For the sixth straight year, we’re taking a look back at everyone that played for the St. Louis Cardinals this season. Whether they were a major contributor or a bit player, here all year or for just a little while, we’ll look at their season and talk about what went right and what went wrong. The stat line listed is just their time in St. Louis, though splits and other numbers in the discussion may be for the entire year. Imagine this as them stopping by Mike Matheny‘s office for a little review on their way home for the winter. As always when you see incredible artistry in the blogs, all credit for the header work goes to @cardinalsgifs.
Player: Breyvic Valera
Season stats: 5 G, 1 BB, .100/.182/.100, -22 OPS+, -0.3 bWAR
Hero/Goat: None
Overall grade: C
Positives: Made his major league debut September 5….was 1-2 with a walk as a pinch-hitter….hit .314 at Memphis with eight homers….at Memphis hit over .300 at home, on the road, in day games, and in night games….hit .429 when he was seventh in the lineup….hit .424 in AAA when he was ahead in the count.
Negatives: Went 0-4 in both his major league starts….hit .257 in April….was only successful in 50% of his stolen base attempts.
Overview: Unsurprisingly, given his limited time in the major leagues, I don’t have a real solid opinion on Valera. You can talk to Kyle Reis and Colin Garner about him and get much more interesting and insightful thoughts about the middle infielder. Valera is supposed to have a very good glove and has hit well at Memphis in both 2016 and this past season. It would seem that he’s probably not an All-Star level guy but that he could provide some value to a team either off the bench or perhaps starting for a team that’s not planning to contend right now.
Outlook: Whether that team is the Cardinals probably remains to be seen. It would be surprising (or take a pretty good roster shakeup) to see Valera start the season on the major league roster. He’ll most likely take another turn at Memphis given the fact that Kolten Wong is established (assuming he’s not traded) and you have Greg Garcia still on the roster. However, either with injuries or ineffectiveness, it would not be a big surprise to see him get a chance to improve on that .100 career major league mark in 2018.
