Willson Contreras contract proves how direly Cardinals wanted catcher

The St. Louis Cardinals are not known to pay out huge contracts to those developed outside the organization. Getting a replacement for a legendary catcher was cause enough to break that trend.  

St. Louis Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak went into the Winter Meetings to leave with an All-Star caliber catcher to replace Yadier Molina, who retired after nearly two decades with the team.

The Cardinals have reportedly signed three-time All-Star catcher Willson Contreras to a five-year contract with $87.5 million.  This breaks a trend St. Louis had to reward those developed in the organization with large contracts.

According to Katie J. Woo of The Athletic:

Despite a dynamic personality, Dexter Fowler, another former Cub from the 2016 World Series championship team, was a massive disappointment because he failed to perform up to the contract the Cardinals gave him. He got traded before his final contract year to the Los Angeles Angels, and his season ended in injury.

Cardinals wanted Willson Contreras badly to replace Yadier Molina and the contract proves it

As far as the position of catcher goes within the organization, Molina has had many backups. During the 2022 season, Andrew Knizner took a majority of starts to relieve Molina while injured or away for business. Knizner, despite the opportunity given, didn’t show he could take over for Molina permanently.

The hope had been for Molina’s heir-apparent, Ivan Herrera, to take over the position. Herrera was allowed the opportunity to show he was ready. He, however, failed to impress. The organization opted to send him back to Memphis to continue his development in AAA.

According to a tweet from Woo, “The Cardinals didn’t come into the winter meetings with a Plan A, B, C. They checked in and were actively pursuing all options.” And, with the trade market for a catcher reportedly getting too expensive for the Cardinals, getting the best available free-agent catcher was the team’s direction.

Contreras’ potential leads the team to believe they will have tremendously better results from the young catcher than they did from Fowler. While Contreras is not the defensive juggernaut that Molina was, he can perform at the plate. And the Cardinals desperately need the upgrade Contreras will represent in the lineup.

Contreras joins a lineup in which he will likely hit behind Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. Not a bad situation at all.