The St. Louis Cardinals have struggled at the plate so far in 2017, however that doesn’t have to be the case throughout the remainder of the season.
Royals first baseman, Eric Hosmer will be a free agent at season’s end and it doesn’t appear he will be a part of their long-term plans.
St. Louis should be in attack mode. I know they pride themselves on drafting and developing players as well as trying to find improvements from in-house. However, this is a special circumstance. The Redbirds are currently 3rd in the NL Central and they rank 26th in runs and 24th in slugging percentage.
The St. Louis Cardinals are built to win now. They just need some pop in that lineup of theirs and it wouldn’t hurt to add a couple of extra arms that aren’t detrimental to their winning efforts.
The Cards are also in the middle of the pack in terms of payroll, so I wouldn’t be shocked if they felt a little more compelled to ink Hosmer to a long-term deal after acquiring him. They’ll need to add to their core group of players if they want to keep up with the Cubs, especially since Matt Carpenter and Yadier Molina are already in their 30s,(31 and 34, respectively.)
The St. Louis Cardinals once obtained a 29-year-old, Matt Holliday and a 35-year-old, Lance Berkman, so it wouldn’t hurt to throw their efforts and resources into bringing in one of the best young players in the MLB to bolster a lineup that clearly needs someone to lead an offensive resurgence.