{"id":2523,"date":"2016-12-09T02:40:32","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T07:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=2523"},"modified":"2016-12-09T14:51:13","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T19:51:13","slug":"cardinals-sign-dexter-fowler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/12\/09\/cardinals-sign-dexter-fowler\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Sign Dexter Fowler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After helping the <strong>Chicago Cubs<\/strong> break the curse in 2016, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fowlede01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dexter Fowler<\/a><\/strong> has found a new home. He and the <strong>St. Louis Cardinals<\/strong> have agreed to a multi-year contract, per reports. Terms were not immediately available.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Dexter Fowler has a deal with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/STLCards?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#STLCards<\/a>. Expected to be big.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/807039834791563273\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 9, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Cardinals Sign Dexter Fowler<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Fowler hit .276\/.393\/.447 with the Cubs in 2016 with 13 homers and 13 stolen bags. He made his first <strong>NL All-Star<\/strong> appearance and amassed and .840 OPS. His second season with the club came after a strange offseason in which he was going to the <strong>Baltimore Orioles<\/strong>, until he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old center fielder made his major league debut with the <strong>Colorado Rockies<\/strong> in 2008. He played in Denver until he was traded to the <strong>Houston Astros<\/strong> in December of 2013. He\u2019s been very consistent over his career. A skipper can pencil him in for .260-.280, 10-15 homers, and 10-20 stolen bags just about every year. The defensive metrics, however haven\u2019t been kind to him, as he sits at -55 DRS for his career.<\/p>\n<p>With the Cubs signing <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jayjo02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jon Jay<\/a><\/strong> and having <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/almoral01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Albert Almora<\/a><\/strong>, it was probably a foregone conclusion that Fowler wasn\u2019t in the club\u2019s plans moving forward. With <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/schwaky01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Schwarber<\/a><\/strong> coming back for a full 2017 season, the outfield was becoming a bit crowded (even with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2016\/12\/07\/cubs-get-wade-davis-royals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent trade of <strong>Jorge Soler<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>As for the Cardinals, the hope is Fowler can bring his consistent bat to the center field position. With <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grichra01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Randal Grichuk<\/a><\/strong> (.240\/.289\/.480) bouncing between Triple-A and the Majors last season, and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2016\/12\/04\/matt-holliday-joins-yankees-one-year-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the loss of <strong>Matt Holliday<\/strong><\/a>, Fowler can give them a solid bat at the top of the order and one less thing for <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mathemi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Matheny<\/a><\/strong> to worry about. Though Fowler has mediocre power and hits at about league average, he gets on base at a rapid clip. While he was with Chicago, the saying was as he went, the Cubs went. The Cardinals will hope that on-base ability will help them get back into the postseason.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>UPDATE 12\/9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The contract will run for five years and will pay Fowler $82.5 million. It contains a full no-trade clause<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 10px 0; max-width: 550px;\"><a id=\"ld-3504-7889\" href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\/9112744049813528\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"auto\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Should the one game play-in Wild Card be expanded to a three game series?<\/a><span id=\"ld-3504-7889-equiv\"> in <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LastWordOnSports&#8217;s Hangs<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LockerDome<\/a><\/span><script>(function(d,s,id,elid) {window.ldInit = window.ldInit || []; ldInit.push(elid);if (d.getElementById(id)) return;var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];js=d.createElement(s); js.id=id;js.async=true;js.src=\"\/\/cdn2.lockerdome.com\/_js\/embed.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document, \"script\", \"lockerdome-wjs\", \"ld-3504-7889\"));<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/620661410\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/620661410?et=2DCPRv73QeF71yW8oyoKmg&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=tvS5FNsRjc4jAUFpR7iquTlwku7b7slBgFyDwu72HjY=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After helping the Chicago Cubs break the curse in 2016, Dexter Fowler has found a new home. He and the St. Louis Cardinals have agreed to a multi-year contract, per reports. Terms were not immediately available. Dexter Fowler has a deal with #STLCards. Expected to be big. \u2014 Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 9, 2016 Cardinals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1586,"featured_media":2526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,25],"tags":[68,312,69,168],"class_list":["post-2523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-cardinals","tag-baseball","tag-dexter-fowler","tag-mlb","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}