Considerations for the St. Louis Cardinals When Selecting a Free Agent Outfielder

I’m convinced he doesn’t have any sources of his own. so he only writes speculative crap (Pujols/Howard swap) or just polishes up other peoples stories.

they had a decision of extending one of Beltán and Mike Sweeney and chose Sweeney.

He has not been that consistent year-to-year with the bat and is quickly approaching a Schumaker level of defense as a first baseman. If he were going to sign for four or five years, maybe. But it will take six or more years to sign Fielder and we don’t have the DH to hide him once his defense falls to absolutely horrendous levels. I’d rather not pay $20MM+ over six or seven years on an already very poor defensive first baseman.

Even if he is a -10 center fielder, he is a tremendous value due to his bat. I also think you may be a little bit too high on Jon Jay. (For the record, I have a framed Jon Jay rookie card with the Topps Chief Justice John Jay historical trading card, so I understand this.) Ideally the Cardinals are signing Beltran to fill in for Craig while he is out and to supplant Jay in center once Craig returns.

Allen Craig also is above average. I say this about Craig based more on having seen him play the outfield for Memphis in the minors. It is fair to wonder how his mobility will be affected in 2012 by his knee injury, too. But I’d say he’s likely about average. I think it is completely baseless to compare Craig and Holliday to Schumaker and Theriot. It might be fair to compare Beltran to Schumaker or Theriot if they were capable of putting up a .400 wOBA (which they aren’t). It’s a much better comparison, IMO, to compare Beltran in center in 2012 to Berkman in right in 2011. Even with the defensive loss, Berkman was a 5.0-WAR player.

I agree that the glaring question regarding Beltran (as if was with Berkman in right field last offseason) is whether, at this point in his career and post-knee surgery, he is able to play center field. That’s always been the biggest “if” in signing him.

we know you are a closet jersery shore fan

But, yeah, Carpenter may be a better bench outfielder than Schumaker right now and likely will be better by midseason.

Living in a AAA town, I’ve been advocating for Craig at third base for years, then in the outfield, then at second base, but I just don’t think he is a legitimate option in center field. I’d have to do some googling but I believe both Mozeliak and Matheny have stated that Craig won’t be playing center field or second base next season. So I don’t think it’s a realistic idea.

That being said, Craig is likely as good if not better in center as Schumaker. He also might be as good or better in center than Beltran. But, it seems that baseball folks not named Tony La Russa don’t think in such terms. “Schumaker has played center field before. So has Beltran. So they can play center field in 2012.” This seems to be the logic. I’d be open to it, to be sure, but I think Beltran in center and Craig in right is “six” and Craig in center and Beltran in right is “half-a-dozen.”

There is a lot of money coming off the books in the next few years. Even at three years, the club can take some decline in value from Beltran.

I am not saying the Cardinals won’t be competitive in 2013 and beyond. What I am saying is that we have a great chance to win a World Series in 2012, especially with Beltran. Beltran is ideal because he is a free agent signing and we have money to spend. I agree wholeheartedly with Mozeliak that we should attempt to reload via free agency as opposed to trades because we have the money and we don’t want to trade away prospects. Signing Beltran, IMO, would offer a nice bridge to 2013 and 2014, too. It’s a win-win.

beltran deal hamstrings us in any way, unless he gets seriously injured. if he does, we got craig.

hamstring the team when we have an excess of cash now?

We didn’t hamstring ourselves with a 10Y$254M contract to Albert Pujols. So you should be happy there.

Carlos Beltran has a career wOBA of .372. Outside of Fielder, he’s the best offensive player left on that market, and one that can probably still play CF at a non-terrible level. I don’t see how giving a player of that offensive caliber is “hamstringing” the team when the value of his contract is likely $10M less annually and 7 years shorter than what we were about to pay Albert Pujols.

If anything, Beltran represents the ability to recover Pujols’ 5 WAR from 2011 while paying less money for it.

but also think it is legitimate to question how catcher defense ages. I’m inclined to believe that it declines like offense but perhaps less dramatically.

under the assumption that he’s been at least 5 runs better in every season defensively than what UZR allows him. I think this is an acceptable assumption given the constraints on measuring catcher defense.

Even when you do that, his best season tops out at 4.6 WAR (2011), and his average season jumps from about 2 WAR to around 2.75-3.00 WAR. So we’d be paying him roughly equal value to his average season at $12M AAV, assuming his defense is undervalued.

We’re talking about someone who’s only been better than league average offensively twice in his career, and has been near replacement level on offense the same number of times in 7 seasons. No catcher in the history of baseball has hit their “prime” seasons of value after 1000 games caught. It’s never happened. The majority of catchers go into a steep decline (usually in terms of games played, but also in terms of offense) once they hit 1000 games caught. Molina will hit 1000 games behind the plate in 2012 (he’s at 944 now).

FWIW — I can’t find a single catcher in the history of the game that was better offensively after 1000 games than he was before 1000 games. They all got worse, a lot of them got a lot worse, and some of them were done being productive players at age 33 or 34 due to injury and age. Considering that many of those players (Bench, Berra, Fisk, Porter, etc.) were far better offensively than Molina ever has been, they could get away with declining skills. Molina can’t. If his ability to make contact erodes even a tiny bit he becomes near worthless offensively.

2) Renaming them is very easy as long as it’s the same syllables. She’d probably answer to STELLLLLLLLLAAAAAA know

3) My next dog will be named Little Chief Clancy Wiggum and go by Wiggum.