Cardinal legend to sign with Los Angeles Dodgers

Jason Burke | Nov 29, 2024

Sep 26, 2023; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Tommy Edman (19) celebrates after hitting a home run against the Milwaukee Brewers in the fifth inning at American Family Field. Mandatory Credit: Michael McLoone-Imagn Images / Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

The Los Angeles Dodgers are in agreement with former St. Louis and Stanford Cardinal Tommy Edman on a five-year, $74 million extension, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. The deal also includes a sixth-year club option. There’s a $17 million signing bonus and deferred money included, also per Passan.

Before he was the National League Championship Series MVP en route to the Dodgers World Series win this year, he had been with the Cardinals, who drafted him out of Stanford in the sixth round of the 2016 MLB Draft.

When the Dodgers traded for him at the deadline, Edman had yet to appear in a single game for St. Louis in 2024 while nursing a right wrist sprain. About three weeks after being dealt, he was activated by Los Angeles and split time between centerfield and shortstop.

Edman, now 29, will continue to play around the diamond with the Dodgers, and gives the club a solid veteran that helps extend their lineup beyond some of the big names. In 37 games with L.A. he smashed six home runs, while his previous high in a season had been 13, which he'd accomplished twice in both 2022 and 2023, but it took him 153 and 137 games in those years to reach that mark. At the rate he was hitting them out this year, he would have been at right about 20 homers in a 500 plate appearance season.

Perhaps the Dodgers have unlocked something for Edman.

In his career, Edman has been a .263 hitter with a .317 OBP and a 99 wRC+ (100 is league average). While fans of nearly every other team will complain about Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and a slew of other big-name talents being on the same roster, guys like Edman are also needed to win ballgames, which was evident in the NLCS.

Without Edman, the Dodgers may have had a tougher time against the New York Mets, and then not been in such a good place to face the New York Yankees in the Series, or perhaps not even have made it at all.

In that NLCS he went 11-for-27 with a home run, three doubles, and 11 RBI. In the clinching game, he was batting cleanup on this star-studded roster. Not Will Smith. Not Teoscar Hernández.

Tommy Edman.

The Dodgers have plenty of money to spend to make their team better each and every offseason, so for them to lock up the former Cardinal, it's probably because they know how important he can be to their continued success.