St. Louis Cardinals: Taking a Look at Former Cardinals in 2016

As we inch closer and closer to the start of the regular season, let’s take a look at what the former St. Louis Cardinals are up to.

It happens every year, a team decides to say goodbye to an aging or underperforming player and another team decides to give them a shot. There are quite a bit from last year’s team that are playing elsewhere, as well as many other former Cardinals that are preparing for life with a new team or to continue to build their legacy away from St. Louis.

To keep things from being ridiculously long, I will keep it to players from the last five years and won’t cover every single player, just the interesting ones and the ones that have caught my attention.

So, with that said, let’s take a look at our first player.

Peter Bourjos

I had almost forgotten about Peter until I happened upon this piece from MLB Trade Rumors. Bourjos was claimed off of waivers by the Philadelphia Phillies this past offseason and figures to finally get his shot to play on a consistent basis. He told MLBTR that it wasn’t the nagging hip injury that kept him from being a consistent performer during his time as a Cardinal, but instead had this to say about his performance as a Cardinal “I think it was more just being in and out of the lineup.  It was tough getting into a rhythm.”

Bourjos went on to say that was his role and that he had accepted, but stated “It’s tough coming in and facing the set-up guy or the closer in pinch hit at-bats.  It’s tough to get something going,” I agree with Bourjos and I was often scratching my head with the way Bourjos was used during his time as a Cardinal. Matter of fact I never understood the acquisition in the first place. The Cardinals at the time had a glutton of outfielders, and Bourjos was more times than not the odd man out, even before the emergence of Tommy Pham, Stephen Piscotty, and Randal Grichuk.

However, Bourjos never made the most of his opportunities, unlike his former teammate Jon Jay who often embraced the 4th/5th OF role and thrived off of the bench. Bourjos would get his opportunity and would go 0-4 with 3 K and get caught stealing because he over slid the bag.

When asked about his reaction to the Cardinals placing him on Waivers, Bourjos had this to say, “I didn’t really think I’d be back there, just because of how things played out down the stretch.  I think I had three or four starts in the second half of the year.  I didn’t really have a lot of at-bats.  You can just kind of see the writing on the wall, that they had a lot of good young outfielders coming and it probably just wasn’t going to be a good fit,” These are the most damning words Bourjos said.

Our friends at “That Ball is Outta Here” believe that Bourjos will be competing with Odubel Hererra for the center field position, but believe that ulitmately Bouros could be best suited for a corner outfield position. Regardless, with consistent play Bourjos should be better in 2016, and the Cardinals will be kicking themselves that they didn’t get a darn thing for Bourjos, who was still under team control.

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