The St. Louis Cardinals have used a trio of second basemen this year as they’ve muddled to a 58-49 record heading into play Sunday that mirrors the mess the team has at the second-base position.

It’s time for the Cardinals to make a playoff push, but to do so they will also need a regular second baseman who plays fantastic defense and can get a key hit when necessary. That player is Daniel Descalso.

Descalso was a key part to the Cardinals 2011 run to the World Series championship, and he could play an even more important role this year if manager Mike Matheny gives him the chance.

Descalso has always played stellar defense, and he has flashed the leather lately. He filled in at shortstop for Rafeal Furcal for five games last week against the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies. In those games he made two outstanding defensive plays. He also had six hits during the weekend agains the Milwaukee Brewers and made a couple more fabulous diving plays.

Part of the Cardinals troubles this year have stemmed from their inconsistency in the field. The Cardinals have committed 69 errors and their fielding percentage ranks 17th in Major League Baseball. Beyond the errors, there have been countless plays fielders simply haven’t made. They don’t count as an error, but the runner still gets on base or takes an extra base and quickly ends up in scoring position.

Sure, Descalso is hitting just .241 on the season, but he gets hits when they matter most. He is hitting .281 in the late innings of close games. Of regular starters, only Furcal and Yadier Molina have a higher batting average in those situations.

The other option for the Cardinals at second base is Skip Schumaker. He is hitting .319 on the season and plays solid defense. Unfortunately, both Descalso and Schumaker bat left-handed. That means Tyler Greene continues to get at-bats when the Cardinals face a left-handed pitcher even though he is hitting .222.

Greene has long been an enigma for the Cardinals and their fans. The Cardinals drafted Greene in the first round back in 2005, but he has failed to hit above his current .222 batting average in any of his four seasons with the club.

Yes, Greene has speed. He has stolen nine bases and been caught just twice, but he doesn’t get on base enough to utilize that speed. Also, when he gets on base he sometimes tries to do too much. He has twice been thrown out at the plate to end a game this season.

So, while Schumaker has the better offensive numbers, Descalso has the intangibles that help a team win ballgames.

Descalso doesn’t have to be the starting second baseman for the entire final two months of the season, but he does need to be on the field more often than not if the Cardinals are going to make a run at either the NL Central title or a wild-card berth.

If not, the frustrating inconsistent play that has plagued the first four months of the Cardinals 2012 season will prevent the team from making a run at the playoffs in the final two months.

Will David Freese build off his postseason success?

Had things gone slightly differently last season, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

Had the world champion St. Louis Cardinals not clawed back from 10½ games behind in the wild-card race with 31 games to play — or 8½ games back with 21 to play, or three back with five to play — to sneak into the playoffs on the last day of the regular season, David Freese wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion as fantasy owners prep for draft day.

David Freese earned MVP honors in both the NLCS and World Series, but is that enough for fantasy owners to make him a top option at a weak third base position?

Entering 2011, Freese barely cracked the ESPN top-20 rankings at third base, and he did little during the regular season to boost his stock, finishing outside the top 250 on the ESPN Player Rater and ranking just 22nd among third basemen by hitting .297 with 10 dingers and 55 RBIs in 333 at-bats.

Oh, what a difference a few extra weeks can make. Freese looked like a different player over the course of the Cardinals’ 18-game postseason run, batting .397 with five home runs and a playoff-record 21 RBIs and earning MVP honors in both the NLCS and World Series. Not only that, but his game-tying, two-run triple in the bottom of the ninth inning (with two outs and two strikes, no less) and his game-winning, walk-off homer in the bottom of the 11th in Game 6 to force a Game 7 will go down as two of the biggest postseason hits of all time, which could inflate Freese’s draft day price tag by themselves.

The first problem with gleaning too much from Freese’s postseason outburst is obviously the small sample size. An 18-game hot streak in June or July, no matter how impressive, would go largely unnoticed in the grand scheme of a 162-game season, so we shouldn’t put extra stock into a hot streak that happens in October. One can argue that a hot streak late in the season is more telling than one in the middle of the year, as I suppose it’s more likely to be a sign of growth, but there isn’t precedence for players showing new skills in October and having them carry over into the following season. In 2008, for example, B.J. Upton hit just nine home runs in 531 regular-season at-bats and then went on to hit seven homers in 66 at-bats in the postseason, causing many to predict that we’d see a power surge in 2009. Upton did eventually cash in on some of his untapped power potential, but it didn’t happen in 2009, when he hit just 11 dingers in 560 at-bats.

