Oscar Taveras will remain with St. Louis Cardinals in 2015

After an underwhelming rookie campaign, some in baseball have lowered their expectations for St. Louis Cardinals rookie Oscar Taveras, with many going so far as to suggest St. Louis GM John Mozeliak could trade the highly-touted prospect this offseason.

However, according to a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mozeliak has no intentions of dealing his young outfielder prior to the 2015 campaign, despite his struggles.

"“His season didn’t go as imagined,” Mozeliak said. “Until now, the game has always been easy for Oscar. And it isn’t easy to be successful in the major leagues. This is not the end of the world. If anything, it’s a blessing in disguise. Oscar is now well aware of what’s expected of him. He understands what he needs to do.”"

Prior to the 2014 season, Taveras was ranked as the third-best prospect in all of baseball, and he started things off with yet-another red-hot start for Triple-A Memphis, batting .318/.370/.502 across 62 games, hitting eight home runs and driving in 49 runs. He then earned a promotion to St. Louis, where he struggled to a .239/.278/.312 line in roughly half a season, hitting three home runs and driving in 22.

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In the postseason, he hit .429 in seven games for Mike Matheny‘s club, earning him praise from many around the organization, including Mozeliak. The 22-year-old will not, however, be trade bait, according to the head of the St. Louis front office, and is expected to compete with another highly-touted youngster, Randal Grichuk, for the right-field job next spring.

Despite the praise he’s earned during his minor league career, the Cardinals’ brain trust said this week that moving forward, Taveras will have to earn everything he’s given – including playing time – something that was noted by the report.

"Mozeliak hasn’t soured on Taveras. But he wants Taveras to push himself to become a more complete talent. And Mozeliak believes — as Matheny does — that Taveras must earn playing time instead of having everything handed to him."

After making yet another postseason appearance in 2014, the future remains bright for the Cardinals organization. However, the addition of a productive Taveras could take this team to a whole new level – which could set the team up for deep postseason runs in the years to come.