{"id":368127,"date":"2025-12-24T04:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T04:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368127\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T04:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T04:39:09","slug":"cardinals-looking-to-add-righty-outfield-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368127\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Looking To Add Righty Outfield Bat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cardinals\u2019 offseason is focused mostly on the players they\u2019re trading away.\u00a0Sonny Gray<\/a> and\u00a0Willson Contreras<\/a> have already been shipped out, and it\u2019s possible that each of\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a>,\u00a0Nolan Arenado<\/a> and\u00a0JoJo Romero<\/a> will also find themselves on the move. That doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t make some short-term pickups. They\u2019ve added\u00a0Dustin May<\/a> on a $12.5MM deal in the rotation, and president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom identified a profile they\u2019re pursuing on the position player side.<\/p>\n

Bloom told reporters that the Cardinals would like to add an outfielder, ideally one who brings right-handed power (links via John Denton of MLB.com<\/a> and Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a>). That\u2019s an indirect consequence of the Contreras trade.\u00a0Alec Burleson<\/a> only made 38 starts at first base this past season. That\u2019s likely to rise in 2026, as Bloom implied that Burleson could replace Contreras as the primary first baseman. Burleson made 72 starts in the corner outfield and 18 at designated hitter.<\/p>\n

St. Louis has\u00a0Lars Nootbaar<\/a> and\u00a0Jordan Walker<\/a> as their projected corner outfield tandem. Nootbaar is down to two years of arbitration control and could be traded this offseason. Walker was a well below replacement level performer in 2025 and still has a minor league option remaining. A righty corner bat could also spell lefty hitters Burleson and Iv\u00e1n Herrera<\/a> at first base and designated hitter, respectively.<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t a ton of options remaining in free agency. The Cards could kick the tires on a one-year deal for\u00a0Miguel Andujar<\/a> or\u00a0Austin Hays<\/a>, each of whom is coming off a big season with the platoon advantage. Old friend\u00a0Tommy Pham<\/a> is coming off a middling season against lefties but carries a .261\/.368\/.434 line in those situations over his career.\u00a0Chas McCormick<\/a> hasn\u2019t hit in either of the past two years. He has a 20-homer season with a .273\/.353\/.489 showing in 2023 on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals could also look into a switch-hitting utility option like Willi Castro<\/a> or\u00a0Luis Rengifo<\/a>. They\u2019d have the added benefit of being able to fill in at second or third base if the Cardinals line up Donovan and\/or Arenado trades.\u00a0Nolan Gorman<\/a> would be in line for the bulk of the third base playing time if Arenado is moved. Top prospect\u00a0JJ Wetherholt<\/a> should be up as the everyday second baseman at some point, assuming they trade Donovan, but the 23-year-old seems likely to open the season in Triple-A.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cardinals\u2019 offseason is focused mostly on the players they\u2019re trading away.\u00a0Sonny Gray and\u00a0Willson Contreras have already been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[95951,64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-368127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alec-burleson","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}