Like his politicking brethren across the country, he stood at the podium and made his passionate plea: “Wong for leadoff, 2016!”

Second baseman Kolten Wong wants to be the Cardinals' table-setter for 2016, and stated his case while meeting with the media Sunday at the Winter Warm-Up.

“I would love to be leadoff,” the second baseman said. “Seeing what (Matt) Carpenter did last year, the power numbers he put up, man, you have me in leadoff, I'll get to scoring positions, and if I get to first and he hits it into the gap, I'm going to score. It's definitely adding different things to the lineup.

"If Mike (Matheny) has me at eight, I'm more than happy to be at eight, too. We'll see what happens, hopefully one will be the spot.”

Last season, Wong had 215 .at-bats as the first hitter, and put up a slash line of .247/.303/.400. Not exactly Tim Raines-type numbers.

He had five of his 15 stolen bases as the leadoff hitter, and asked about his goals for 2016, Wong said: “Definitely to get my stolen bases back up. I was kind of disappointed where I finished last year, I knew I could've done more. I started taking stupid risks and doing things that's not my game.