Jon Jay, St. Louis Cardinals reach two-year agreement

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The St. Louis Cardinals and outfielder Jon Jay have reached a two-year agreement, the club announced today. In agreeing to the deal, both Jay and the Cardinals have managed to avoid a salary arbitration hearing previously scheduuled for next week.

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While financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the two-year deal is worth an estimated $10.975 million according to Jennifer Langosch of MLB.com. This keeps Jay signed with the Cardinals through the 2016 season. Following the season, he will be a free agent. Magneuris Sierra is expected to take over in center field but not until the 2018 season at the earliest.

With Jay’s agreement now out of the way, there are no more unsigned arbitration-eligible players for the Cardinals.

A Miami native, Jay was drafted by the Cardinals in 2006. Over the past five seasons, the left-handed hitter owns a .295 career batting average, which ranks 8th amongst all outfielders for the last five years. In 2014, Jay hit a team-high .303 but because of platooning with Peter Bourjos and other outfielders, Jay fell 34 plate appearances short of qualifying amongst the league leaders in batting. During the postseason, he hit .483, the second-highest batting average in a single postseason in MLB history according to the club’s release (Baseball Reference doesn’t have Jay’s name listed in their top ten for batting average in a single season.

During the 2012 season, Jay didn’t commit an error and became only the third Cardinals outfielder to do just that. Since 2010, Jay owns a .995 fielding percentage mark. From Aug. 25, 2011 to July 29, 2013, Jay set a a franchise-record 245-game errorless streak by an outfielder.

Jay scored the tying run of the 10th inning during the World Series Game 6 comeback in 2011 against the Texas Rangers.

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