, Weaver was given the Cardinals minor league pitcher of the month award. During the month, Weaver walked two batters and struck out an astounding 27.

After a Spring Training injury that delayed his 2016 campaign, Weaver started his 2016 season on June 4. Before he came back, Weaver was promoted to Double-A Springfield and he flourished just as well there.

Through August 2, Weaver has produced a 1.40 ERA with more than a strikeout per inning. For the first time, Weaver was in Baseball America’s top 100 prospects, listed at 75. On August 2, Weaver was promoted to Triple-A Memphis, and is now only one step away from the major leagues.

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If the Cardinals’ plans come together, Weaver will be with the major league team sooner rather than later. His career 1.83 ERA and 188 strikeouts in just over 190 innings pitched shows how dominant he has been at the minor league level.

All things considered, there is one factor that will determine the start of Weaver’s major league career: timing. It is a given at this point that Weaver will make the Cardinals, but when the organization decides to give him the nod is a big deal.

A lot of times when a young prospect gets called up to the major leagues, they get a little more excited than they need to. From there, they tend to struggle because they are too confident they will succeed.

In his professional career, Weaver has faced very little adversity. His high draft pick and stellar career numbers show that he may not know how to deal with struggling, especially on the major league level.

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If the Cardinals want to keep Weaver in check and make sure he has the right combination of confidence and maturity when he comes to the major leagues, then they will keep him in the minors until the end of this season.