Cardinals - Signed Kennedy, Kip Wells, Marrero, Bennett

St. Louis Cardinals - Signed 2B Adam Kennedy to a 3-year contract; signed P Kip Wells and C Gary Bennett to 1-year contracts; signed PH Eli Marrero to a minor-league contract.

Adam Kennedy is the biggest signing here, going for a quite reasonable 3-year, $10 million contract.  Kennedy’s glove is usually good enough to make him a league-average second baseman (and not pretend-good like Aaron Miles) and with the farm system being

atypically prosperous in performance futures, this is a really nice signing.  Getting Miles onto the bench is a plus.

Kip Wells is that low-risk veteran starter signing that the Cards and Dave Duncan like.  If he’s awful, he should be jettisoned fairly quickly.  Gary Bennett’s job will continue to be making Yadier Molina look competent offensively and Marrero will compete for a bench spot in the spring.

2006 ZiPS Projections
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Player         W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA
——————————————————————————————-

Wells          6   9  22  22  121  121   67  15  67  91  4.98

2007 ZiPS Projections  
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Player        AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG 
———————————————————————————————————

Bennett      174  13   39   8  0   2  20  16  32   0  .224  .292  .305

Kennedy      440  52  120  23  3   4  49  34  67  15  .273  .332  .366

Marrero      169  22   43  12  0   7  25  17  38   3  .254  .328  .450