St. Louis Cardinals: Eric Hosmer still an option for the Cards

The hot stove has been impressively quiet of late, but the St. Louis Cardinals are still exploring all potential options.

With the lack of moves of late, it is now a good time to take a look at options that could fit the St. Louis Cardinals, if the market makes them affordable. There are assumptions if the market stays quiet for long enough, players who were expecting long-term lucrative contracts may have to settle for less overall or even come to terms with a gap deal. One of those players is Eric Hosmer, a name connected to the Cardinals too, perhaps not significantly, but connected nevertheless.

Coming into free agency, Eric Hosmer was rumored to be seeking a nine figure deal, not including cents. In the current market and its upward trends, this wouldn’t have been too terribly shocking. Contracts are becoming more and more pricey. That is the price of doing business these days. Unfortunately for Hosmer, clubs seem to be fighting back a bit. No one is willing to meet asking prices for these free agents to this point (see J.D Martinez).

As the winter presses on, and offers don’t seem to flow in, the question remains, will the St. Louis Cardinals pursue Hosmer to be their first baseman? Maybe an even better question is should they? Hosmer would bring a solid bat to the team, there is no question about it. However, for the Cardinals it isn’t as simple as just adding a bat to the lineup.

Taking a look at Hosmer’s 2017, at the surface he looks like the model of consistency. In the first half Hosmer batted .318 with twelve home runs, he followed that up in the second half batting .319 with thirteen home runs. He isn’t exactly a bopper, but twenty-five home runs and above a .300 average look nice in any lineup.

After his career year, there could be assumptions of regression, but his outlying numbers weren’t too exaggerated. While he had a career high BABIP at .350, his career average .316 BABIP isn’t light years away, especially factoring in his horrendous 2012 which saw his BABIP at .257, skewing his career average by decent amount.

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The deeper you look at Hosmer is when fans and front offices can start to nitpick. Last season Hosmer had a brutal start to the year, finishing the first month of the season with a .225 average and one home run.

Much of the month of April, Hosmer’s average spent its time under the Mendoza line.

This is the worst case scenario. A team signs him and he has a near repeat and fans may revolt. Of course, Hosmer turned that around and found himself batting .303 by the end of May.

His May helped pace him for the rest of the year and helped him post his best season of his career.

The Cardinals intention this offseason was to find some power to put into the middle of the order. They did that with Marcell Ozuna. Did they intend to only sign one? Maybe, maybe not. Signing Hosmer isn’t exactly signing a power bat to shore up the middle of the order. Sure, Hosmer hit twenty-five home runs last year, but he isn’t a guy you can rely on to hit that big home run in a game situation.

On three separate occasions Hosmer went double-digit games without a home run, the shortest being fourteen games and the longest being twenty-one games. That is a long time for your middle of the order bat to not be parking home runs.

The next question becomes the defense, and Hosmer isn’t the only effect to take into consideration. With the move, the St. Louis Cardinals would basically have to commit to Matt Carpenter being the everyday third baseman. Scary thought right? While Carpenter is a fan favorite and brings a lot to the team, his defense isn’t exactly top-notch. Putting him at first base makes it so he can really do the least damage to the teams overall defense.

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Hosmer, on the other hand, has been awarded heavily for his defense. Oddly enough though, Hosmer seems to be one of the most disrespected Gold Glovers in the league and not just Gold Glover, four-time Gold Glover. The straight up stats strike you, they are really great numbers. Hosmer had a .997 fielding percentage last year, committing only four errors all season.

The criticism comes into play when you see his defensive runs saved. That statistic has been negative every year except one for his entire career. So basically, it’s pretty easy to never commit errors when you don’t have the range to make the really tough plays.

When comparing Hosmer and Carpenter defensively basically Carpenter has more range, but Hosmer is more sure handed. Unfortunately both of them can’t play first base and Carpenter would be forced into the hot corner. Does acquiring Hosmer’s bat and glove counteract that required move? That is above my pay grade.

Another factor to look into is the park factor. Transitioning from Kauffman Stadium to Busch Stadium could have a slight effect on Hosmer’s stats. While both parks are fairly comparable to one another when it comes to being hitter friendly, Busch Stadium is ever so slightly friendlier to home runs than Kauffman. This could correlate to an increase in home runs for Hosmer, but that may be a stretch.

If this team is desperate to truly improve for next season then Hosmer makes sense. Of course, this would have to come at a discounted rate. John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch will not be paying the full asking price that has been presented for Hosmer. If they can get him on a two or three-year deal for around 15 million a year, they should jump on it.

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If not then don’t force something that you don’t have to do. Finding deals in this landscape of ever increasing contracts can go a long way for a competitor and the Cardinals are no exception. Keep an eye on Hosmer if we find ourselves in mid-January and he still doesn’t have a deal in place.

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