Last year, one month and a mere 29 plate appearances after he was called up to fill a bench role, I complained that the Cardinals were wasting Carson Kelly’s time by using him that way. Kelly was (I argued) too young and simply too good a prospect to hide away on the MLB bench. It didn’t matter that he was in all likelihood the second-best catcher in the Cardinals’ organization, to me — at 22 years old his development as a player was not complete, and it wouldn’t be completed by sitting and watching baseball instead of playing it.
Tyler O’Neill probably won’t play much, and that’s okay
