The Demise of Peter Bourjos in St. Louis

If you are a frequent user of this website, you likely know that on our player pages, you can find the five most-recently cited articles about a player — a mix of FanGraphs and RotoGraphs articles. Generally, a regular player will be written about at least five times a year. But when I sat down to write this piece, when I went to Peter Bourjos‘ page, the fifth article was Dave Cameron’s piece from Nov. 22, 2013, reacting to the news that Bourjos had been traded from Anaheim to St. Louis along with Randal Grichuk, for David Freese. That in and of itself is a bad sign. While we once thought of Bourjos as one of the game’s premier defenders, Bourjos — who was claimed this week via waivers by the Phillies — is an after-thought.

In that 2013 piece, Dave noted how Bourjos had basically become the best defensive center fielder in the game:

Since 2010, here are the top 5 center fielders in UZR/150 among players who have spent at least 2,000 innings in center field.

Peter Bourjos, +20.2
Carlos Gomez, +18.2
Jacoby Ellsbury, +13.7
Michael Bourn, +9.9
Denard Span, +9.5

The deal seemed like a great one for the Cardinals — and thanks to Grichuk, it may still be — but Bourjos never really held up his end of the bargain. In his four seasons with the Angels, he played 405 games — effectively two and a half seasons — and piled up 9.2 WAR. Not bad, right? That’s something between three and four WAR over a full season. Full seasons were hard to come by for Bourjos, though, which is why the playing time was spread out over four seasons. Still, hope sprung eternal when he landed in St. Louis.

Of note, Bourjos set a goal of stealing 40 bases in his first season in St. Louis. (Hat tip to Scott Perdue for the reminder) This was always going to be a bit of a stretch, as Bourjos, to that point, had just 41 stolen bases over his four-year career, against 13 times caught stealing. Clearly he had the speed, and a knack for stealing bases, but when your career high is 22 steals, shooting for 40 is a lofty goal.

That’s not really the point. The point is that he was excited. And the Cardinals appeared excited, as well. Bourjos started on Opening Day, and eight of the first 10 games in center. And then… he stopped playing. After those 10 games, Bourjos was hitting just .207/.258/.310, and while it was just 31 plate appearances, manager Mike Matheny had seen enough to know that he didn’t want Bourjos to be his everyday center fielder. Bourjos would start just six of the next 17 games in center, with Jon Jay logging the other 11 starts. And then Grichuk was called up. He and Jay would start the next five games, and then Bourjos reclaimed the job, as the Cards optioned Grichuk back to Triple-A. If this seems like an odd playing time pattern, well, let’s just say it wasn’t an isolated incident for Matheny.

The fact that Bourjos had gone 3-for-4 with a home run on May 7th may have contributed to Grichuk being sent back down. Following that game, Bourjos still wasn’t hitting very well — .217/.288/.350 in 66 PA — but something got him back in Matheny’s good graces. Over that month (May 9th-June 11th) Bourjos would start 21 of 31 games, in what amounted to his last shot at real playing time in St. Louis. Over the rest of the season, he only started three or more consecutive games on two occasions. The reason? He was even worse at the dish. After posting an 82 wRC+ through May 7th, he posted just a 70 wRC+ from May 9th to June 11th (.211/.274/.329). It was a very poor showing, and his four stolen bases didn’t exactly leave him on pace for his desired 40 bags.

That is essentially how the season went for Bourjos. At the end of the season, Jay had started 91 games in center to Bourjos’ 65, with three apiece for Grichuk and Oscar Taveras. While he didn’t land on the disabled list, he did have hip surgery in November, so it’s fair to wonder whether he was hurt during the season. If he was, though, it wasn’t enough to keep him out of the lineup.

In 2015, the story was much the same. A thumb and wrist injury to Jay got Bourjos some run in May, but he didn’t do much with it. He started losing playing time to Grichuk, and then even when Jay went down with another wrist injury, Bourjos had to compete for playing time with the venerable Tommy Pham. And Stephen Piscotty. And Jason Heyward. No one player would start 50 games in center for the Cardinals in 2015. In the postseason, three members of the Cardinals started in center field, and none of them were Peter Bourjos.

Perhaps the most damning thing about this sudden demise is that Bourjos was always available to play. He came to St. Louis with a reputation for being brittle, but in his two seasons in St. Louis, he never landed on the disabled list. He just had a hard time getting off the bench, and rightfully so. Especially in 2015, the Cardinals had plenty of good options in the outfield, and Bourjos became an afterthought. He struck out far more in St. Louis than he had in Anaheim, and he made soft contact far more frequently, mostly in the form of more infield fly balls. Of the 389 players that tallied at least 150 PA in 2015, only Jose Reyes hit a higher percentage of those dreaded infield fly balls than did Bourjos.

Perhaps most damning was the fact that he didn’t even play good defense in 2015. Now, it is probably true that only getting sporadic playing time makes it harder to get into a good rhythm both offensively and defensively, but when a one-time elite defender to put up negatives in both DRS and UZR, there’s a problem. The Cardinals were done trying to solve that problem, and ultimately got nothing for him, relinquishing him to the Phillies in a waiver claim earlier this week.

With the Phillies, Bourjos will potentially have the opportunity for more playing time, but nothing is certain. As Ryan Lawrence notes here, Odubel Herrera is likely to see plenty of time in center, and that might move Bourjos to a corner. And that might be odd, since Bourjos doesn’t really fit the profile of a corner outfielder. Not even a Brett Gardner-type of corner outfielder. Bourjos has a major league contract, but it’s just for $2 million, and if the rebuilding Phillies think they can better use that spot on a developing young player, Bourjos may be out of luck just as quickly in Philly as he was in St. Louis.

Ultimately, Peter Bourjos’ career path isn’t that uncommon. Most players don’t make it to the seventh year of their major league career. But in this case, it’s surprising. Bourjos was an elite defender, and still may be. He has four-win season under his belt, and usually players like that end up having decent careers. Bourjos’ has seemingly stalled out. It will be interesting to see if he can jump start it in Philly.