Going into this season, the Cardinals were dealing with the large vacancy at 1st base left by Paul Goldschmidt, who'd been a gold-glover and MVP there since 2019. The decision to fill it by moving Willson Contreras out from behind the plate was left with some head-scratching. Yes, he's been getting injured back there more and more frequently, and this move would definitely contribute to a longer career, especially since he's still hitting as well as he did as a catcher. But also...not every catcher is destined to be a decent corner infielder.
Obviously the best example is Carlos Santana, who kept getting reps at 1st and after about 8 years he developed into a trustworthy and gold-glove caliber defensive player. You can also talk about your numerous players who came into the league as catchers and ended up finding fame at other positions, like Craig Biggio and Bryce Harper. But for every one of those, there's a Johnny Bench in 1981, or a Victor Martinez late career year, or a Mike Stanley in the late 90s. And even Joe Mauer was...decent at best as a first baseman. Not as good as he was as a catcher, but holding his own.
So, by that metric, Willson Contreras's first full year at 1st base has been supremely okay. He's serviceable at 1st, but he leads the league in errors there. He's hitting .258 with 16 homers and 64 RBIs, but his WAR is looking like it'll be his lowest over a full season of work yet. By the metric of this specific Cardinals team, he's a standout and an integral player, but the team's WAR leader is Masyn Winn with a 2.6. This is not the most terrific Cardinals team, and this is not the best Contreras has been for the Cardinals. So...this may be the gig. He gets to play more often and hit more often, but he's not the player the Cardinals signed all that money to replace Yadier Molina.
And for the record, the Cardinals' current catching battery is Ivan Herrera, who's an excellent hitter but subpar behind the plate, Pedro Pages, who's decent behind the plate but can't hit, and Yohel Pozo, who's mediocre all over. So when I hear that Yadi himself is gonna be a guest coach this week, I assume it's to whip these amateurs into shape. They had one of the best catchers in history for nearly 20 years, and now it's a merry-go-round of 'well he's around'. At least Mariano Rivera gave the ball to a legacy of strong closers like David Robertson, Rafael Soriano, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman before things went off the rails 10 years later. This is way too soon!
Beyond this, the Cardinals are just sort of bobbing along this year. They're not really expected to favor heavily into the wild card race, they've really struggled since the ASG break, they lost their closer and a few other pitching guys, and they have to play a bunch of competitors in the next few weeks [and the Rockies]. I guess they could wander into some momentum but aside from Winn, Donovan and Contreras, I really don't know what this team's identity is.
Coming Tomorrow- A guy who's become one of the most overqualified utility infielders in baseball.
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