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Nothing wrong with addressing a perceived need for a veteran presence, but what sort of presense does this veteran bring to the ballpark? He could never run the bases. He’s always come to the ballpark with an oven mitt adorned with the daisy and butterfly pattern. His skills in the batter’s box have long since evaporated. And, in my view, he’s always been a very unintelligent sort of ballplayer who makes poor decisions on the field of play. Sorry, but I say he can take his “veteran presence” elsewhere.
This is rent as you go, once the season starts. The risk is a release away.
Let him swing, and see if he can fill a PH role. This flier will be fun if it clicks.
I guess you had people within the organization who wanted this move made to get more veteran leadership. Well let’s hope those people put the pressure on Bowtie and Dewitt 3 and ask for another starter and a couple more arms for the pen.
Christ almighty! Have they announced the giveaways yet? Pretty sure we’ll have a couple matty bobbleheads with sombreros or jersey giveaways. Oh and naturally the last home stand would be a tribute weekend for him. Not to mention opening day tickets are available.
Carp is one of my favorite Cardinals of my adult sporting life
Check out the quote above from stlCard25’s post. Lot’s of fans have treasured memories of Carpenter as a Cardinal. If Carp can sell only 15,000 tickets out of a potential 3 million, it’s a break even. Carpenter could possibly sell more than 100,000 tickets and bring in an extra $5M+ in revenue to the organization. Maybe MO isn’t as dumb as some of us thought.
My fond Carp memories are mostly obscured by more recent Carp memories. He and DeJong represent the contingent whose fat paycheck kept them on the field to the detriment of the team.
This FO is so freaking unserious. What the hell does Oli do if they keep having to bring guys his age or older for veteran presence? This is why firing Shildt and hiring really looks foolish and now the Richie Palacios trade is looking worse. I just know Carp is gonna get overplayed simply because Oli cannot control himself. This entire franchise has turned into a joke.
Check out the quote above from stlCard25’s post. Lot’s of fans have treasured memories of Carpenter as a Cardinal. If Carp can sell only 15,000 tickets out of a potential 3 million, it’s a break even. Carpenter could possibly sell more than 100,000 tickets and bring in an extra $5M+ in revenue to the organization. Maybe MO isn’t as dumb as some of us thought.
Do you know what sells tickets and merchandise? Winning, which this FO doesn’t seem to care about.
Following is the list of things the FO has done this off-season that will make STL a better team in 2024:
1.
I’m old enough that I don’t get triggered over things like this signing. Thankfully. This fo is maddening for many, and I understand why. These days I just grab a bag of ppopcorn and enjoy the show. Read Bernie for a different perspective.
It will be interesting to see just how the bench shapes up by opening day. Last season it was pretty dysfunctional being clogged with guys who had limited utility. (Burly, Baker, Carlson vs righties). Palacios was useful but is gone. Motter was useful filling in when guys were banged up. Donovan will have an everyday role, so he does not really add functionality to the bench. Not having a functional bench with versatile, playable guys means the lineup and defense gets scrambled whenever somebody can’t answer the bell.
I agree that the lightweight coaching staff leaves a vulnerability to weak clubhouse leadership. Obviously NA and Goldy do not really fill that role. Not effectively at least. Which is OK, it is not everyone’s thing. But is does mean that someone else has to do it. For this year we have all 5 starters are veterans. A couple guys in the pen might count as such. There are NA, Goldy, Willson and Carp. That’s at least 9 or 10 veterans. If things fall apart again, Mo will need a new narrative. (Or Mo’s replacement will).
If indeed this move is primarily to address clubhouse issues then shame on Wainwright, Goldschmidt, Arenado, Marmol, and McEwing.
We already had a 2nd year Contreras, Lynn, Gray, Gibson, + Goldschmidt and Arenado.
What is that smell in the air around Mo?
According to the #STLCards team website's roster, Matt Carpenter is not getting his old no. 13 back. That was already assigned to newcomer Buddy Kennedy. However, there is a slight problem. They have Carp listed with no. 24, which has been retired for Whitey Herzog. #planbneeded pic.twitter.com/6bJpdY4TcO
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) January 20, 2024
I’m sure Buddy will give Matt his number back. Maybe 00 would be a better number for Carpenter though as it will be representative of his 2024 contributions.
Just did a quick check on Buddy and noted two very solid baseball players in his sphere of influence. Best friends with Mike Trout and longtime Brewer 3rd baseman Don Money is his grandfather. Let’s hope those two rub off on him.
Buddy who?
Yeah. A sprained ankle away from our starting lineup is who he is.
Mo has collected up a bunch of guys who weren’t going to have a 40 man spot in 2024 wherever they were. Some of them are supposed to be our future rotation and are being hyped accordingly. Buddy is front line non-shortstop IF depth. Or maybe IF/OF. We will see where he plays this spring. He wouldn’t have to be too good defensively to be corner OF depth behind our roster.
I find this defense questionable. Unless Carp will get the same amount of at-bats than the prior assumed 26th man, then yes, he will take ABs from others. That is just plain common sense.
In my prior scenario, the 26th guy was probably Fermin. Surely Carp will get more ABs than he would have.
Now, one could argue that Carp’s at-bats will be more productive than Fermin’s would have been, and if so, that is why he would earn more at-bats at the expense of others.
P.S. In our press Zoom yesterday afternoon, Mo said that Carp is coming in with the mindset to earn more ABs. They would have to come from someone as the number of ABs is finite. Being a fellow LHB, Burly sure seems like the one who is going to be most impacted, despite Katie believing the contrary.
What do others think?
Not dunking on you Adrian because I understand the rationale but
There is a distinct difference in the clubhouse between leadership via coach and leadership via player. Also, Carpenter isn't taking ABs away from Gorman, Donovan, Burleson. He's the 26th man on the roster. https://t.co/lafixiFUrp
— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) January 20, 2024
I think most of the STL sports media have become kool-aid drinking sheep. Not a single account I follow on Twitter is questioning this signing. Instead, all of them are defending it.
ZTR
Was there seriously not a better use for $740,000?
Where is he going to play? We don’t need him to DH.
I honestly do not understand or see any upside to this move whatsoever….
Trying to find the silver lining, he crushed it in 2022 so maybe he can re-capture that magic (unfortunately, we don’t have the righfield porch like Yankee Stadium ~ 1.605 home OPS that year)
If they are set with Edman at CF, then Burleson is the one hurt by this as the LH DH bat, but he can start in AAA again, and I guess they want Donovan in that role mostly. That might be good for Burleson to get regular at-bats in April and May.
Likewise, Siani probably won’t make the roster with Carlson being the primary outfield backup. This signing probably displaces Fermin, like BW said on the actual roster.
I do not believe Carp is going to sit on the bench all year. I also don’t believe the 2.35 million dollar man will be sitting on the bench all year. There should still be one bench spot not settled yet. Given that Donovan and Edman have positional versatility, that last spot could be anything. Except Baker, it won’t be Baker.
I still think there will be trade activity at some point before opening day. The pen and the bench could be addressed.
Katie is a good reporter, but she seems to be providing opinion on distribution of at-bats and calling it reporting. Or perhaps someone said he isn’t taking at-bats from others, but that is not what Mo said. He was asked if they could both be on the roster.
She is drawing some fire as a result.
But you are not simply reporting it, you are defending it. That's quite a distinction.
— Mike Kurtz (@TheRookie76) January 20, 2024
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