So if we remove last year’s postseason from the equation and take a step back to get a big-picture, helicopter view, what do we see? Despite turning 29 years old in late April, Freese has just 604 big league at-bats under his belt over three seasons. And that leads us into the major concern with Freese: his ability to stay healthy. The Cardinals third baseman missed more than half of the 2010 season with an ankle injury, and a left hand injury sidelined him for 51 games last year, not to mention a concussion that forced him to miss time in August. We currently have him projected for 470 at-bats — a plateau he could very well reach — but if we’re simply going off his big league track record, expecting even that many may be optimistic.

Injuries aren’t the only problem when evaluating Freese. Despite the .794 slugging percentage in the playoffs last year, there are questions about how much power potential he really possesses. While Freese hit 26 home runs at Triple-A in 2008, he hasn’t hit more than 13 homers in a season since and has just 15 dingers in 604 big league at-bats. Yes, part of that is attributed to his inability to stay healthy, but the metrics don’t say there’s a ton of power upside here. Last year’s fly ball rate was just 23.1 percent — down from 29.1 percent in 2010 — and his 16.7 percent HR/FB rate could regress in 2012, which obviously doesn’t bode well for a future power spike.

That said, we shouldn’t completely rule out the possibility for some future power growth, either. At nearly 29 years old, Freese is in his hitting prime, and it’s fair to assume that his power numbers last year were at least somewhat negatively affected by his hand injury. He wouldn’t be the first player to have some of his power sapped by a hand or wrist injury, after all.

As mentioned, Freese hit 26 homers in 131 Triple-A games in 2008, so it’s not like he’s never shown the ability to hit for power. And while his isolated power (which measures a player’s raw power in terms of extra-base hits) last year was just .131, he posted a .238 ISO in 664 Triple-A at-bats between 2008 and 2009. That’s not to say his minor league power will ever fully translate, but let’s face it, he probably hasn’t even been in the big leagues long enough for us to make that determination considering we’ve basically seen only one full season’s worth of playing time from Freese. Heck, it took former top prospect Alex Gordon nearly 1,500 big league at-bats before he finally put things together last season, and Freese wasn’t even half the prospect Gordon was. A full season of at-bats — still far from guaranteed, obviously — could result in a level of power production we haven’t yet seen from him at the big league level.

If all else fails, there’s one thing Freese has already proved he can do, and that’s hit. Despite a less-than-ideal contact rate (77 percent) in his big league career, he boasts a .298 batting average in 604 career at-bats, he improved his strikeout rate last year, and had he qualified, his 24.6 percent line-drive rate would’ve ranked fifth in the National League. He was also a career .307 hitter with a .384 OBP in the minors. Perhaps his batting average last year was aided by his .356 batting average on balls in play, but he’s been a high BABIP guy his entire professional career, so that’s not a huge concern. Projecting Freese to settle in as a .280-.300 hitter seems like a safe bet.

However unlikely it may be, the absolute best-case scenario with Freese in 2012 is that he stays healthy all year, shows growth in the power department and continues to hit for average. Should all of that happen, the result could be something close to a .300 average with 20-25 homers and 90-100 RBIs. Those numbers would mirror the season fantasy owners just got from Aramis Ramirez, who hit .306-26-93 last year and was a top-five fantasy third baseman. The odds are that Freese will fall well short of those numbers (particularly the home run total), whether because of injury or simply failing to produce, so don’t draft him with that kind of production in mind. Still, it’s reasonable to think there could be some untapped potential in Freese’s bat, with the upside being a top-10 fantasy third baseman, and potentially more given the lack of many high-end options at the position.

Based on current ADP data at Mock Draft Central, Freese is being drafted 162nd overall and 11th at third base. That’s several spots higher than our ESPN rankings, which rank him 16th at the position. (Note: ESPN live draft data will be available in early March.) This means that, in a standard 10-team league, Freese can generally be drafted in the 17th round or later. For the injury risk involved, that’s not a bad spot. If you’re going to draft Freese, it’s best to plan for some time on the disabled list and not expect more than the 10-15 home run power he’s displayed thus far. That way you won’t be disappointed if the injury bug bites again or he fails to make strides in the power department, and you still have some potential upside built into his draft slot if everything goes right.

