Cardinals rumors: Team 'showing interest' in Chris Davis

According to Jon Morosi, the Cardinals are looking at Chris Davis and have already reached out to his agent.

"The St. Louis Cardinals are interested in free agent Chris Davis and have had discussions in recent weeks with his agent, Scott Boras, according to major-league sources.

The Cardinals, sources say, are intrigued by Davis' ability to play first base, third base, right field, and left field. He started games at all four of those positions during his tenure (2011-2015) with the Baltimore Orioles."

While Davis has indeed played at all of those positions, it would be a stretch to refer to him as a versatile player. He hasn't played in left field since 2012, where he has a total of 86 career innings, and the last time he played third base was in 2014.

In 2015, Davis split time between first base and right field, where he accumulated 947 and 253.1 innings, respectively. While he does have the ability to play multiple positions, Davis' primary spot on the field would undoubtedly be first base.

He would make perfect sense for the Cardinals, as they finished 24th overall in terms of ISO, and would greatly benefit by adding someone with Davis' power. Over the past four seasons, he's hit more home runs than anyone in baseball (159), and driven in the fourth most runs (412).

As of now, it's unclear what type of contract Davis is looking for, both in terms of years and overall money. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs projected him to receive a five year deal worth $130 million, while Jon Heyman has him down for a seven year contract at $182 million.

The Cardinals will also have to decide who they favor more, Davis or Jason Heyward, as it's incredibly unlikely they can afford both. While Heyward doesn't posses anywhere near the same amount of power that Davis does, he's three years younger, and is one of the premium defenders in baseball.

Davis' market has yet to truly take shape, and as a result it's difficult to imagine him signing soon. It would appear that at the very earliest he could agree to a contract at the winter meetings, but even then, Boras could drag out the bidding process even longer to ensure Davis secures the best contract possible.