For Shildt, building Cardinals’ lineup depth is more important than the cleanup spot

When the St. Louis Cardinals arrived in Las Vegas for the 2018 Winter Meetings, the eight players who would comprise their 2019 everyday lineup were set and under contract.

In 2019, that’s not the case.

A Marcell Ozuna-shaped hole lingers in left field and the cleanup spot, and as the Cardinals weigh out internal and external options for filling that likely vacancy, manager Mike Shildt is adjusting to what uncertainty can do for offseason preparation.

“We have what we have,” Shildt said. “We have these players. We’re always going to coach, manage, develop, inspire hopefully, but really we’re going to work with what we have. We’re going to try to get everybody individually to be the best version of themselves from every facet that we have ... and then we will see how that looks collectively.”

Despite not performing up to the standard set by his last season in Miami, Ozuna hit 52 home runs and drove in 177 runs across his two seasons in St. Louis. He was a constant fixture in the fourth spot in the batting order, serving as a lineup fulcrum that Shildt was able to plan and position around.

“I hesitate talking about Oso being gone, because in my mind he’s not gone,” Shildt said. “I know he’s a free agent, but he’s still, to me, with us until he’s not. Of course, I would love to have him back with that presence and what he did, and he continues to grow and be a big part of what we have done in the culture and the mentality.

“Whatever we have we will figure out a way to make it the best we possibly can. ...”

Ozuna expressed a desire to remain in St. Louis throughout the 2019 season, even transitioning from being represented by Scott Boras to Melvin Roman — Yadier Molina’s long-time agent — in an attempt to ease that process.

The Cardinals remained hesitant to offer the sort of commitment in either years or annual value which would be necessary to keep Ozuna from the open market. Both President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak and General Manager Michael Girsch have conceded that the significant gaps on those fronts will make a reunion unlikely.

Cleanup spot not as important as depth

Shildt downplayed the precise importance of the cleanup spot on Tuesday, saying rather that he prefers to think of the lineup in terms of his depth.

“However it looks that we can lengthen the lineup with quality guys and quality at-bats is going to be important,” Shildt explained. “That not only makes a three-hole hitter better, but that makes the six-hole hitter better, the five-hole hitter, the seven-hole hitter better. We’ve all seen it in various forms. You add that one hitter or take that one hitter out, it makes a huge difference in the lineup.”

The Cardinals remain in pursuit of a left-handed hitter who could balance the bevy of right-handed bats which currently occupy their outfield.

Randy Arozarena, Harrison Bader, Adolis Garcia, Tyler O’Neill and Lane Thomas all hit from the right side, and those players who don’t ultimately end up starting in left or center field may well be called upon to offer flexibility off the bench that the Cardinals felt they lacked in 2019.

“You know, there were times, I think probably that you said ‘OK, we would like to have a lefty here, a lefty off the bench or in the lineup,’” Shildt said. “But candidly, at least from my mindset, I think it’s a trap for me to escape to what I don’t have, what we don’t have.

“I think you’re setting yourself up for failure and you’re setting yourself up to potentially lose that competitive moment. We have right-handed hitters a lot. We have a lot of right-handed pitchers. Would it balance some things out? Would it make the competitive strategy different in some situations? Yeah.”

MLB roster expansion

The expansion of major league rosters from 25 players to 26 beginning in 2020 will allow the Cardinals to carry 13 position players rather than the 12 which has become their norm in recent years.

That extra spot for a bat could allow the club to seize those competitive situations and guarantee that they’re better able to bend strategic conundrums to their collective will.

Thus far the Cardinals have stayed true to their publicly expressed sentiment that the end of the Winter Meetings doesn’t represent any sort of deadline for club improvement. The organization remains identical in its makeup through two days of conversations to its state when the week began, and seems likely to be true as the week draws to a close.

“Our off-season has hopefully evolved,” Shildt said. “To make everything go faster and make the wheel go quicker, realize where the wheels maybe got us not on as straight a track as we would have liked potentially, and just continue to evolve. That’s what ultimately it looks like.”

This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 12:27 PM.