On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

A World Series MVP.

In an offseason heretofore filled with news of the team’s best player departing and of the signings of supporting cast members, the Cardinals’ signing of Carlos Beltran to a two-year, $26 million deal is a welcome headline.

For being ranked as ESPN’s seventh-best free agent this winter, Beltran gets a relatively short contract. The length probably is reflected in — that is, compensated for — in the average annual value, which at first seems a bit high for a player with significant injury risk. But the Cardinals have few holes that they need to fill, and therefore could afford to go big, especially given the lack of alternatives to Beltran. David DeJesus, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Josh Willingham, all inferior players, had already signed, thus leaving the Cardinals to consider low-impact options like Coco Crisp Andruw Jones and Cody Ross. With Tony La Russa gone, JD Drew might’ve been conceivable, but TLR likely already poisoned that well. Thus, Beltran, who was always the best of the bunch, was a natural choice to spend money on.

With Pujols having forced the Cardinals to stretch their evaluation of a dollar, John Mozeliak perhaps has a different value of money. After all, when you get outbid trying to buy a million-dollar home, that $400,000 model looks pretty affordable. Heck, you don’t even mind paying full price, either. But Beltran figures to pay off, even considering his injury risk. The Cardinals’ approach here may actually be similar to that of Theo Epstein when he was with the Red Sox and signed Drew: He reasoned that, when healthy, Drew was an impact player (read: hit for a very high OBP), and when he wasn’t healthy, Epstein could make do with somewhat productive players. The alternative is to have a full season of mediocrity, so the choice should be clear. Beltran represents rate stats over counting stats, and we like the acquisition.

Speaking of OBP, though Beltran will likely slot in as the team’s no.-2 hitter, he makes good sense at leadoff, though as we mentioned last week, we doubt seriously that rookie manager Mike Matheny would be so bold. He’s more position-limited than most people — including Mozeliak, apparently — consider him as (he really should be playing only right field next year), but that still leaves Allen Craig, when he returns, as an option at other locations around the diamond.

Cardinal batters did a lot of scoring in 2011. One thing that they didn’t do much of was strike out.

The Cardinals led the NL in avoiding strikeouts for the second year in a row with a 15.7% strikeout rate. That may seem strange for the team, especially considering that their hitting coach is Mark McGwire, who had a career 20.8% rate. But the Cardinals have actually been among the most contact-happy NL teams in recent years, suggesting that McGwire hasn’t had an impact one way or the other:

Though Jim Albert found that strikeouts have the smallest impact on run scoring among walk rates, home-run rate and BABIP, it’s curious that in 2011, the two World Series teams led their respective leagues in not striking out. The Rangers were actually even less K-prone than the Cardinals, with a 14.9% rate.

The Cardinals’ low strikeout rate is also one of the reasons that they set the record for double plays, which we’ll discuss later.

John Mozeliak notes that the Cardinals “still think we have some holes.” One is right field, and Carlos Beltran would fill it well.

Despite currently polling at Fungoes as the Cardinals’ #1 late-season public enemy, Beltran certainly makes sense. For the position, the Cardinals presently have only the newly re-signed Skip Schumaker (who, we should note, said as his contract was announced all of the things that former teammate Albert Pujols should’ve said if he had signed with his team). Moreover, the team lacks much in the way of top-of-the-order on-base skills.

Even playing only 142 games last year, Beltran gained 4.7 WAR. Fangraphs’ fans project him to be worth at least three wins next year, and that’s estimated at a mere 124 games (that’s more than Jon Jay earned in just about as many plate appearances). He would not be an option to play centerfield, given that he’s only slightly better than Lance Berkman in right field. But he would indeed be the answer to what to do in Allen Craig’s absence (between one and two months) and may afford another second-base experiment by Craig when he returns.

As Eric Seidman at Fangraphs notes, “Beltran was the fourth most productive non-pitcher on the market” with 4.7 WAR last year. To put it into perspective, Albert Pujols had 5.1. Seidman goes on to say:

Beltran will end up signing for something like one year and $12 million, or two years and $20 million, both of which could include playing time incentives. This is well below what 4-5 WAR often costs on the market, but a low enough salary that teams aren’t scared off by his injury history.

With Pujols gone, one is tempted to simply act like the Cardinals have an endless treasure chest of money to hand out. They obviously do have around $22 million otherwise unused, but a few free agent signings can add up quickly, so they will still need to spend wisely. Even so, Beltran falls into that category.

Given Beltran’s high on-base percentage (.385 in 2011, .368 projected for 2012), he would be an ideal #2 hitter or even leadoff man, though Mike Matheny strikes us as too conventional to deploy a resource like Beltran like that.