The Cardinals selected West Virginia middle infielder JJ Wetherholt with the No. 7 pick in the 2024 MLB draft Sunday night. Wetherholt entered the spring as a candidate to go No. 1 overall, though a serious hamstring injury cut essentially his junior year in half with the Mountaineers.
CBS Sports ranked Wetherholt as the No. 6 prospect in the draft class. Here's what you need to know:
Wetherholt ranked No. 1 on our preseason list thanks to a polished offensive skill set, and on talent alone he deserves to be higher than this. Unfortunately, he was sidelined for nearly two months after injuring his hamstring during Opening Weekend. That absence limited him to about a half-season's worth of at-bats; worse yet, it provided other top prospects the opportunity to leapfrog him, if only because of the perception they had greater momentum. Wetherholt should still come off the board in the top 10 and perhaps much earlier than that, in the process becoming the highest selected Mountaineer in program history. He combines an excellent feel for the barrel with an impressive command over the strike zone, convincing some evaluators to slap 70-grade projections on his hit tool. The one offensive area where he lacks is slugging capacity; it's possible his in-game power peaks at average. Plenty of other second basemen -- and that's still held as his likely defensive landing spot -- have made careers from similar profiles, including Nico Hoerner and Andrés Giménez. Wetherholt should be able to do the same.
Wetherholt slashed .331/.472/.589 with eight home runs and nearly twice as many walks (30) as strikeouts (17) in 36 games this year. He is the first West Virginia player selected in the first round since the Toronto Blue Jays used the No. 11 pick on Alek Manoah in 2019. Wetherholt is West Virginia's first first-round position player since Joseph Honce went No. 12 to the Minnesota Twins in 1973.
"JJ is ready to begin playing and we're ready to start his on-boarding process," Cardinals Assistant General Manager and Director of Scouting Randy Flores said in a statement. "We like the steps he's taken to meet the rigors of the game. He takes what's given to him. He (plays) up the middle, is athletic, has good hands, speed and makes good contact. JJ knows the zone and has a left-handed swing that does damage. He doesn't chase and has the ability to impact the ball with a wood bat and can hit it out opposite and to the big part of the field."
