It's more the GM, team, and lack of any production from the OF as a whole...including him yes

You can believe that TON and DC shouldn't be considered every day starting OFers currently and I wouldn't argue.

However, Nootbar would be a starting OF on almost any team right now. I do not get your hatred for him. It's insane.

TON was hurt before that, correct? Meaning your OF options were Noot, DC, Edman, Donovan, Burleson, Walker.

And I believe Carlson was hurt at some point as well, meaning if you don't play Edman or Donovan in the OF, you're playing both Burleson and Walker...

He has an OBP of .377 and plays good defense.

I literally don't know what more you could want him from aside from taking steroids and hitting piss missiles every AB.

O'Neill is probably the best defensive corner OFer in the game. He's insanely good out there. When healthy he's absolutely starting caliber.

And as for the OF mess - it just doesn't matter if you don't have PDJ at SS. Edman has to stay there. Hell, it might have forced them to do what they SHOULD have done and moved Gorman to LF and put Noot in CF with Carlson in RF.

Moving Edman to CF was asinine and done only to accommodate DeJong and his presence on the roster.

Yeah, there's a reason I don't engage him on this topic anymore. He'll almost certainly admit this disdain for Noot is irrational at this point.

It’s equivalent to bitching about clouds in the sky at this point.

You brought up the key thing with TON-being healthy. That’s something he hasn’t been a majority of his tenure in STL. If/when he is healthy, he is a starting OF. But he hasn’t been.

Regarding OF, even if you move Gorman there, you’re basically conceiting you have two below average defenders in the OF instead of Donovan or Edman. That injury doesn’t happen if they have someone better than Burleson or Mercado to play with Walker.

This is the same guy who hated Mike Schildt. Take it for what it's worth.

Oh ya Shildt did suck ass thanks for reminding me, BUT I've always said he got a raw deal by that weasel Mo. And was a bullshit for him to be the fall guy when at minimum they both should have gotten flushed, but for him to take the blame? No no no

Oh no question. Again, the myriad of ways Mozeliak has butt-****ed basic roster management here are endless. Like I said, it defies all belief that this guy still has a job when we have 2 GG winning infielders that have been injured playing OF and our only regular healthy OFer was hurt BY one of those infielders.

Or that we're in year 3 of wondering why our SP has no depth OR top end. And that the team is neither younger or better than 3 other teams in the division.

I mean I'm not trying to say Paul DeJong is the ONLY problem by any stretch. But he's A problem. And his existence, though not of his making, is what enabled Mozeliak and his sock puppet to do something catastrophically stupid like put Edman in CF.

Someday I'll figure out why 80% of the Cardinals fanbase insists on putting a C in his name. Is it a Busch Beer thing? A Goldschmidt thing? I truly don't get it.

But yes, Shildt is yet another area where I've said my piece - repeatedly - nothing has changed SINCE I've said my piece, and as such I am disinclined to continue litigating it with someone who isn't interested in the conversation.

I’d have been fine if they traded DeJong for an OF before the season, but don’t know if he’d have gotten much due to how bad he was in 2021 and 2022.

As for SP, that’s an entirely different matter and I agree with you there. FO said it’d be addressed for 3 years and it hasn’t been. It’s ridiculous.

Keep DeJong; you'd have never gotten him moved. The issue wasn't DeJong, it was an(other) extension gone awry that tied Mozeliak's hands.

The issue is that there are fungible depth OFers that sign in FA every single year. Guys like Robbie Grossman don't do anything but be perfectly adequate year in, year out - can have them for $2 million/season. When the Yankees cut Aaron Hicks, where were the Cardinals? Jake Marsinik, Jake Baurs, Brian Anderson, Kole Calhoun, - these are guys signing minor league deals who aren't much of anything to speak of but they're friggen outfielders at least. And we're out here crying 'LOGJAM!' because we keep insisting that guys who are, on a GOOD day, middle infielders and more accurately are simply DHs, are outfielders.

It was beneath Mozeliak - and admission of a slew of errors - to dumpster dive for replacement level outfielders. So he refused to do so and in fact did the OPPOSITE by trying to snow the fans (and many of them bought it) into believing that trash like Juan Yepez contributes to some overabundance of quality big league Outfielders. Or that Jordan Walker HAS to be on a big league roster right now learning how to play RF (poorly) on the fly.

This is ALL a product of John Mozeliak simply now know who is actually good at playing baseball. While an All-Star caliber trio of players is over in the AL and a guy who's been better than anyone we have sits in Washington after being traded for the corpse of Jon Lester.

He's mother****ing AWFUL at this job. As bad as you will ever see.

Paul DeJong isn't the disease - he's just the loose bowels that it causes.

Donovan now out for the year; having season-ending surgery. So that leaves Edman and... Winn for the rest of the year at SS? Edman and Gorman can split 2B as well, with Gorman, Walker, and Willson splitting DH?

also Contreras as DH sometimes too

This would piss me off beyond the capacity for rational thought were I Brendan Donovan.

****wit leadership puts me in the outfield because of their own failures, now I'm injured for half a season and likely compromised into my platform season heading into arbitration.

They did this guy so damn dirty.

One thing worth noting in re: Winn - if a player wins ROY, you get a nice pick immediately after the 1st round. If you call up Winn now, he'll burn his rookie eligibility prior to next season.

If you call him up in about 3 weeks, his rookie eligibility will still be intact and he can be eligible for that nice little pick prize for you.