What is the better centerfield option for the St. Louis Cardinals — Carlson or O’Neill?

As of the morning of April 10, Dylan Carlson is the best option defensively for the St. Louis Cardinals in centerfield. They’re aware of it — arguably even taunted by it — and still have made the decision through their first nine games to use Tyler O’Neill as their starter in center.

They are intentionally sacrificing small percentages in early season games in the hopes they will see payoffs down the stretch when the games really matter. It can be argued as an investment. It might also be robbing Peter to pay Paul. To avoid the latter, it has to work in practice the way it looks on paper.

“You have to be patient,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said before Sunday’s game from his office at American Family Field, perhaps reminding himself as much as the reporters in the room.

“Dylan’s playing really good defense. I mean, anyone with eyes can see that he’s playing really good defense. But if you’re wanting to see what Tyler’s capable of in center, then you have to wait and see what he’s capable of doing. Metrically, I get it. We’re all looking at the same thing. Underlying skills, there’s upside in Tyler and seeing if Tyler can play center.”

The underlying skills — underlying skill — most relevant to the decision: speed. O’Neill is in possession of the sort of raw, elite speed that Carlson, a strong runner himself, can’t match. That is of course not the only variable which goes into determining the superior centerfielder, but it is arguably the least teachable and most static. The Cardinals, possessed of the data underneath each step the two take, have projected forward into the fielder O’Neill could be with a nip here and a tuck there.

Put it another way — if they believe O’Neill is almost as good as Carlson before he sands down his rougher edges as a defender, then he should exceed his competition once those spots are smoothed out.

Some of the numbers on their side are public. O’Neill’s career best average sprint speed is a flat 30 feet per second in 2019, which was 11th in MLB that season. The next year he decelerated to 29.6 ft/second, but improved relative to his competition, moving up to sixth on the league-wide leaderboard.

Carlson, in 2022, topped out at 28.1 ft/second, 168th in MLB. His fastest year relative to others was also 2020; he was 118th that year.

The problem with the persuasiveness of that data is it’s very hard to see. Breakdowns of footspeed on that level require precise timing and high speed cameras, and anyone watching a game on TV is capable of seeing O’Neill take an awkward route to a ball in the gaps, or cringing at a ball to center which seemingly hangs up long enough to be caught but instead falls to the grass.

Perhaps more to the point, those watching see O’Neill. They haven’t, in large measure, seen Carlson; he’s started only four of the team’s first nine games, and only two of those four games in center. In neither of those two starts in center was O’Neill also in the lineup; Carlson has played left field in the two starts they’ve shared.

It’s easy to assume the backup quarterback is better than the guy under center, because he hasn’t been seen failing. That effect is magnified in this case, given that the backup has played the spot before to great success.

“You don’t learn top speed,” Marmol said. “It’s very difficult to gain a real advantage in getting faster. So when you have that, if you can clean up some of the other stuff, then you have a real centerfielder. But in order to do that, you’ve got to go out there and play it, and give yourself a real chance at it.”

Stat, stats and more stats

Through nine games, measured by Statcast, O’Neill has had 16 attempts in center field. He’s successfully converted 75% of those attempts against an expected conversion rate of 80%; simple math says he’s missed one net play he would otherwise have been expected to make, and so it’s not surprising that his early outs above average total in center is -1.

Carlson has converted all seven of his attempts in center. His estimated success rate on those plays is 82%, making him worth one out above average thus far. It’s a swing of two outs between them over a combined sample of 23 plays. So it’s not surprising, then, that the gap looks wide to the naked eye.

For his career, over 362 attempts in center, Carlson has racked up five outs above average. O’Neill, in 58 attempts, has the same total of -1. That’s the gap that the team has to cross for their current gamble to make sense.

There are, of course, many more variables at play. The full formula the Cardinals use in evaluating outfielders is proprietary, so Marmol has some limitations in what he can describe in his defense. That also makes the information, to some extent, non-falsifiable, which works to the benefit of the team’s opinion.

More about outfield situation

Jordan Walker also exists, and has taken up permanent residence in the right field corner that might otherwise hold Carlson. O’Neill, too, has expressed a preference for playing center, and the team is inclined to consent to those wishes, even if the public prodding of his effort level was in part an attempt to remind him that he’s been given the opportunity he desired.

That opportunity won’t be fruitful if it doesn’t play to the best possible conditions. That, in other words, is what speed do. Or, it has to, or the Cardinals will end up looking like a team which unnecessarily spun very fast-moving wheels.

“If you could clean up some of the route and first step stuff, then it would show that (O’Neill)’s ability to go and get a baseball is one of the top in the league,” Marmol said.

They would prefer, on the whole, if the clean up followed as quickly as the feet.