Who Will Play Center in St. Louis?
Does anyone want to go to St. Louis? After losing Albert Pujols to the Los Angeles Angels, it was unclear how the reigning champs would respond this off-season. Instead of going after the other marquee free-agents, the Cardinals appear to be shoring up their team through smaller moves. With the uncertainty surrounding Allen Craig — who had knee surgery in November — the Cardinals are looking to add outfielders. The Cardinals have been linked to both Coco Crisp and Carlos Beltran in recent days. Would signing either player be a good decision for the World Series champs?
From an offensive standpoint, it makes the most sense to sign Beltran. While Crisp experienced a bit of a revival last season, Beltran could have been the comeback player of the year. Finally recovered from his knee injury, a rejuvenated Beltran hit .300/.385/.525 last season. Crisp, meanwhile, only managed to hit .264/.314/.379 — albeit in Oakland’s ballpark. By season’s end, Beltran was worth 4.7 WAR — his best performance since 2008 — while Crisp was only worth 2.2 WAR. Offensively, Beltran is the far superior option.
Problem is, the Cardinals lack a center fielder at the moment. Many analysts expected Jon Jay to be stretched in center, but UZR hasn’t taken issue with his play in the middle of the field. Jay hasn’t accumulated enough of a sample to make any definitive positions, but he would probably perform better in a corner outfield spot.
Signing Crisp seems to alleviate the Cardinals defensive issues. If the Cards sign Crisp, Jay would likely slide to right field to allow Crisp to play center. Over his career, Crisp has been considered a strong defensive center fielder — as evidenced by his career 67.1 UZR. Crisp does come with risks, however, as he posted a -5.5 UZR last season. If this is nothing more than a UZR fluctuation, Crisp will be fine. If it’s a sign of decline, the Cardinals will be much worse off with Crisp.
While Beltran also carries a strong career UZR rating, he hasn’t been the same player defensively since his knee injury. Over the past three seasons, the once exceptional defensive center fielder has posted a total UZR of -13.7. Nearly half of that negative UZR was accumulated last season — when Beltran played right field — meaning his time as a useful defensive player may have come to an end. At this point, he would be extremely stretched in center field, and it would be foolish to put him out there.
At the same time, the Cardinals were able to sneak into the playoffs despite one of the worst defenses in baseball last season. Hell, Lance Berkman was their right fielder! Even though it will take more money to sign Beltran he looks like a significant upgrade over Crisp offensively. And while Crisp might be a better defensive option, Beltran’s superior offense should be more than enough to make up that difference. The Cardinals can still play Jay in center — where he was acceptable last season. Signing Beltran may not ease the pain of losing Pujols, but it would be a step in the right direction for the Cardinals.
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
I don’t like either possible signing. One or two month into the season the Cardinals will have Holiday, Jay and Craig in the outfield, which should be good enough to content. While Jay maybe barely league average, he does not cost much. Spending big dollars for Crisp or Beltran is a waste in my mind. They should better sign a cheap 4th outfielder and spend the rest for an upgrade at 2nd or in pitching.
I don’t see the Cardinals being surefire contenders this year without a fairly significant influx of wins. They’ll be in the mix, sure, but more at the borderline than at the top of the heap in the NL Central. Beltran looks like a good fit, pushing Jon Jay back to the bench where he still belongs long term, and continuing the offense-first mentality which worked so well with Lance Berkman the right fielder last season.
People always say this every year regarding the Cards, and I don’t know why. They contend virtually every year. With the exception of 2007 they have been a contender every single year of the 2000s. Sometimes they fall off in September, but they always contend. The NL Central is as weak as it’s ever been, and Latos doesn’t even make the Reds a 90 win team without a few lucky breaks. Cards will contend, Pirates and ‘Stros will suck, and Cubs will play semi-mediocre baseball with the Crew and Reds being the variables. This is about as sure as death and taxes at this point.
Also, Jay is not a bench player with average defense in center, which all evidence points to him having. He’s a 3 win player over an entire season. While not a tremendous asset, that is certainly not a bench player.
Adam Wainwright + full-ish season from Furcal and they’ve made back a good chunk of Pujols right there (mostly from Wainwright of course).
Yet most analysts would consider Rasmus to be a really good CF?
I’m going with the conclusion that Jay is an adequate CF until proven otherwise.I’m not going to go with things like him not looking like a CF, or not having the speed to play CF, etc.
But, Jay on the bench where he belongs? Only if his true talent is in the 1-1.5 WAR range, and not the 3 WAR player he appears to be.
Even FG readers seem to be too much perception or feeling and not enough evidence.
Skip Schumaker is a 4th OF (if that). Jon Jay is a league average (or better) OF for dirt cheap.
I do agree that signing Beltran would likely be good for the cardinals, especially considering that Craig may be out for longer than initially thought.
Is Jay better in CF than Beltran by the metrics? They’re probably more similar fielders than not, with Jay getting the (unregressed) UZR nod.
I do like the idea of having a league average (or better) OF on the bench who can play all of the positions, as well as, allowing Craig to fill in at 1B on occasion, but it’s also somewhat foolish to pay Beltran a bigger contract to provide a smallish upgrade (if Beltran is 4 WAR and Jay is 3 WAR).
Of course, there’s also the situation of Craig perhaps not coming back as effective as he has been.
I will say, with Wain and Craig out for the start of the year, and Pujols with LAA, this has all the makings of yet another year where StL is supposed to finish 3rd or 4th, trail by a decent margin early in the year … and then make a “surprising” run in September, when all they really would have done is just gotten healthy and played to their average.
The fact someone is even mentioning a pie thrower like Crisp and Beltran as equivalent options, raises the serious question about Beltran as a realistic option. Someone needs to come clean on why Beltran is still on the market, and options like Cuddyer have already been exercised.
For my money, it’s there is serious doubt as to if Beltran can field effectively anymore. We saw a similar issue with Gary Sheffield a few years back when he had to take a weak contract with the Mets. In that case, the worries were accurate: despite putting up a 121 wRC+, Sheff could no longer get to catchable balls and gave back most of his value in the OF.
While I’m sure people don’t see Beltran being as bad as Sheff was then, they’re both guys with solid hitting ability and big worries at knee level. Given that Beltran is looking for $20m, I could see why teams might be hesitant. By comparison, Sheff barely even got a job that year.