St. Louis Cardinals Top Five Offseason Priorities
By Tim Haberin
Acquire a Center Fielder
Perhaps the most pressing and intriguing question for the St. Louis Cardinals to answer this offseason is what to do with the outfield. They have already announced they will not be picking up their option on Matt Holliday, effectively ending the aging veteran’s tenure with the franchise. Brandon Moss will also be a free agent, and though he finished second on the team with 28 home runs this year, he doesn’t bring much else to the table (.225/.300/.484 slash) and at 33 years old, he isn’t the youngest guy anymore either.
The Cards seem likely to move Randal Grichuk out of center field and into left, replacing him with either a plus defender or bat (or preferably some combination of the two). The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold has pegged the Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon and White Sox’s Adam Eaton as potential trade acquisition candidates.
Grichuk showed some pop at the plate this season with 24 homers, but his defense in center wasn’t particularly noteworthy (1.0 UZR/150). While Eaton rates as one of the best defensive right fielders in the league (25.5 UZR/150), he doesn’t rate nearly as good in center (-0.3 UZR/15). Neither does Blackmon (-11.9 UZR/150). Blackmon, however, is coming off a career year at the plate, slashing .324/.381/.552 with 29 home runs and 82 RBI. And don’t dismiss those numbers as inflated by Coors Field either: his OPS was only .013 points lower on the road, and he actually hit five more home runs as a visitor.
If the Cards could pry Blackmon away from Colorado (easier said than done – they won’t lack for suitors), he should provide them a major boost in offense over what they got this year from Holliday, and probably Moss as well.
All defensive statistics courtesy of Fangraphs.com.
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