There are few prospects in baseball better than that of St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras. Of course, transitioning from a star prospect to a start Major League talent is much easier said than done, but there’s no doubt Taveras’ star shines brightly.
But it might not shine as brightly as it could have after the Cardinals acquired outfielder Peter Bourjos earlier this week.
With Carlos Beltran all but guaranteed to leave in free agency, there was an available spot in the outfielder for Taveras coming into the 2014 season but now with Bourjos, Jon Jay and Matt Holliday securing the outfield spots, playing time for Taveras could be limited according to general manager John Mozeliak:
"“When you look at what this means for Oscar …,” Mozeliak said. “It’s still intriguing for us to seem him on our club in some way, but clearly it takes a lot of pressure of him necessarily in center field. Our expectations are obviously for him to have a healthy spring training and sort of determine what makes the most sense.”"
St. Louis obviously isn’t going to let Taveras sit on the bench at the Major League level, so either the team will look to make another move or will likely allow Taveras to continue play at the AAA level until a spot opens up.