Jason Heyward, Bidding War Looming For St. Louis Cardinal Outfielder?

Jason Heyward falls squarely into the risk/reward pile. As a team looking for an outfield bat, do you really want to get in a bidding war for a player that is a nice piece to your team but isn't a big run producer, per say? Left handed hitting Heyward made strides against left handed pitching, posting a .272 average. It was by far his highest. The downside is that the soon to be ex-St. Louis Cardinal outfielder slugged .470 against righties and .364 against lefties. For his career he slugs .467 versus right handed pitchers and .351 against lefties.

In their article identifying and dissecting where the top 50 free agents will go and for how much, MLBTradeRumors had Jason Heyward receiving a 10 yr $200 million contract from the New York Yankees. Granted, with the short right porch in Yankee Stadium, Heyward's numbers will surely spike but can even the Yankees allocate such resources to a player who can be negated by left handed pitching? As well, Heyward's pop overall is questionable. Sure, he's hit 18 and 27 home runs in a season but his other four season read rather anemic 11, 13, 14 (twice).

A good comparison is fellow free agent Alex Gordon. Both were expected to hit for more pop. When Gordon has at least played 140 games in a season, his lowest home run total is 14 but that did include 51 doubles. The last two seasons Heyward has played at least 140 games and hit 11, 13 home runs respectively. Versus lefties, Gordon is a .255 hitter and slugs .420, just .022 lower than he slugs righthanders.

Fangraphs tried to assess Heyward's value, "He hit 27 home runs in 2012, but recorded just 13 of them this year along with an isolated slugging percentage of .146, essentially league average. Combining average power with a low strikeout rate (14.8% in 2015) and a solid walk rate (9.2%), Heyward's wRC+ of 121 puts him in the upper third in terms of the league's hitters."

The Anaheim Angels, Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros along with St. Louis are all after Heyward. It is doubtable, though that Houston will pursue Heyward if the asking price goes towards $20 million a year.