Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported Monday that the Cardinals, among other teams, were showing \u201csignificant interest\u201d in free agent INF\/OF Miguel Andujar. Chaim Bloom has stated publicly in his spots on 1120 KMOX during the \u201cSports On A Sunday Morning\u201d show with Tom Ackerman that he would like to add a right-handed hitter who can handle both infield and outfield responsibilities. Andujar has seen time in his big league career at 1B, 3B, LF, and RF.<\/p>\n
Though not particularly known for his defensive work, what Andujar does very well is crush left-handed pitching, and that would give Manager Oli Marmol an additional weapon to use in his lineup in 2026. Last season in 93 plate appearances against LHP Andjuar slashed .389\/.409\/.578 -> .986 OPS. He also produced a wOBA of .421 and a wRC+ of 171. Among RHH who had a minimum 90 plate appearances against LHP, Miguel Andujar ranked 5th in all of baseball with his 171 wRC+ behind Aaron Judge (225), Ivan Herrera (205), Shea Langeliers (184), and Byron Buxton (178).<\/p>\n
For a lineup that will feature a heavy left-handed presence such as Alec Burleson, Nolan Gorman, Lars Nootbaar, JJ Wetherholt, Victor Scott II, and possibly Brendan Donovan, adding some reliable balance and punch to the lineup on days that the Cardinals face off against a tough lefty makes all the sense in the world. Among the remaining hitters on the roster, only TWO had a wRC+ above 100 last season against LHP, with a minimum of 90 plate appearances: Ivan Herrera and Nolan Gorman.<\/p>\n
Defensively, Andujar is very limited. He has the positional versatility to stand in various positions, but his -7 oAA last season leaves a lot to be desired. However, the one defensive tool Andujar does possess is a well-above-average throwing arm, averaging over 92 MPH on his throws from the outfield. Between him and Walker, the range in the outfield would be suspect at best, but if either can play deep and keep the ball in front of them, they can accumulate assists and gun down runners trying to take extra bases.<\/p>\n
Fangraphs projects a 1 year 5.5 million contract for Andujar. Given the amount of interest in the player, the Cardinals would probably have to raise that offer just a smidge and perhaps be willing to include performance-based incentives, and perhaps an option for 2027 to get the deal across the finish line. The opportunity for a player of Andujar\u2019s profile exists on the current roster and should be attractive to Andujar\u2019s camp. The only question that remains is the financial compononet and we will see in the coming days\/weeks whether or not Chaim Bloom can get it across the finish line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported Monday that the Cardinals, among other teams, were showing \u201csignificant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,65076,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-529150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-analysis","14":"tag-stlouis","15":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}