Neither Yadier Molina nor the St. Louis Cardinals have commented since news broke from Ken Rosenthal and others that a five year contract worth up to $75 million was in the offing, but that’s left just enough time for people to analyze the contract as though it already exists. (Such is the news cycle.)
On Viva El Birdos we’ve attempted to discover just what’s made up the Cardinals’ seemingly outlandish offer. Based just on Molina’s offensive output and the things we’ve always been able to measure on defense, he’ll be hard pressed to provide $15 million of value on an annual basis, especially as he hits his thirties.
Which leaves the unlikely possibility that John Mozeliak is somehow being blackmailed, and the unnerving possibility that John Mozeliak and the Cardinals are dabbling in some defensive statistics to which we are not privy. I don’t know if I’m ready for a world in which the baseball teams are not only participating in sabermetrics but withholding them from the outside world, but such is life.