Fans will do a double take at this former Cardinals outfielder's late-career surge

Every baseball team has a litany of players throughout its history who elicit reactions of "Oh yeah, I remember that guy!" One such instance for the St. Louis Cardinals is Randal Grichuk, a player who some fans may be shocked to know is still in the league. Not only is Grichuk still grinding it out at age 35, he's found a new lease on life since signing with the Chicago White Sox in May.

Chicago has deployed Grichuk mainly as a designated hitter and pinch-hitter against left-handers, and it has worked out splendidly for the South Siders, with whom he has hit .299 with a .937 OPS, and "Just Baseball" noted in a post on X that Grichuk is in very select company regarding his slugging and OPS+ marks.

Grichuk isn't going to be mentioned in the same breath as the three superstars listed above because of his specialized part-time role, but he is playing the part of the lefty masher to a T. Of his 204 plate appearances in 2026, 136 of them have come against southpaws, and he's hitting a robust .320 with a 1.017 OPS against them.

In four seasons as a Cardinal, Grichuk tantalized with his power but frustrated fans with his lack of plate discipline. He hit 66 home runs over that span but had a 29.9% strikeout rate and just a 5.8% walk rate. Given his current numbers, Cardinals fans might wonder why St. Louis didn't regularly sit Grichuk against right-handers. Perhaps if he had been pigeonholed as a platoon bat more often, he would have found more success.

It's a logical thought, but Grichuk actually carried reverse splits throughout his years with the Cardinals. Against right-handers from 2014 through 2017, Grichuk hit .253 with a .797 OPS, whereas against lefties, he hit .239 with a .756 OPS. It wasn't until he left St. Louis that he flipped the script and started shining more brightly against opposite-handed hurlers.

The Randal Grichuk deal is a small but still noticeable blemish on John Mozeliak's Cardinals résumé

Cardinals fans had mostly had their fill of the Grichuk experience when the team traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays after the 2017 season for relief pitcher Dominic Leone and pitching prospect Conner Greene. The Cardinals had a plethora of other outfield options: Marcell Ozuna, Tommy Pham and Dexter Fowler were expected to be the starters, and Harrison Bader and Tyler O'Neill were up-and-coming young bats.

The team had just executed the trade for Ozuna, a deal that Cardinals fans would come to detest, a month prior to cutting ties with Grichuk. The fresh start seemed to clear Grichuk's conscience, as he had said that the crowded Cardinals outfield had affected his confidence in the batter's box.

The Cardinals wound up with the short end of the stick in the Grichuk swap. Leone pitched to a 4.50 ERA with St. Louis in 2018 and a 5.53 ERA in 2019, and the Cardinals released him that offseason. Greene, meanwhile, never found the control to become a major league mainstay. He pitched 25.1 ineffective innings for the Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers in 2021, owning a 7.11 ERA, which constituted his entire major league tenure.

On the other side, Grichuk became the Blue Jays' starting right fielder and was a regular in their lineup for the next four seasons. He has carved out a highly respectable career where he's hit .252 with a .767 OPS and a 104 OPS+ while playing for eight different teams. Not a bad outcome for a guy who was always placed under the microscope for being drafted one spot ahead of Mike Trout.

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