JJ Wetherholt Hype Train Go Brrrr: Cardinals Prospect Homers In Spring Debut

JUPITER, Fla. — Well, if the hype train wasn’t already out of control, there’s certainly no getting it back into the station now.

All eyes were on St. Louis Cardinals top prospect JJ Wetherholt on Sunday as the seventh overall draft pick from the 2024 MLB Draft made his Grapefruit League debut at Roger Dean Stadium.

With public expectations sky high for Wetherholt’s first full professional season, the 22-year-old infielder apparently has little interest in compelling fans to temper them.

In the same building where Wetherholt spent his first professional days playing home games for the Low-A Palm Beach Cardinals last summer, he made an instant impression Sunday, hitting a three-run home run as part of a 2-for-3 day in the Cardinals’ 11-6 loss to the Astros. 

The 345-foot opposite field blast was the Cardinals’ first home run of the spring.

Wetherholt got the start at shortstop while batting seventh in Oliver Marmol’s lineup and didn’t have to wait long for his first exhibition hit as a Cardinal.

In the fourth inning, he concluded his second plate appearance by dropping a base hit in front of the center fielder. Facing Astros starter Spencer Arrighetti earlier in the game, Wetherholt flew out to the center fielder in his first career Grapefruit League at-bat.

Beyond the strong day at the plate, Wetherholt was active early on the defensive side of the ball, starting an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play with a casual flip to second base in the top of the first. The play helped Cardinal starter Miles Mikolas to breeze through the frame on six pitches. 

In the second inning, Wetherholt knocked down a grounder deep in the hole and picked it up to fire to first for a bang-bang play at the bag. The Houston runner narrowly beat the play, but it was another moment in Wetherholt’s first Grapefruit League action to which the 22-year-old acclimated nicely.

Wetherholt started his second double in the top of the third, corralling a slow chopper with enough fluidity to catalyze the inning-ending turn.

Though there was one play not made on a ball that forced him to cross to the opposite side of the second base bag—it clipped the sprawling Wetherholt’s glove before rolling into center field—it clearly wasn’t something that impacted Wetherholt’s rhythm.

The homer came in his next at-bat.

“Steady,” Oliver Marmol said of his early impressions of Wetherholt before Sunday’s game. “In conversation with him, he’s really poised. So it will be good to see him in a game… Hopefully we’ll see some things go well for him and hopefully we see some things not go so well, to see how he responds to it.”

Though Wetherholt landing on the Opening Day roster is a pipe dream—he hasn’t spent a day in Peoria yet, let alone Springfield or Memphis—moments like Sunday suggest his ascent through the Cardinals system may not take long.