Just a little over 24 hours ago, the news had broke that General Manager John Mozeliak and the Cardinals had officially reached an agreement to sign free agent outfielder’ Dexter Fowler — a former Chicago Cub — to a five-year, $82.5 million dollar deal. After finally having some time to sit back and look in to the deal a little more, here are some of my thoughts on it.
I’ll go ahead and start it out by saying that I am a huge fan of it. After spending some time talking with other Cardinals fanatics like myself and reading through posts’ in Cardinals fan groups since it went down, I may be in the minority, but that’s fine by me. I have looked at both sides of the deal — the good and the bad — and to be honest, the ‘good’ side of the spectrum stands out to me much more than the other.
Was it an over-pay? I honestly can’t say that I believe it is. At $16.5 million-per-season, especially with the way that the market has continued to go up (and as everybody knows, it’s starting to get pretty crazy, if it isn’t already well beyond that, anyways), I look at this deal as one that is pretty close to a bargain. By looking at the numbers, Fowler averaged 4.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in his two seasons in Chicago. Going off the model that represents the dollar-value to a players game, each win a player represents is worth close to $7.7 million-per. If you average the 4.0 for the newest Cardinal, his value is worth about $30.7 million per season — according to the market scale.
Heading in to the off-season, many analysts and experts believed that the 30-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia would get a deal that was worth anywhere ranging from $20 to $22 million per season — and one of them many analysts included the likes of the very-well respected, Keith Law. Looking at it from the analytics side and the value side of things, that alone goes to show that it was a good deal in terms of the money and worth the risk — especially if he brings his game from the past two seasons’ to the Cardinals.
Outside of that though, not only do the Cardinals add a guy of great leadership with some athleticism that we haven’t seen them have in a little while, he also will be a cemented lead-off hitter that will get Matt Carpenter out of the lead-off spot and in to a more run-producing spot such as the three-hole, which is exactly what was needed. Also, while he may not be the flashiest of guys out in center, defensively, he takes great routes out in center and will allow Randal Grichuk to move to left field, where he is much better suited at.
Is Fowler the missing piece to the puzzle to help the team make up 17 games in the standings on the Cubs and bring the city another world championship? More than likely, no. Having said that, he brings plenty of versatility to a team that desperately needed it, improves the lineup drastically while bringing an element in the speed department that they’ve lacked for a while now and is a perfect piece to add. While some may or may not agree with me, this is the most excitement I have had over a free agent signing from the Birds since Matt Holliday got his contract years back. Work still needs to be done, of course, but this is a great start. Welcome to Baseball Heaven, Dex!
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