Better Know a Cardinal – Kolten Wong

Next up on Better Know a Cardinals we’re helping you better know Kolten Wong. The 5’9” Hawaiian made a name for himself in the postseason showing off some little man power with all 7 of his postseason hits being for extra base hits. Kolten looks to be dropping Wong balls as the everyday second baseman in 2015.

Going into the 2014 season, Wong was penciled in as the everyday starter at second base. Wong dealt with some consistency issues through the first part of the season, and was sent back to the AAA Memphis to get his confidence back. Which seemed to do the trick. Wong came back and got hot.

Month	HR
June	1
July	5
August	4
September	2
October	3

The Wongster finished the 2014 season third in the Rookie of the Year voting. Behind Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets and Billy Hamilton of the Cincinnati Reds.

Let’s take a closer look at Wong’s 2014 postseason. Here’s the stat line.

Series	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BA	SLG	OPS
NLDS	11	2	1	0	1	2	.185	.545	.727
NLCS	18	5	2	1	2	4	.278	.833	1.149

The average in the NLDS may not be great, but the .727 NLDS OPS and better yet the 1.149 OPS in the NLCS are not too shabby.

Plus there is always this swing.

What to Expect

If the postseason run is any indication, Wong won’t be struggling with the confidence issues that saw him spend 18 games down in AAA in 2014. He’s unlikely to keep up the power pace he was putting up in the playoffs, but it’s a safe bet to expect somewhere in the range of 10-15 homers from Kolten. Since he did put up 12 in 113 games in 2014. He also had 20 steals in 2014 so I’d expect him to better that number in 2015.

Rotochamp has his 2015 projections up as:

AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
505	62	13	51	23	.263	.307	.384	.691

We here at View From the Pine are expecting big things from Kolten Wong in 2015 as he continues to establish himself as a fan favorite. Birds.