In the wake of the departure of Albert Pujols after the 2011 World Series championship, the face of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise was changed overnight. It is time for a new personality to come to the front of the Cardinals and be identified as the new leader of the team. Fortunately for the franchise, there is not short on options for a new front man, options like the highest paid Cardinal in the history of the franchise in Matt Holiday, the new up and coming although freshly scarred ace in Adam Wainwright, or even the hometown hero in David Freese. All these are perfectly acceptable options for this newly crowned king of the city, but St. Louis is a town whose identity is and has been dominated by baseball ever since the days of Branch Ricky's Gashouse Gang teams. It has been blessed with the personalities such as Stan Musial, Bob Bibson, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, and Albert Pujols, the types of people that other cities look at and identify as players they only wish they could have on their teams. These were the kind of players that people would buy tickets to see. A talented team has always been one secret to gaining revenue for a team, but the idea of an icon playing on the field brings in money as well.
Yadier Molina is not Albert Pujols. He lacks the grace of Ozzie Smith, the speed of Lou Brock, and the bat of Stan Musial. His running is painful to watch, and while batting .300 from a catcher's spot is never anything to discredit, the fact that he has hit double digit home runs only once in his career and cannot be counted on for much more than 65 RBI's does not make his bat something that will in itself bring fans to the ballpark. He plays a position where while even an untrained eye notices the cannon with which he throws out potential base stealers, it takes some baseball intelligence to notice all the other little things that he does to earn the respect of not only those runners on base for another team, but also the pitchers who trust him with their baseball careers. In St. Louis, the love of baseball has reached the level that a player like Yadier Molina can easily be the face of the franchise even though it would be more difficult to sell tickets on the road to watch Molina catch than it would be to watch Albert Pujols swing a bat.
The day after the Albert Pujols was lured away to California/Los Angeles/Anaheim/who cares it is definitely not St. Louis, I could not shake the thought that there was one logical move for the team to make that would simultaneously instill confidence in a fan base whose panic was only held back by replays of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series and at the same time be an intelligent move for a franchise that has been looking to make smart investments. This move would be to re-sign Yadier Molina for at least the next 4 years.
As a catcher whose offensive numbers are not as sexy as the likes of Joe Mauer or Brian McCann, Yadier Molina could be sign a contract for 10 million dollars a year and still be the 3rd highest paid catcher in baseball based on the 2011 contract numbers after the retirement of Jorge Posada. Although this would represent an extremely large investment for the Cardinals into a player who plays fewer games than any other regular position player, there are so many reasons why Molina would be worth the money. First of all, Molina has a direct effect on 5 games a week. At 10 million dollars a year, Molina would be making less money than Kyle Lohse. While Lohse was able to have a career renaissance last year, there is no way that his 30 starts in a season are worth more than Molina’s 130 games in a season. For the Cardinals to be willing to pay more than 10 million dollars a year for Lohse and not be willing to make a similar contract offer to Molina is negligent at best.
Molina is a player whose numbers will never tell the full story of his value. His number of hits will never be inflated as he will never be the type of guy to get a cheap hit or two on an infield single. His power numbers have and probably will never be eye-popping, and even his number of runners thrown out have decreased in recent years due to a giant red light that seems to be flashing at second base for whatever runners are bold enough to even look for a chance to steal. To fully understand the greatness of Molina, you have to have been a Cardinals fan or at least watched the man play for the past 8 seasons. It is impressive to see the body language of those pitchers who are talking to Molina or standing on a mound just over 60 feet away from Molina’s awaiting glove. There is not a member of the Cardinal’s staff that does not seem to have the utmost confidence in the man. He is a catcher and a leader who has come up big again and again in pressure filled situations, whether it was hitting the homerun to send the Cardinals to the World Series in 2006 or throwing out Ian Kinsler 3 times in the 2011 World Series.
The next argument that can simply not be ignored is that if the Cardinals do not re-sign Molina, they have no one in place that could come close to filling his shoes. For the first time since 2004, the Cardinals are going with youth at the backup catcher spot, and while the Cardinals do have a few talented backstops, neither Cruz or Anderson can be a serious contender to take over for Molina whether that be his production at the plate or his amazing ability to change a game from behind the plate. The top free agent catcher names out there that could be available after 2012 season would be Miguel Montero and Mike Napoli, but either of these more offensive players could command a similar contract to Molina with a drastic step down in defense. The simple truth is that there is one best option for the St. Louis Cardinals to play catcher in 2013 and beyond, and he is the player that they already have on their roster and have exclusive negotiating rights with from now until the end of the 2012 season. Do not wait for another Pujol’s like negotiation after the season is over, Cardinal’s front office. Get a deal done now.
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