Cardinals Brendan Donovan is a unicorn amongst utility players in today's game

Every Major League Baseball team would love to have Brendan Donovan in their starting lineup. So why are there St. Louis Cardinals fans who continue to believe he's overrated and wouldn't be a prominent part of a contending team?

Honestly, I find it mind boggling at this point.

Many of you who are reading this understand the value of Donovan. A very good hitter who can not only slot in at more positions than anyone else, but can do so at a high level. Oh, and he brings strong leadership to the Cardinals clubhouse. What's not to like about him?

Consider this a "Brendan Donovan appreciation piece".

Brendan Donovan is what every team wishes their utlity player could be like

There is a running joke in baseball today that every utility player must be compared to Ben Zobrist. After debuting in 2006, Zobrist set the bar extremely high for what it means to be a great utility player, and although he fell off the Hall of Fame ballot after just one year of eligibility, he clearly did enough in his career to warrant such consideration.

For his career, Zobrist played most of his games at second base (911), but that was only 55% of his appearances. The switch-hitter also logged 466 games in right field, 236 at shortstop, 223 in left field, 34 in center field, 27 at first base, and eight at third base. While Zobrist wasn't necessarily elite defensively at positions outside of second base, he could more than hold his own, and it provided any team he was on the most utility you could ask for from a player of his quality.

It is rare, but not unheard of to have a player as versatile as Zobrist, but what made Zobrist so great was that there was no one who could do what he did from a versatility standpoint and produce at a high level at the plate. For his career, Zobrist was a 116 wRC+ hitter, including three seasons where he was 30% or better at the plate. He was consistently a 3 fWAR player and even reached heights of 6.4 fWAR and 8.7 fWAR seasons.

So where does Brendan Donovan fit into this conversation then?

Since debuting in 2022, there is no player in baseball who is as versatile as Donovan while maintaining top-end offensive production. Let's dig into it.

Donovan has played 30 games at five different positions in his young career (1B, 2B, 3B, LF, RF) and has even sprinkled in eight appearances at shortstop as well. He did so with a 119 wRC+, while Chris Taylor is the next-best hitter to play 30+ games at five different positions with a 93 wRC+.

That means that while Donovan had Zobrist-like versatility and bat skills, producing 19% better than the league average hitter in his first three big league seasons, the next best player in that same mold over that stretch has been Chris Taylor, whose defense is objectively worse than Donovan's and was also 7% below average as a hitter.

Oddly enough, for some fans, it's Donovan's versatility that actually gets in the way of him being recognized for his production at the plate. I'll see comments from people saying that his bat would not play in a "good" lineup, but Donovan is in the top 23% of qualifying hitters since 2022. His wRC+ (119) ranks 54th among the 230 players who qualify.

If Donovan was a primary second baseman, he would be fourth best among all second basemen in wRC+. If he was a primary third baseman, he'd ranked ninth among all at the position. If you made him a left fielder, he'd be 12th among all at the position at the plate, and as a right fielder, he'd rank 11th in that group. Heck, even if you made him a primary first baseman where offense is the primary source of value, he'd be 12th among all primary first basemen over that stretch.

I'll continue to shout it from the mountaintops, but the Cardinals should have zero hesitations about extending Donovan long-term. That should have already been done this offseason, and if they do not find a way to lock him in long-term before the season starts, I'll lose my mind. "Donovans" just do not grow on trees, and there is a reason that so many teams around the league continue to ask for Donovan in trades each offseason.

Tommy Edman, who is a different style of utility player than Donovan (providing elite defense at two premium defensive positions but lacking the kind of bat Donovan has) just got a five-year, $74 million deal from the Los Angeles Dodgers this offseason. Yes, even the best team in baseball by a mile felt like locking in a top utility player on a deal like that was worth it. Donovan is clearly the more valuable player in my book, and the Cardinals would be wise to lock him in now while they still have the chance.