Cardinals Re-Sign Matt Holliday For Seven Years

Sports News - January 6th, 2010 - Written By Bryan

Other options weren't attractive enough, and the St. Louis Cardinals' need was too great.

Matt Holliday's notorious gaff on a flyball in the National League Division Series won't be his last memory in St. Louis. The left fielder elected to end his free agency and re-sign with the Cardinals on Tuesday, agreeing to a seven-year, $120 million deal that could keep the scariest 3-4 duos in all of baseball intact. For at least one more year, Holliday will hit behind Albert Pujols, which may be enough to convince the all-star first baseman to also extend his career in St. Louis.

The top-two free agents in baseball are now off the board with the New York Mets signing of Jason Bay last week. Holliday was seen as a better player all around, and was seen as a vital signing by the Cardinals to keep Pujols, who will be a free agent next year, around.

It is also a way, as Yahoo! Sports noted, for Holliday to rekindle his relationship with former Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, who is now the team's hitting coach.

Holliday is one of the true pure hitters in baseball with five consecutive years of a .300 average or better, and can attribute his success to McGwire. After the 2005 season, Holliday only hammered out 19 home runs for the Colorado Rockies, and McGwire suggested a leg kick to focus some more momentum in his swing.

The two seasons, Holliday banged out 71 homers and led to Rockies to their first-ever World Series in 2007.

He left Colorado in 2008, then came to the Cardinals last summer in a mid-season trade with the Oakland Athletics that shipped out highly touted third baseman Brett Wallace. The investment paid off and Holliday hit .353 with a 1.023 OPS in the second half of the season behind league-MVP Pujols.

While it is good news that Holliday is in uniform for at least the better part of the coming decade, the next issue is now focused on how the team will find away to scrape enough money together to re-sign Pujols. He is sure to become the highest paid player in MLB Baseball, winning three MVP awards in the last five years (including two-straight), and current surveyors suggest he will get an upwards of $30 million a year to separate himself from all others.

But his adornment in St. Louis, and the team's now-proven commitment to him, may be enough to sway him to stay at a more reasonable price.