Cardinals’ Thomas Saggese Never Stops Hitting
As a child, Thomas Saggese did not like to wear batting gloves. He felt they were too rigid, that his fingers were limited by them.
Besides, he didn’t want anything to come between him and how it felt to get a hit off the bat.
So little has changed in his career.
Weeks after coming to the Cardinals via a deadline trade from the Rangers, Saggese completed a batting title and Texas League MVP season—and he did it all barehanded.
The 21-year-old hit .318/.385/.551 with 25 home runs in 126 games at Double-A. He finished the year at Triple-A Memphis and led the minor leagues with 170 hits to set the stage for an invite to big league camp.
A fifth-round pick by the Rangers in 2020 out of Carlsbad (Calif.) High, Saggese has superb bat-to-ball skills that are manifesting power potential.
Saggese is widely viewed as a bat-first second baseman, though the Cardinals are going to explore his versatility. They want to see how he reacts during games at shortstop and if that is a position he could spend time as a regular at Triple-A.
The Cardinals would like to see him develop into a utility role, a righthanded-hitting complement to what they already have in Brendan Donovan.
The Cardinals traded Jordan Montgomery last summer to acquire Saggese plus righthander Tekoah Roby. In his first 46 games in his new organization, Saggese had more hits (55) than strikeouts (48).
He has a feel for the strike zone that keeps him patient at the plate, but his knack for getting the barrel of the bat to pitches around the strike zone means he doesn’t have to be choosy and can remain aggressive.
“I mean, I’m there to hit, so I might as well swing it,” Saggese told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during spring. “I’m there to do damage.”
He’s got the callouses to prove it.
There on his left hand is the hard-earned protection that comes from batting without gloves. He said the callouses don’t go away during the offseason. The reason is obvious.
He never stops hitting.
REDBIRD CHIRPS
— The Cardinals could open the year with three members of their 2018 draft in the lineup—Nolan Gorman, Brendan Donovan and Lars Nootbaar—and three from their 2020 draft class on the roster in Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn and Alec Burleson.
— Righthander reliever Ryan Loutos’ route to major league spring training and a spot as an “emerging prospect” for the club has roots in another job he did for the Cardinals—in the front office. The first Washington University grad to sign a pro contract since 1997, Loutos was also hired as a programmer by the club’s analytics group to help them develop an app for players. That same offseason, he added 5 mph to his fastball and started a climb to Triple-A, the Arizona Fall League and a second big league camp this year.
