Shocking Miami Marlins target at C

The Miami Marlins have a problem at catcher. Brian wrote a good article about some options to fix that. I thought of another option however... The option that I thought of is not as likely and in fact almost certainly not happening. Why? It would require The Fish to take on a hefty salary, or for the trading team to take on a big portion of it. Who is the player and team? Willson Contreras of the St. Louis Cardinals.

What if the Miami Marlins acquired Willson Contreras?

Willson Contreras emerged as one of the best catchers in the game with the Chicago Cubs. Excluding the 2016 season (76 games) and the shortened 2020 season, he hit 20+ home runs in 4 of the 5 seasons. In fact from 2016-2022, he batted .256/.349/.460 in 734 games and 2481 AB.

Last off-season, the St. Louis Cardinals signed him for 5 years/$100 million. It looked like a great deal at the time, but the wheels have already fallen off. In one of the more bizarre decisions in recent memory, St. Louis publicly blamed Contreras for their bad play this season. Teams usually don't do this publicly. It also came off as incredibly insulting to the veteran, who wasn't as terrible as it was implied.

Willson Contreras is currently batting .222/.308/.365, with 5 home runs and 25 RBI in 52 games and 189 AB. He's currently worth 0.5 WAR. He's not an MVP contender, but he's also not the worst player in the game. He has a 0.2 dWAR and was worth 0.5 last season. This means that he's on pace to playing better defensively than he did last season. What's the problem here?

St. Louis went as far as removing him from catcher, though they've since let him start there again. We don't know how this affected the relationship between player and team, but could both sides be willing to separate? If so, St. Louis might be willing to get out of the contact and the Miami Marlins should certainly be interested if that were to happen. The problem is of course The Fish taking on his salary and St. Louis's willingness to get rid of him.