St. Louis Cardinals: Cards should go all-in on Jonathan Schoop

As the St. Louis Cardinals make moves to better the team, one such place they should look is in an infielder from the American League.

A while ago I wrote a piece about how the St. Louis Cardinals should take a look at Jonathan Schoop as a solid option for the infield. He was not providing much of anything for the Orioles at the time but was coming off an all-star year and had been experiencing bad luck.

This is why I suggested we buy low. He was liable to turn it around and now he is.

Since the time of writing, schoop has raised his average from .216 to .238. Looking at his wOBA (.304 in 2018), Schoop seems to have returned to his 2017 level (.355). Now wouldn’t that be nice to have?

People called me stupid, people said I was wasting their time, and people generally thought I had pulled the idea out of nowhere because I was bored. Writers do not usually start wild goose chases, we have reasons behind why we say the things we do. While hindsight is 20/20 and he could’ve just as easily remained a negative WAR player, all the signs pointed to a turnaround.

I personally have always admired Schoop and was stunned and excited for him by how well he did last year. Would he have been the answer for the St. Louis Cardinals? No. Absolutely not. By this point all fans know that it is going to take more than a couple pieces to fix this team even with Mike Matheny gone.

But in my last article I was not arguing that Schoop would be the answer to our prayers, I simply looked at him like a smart investor looks at stocks. In baseball and in stocks there are a lot of similarities. At the base of it all the simple rule is to buy low and sell high. No stock (player) should be off limits if the price is low enough and it’s very rare that buying one stock will upgrade your overall portfolio that drastically.

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But if you could get lots of low priced stocks that jump back up to where they are supposed to be, you are making money. Schoop was way below his own value, and the St. Louis Cardinals missed on the chance to add a controllable piece that could’ve helped their team. It’s not about how bad or good they are this year, it’s about a general principle of acquiring underperforming players for cheap.

In light of his most recent stretch, Schoop’s price has most likely risen back up to the point where it may not be as great of a deal to go after him.

I do not want to sound disgruntled that people called me stupid because that happens to everyone on every site in the history of the internet that has an opinion. I just want to nudge people to take a breath and think about what is being written from a different point of view before heading straight to the comments section to voice their own opinion.

And if you still wish to leave a nasty comment, at the end of the day you still read the piece. So thank you for reading everyone, and let’s all root for the St. Louis Cardinals!