St. Louis Cardinals: The big spenders of the offseason

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According to Jon Heyman’s piece for CBS Sports today, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to be a big spender this offseason.


This is poised to be quite the busy offseason with players like Jason Heyward, Chris Davis, Zack Greinke, David Price, Jordan Zimmermann, and many more big names available this winter. Here at Redbird Rants we have linked the Cardinals to many different players, but what we say has no bearing on what the team will actually do.

What we do know so far is that the Cardinals will be a player, John Mozeliak has said countless times so far that the team will be looking to upgrade the club via the “external market” this winter. This morning, Bob Nightengale (USA Today) on MLB Network’s Hot Stove Show, reported that he believes the Cardinals are the favorites to land David Price. Price is comfortable with St. Louis and has said so in the past.

This is not the only free agent the Cardinals will be after this winter. ESPN’s Buster Olney tweeted out this morning that the Cardinals are reportedly interested in signing Ben Zobrist to a multi year deal. Buster has also said that the Cardinals are also interested in signing Chris Davis as he has pegged Davis to either go to the Cardinals or the San Francisco Giants in a clip played on the Bernie Miklasz show earlier today. 

“even some progressive GMs find it difficult to envision a monster deal for a less-than-dominant hitter” – Ken Rosenthal

On yesterday’s Kevin Wheeler show, Bob Nightengale said that there is only about 4-5 teams in on Jason Heyward. That’s not a whole lot of competition for the Cardinals to have to deal with. So, hopefully the Cardinals win out in this area of free agency. Just as my fellow editor mentioned, in a late night/early morning column Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal mentioned that Heyward very well could be worth $200 million based on other contracts given recently to similar players (Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford).

Rosenthal did offer an interesting nugget on Heyward and his market value, “even some progressive GMs find it difficult to envision a monster deal for a less-than-dominant hitter”, this is interesting seeing many reporting that Heyward will go for that high dollar figure. As Chris Gigley stated, the Cardinals will not go too high to bring Heyward back. 

More from St Louis Cardinals Rumors

This is new territory for Cardinals’ fans, as I mentioned last week most of the best free agents have all been low budget or short term older guys. I could see anything happening this winter, they could wind up being the big spender that everyone predicts them to be, or in a move of faith in their system stand pat and plan for guys like Marco Gonzales, Tim Cooney, and Anthony Garcia to provide some help from the minor leagues. 

My hope is that there is some dollars spent this offseason. Why the sudden change of heart you ask? I am not confident in Michael Wacha being a top flight starting pitcher, Adam Wainwright is not getting any younger, Matt Holliday will be gone in a year or two, Lynn while injured this year may very well walk free as a free agent in 2017, and we have no idea whether or not Stephen Piscotty/Randal Grichuk can repeat their 2015 seasons next season. 

Next: Jason Heyward and Cardinals almost certain to part ways

There are many questions regarding this team for next year, to make John Mozeliak and company willing to spend more than usual this winter. Things are starting to heat up here on the hot stove front. Stay tuned to Redbird Rants for all of the latest information.