Cardinals avoid arbitration with their centerfielder Jon Jay
The St. Louis Cardinals and centerfielder Jon Jay have reportedly avoided arbitration and agreed to a two-year, $10.975 million deal.
The report originated from CBS’s Jon Heyman:
One can surmise from the oddly specific dollar amount that the Cardinals really, really didn’t want to do the simple thing and just give him $11 million.
The deal means the Cardinals avoid arbitration with Jay and buy out his first potential year of free agency.
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Jay, 29, is entering his sixth MLB season, all with St. Louis, who drafted him in 2006. He has been a consistently solid player for them the past four years as the starting centerfielder, after taking over from Colby Rasmus in 2011. Jay has a career OPS of .755 and has accumulated 11.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) per Baseball-Reference. He has not been a standout contributor, but has been a solid contributor to the team, and signs relatively cheaply (by MLB free agent standards, at least).
For those grousing about the dollar amount, remember that the MLB free agent market gave Ervin Santana, a thoroughly average pitcher, $55 million over four years. Short-term deals with fairly low costs like Jay’s are more valuable than they seem, if only to avoid playing a replacement level player at a key position. Just ask the Tigers’ bullpen last year.
Meanwhile the Cardinals are coming off what feels like their two hundredth straight appearance in the NLCS, but what is actually their fourth, including a 2011 World Series win. All four of those teams have featured Jay as the team’s starting centerfielder.
The Cardinals enter 2015 as projected contenders again, though they’ll have to fight through a division with no discernible bad teams now that the Cubs have accelerated their rebuilding process. However, just like the NBA’s Spurs and the NFL’s Patriots, another Cardinals playoff appearance already seems inevitable at this point.
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