Renteria Making Pitch With His Bat
By Tom D'Angelo Cox News Service
02/26/2004
JUPITER -- The St. Louis Cardinals have committed $190 million to two of their top three players in the past 18 months. And now that infielders Scott Rolen and Albert Pujols are Cardinals to at least the end of the decade, next up is shortstop Edgar Renteria.
Renteria, 28, is coming off his best year and is in the final year of a deal that will pay him $6.75 million this season. The ink was barely dry on Pujols' seven-year, $100 million deal when Cardinals ownership was asked about its next project.
"We certainly would like to keep Edgar Renteria as a Cardinal,'' Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said. "We want to keep our good players to be competitive.''
Publicly, Renteria is saying he's not thinking about a new contract and that duplicating last year --.330, 13 home runs, 100 RBI, a Silver Slugger and second consecutive Gold Glove -- would be fine. Renteria knows another season like 2003 possibly could put him in Rolen's neighborhood (almost $13 million a year).
"I want to think about spring training, I don't want to think about my contract right now,'' Renteria said. "I want to be here for seven years, too. I feel comfortable. I don't know. I have to wait.''
Renteria not only followed Pujols' negotiations -- "When you put up the numbers he's had, he deserves it,'' he said -- but compares himself to Boston's Nomar Garciaparra and the Yankees Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez before Rodriguez was moved to third base.
"I compare with my numbers,'' he said. "I deserve what I deserve. The numbers talk. I don't have to talk in the papers.''
The 10-year contracts of Rodriguez ($252 million) and Jeter ($189 million) aren't likely to be duplicated. Garciaparra is in the final year of his contract and rejected a Red Sox offer of $60 million for four years.
Yet, Renteria had a higher on-base percentage, higher average and five fewer RBI than Garciaparra last season. And in the past two years he's had 13 more hits, 56 more RBI and four fewer home runs than Jeter in five fewer at-bats. His slugging and on-base percentage was higher than Jeter's last season.
And he is better than both defensively.
"In the last couple of years he's really asserted himself as far as RBI,'' Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "The year he had last year, you can fit him in with anybody.''
This year's shortstop market was set by Miguel Tejada, who signed a six-year, $72 million contract with the Orioles during the off-season.
But the bar has been set in St. Louis with Pujols, who will remain the team's highest-paid player.
"His best contract would come, whatever he hits, if he hits it on a winning team,'' La Russa said. "If you want to be truly selfish as a player, play on a winning team, because those numbers look better.''
Renteria is prepared for a big year, arriving in camp at his optimum weight [208] after spending the winter between Miami and his native Columbia. He'll be playing with a new second baseman and there's a small chance he'll hit leadoff.
"I'm not going to change anything,'' said Renteria, who set a franchise record for RBI by a shortstop. "To me, it's another season.''
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