10 takeaways after Cardinals trade for Arenado, re-sign Wainwright, move Fowler and await return of Molina
The trade for Nolan Arenado. Bringing back Adam Wainwright. Sending Dexter Fowler to the Angels. The hopefully impending return of Yadier Molina. It’s been a busy time for the Cardinals. Here are 10 takeaways about what all of these moves could mean for this season:
1. The Cardinals are now the prohibitive favorite to win the NL Central.
Even without making any of these moves a case could have been made that the Cardinals still were the best team in the division heading into the season – not for what they did, but because of the fact that every other team in the division seemingly got worse this winter. While the Cardinals said goodbye to Kolten Wong, who ended up going to the Brewers, they had a replacement ready to take his place in Tommy Edman. Now, with Arenado, they clearly have the best team in the division and the challenge will be to prove it once the season begins.
2. Paul Goldschmidt will benefit the most from Arenado’s arrival.
Assuming that Goldschmidt stays in his third spot in the batting order and Arenado slides into the cleanup spot, Goldschmidt should have a season much more like 2019 than his 2020 season. In 2019, with Marcell Ozuna hitting behind him most of the time, Goldschmidt hit 34 homers and drove in 97 runs. In 2020, the Cardinals had four players who combined to start 56 of their 58 games in the cleanup spot. Combined, Brad Miller, Matt Carpenter, Paul DeJong and Tyler O’Neill posted a .202 average with eight homers and 29 RBIs. Three of the homers came from Miller in back-to-back games. Because pitchers did not have to worry about who was batting behind Goldschmidt, his walk total increased from 11 percent in 2019 to 16 percent in 2020. That should not happen with Arenado hitting behind him.
Read more: [ Ссылка ]
