How will the Cardinals respond to losing Jason Heyward?

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While the Cubs went from scary to terrifying with their signing of Jason Heyward, the Cardinals went in the other direction. It was a big blow to their roster, and now they’re left wondering where to go from here. Obviously it adds a little extra salt to the wound with Heyward going to their biggest rival and arguably their biggest challenger in the National League, but the biggest blow comes simply from losing him from their team.

One would think St. Louis would turn their attention to one of the other outfielders on the market, but they are saying that’s not the case. They claim they are comfortable with that portion of their roster, and will instead turn their attention to the rotation. It makes sense for them, since their starting pitchers are littered with question marks ranging from injury possibility to simple performance variance. The outfielders available are also a strange fit with their roster, as the major free agents all play left field and they already have Matt Holliday there. Still, the outfield as a whole in St. Louis isn’t exactly a sure thing with the aging Holliday and a couple of young players in Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty.

Of course, the Cardinals are still the Cardinals and they will almost certainly figure this all out. You don’t just become the gold standard organization in your sport by accident. They could go sign Johnny Cueto and convince Alex Gordon to play right field for a year, and everything would be back to normal. For now, though, things are trending downwards, and the fan base has every reason to be antsy. They can’t look back at what they missed out on with Heyward, but instead need to look forward to life without him.

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