St. Louis Cardinals: Reasons for the Cards to avoid the Moose

The St. Louis Cardinals should avoid Mike Moustakas.

The St. Louis Cardinals are rumored to have interest in former Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas.  My take is that the St. Louis Cardinals should stay far away from Moustakas for three primary reasons.

First, Moustakas is not better than incumbent Jedd Gyorko (or Matt Carpenter for that matter because Matt is a far superior offensive player than the Moose).  Second, Moustakas is not good at getting on base.  Third, and finally, Mike Moustakas does not play good defense and lacks positional flexibility.

The context for making these points becomes important.  Moustakas’ best tool – his power – is a need the St. Louis Cardinals already filled when they acquired Marcell Ozuna.  Thus, we do not have a need for a one-dimensional power bat because we filled that void with a five-tool guy in a trade.

I will do a brief breakdown of each of the three primary reasons in these slides.

In an effort to avoid dwelling on just the negatives of a player, I also note that Moustakas hit 38 home runs last year while batting .272.

He appears to be a good teammate and he would bring an additional left-handed bat to this lineup.

I also recognize that Moustakas is relatively young (29) and that last year could be a breakout power year – with more to come.

I still believe the St. Louis Cardinals would be better off avoiding the Moustakas for the good of the team.

Also, do not get me wrong, I enjoy a good moose joke as much as the next guy.  However, they are not as amoosing (see what I did there) when the player on which they are based subtracts from, rather than adds to, the team as a whole.