Archive for Yadier Molina

It has been a tumultuous off-season for the World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals, as they lost their face of the franchise first baseman, their iconic manager, and a couple of key front office members. However, life goes on, and it is time for the Cards to focus on the players they do have on their roster. One of those players is catcher Yadier Molina, who, after having his team option picked up, is in the last year of his current contract. From a PR perspective, letting Molina walk – and essentially losing their top two homegrown players in consecutive off-seasons – would be a disaster, but does re-signing the 29-year-old backstop to a lucrative deal make sense for the Cardinals?

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While I’m sure they are still celebrating in St. Louis, reality is going to set in quick, as the Cardinals have a busy off-season ahead of them. Not only do they have to replace their hall-of-fame manager, but they have to decide what to do with the only first baseman the city has known for the better part of a decade: Albert Pujols.

There are numerous factors that are going to affect whether Pujols returns — and many of them difficult to quantify. Letting Pujols walk would be a public-relations nightmare, and it would certainly hurt the Cardinals at the gate – but I’m not going to pretend that I know what that magic number would be. There’s also the question of Pujols’ declining ability as he ages, and whether he will live up to what will inevitably be a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars. While I’m sure we’ll cover that topic in depth here at FanGraphs, that’s not what I want to cover today.

What I would like to suggest might sound blasphemous, but given the construction of their current roster — and downplaying the previously mentioned factors — it might not be the worst thing in the world for the Cardinals if Pujols walks away.

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The St. Louis Cardinals organization is already blessed with a talented backstop, but there is another talented catcher on his way to the big league club in the near future.

Yadier Molina, already in his fifth Major League season, is having a career year and just turned 26. He is currently hitting .312/.365/.399 with four homers in 276 at-bats. He has also walked 24 times with 14 strikeouts. Molina has improved for two years in a row, which helps to suggest that this is not a fluke season, as he heads into his playing prime. Defensively, there aren’t many, if any, catchers who offer his all-around skills behind the dish.

Molina’s current back-up is light-hitting veteran catcher Jason LaRue, who is having a ‘rejuvenated’ season at the age of 34 after hitting below .200 each of the last two years. LaRue, a free agent at the end of the season, is hitting .242/.339/.400 in just 95 at-bats. At Triple-A, minor league veteran Mark Johnson is a solid defensive catcher who could probably offer just about as much with the bat as LaRue and possibly more defensively.

Also at Triple-A is the Cardinals’ top catching prospect Bryan Anderson. The 21-year-old is still a little rough behind the plate (although he calls a great game) but you cannot argue with his offensive potential. He began the season at Double-A and hit .388/.412/.525 with two homers in 80 at-bats. Anderson was then promoted to Triple-A where he has hit .320/.396/.433 with one homer in 150 at-bats. He also has 18 walks and 23 strikeouts. He was originally selected in the fourth round out of high school in the 2005 amateur draft. Anderson’s lack of power is the only real smudge on his prospect status and he should be ready to apprentice with Molina as soon as the Cardinals decide to cut ties with LaRue.