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DALLAS — More than a month before anything official begins at the Cardinals' player development complex in Jupiter, Florida, a time-honored tradition, one as old as Skip Schumaker taking high-velocity grounders from a pitching machine, will resume on a backfield.

Willson Contreras head to Jupiter in January to launch his move to first base under the tutelage of longtime coach and infield guru Jose Oquendo.

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said the plan is for Contreras to spend some time in Jupiter with coaches Stubby Clapp and Oquendo next month as the All-Star catcher moves positions. For Oquendo, this is a familiar task. He has worked with players from Albert Pujols to Schumaker as they've moved from outfield to infield or from one side of the infield to another. 

Contreras has played 51 1/3 innings over 11 games at first base in his big-league career.

He expressed to the Cardinals his preference to remain with them and not seek a trade, and to make his presence fit with their plan to turn toward youth a position switch was discussed. Marmol said Contreras' response to the position change was "excitement."

"At the end of the day, Willson wants to be healthy," Marmol said during his meeting with media on the first day of Major League Baseball's annual winter meetings. "And he wants to be in the lineup as much as possible."

The Cardinals see the move to first base and additional time at designated hitter as a way to keep Contreras as an every day player and not ask him to also prepare with the pitcher for games. This past season, Contreras spent months on the injured list because of fractured forearm sustained while catching and a hand he broke when hit by a pitch. In 84 games, he had an .848 OPS and was one of the Cardinals' leading hitters.

Contreras will join a group of players who are already working out at the facility in Jupiter.

That groups includes shortstop Masyn Winn who will be around if wanted for infield drills with Contreras, Marmol said.

Winn and right fielder Jordan Walker have established offseason homes in the Jupiter area, and catcher Pedro Pages has also been working out at the Cardinals' facility. All three of them recently worked with new hitting coach Brant Brown at the complex.

Jon Jay, the Cardinals' former center fielder who has been hired as a coach to work with the outfielders, has also spent time in Jupiter this winter already to work individually with Walker, Michael Siani, and Victor Scott II.

Oquendo is widely regarded as the team's infield professor.

Following in the lineage of George Kissell, who helped Joe Torre move from catcher to third base and John Mabry expand his defensive versatility, Oquendo has been a key coach for all of the Cardinals' position switches of the past two decades or more.

"Jose does an incredible job teaching and progressing someone who hasn’t played a position to feeling comfortable in a game," Marmol said. "He does that as well as anybody so I think we have the right people to get Willson comfortable."