St. Louis Cardinals: Evaluating the arbitration eligible players

Aug 2, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals first basemen Brandon Moss (21) signs autographs for fans before the game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Colorado Rockies at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

The St. Louis Cardinals enter this offseason with seven arbitration eligible players. What will the team do with these players? Will some of them get deals and some sent packing? What can be expected for these players next season?

These seven players find themselves in an interesting spot for next season, as it really is make or break time for some of them in terms of their status on the team. The players at hand are Peter Bourjos, Matt Adams, Steve Cishek, Tony Cruz, Seth Maness, Brandon Moss, and Trevor Rosenthal. You could make a case for each of these guys to be given team friendly deals and allow them all to come back and make their case to make the team out of spring training.

You could also make a case for most of these players to be non tendered or traded, except for Rosenthal that is (he’s not going anywhere, despite his heartburn inducing saves). What I want to do here is discuss what it would take to get this player a deal from the club and offer my opinion what I believe the team will ultimately decide to do with said player. It is baseball, so anything can happen. Let’s take a look at what we have here.

Next: Trevor Rosenthal

Aug 17, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Trevor Rosenthal (44) celebrates with catcher Yadier Molina (4) after closing out the ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals defeated the Giants 2-1. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Trevor Rosenthal

The team will be placed with an interesting decision here. Should they lock up the young exciting closer, with a fastball that touches triple digits? Or, should they instead give him a one year deal to avoid arbitration for one year and look to lock him up next season?

I think the precedence has been set here for Trevor, he and his agent will likely point to what the team did with Lance Lynn last season and look for a deal similar to get Rosenthal paid and help the team avoid going to arbitration.

He does have a bit to bargain with, as he did have the best season of any Cardinals’ closer ever, with 48 saves and an ERA of 2.10. I talked more about Rosenthal’s great season when I did my season review, a couple weeks back. Rosenthal is worth every bit of what he potentially gets this season, but it won’t be that big of an upgrade and the Cardinals’ will get a fair deal out of it despite Rosenthal’s agent being Scott Boras.

Next: Peter Bourjos

Sep 28, 2014; Phoenix, AZ, USA; St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Peter Bourjos (8) reacts after striking out in the second inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Peter Bourjos

We’ve already seen the team rid themselves of  Pete Kozma  similar t0 the way they did to Daniel Descalso last season. So, the team is not hesitant to cut potential dead weight on the roster. What has Bourjos shown us the past two season that shows he has more to offer than the likes of Tommy Pham, Stephen Piscotty, or even Charlie Tilson?

Bourjos really hasn’t gotten a fair crack at being a key player on this team.Once the month of August started, Bourjos was not in the picture much, and once Pham started hitting and Jon Jay came back, Bourjos was reduced to pinch running on most nights.

He hasn’t exactly made the most of his time or given Mike Matheny a reason to start him regularly either. In 117 games and just shy of 200 at-bats, Bourjos had a slash line of .200/.290/.333 with 15 extra-base hits. The worst statistics Bourjos owns are his base running stats, Bourjos was 5-13 in steal attempts this season. Overall, Bourjos had -0.7 baserunning runs above average.

While there is seemingly no room for the speedy center fielder on the St. Louis Cardinals’ roster, he does have value. I simply cannot see the team cutting bait with Bourjos here as they did with Kozma, but at the same time I don’t see him being with this team come March.

I believe the Cardinals will attempt to offer him a deal that would be appealing to another team, as I believe Bourjos is a prime candidate for a trade this off-season. He’s a really good defensive center fielder, who could have a shot at better offensive success on a different club.

Next: Matt Adams

May 1, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams (32) celebrates after hitting a walk-off single off of Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Rob Scahill (52) during the tenth inning at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals won 2-1. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Matt Adams

I talked at length about the potential behind Matt Adams before he came off of the disabled list. I simply cannot see the club giving up on the player they talked so highly about for so long. We have all seen what Adams can do when he’s at his best, unfortunately for him he’s just not going to get the opportunity to run away with the position unless he has an amazing spring with Piscotty likely going to get a shot to be the starter there, assuming Jason Heyward resigns with the team.

We saw how much Matt Holliday struggled with the same quad injury when he came back and Adams’ was more severe and required more time on the DL. So, I do have some optimism that Adams can come back and be the Cardinals’ Mike Moustakas, who had a breakout year after struggling in his first few seasons in the big leagues.

With that said, Adams will likely get a one year deal to buy out this year of arbitration. The club could look to deal him in the right deal, as again I believe Adams at this point in his career still has great potential. He has four more years before he becomes a free agent, so if a club really wants to take a shot at bringing Adams on board and offers Mo the right price, he could be gone by this time next year. However, I don’t see this happening with first base being a hole for the team right now and potentially being a hole once Piscotty moves into the outfield either this season or when Holliday is no longer occupying left field.

