In light of John Mozeliak’s recent comments about the importance of free agency in this upcoming off-season, it is important to have an idea on what types of players might interest the Cardinals. Obviously Matt Holliday and Jason Bay are the class of free agency, but there are other options out there in the next tier talent wise. One such option that St. Louis Post Dispatch writer Derrick Goold believes is a potential fit for the Redbirds is Xavier Nady, who Cardinals fans got to know during his tenure with the Pirates from 2006 to 2008. Nady is not a star or core piece like Matt Holliday is, but he does have some positive qualities.

                In 2008, Nady’s last full healthy season, he managed to put up a robust .305/.357/.510 slash line for an .867 ops. Nady also amassed 25 homers, drove in 97, and scored 76 runs. Xavier doesn’t have exceptional plate discipline, as he walked only 39 times to go against 103 strikeouts. Still though Nady was a valuable offensive player and would have ranked as the Cardinals third best hitter behind Pujols and Holliday this past year. There are some questions about Nady’s offense, however, as his career ops is .792, which is just slightly above average. Still it should be noted that in Nady’s last 3 healthy seasons his ops went from .790 to .805 to .867, so it does seem that he reaching his peak as an offensive threat.

                Nady can hit, but that is only half of the equation as Adam Dunn has proved since a run saved is just as important as a run created. Nady has some ugly UZR numbers up until is his breakout season in 2008, as he was worth around negative -9 runs in the field both seasons. Then in 2008 Nady was 3.8 runs on defense. Some of the improvement was probably the result of him not having to play center field, where he is -10 runs below average in just 45 games in his career. For the Cardinals, Nady would likely be the starting left fielder, where he has been 1 run above average in 100 career games. Overall Nady would probably not save or cost the Cardinals any runs with his glove, which is more valuable than it sounds considering other potential options like Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye, and Jason Bay’s defense would each probably cost the Cardinals at least ten runs.

                Obviously the big x-factor with Nady is health. He is recovering from Tommy John surgery, but if he is healthy he could be a nice value on a short term deal. Nady was worth 4 wins over replacement level in 2008, which produced over 18 million dollars in value. For comparison’s sake, Matt Holliday can be expected to be worth about 5.5 WAR, so while Nady certainly isn’t Matt Holliday, he isn’t a bad player either. Even if Nady regresses to something like a 2.5-3 WAR level, he would still produce between 10 to 13 million dollars in value, which is almost guaranteed to be more than what his actual salary would be. Coming off and injury, Nady would probably be looking for a 1-2 year deal to prove that he is healthy for a salary that would probably be in the neighborhood of around 5 million annually plus incentives.

                To summarize, Xavier Nady could be a very solid option should the Cardinals fail to retain Matt Holliday. Nady can reasonably be expected to produce at an .800 ops clip or above while being an average defender. Nady probably isn’t the 4 WAR player he was in 2008, but even if he is worth 2.5 to 3 WAR he would still be a valuable player that would be more than worth the salary on a short-term contract. Xavier Nady isn’t a superstar, but is an option that is worth considering if John Mozeliak is unable to reel in the big one in Holliday.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function getad() in /home2/bryceknu/public_html/cardinalsgm.com/wp-content/themes/nfl-team-sites/single.php on line 35