David Freese is the subject of the April 2012 Computer Desktop Calendar from D-Two.net.  Get yours here.

Six games?

That’s all Mike Aviles gets as a starter at third base? Six measly games?

Aviles, the fan favorite who has put together a couple of really nice seasons for the Royals at different positions on the infield, struggled at the plate and in the field through the opening homestand in 2011. In game 7, when the Royals traveled to Detroit for their first road trip of the year, Aviles was benched in favor of career journeyman Wilson Betemit.

Now, Aviles will probably be back as a starter, maybe even as soon as today. But to bench a guy for two consecutive games after only six is a little surprising. Let’s give this guy a chance to break out of the slump on his own.

The thing I love about Aviles is he doesn’t hold sacred any set routine when it comes to his approach at the plate. If he doesn’t like his stance, he’ll reposition his feet and take a few swings that way. If his bat doesn’t feel right, he’ll borrow one from somebody else. The other day he ditched his batting gloves and took a few at-bats George Brett style.

What this means is Aviles can tweak himself out of this slump. And I’m sure, given time, he will, and he’ll be the .299 hitter we all know and love.

As far as his defensive struggles go, those will work themselves out, too. He’s clearly not comfortable at third base. Which is fine – the position won’t be his for long anyway, since hotshot prospect Mike Moustakas is bound to be promoted to the majors by mid-season.

When that happens, Aviles will be in head-to-head competition with Chris Getz for the starting second base position. And with the way Getz is playing right now (which is to say terrifically), there’s no competition.

But who wants to bet that Getz will have better offensive stats than Aviles by the All Star Break?

I didn’t think so.

However, if Aviles stays on the bench and Getz continues to play passably…

Well, folks, we could be watching the end of Mike Aviles in a Royals uniform.

Maybe the humane thing to do would be to let him play every day until Moustakas arrives. By then, perhaps his stats will be good enough (and opposing general managers’ memories will be long enough) that the Royals can flip Aviles to a contender looking for middle infield help and a little offensive pop down the stretch.

Matt Kelsey is a Royals writer and associate editor for I-70 Baseball. He can be reached at mattkelsey14@yahoo.com.

Amidst rumors of superstar players, minor league prospects and players that may or may not be on the move, it was Kansas City that opened the market for our two I-70 baseball clubs.

The Royals have agreed to send Alberto Callaspo to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in exchange for Sean O’Sullivan and Will Smith, both pitchers.

Callaspo has played third base primarily this season for the Royals though in 2009, he patrolled the second base position at Kauffman Stadium. Callaspo is a lifetime .275 hitter over 4+ seasons, while hitting .275 with 8 home runs and 43 runs batted in in 2010. Callaspo began his career being signed as a non-drafted free agent by the Angels in 2001 before being traded prior to the 2006 season to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks would then trade him to the Royals in December of 2007 where he would play for two and a half years up until now.

Sean O’Sullivan joins the Royals bullpen in only his second year in the major leagues. In 2009, O’Sullivan arrived in Los Angeles as a right handed starter, throwing in 12 games and starting 10 of them. With a 5.92 earned run average and a four win, two loss record, he was shifted to the bullpen this season, where he has found some success. He has appeared in five games, starting one, and posted one win, no losses and a 2.08 earned run average. He projects to start for the Royals on Sunday in New York. His only start this season was this past Tuesday, as he beat the Yankees in New York pitching six innings and giving up two runs.

Will Smith was drafted by the Angels in the seventh round of the 2008 Amateur Draft. Finding his way through the system quickly, Smith has played for three levels of the minor league system for the Angels this season. The lefty amassed a collective record of five wins, eight losses, a 5.53 earned run average, striking out 79, walking 42 all over 109 innings pitched. A 1.615 WHIP suggests that he is not quite ready to join the Royals, but he is an intriguing prospect that could be on the team as they break camp in 2011.

Stay tuned to I-70 Baseball as we try and stay on top of the moves the Cardinals and Royals make going into the non-waiver trade deadline.