Next: Seth Maness

Oct 10, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Seth Maness (61) delivers a pitch during the sixth inning in game two of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Seth Maness

The double play specialist had some hard luck this year, as he finished the season with an ERA of 4.26, in comparison to last year’s 2.91 and 2.32 the year before. The good thing for Seth is that he is young (27) and should have no worries about wearing down just yet, although the increased WHIP is a bit of a concern as well as his decreasing ground ball percentage. These numbers and the increased SIERA, FIP, and xFIP will be the reason the team will only buy out the one year of arbitration and give the young right hander a bump in pay from his current $530,000 contract.

You just don’t see middle relievers get massive contracts and there’s no reason to expect the Cardinals to rush to buy out Seth’s remaining arbitration years, or offer him a large multi-year deal to stay in St. Louis. Maness won’t be a free agent until 2020, so any bargaining power him and his agent have really is slim.

Next: Brandon Moss

Aug 2, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals first basemen Brandon Moss (21) celebrates with teammates after hitting the game-winning hit against the Colorado Rockies at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Brandon Moss

This is an intriguing one. I really could see this going multiple different ways. The Cardinals did use a top prospect to acquire Brandon Moss before the deadline in Rob Kaminsky, so I could see that as being a reason the team would like to see him back in St. Louis next season. We all expected more out of Moss than the 12 extra-base hits that he provided with his .250 average. However, for some reason I think that Moss could potentially be a valuable asset for the Cardinals.

I could see Moss coming in a chipping in 10-15 homers off of the bench with about a .260 average (yes I am being optimistic) and somewhere around 80-100 strikeouts in about 200-250 at-bats. However, Moss is on the wrong side of 30 and has not shown great ability to hit consistently in his career. The power is what makes Moss a somewhat valuable asset and if for some reason Matt Adams is not with the club next season, Moss could step in and provide what we would likely get out of Adams.

In terms of value, Moss was worth about 0.2 WAR, which is really bad, but thanks to Chris Greene’s post on advanced offensive metrics, you already knew that. This put Moss’ financial value at $4.6 million according to Fangraphs, which is about $2 million less than his current contract of $6.5 million.

If I were the Cardinals, I would shop the veteran power hitting OF/1B and see what teams are willing to offer before they get into salary discussions with him. Otherwise, I would set the limit at the $5-$6 million range and if a deal cannot be made at that amount, or if the organization finds that to be too much, then it is time to cut bait.

Next: Steve Cishek

Sep 26, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Steve Cishek (28) throws during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Kane-USA TODAY Sports

Steve Cishek

I see the promise here, Cishek has been a pretty good reliever over the course of his career, as his career 2.82 ERA and 95 saves show. However, Cishek struggled mightily this season. Cishek had an ERA of 4.51 in Miami this season and the highest WHIP of his career at 1.594. Coming to St. Louis, Cishek was able to lower his hits per nine innings and his ERA, but he increased his walks per nine innings as it jumped from 3.9 to 5.0. This resulted in his FIP being a whole run different between the two teams (3.51 with MIA and 4.53 with STL).

I can’t tell you exactly what happened to Cishek, but what I see is that Cishek suffered a dip in his average velocity on each pitch this season according to Fangraphs. Looking more into the pitch f/x numbers from Fangraphs shows he also saw hitters have a lot more success on his changeup than they have in the past. In 2013 hitters posted a 1.000 batting average and a ridiculous 568 wRC+ on his changeup this season.

Yes, this pitch was only used 16 times, but if a hitter can eliminate one pitch, it eliminates a possibility and makes the hitter more comfortable. The same can be said for his four seam fastball that he only threw 22 times, that hitters posted a .444 average on and a 189 wRC+. This limited him to just his sinker and his slider.

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In years past his slider has been his best pitch. In 2013 hitters posted a 33 wRC+ against it, 2014 a 44 wRC+, and this season it bumped up to a 104 wRC+, which made it a below average pitch and was likely was not helped by the lack of success he had with his fastball and changeup. All of these numbers combined scare me, look I know the Cardinals have the history of fixing pitchers, but I am not sure they can fix Cishek here. Historically, once closers lose it, it is hard to get them back on track and the shelf life of relievers can be extremely short.

I simply cannot see the Cardinals tendering Cishek. He didn’t make the postseason roster and the Cardinals will have a minor leaguer or two make the bump from the big leagues into the bullpen next season and there simply won’t be room for an experiment with Cishek.

Next: Tony Cruz