St. Louis Cardinals Should Bite The Bullet And Sign Chris Davis

The St. Louis Cardinals have been one of the most active teams this winter, being involved with a ton of major names. That said, they haven’t quite been able to land the big fish. Luckily for them, though, there’s still a name left that would provide a massive power bat in the middle of their lineup: Chris “Crush” Davis.

After spurning the Baltimore Orioles‘ offer of $154 million, Davis has come to find there’s not a massive market for his abilities. Yes, he hits a gazillion homers from here to Mars, and yes, he can play the outfield as well as some third base; yet, the Cardinals haven’t seemed to recognize the fact they need a major power bat in the middle of their order. Otherwise, they’d have signed him already and called it a day.

The Cardinals won 100 games last year — somehow.  This is to the full credit of their organization, of course; the Cards were devastated by injuries through most of the season, didn’t possess a 30-home run bat in the middle, and had problems in the pen … and still won a very competitive NL Central.

They unfortunately ran into a white-hot Chicago Cubs team that did the one thing the Cardinals struggled with when needed — hit the long ball. That’s sort of what Davis does, no?

The Cardinals clearly have the money, having reportedly offered Jason Heyward $200 million over 10 years, and David Price in the neighborhood of $190 million. I suppose the Cardinals may think Matt Adams is serviceable enough as a power bat, but with Davis’s ability to play both corners and also the outfield, why can’t he be the Ben Zobrist of the Cardinals? You can live with average defense if his bat continues to hammer baseballs like I like to hammer Whoppers.

When it comes down to it, the Cardinals are currently the second-best team in the division on paper after the Cubs dominated the offseason. However, this type of signing would shift the power right back to St. Louis — pun intended. Just take a look at the projected lineup:

Matt Carpenter
Stephen Piscotty/Matt Adams
Matt Holliday
Chris Davis
Randal Grichuk
Jhonny Peralta
Yadier Molina
Kolten Wong

I’m sorry, but if anyone thinks that team can’t win a World Series … well, I think that’s absolutely insane.

There’s no reason for St. Louis to continue to wait. With the market continuing to shrink, the Cardinals should flex their financial muscles a little bit and put the NL back on alert.