St. Louis Cardinals: Five things we’ve learned so far this spring

4. The Cardinals should be fine staying in-house to cover Jhonny Peralta

As our guy Buffa pointed out this morning, the Mets have released Ruben Tejada, and the Cardinals could potentially pick up the six-year veteran at a league minimum type price.

But, Aledmys Diaz has been impressive so far this spring, and the Cards have Jedd Gyorko as an internal option as well. Heck, Greg Garcia is even a formidable option (he’s hitting .292 at the start of play today).

Tejada is an average hitter at best (.255/.330/.323 career slash line) and he struck out five times in five at-bats against the Dodgers in the 2015 NLDS before the whole Chase Utley situation.

Again, Tejada is average defensively, at best. Via Buffa and Baseball Reference, Tejada posted a -15 Defensive Runs Saved Above Average number last season.

via fangraphs.com

As you can see from the handy Fangraphs table above, Tejada’s -15 DRS in 2015 qualified him as an “awful” defensive player a season ago.

Yes, Tejada would probably be a bargain. But based on everything he’s done thus far in his career, I don’t see any way that he would be an upgrade over a Diaz, Gyorko or really even Garcia at shortstop.

Plus you would have to figure out what to do with him once Peralta did return. Mozeliak very well may go after Tejada, I just don’t think it is in the club’s best interest.

There’s no reason to block Diaz the way he has played so far this spring. Things could change, and Diaz could fall back production-wise. I still think that the club would be better off with Gyorko or Garcia at short until they get Peralta’s services back some time this summer.

Next: Yadi out there on opening day?