This has been our position from day one on Yadi Molina and the Cardinals: although he’s clearly having fun with his first ever taste of free agency, it’s all seemed designed to get two years out of the Cardinals, rather than actually get Molina a great deal from another team. Oh, and some “appreciation.”
The latest from Derrick Goold indicates that a Molina-Cardinals reunion is “approaching inevitable,” and it would take some other team pulling off a surprise for it to go another way. Obviously there’s interest around baseball in what Molina could bring, even at 38, but as Goold points out, Molina wants to stick with the Cardinals. And if the Cardinals just go to two years, boom, it’s done. It just feels like that’s going to happen, even if the Cardinals’ initial offer to Molina was “ridiculous.”
That is to say, if you were hoping to continue hating on Molina as the face of the Cardinals for a little while yet, you’re probably going to get your wish. This is all just theater.