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How long will it be before he is called up to St. Louis? He is tearing it up at Memphis. Will he replace Dickerson?
The first question is what do you do with the roster when Carlson and O’Neill are ready to come off the IL? Who are you going to send down?
Noot will go, he has not taken advantage of the sparse opportuities he’s had. Both Dickerson and O’Neill have been pretty bad, but there are the few million reasons. I don’t know if the org is quite ready to off Sosa and turn it over to Edman/Donovan/Gorman. I can’t imagine going with 12 pitchers, so that’s out, IMO.
My guess would be Noot and O’Neill.
There is a timing matter to consider. O’Neill can’t be officially sent down until he is activated first.
O’Neill will likely get time in rehab games to get up to speed before coming off the IL. So he would then need another period of slumping with St. Louis before being sent down.
That assumes he will hit in the minors during his rehab. I guess if he slumps badly in his rehab, though, he could be optioned out right then and there, but I consider that to be pretty low odds.
To the main point of this thread, there seem to be too many others ahead of Burleson to bring him up now. Getting rid of Dickerson wouldn’t be enough. The situation could change with another injury in the outfield, though.
They said O’Neill will go down after his shoulder heals but he needs to stay down there until he gets his swing back.
Not sure what else they need to see from Noot.
A minor league rehab for a hitter on the MLB IL can be up to 20 days. That is what will likely happen with O’Neill coming fairly soon. He stays on the MLB IL while rehabbing.
It looks like Nootbaar will be an up and down guy. It is good to have that roster flexibility. He will probably be sent back down when Carlson is ready. (I am basing this off reports that Carlson is ahead of O’Neill.) But they might have Carlson play a few rehab games first, too.
I could see Burleson being a trade candidate to beef up the pitching staff at the deadline. I’m not saying I’d be in favor of it, but I could see it. I think he’s gonna be a solid MLB hitter, just without much positional value. He does have a great arm, though.
Good point, Brian. We’ll see if O’Neill is READY, when he comes back up. If he has to go down again that’ll look really bad.
bccran, that doesn’t fit. That was my whole point. There isn’t room for Burleson unless you get rid of someone else. Dumping Dickerson isn’t enough when everyone is healthy.
In your scenario, the bench is six, when only five fit.
Knizner
Sosa
Donovan
Pujols
Yepez
BurlesonBurleson only hás about 650 minor league ab’s. Does he need tô be playing or sitting in STL? Will he improve more with another 250 ab’s in Memphis this year?
Sosa cannot go down. He has no minor league options.
There is no reason to send down Donovan just to make room for Burleson. Not likely to happen at all with Donovan playing well at many positions. This scenario would leave Sosa as your only reserve middle infielder with a glut of corner-DH types.
I agree with the direction of CC’s comments. There is no rush to move up Burleson just for him to be the fifth outfielder and get 6 or 8 at-bats per week. Let him play at Memphis until there is a real opening.
Would you rather have Dickerson, Nootbaar, or Burleson from the left side off the bench, as a DH against left handed pitching, and as a spot starter?
O’Neill and Carlson won the outfield shuffle last year when other guys did not produce. There could be a similar shuffle type thing again due to failure to produce, in which Burleson gets a chance.
Next year there will be some more at bats available for guys like Burleson, Yepez, Nootbaar and others. It will be up to them to seize the opportunity.
Burleson is hitting at a 38 home run and 130 RBI pace based upon 600 PAs. Hitting .331 with an OPS of .978. Tough decision to leave a player like that at AAA.
This is all well and good, but the only solutions I have seen offered here are to get rid of Sosa (which would be a bad decision unless you want to see more of Kramer Robertson the next time there is an infield injury) or send Donovan down (questionable for multiple reasons).
It would be great if they could carry 28 or 30 players, but that ain’t real. Until then, we will have to be patient until the right conditions exist for Burleson to make his MLB debut.
We’ve got a lot of guys without much MLB track record. Carlson, O’Neill, Nootbaar, Donovan, Yepez, Gorman. It is not likely all of them will do well all season. There will be chances for Burleson this year and next, even if Mo brings in a couple new bargain bin hitters again like this year. The bigger problem is the rotation, and there won’t be any help there from within. Not enough to get ahead of attrition at least.
Why is there such negativity pointed in O’Neill’s direction? He is a proven commodity that’s having a bad go of it right now. He’ll be back and step it up. Carlson also has plenty of time to get back on track. Of course, no guarantees here but I’m optimistic.
Donovan continues to dumbfound me. Yepes is less of a surprise but a welcomed versatile player.
With every game that Burleson gets 2 or 3 hits…. there’ll be more and more fans calling for his arrival in the shadow of the Arch. I’d like to see him stay in Memphis. Getting 5 or 6 ABs in St. Louis won’t help him much down the road. I can’t see him being forced by our present OF depletion into Busch.
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