A few words about Willson Contreras and the St. Louis Cardinals' messy relationship

It's getting weird, half a season in...

Imagine telling someone you think they’re really great and worth a lot of money, $87.5 million to be exact. And then, a few weeks into the working relationship, you strip them of the title given to them at the contract signing. A week or so later, he’s back into that title after some internal discussion.

But his season doesn’t go as planned, offensively. Starting pitchers complained about his pitch calling, before going silent on the matter when asked again. While his bat has picked up speed as the temperatures have risen, his name now appears on the trade block.

None of this makes sense, but that’s the St. Louis Cardinals for you. They handed Willson Contreras a big deal this past winter, a contract no other team was willing to offer. The Chicago Cubs, a glutton of bad decisions stuffed in their recent pasts, tried twice as hard to trade him last year as they considered extending him. A team that had him since the start suddenly said no.

But the Cardinals, who couldn’t seek the peace of mind to offer Cubs starter Marcus Stroman a big contract, decided to hand Contreras five years for nearly $90 million. I praised the deal at the time, calling it a fine replacement for Yadier Molina’s decayed offense.

It’s just madness to hear a legit baseball reporter-love or hate Bob Nightengale, the USA Today still means something-including Contreras’s name in with other reported Cardinals on the block. Down year for the team included, bolting on your starting catcher (who will one day be a designated hitter) is an extreme thing to do.

However, I am sure John Mozeliak and Michael Girsch know that no team will really take a bite. Would you eat an unwrapped burrito with a few bites taken out of it and randomly left out for others to nibble on? As Nightengale said today on 101.1 ESPN, other teams see the same guy that the Cardinals do.

Contreras, who sports a 1.8 bWAR and a not-awful .767 OPS, hasn’t been as bad as the team’s record. He has 11 homers and 22 doubles, even if the .428 slugging percentage leaves a lot of room for improvement. When your future DH is struggling to slug .450, it’s not a good thing.

He got the contract due to an impressive, if incomplete, 2022 season where he collected an OPS of .815 and bashed 22 home runs. After hitting better and more consistently early on in his career-he fared best in 2019-Contreras has become a better bet for a less-than-stellar OPS finish. For me, OPS is a solid stat for a player like him. Slugging and on-base percentage thrown together in the hopes of producing an average that backs up the salary and term.

At the moment, Contreras is struggling. Granted, Matt Holliday struggled in 2010 following his big contract signing--but that came after the second half of 2019, where he hit just about everything hard. Holliday settled in, and Cards fans have to hope the new catcher/DH follows suit.

I don’t see a chance of a team taking on his salary, or showing a real passion to insert him into their everyday lineup. And, as Katie Woo of The Athletic pointed out, Contreras has a full no-trade clause. After drooling over the legacy of Molina and waxing sexy poetry about St. Louis, you really think he’d waive the opportunity to play with Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt while being paid handsomely? If so, he’s taken too many foul tips to the mask.

Look, I don’t know what to make of Contreras at the moment, as in what he can become still. But his power stats aren’t awful, and his bat is trending in the right direction. Over his last 15 games, he’s slashing (BA/OBP/SLUG) .388/.500/.714 with three home runs and seven walks mixed in with 16 strikeouts. Everybody is striking out, though. Who still cares?

Again, all of this is inflated by a bad season, one that is still spiraling out of control eight days ahead of the trade deadline. The Contreras struggles wouldn’t be this big of a deal if the team were winning. After all the recent ouchy contracts handed out by that front office, would one more really shock you?

Let’s keep the tab open. See what he can do with opportunity. Ivan Herrera isn’t going anywhere, though, so improve quickly and consistently. Being on the trade block with your new team halfway into the first year of a five year marriage doesn’t look good at all.

The 2023 Cardinals, ladies and gentlemen.

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry/USA Today Sports