MILWAUKEE — His ailing right knee not recovering the way it had weeks earlier when he repeatedly played through the pain, Masyn Winn’s stellar defensive season ended prematurely on Friday night when the Cardinals decided to shut the standout shortstop down.
Winn, MLB’s co-leader in Outs Above Average with star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and the favorite to win the National League’s Platinum Glove award, will miss the final 14 games of the season because of a lingering pain in his right knee that has already been diagnosed as having a torn meniscus that will require offseason surgery. Winn, 23, took ground balls before Friday’s 8-2 loss to the Brewers, but he was scratched from the starting lineup because of lingering pain. That prompted the Cardinals to end the shortstop’s historic defensive season prematurely.
“It was somewhat emotional because he wanted to get back [to St. Louis] and play there, but at this point we’re going to make the call to call it a year,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of the pregame meeting he and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak had with Winn in the visiting clubhouse. “He’s always going to want to go — that’s just the way he’s wired and why I love him. But it makes the most sense to go ahead and shut him down.”
In his second full MLB season, Winn made his biggest strides defensively while dazzling almost nightly at shortstop. In 129 games (127 starts), Winn committed just three errors in 501 total chances. His three errors at arguably the game’s most demanding position match the error totals of Cal Ripken (1990) and Omar Vizquel (2000), the fewest by an MLB shortstop, per MLB.com research.
If Winn wins the first Gold Glove award of his promising career, he will become the eighth to do so while playing fewer than 1,110 innings. National Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith (1,065 1/3 innings in 1984) and Alan Trammell (993 innings in 1984) are on that list. Winn, whose third error of the season came only after MLB overruled a decision by the official scorer on Aug. 19 in Miami, played 1,107 2/3 innings defensively this season.
“He’s the best shortstop in the game,” said Marmol, who noted that there is no timetable as to when Winn will undergo surgery to repair the tear in the meniscus.
For the time being, the Cardinals will turn over full-time shortstop duties to rookie Thomas Saggese, who was 0-for-4 in Friday’s loss, but had four putouts and three assists defensively. Saggese, who has split time at third base, second base and shortstop this season, marveled at the role that Winn had on the team this season — even while playing in pain much of the past two months. Winn recently said that he received a pain-killing injection in the knee during the break for the MLB All-Star Game, but the pain and swelling in the knee has only intensified in recent weeks.
“It’s been very impressive to see him go out and make every play and the consistency with his abilities,” said Saggese, who has committed just one error in his 117 innings at shortstop (19 games, 12 starts) this season. “The consistency that Masyn has had with the spectacular plays and the routine plays, he makes it all look easy. And you almost forget that he’s doing all of this on a bum knee, which makes it even more impressive.”
Added Cardinals pitcher Andre Pallante, who surrendered four hits, four walks and four earned runs in Friday’s loss to the Brewers: “He’s been so amazing defensively at shortstop and it’s going to hurt to lose him for the rest of the season. It definitely hurts not having someone so good at shortstop.”
At the plate, Winn slashed .253/.310/.363/.675 with nine home runs, 27 doubles and 51 RBIs. He opened the season in a 0-for-19 slump, but soon broke out of it and hit .322 with a .922 OPS that included three home runs and three doubles in April. Then, he was the hottest just after the All-Star break and batted .292 with eight doubles and nine RBIs in July.
Though he fell well short of his preseason goal of stealing 30 bases, Winn made major strides with his offensive approach at the plate, Marmol said. The shortstop also affirmed the manager’s belief that he is the kind of game-changing player that the Cardinals can build around for years to come.
“He’s a stud, man, and to do it the last couple of months feeling the way that he did, that was pretty fun to watch,” Marmol said. “Even with the knee [pain], he was out there working at it every day. The amount of focus and attention to detail that it takes to pull that off is incredible.”
