Baseball has many reliable axioms. Your best chance of scoring runs is by getting your leadoff man on-base. You generally need to steal bases at a 67% (at least) success rate to make it worth your while. And you don’t win championships by signing players released by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Regrettably, the Cardinals’ recent acquisition of shortstop Cesar Izturis — who has a career .295 OBP and steals bases at a 62% clip — flies in the face of all that wisdom (and possibly more). We’re not a big fan of the signing, to be sure. When the team’s ostensible new shortstop gets on-base at a worse rate that its old guy got hits for them, it’s hard to get excited. But we’re not going to belabor the negatives of the deal, which Bernie Miklasz capably documented (though not without the obligatory, petty reference to Bill DeWitt — as a friend, Bernie, we have to tell you: it’s getting old).

If the Izturis move has any positives, it at least may mark a direction for the team’s future. The one-year deal possibly draws the line for what the new shape of the Cardinals will be, and when: 2009. If it’s true that the team’s only choices were one year of Izturis and four more years of Eckstein in his decline years, the Cardinals chose wisely. That might be a false choice, but the main idea is still there: a cheap all-glove, no-hit one-year stopgap or another multi-year deal to an overpriced free agent. If the Izturis deal is any indication, we’re glad that the team seems to be closing the door on the latter type of moves that have characterized the bloated roster in recent years.

Izturis may not be the fielder he was in 2004, the year in which he won his Gold Glove, but he’s still a solid and versatile defensive option for a team that will likely need someone who can play innings at all three positions manned by someone not named Albert. And while he may be slightly overpaid at $2.85 to $3.5 million, he’s certainly not breaking the bank. Coming into the Winter Meetings, the Cardinals at least have a bird in the hand at shortstop. Depending on what happens the rest of the offseason, Izturis may end up as the team’s second baseman, part of a platoon, or a regular late-inning defensive replacement.

Signing Izturis in late November is a world of difference from doing so in late January. The Cardinals can enter the Meetings with flexibility to make a trade to improve their infield or spend some of the money they save with Izturis on an impact player. We’re comfortable not only giving John Mozeliak the benefit of the doubt on this one but praising him for holding his ground on Eckstein’s exorbitant demands. And speaking of Eckstein, while the conventional wisdom is that the Izturis signing precludes the erstwhile shortstop returning, it’s still possible that he could come back. The same market forces that created a demand for Izturis are now working against Eckstein in that he has one fewer team that absolutely needs his services. At this point, all the Cardinals have done is to sign a reliable defensive infielder and not signed Eckstein. Nothing more, nothing less. There’s no need to freak out.

Besides, it’s not everyday that you can say you signed a player who was once traded for Greg Maddux straight-up, right?

This entry was posted by Pip on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 12:27 am and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.