5 teams who should enter the Mookie Betts sweepstakes

1. St. Louis Cardinals

This side of the Cincinnati Reds, it has been a very slow offseason in the National League Central. The Cardinals won the division last year, but they notably lost Marcell Ozuna (29 home runs and 89 RBI last year) in free agency and they traded Jose Martinez to further weaken a lineup that was underwhelming anyway in 2019.

Last year St. Louis was 17th or worse in all of baseball in on-base percentage (.322,17th), OPS+ (92, 20th), slugging percentage (.420, 23rd) and batting average (.245, 23rd). Removing pitchers as hitters, and the team slash-line for 2019 becomes a solidly average .251/.330/.428.

Anything close to a rebound season from Matt Carpenter (.226, 15 home runs, 46 RBI and a .726 OPS in 2019) would help a lot, but that won’t be enough to make the Cardinals’ offense really good this year. A generally older roster, with Paul Goldschmidt, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Dexter Fowler and Carpenter all at least 32 years old, puts win-now moves on the radar.

A package of prospects and an outfielder (Fowler or Tyler O’Neill) is a viable offer St. Louis can make for Betts, even with adding to what has been a static payroll the last few years as a potential concern. Purely on the financial side, Fowler’s $16.5 million for each of the next two seasons is a solid offset to Betts’ 2020 salary for the Cardinals, while helping drop Boston below the luxury tax threshold too.