St. Louis Cardinals: Jordan Schafer is Rick Ankiel 2.0

In case you missed it, the St. Louis Cardinals announced on Monday that they were signing three players to minor league contracts (announced later that this number was actually five players to minor league deals).  One of these is essentially a reincarnation of an amazing OF/P.

The St. Louis Cardinals announced on Monday that they signed catcher Gabriel Lino, reunited with catcher Eric Fryer (I actually wrote about this need earlier on Monday), and signed LHP/OF Jordan Schafer all to minor league deals.

In addition to these, we have learned this morning that the Cardinals also signed LHP Daniel Schlereth and second baseman Dickie Joe Thon to minor league deals.  These signings indicate to me that something is coming and that GM Mozeliak is preparing the farm to should the load.  More on that later.

Let’s get back to the subject at-hand: the signing of Schafer.  Schafer, maybe the most intriguing name in this list (aside for Fryer to me who I really, really like), was a one-time outfielder who was transitioned to pitching by the Dodgers last season.  Remind you of anyone (just in reverse fashion)?  Reminds me of the great Rick Ankiel.

Let’s take a look at Schafer’s numbers.  First up, offense:

Not too great, no?  To better understand why the Dodgers would take the gamble on moving Schafer to the mound, let’s add in his defensive numbers in the outfield:

Noticed that Schafer’s career RF/9 and RF/G stats fall above the league average when he appeared in the outfield so he showed promise for six seasons.  Fangraphs awards him a career UZR of -0.7 in LF, -14.6 in CF, and 1.3 in RF.  So there it is.  That and his weakened batting stats shown above and one can see why the Dodgers might have taken the chance on him moving to the mound.

So let’s take a look at his mound stats:

A left-handed pitcher is often coveted and this could well have been one of the reasons for sending Schafer through the minors in 2016 to build and convert him to a pitcher.  While the sample size is very limited, it appears that there might be something here…

Any team would rather a pen arm surrender fewer hits per innings pitched but for a guy just learning the ropes on the mound, surrendering forty-one hits per forty innings in AA isn’t too terrible.  It will be interesting to see how the Cardinals will continue the experiment.

To that end, Derrick Goold suggested:

This all sounds eerily similar to the great Rick Ankiel who started his career as a pitcher but was rebuilt as an outfielder in order to continue his career.  For comparison sake, Ankiel’s career slash line was .240/.302/.422.  In the outfield, Ankiel was awarded a UZR of 1.7 in LF, -7.4 in CF, and -3.8 in RF.  As a pitcher, Ankiel posted a 3.90 career ERA across 242 innings.  See the similarities?

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Rick Ankiel played baseball professionally until he turned thirty-three; Schafer turned thirty at the tail end of the 2016 campaign.  While each player is different, perhaps the Rick-Ankiel-ization of Jordan Schafer will pay dividends for the next three years.

One last thing, I mentioned above that this loading of the farm- this addition of five new bodies to the farm- indicates to me that something is coming.  I feel that Mozeliak is loading on bodies to either make another move or to protect the team from the Astros penalties to come or next season’s new rules of the CBA.  I know we all hope that another big splash is coming, right?

Next: Ageless Yadier Molina

So what do you think?  Do you think Schafer could well be the next Rick Ankiel?  I will enjoy watching Schafer in Memphis this season and will keep you posted.  Thanks for reading!