***Official 2021 STL Cardinals Thread***
 

2021 Opening Day Lineup


For the new Cardinal fans that joined the Planet since last year.....

2020 Thread
https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=329273
2019 Thread
https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=320239
2018 Thread
https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=312812
2012 Thread
https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=254619
etc.
All the way back to 2006 WS
https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=312812

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/fangraphs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fangraphs</a> has announced their projected postseason odds. ��<br><br>Let us know what you think ⬇️ <a href="https://t.co/1itTsNyf3B">pic.twitter.com/1itTsNyf3B</a></p>&mdash; MLB (@MLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1361724237074096130?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Good thing the Central is a pile of shit

Yadi still has something left in the tank


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Marp is 0-13 this spring so there is that. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get DFA'd this spring. That $ could have been used for Ozuna.

His decline may actually be accelerating. Putting him at 2b would be a joke...like beer league joke.

The dude has pride. I don't think he will be one to over linger, he won't want to lose those individual battles.

Or Kolten Wong. If we are gonna have someone who can't hit, might as well be a decent defender.

In the running for one of Mo’s worst contracts. And that’s saying a lot. It’s up there for me because it was so unnecessary. He was going no where. $40 million down the drain.

I just don’t want to see that 2022 option vest from keeping him around and in the lineup.

Wait! What? he could even be on the payroll in 2022?:doh!:

Not an individual stat but there is a cause and effect.

Another 18.5M if he gets to 1100 plate appearances between 2020 and 2022. I don’t know how the proration of the partial seasons works out and would like to think it would never happen. But it’s still out there...

How high are you guys on Lane Thomas? Im asking for dynasty fantasy reasons

His ceiling is a respectable 4th OF, IMO.

hitting 1/25 with 11 strikeouts in spring training ain’t going to get you much playing time.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cubs minor leaguer nabbed with obscene amount of meth, oxy in his duffel bag <a href="https://t.co/TjqtuKjFPb">https://t.co/TjqtuKjFPb</a> <a href="https://t.co/HRxgY7qCkH">pic.twitter.com/HRxgY7qCkH</a></p>&mdash; Deadspin (@Deadspin) <a href="https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/1373387388056039425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Where is that Cubs fan to defend this kind of stuff?

Batting fourth today, hitting .033 (1-30) with 13 strikeouts. Surely they have seen enough.

Just a minor league player trying to make ends meet.

Meanwhile Cardinals prospects drive drunk and kill themselves while murdering their girlfriend.

Yea but he has like 4 walks!

ROFL one guy with a personal drinking problem doesn't hold a candle to a guy that is going to kill 100s with this poison. With this amount and multiple types, he is part of a "group" moving quantity. Huge difference.

Can we ban this turd from the thread already or are we going to have to put up with his drivel for 3/4 of the season again before someone finally does it?

Cubs player was just looking out for the drug addicts of America and trying to make them happy in this time of crisis.

Carp is garbage and does not need to take up a roster spot.

GO CARDS!!!

First ballot

Should be, you never know with voters. Ozzie is a good comparison, defensive stalwart who worked hard to make themselves a tough out as they matured.

With Harrison Bader out for a month, Dylan Carlson moves to CF, and it looks like Justin Williams and Lane Thomas are going to split RF duties.

He got his second hit yesterday so he will probably start opening day now. LMAO

I don't get baseball's approach on these dead money players. In football and all other sports, if they paid you a bunch of money and clearly are not performing, you sit on the bench or are released.

But, baseball is like, we paid him, we have to get our money out of him. If they suck, how are you getting your money's worth?

It's the opposite, your hurting the team twice. Once when you gave them the insane contract and then allowing them to take the place in the lineup and on the team of someone else more deserving. 2013 Carp ain't coming back, ever.

The difference is baseball contracts are fully guaranteed.

For all out of market Cards fans who are Sprint/T-Mobile subscribers, they are offering MLB.TV free for the entire year for this week only. Go to their Tuesday app to complete. Very pumped to see the Cards more!

Nice start.

Yea lots of BB left. 6-1 now.

They have a habit of scoring early and no scoring again.

Great offensive start to the game! Too bad JF can't last through five innings.

I like O’Neill and or Carlson in the #4 hole over Dejong. I know they were in consistent last year but they had good spring trainings and way more upside. Give em a chance.

If I’m doing the lineup it’s...

Edman
Carlson
Goldschmidt
Arenado
O’Neill
Dejong
Molina
Williams
Pitcher

Hello Eric Berry...... football has lots of dead money. Baseball too.

never know if it’s pitching or It’s that bandbox of a park. No pitcher looks good there.

Arenado with the 2 run homer in the bottom of the 8th FTW on opening day. :thumb:

Rotation is ass

Truth. Kim Throwing 88 MPH fastballs, Waino at 91, Carlos cant get through a start without melting down, Gant is a crap shoot etc.

Remember when Mo let Lance Lynn walk? Sure would be nice to have him right about now.

The Mo era Cardinals teams are not even likable one bit. Fire his ass.

It was always nice to have him in the first half of the season. But not when his arm falls off after the all star break.

I much more recently remember the time he went through all the effort to trade for a star 3B and then didn’t do anything about adding another SP or an OF bat.

Season tickets on sale now!

Truth and unfortunately the team is just a few players they could easily have from being actually good and fun to watch.

Instead they keep running Marp and Martinez out there, extended Mikolas for no reason, let Ozuna and Wong walk, and have the most boring soggy cardboard yes man manager in all of baseball. Oy yea and O'Neil and Bader are both 4A players not big leaguers.

The Marp, Mikolas, and Fowler deals would have gotten 99 of 100 GM/front office guys fired by now.

.500 team again but it was .200 effort by the organization.

Ballpark Village condos now for lease!!

carlson is hitting .400+ with RISP and a .900 OPS. Average getting up to .275+ and he’s still hitting 7/8.

We really only got one position open to improve in 2022. You put Bader in CF, it’s zero opportunity. Assuming Gorman can play a corner OF.

2022 lineup

Edman
Carlson
Arenado
Goldy
Gorman
Dejong
Corner OF
Yadi’s replacement

Sucked since 2019, 2020, spring training, worst BA in Major League Baseball but you still don’t change a damn thing? No change in approach? That’s some real stubborn hard head BS.
———————————————————

“With the outfield coming back, you could see limited at-bats (for Carpenter) moving forward,” Mozeliak said. “I don’t think that’s a line that we have to cross today. Over the next seven to 14 days, it is going to have a way of playing itself out. You are trying to give someone an opportunity to get going. But as players become healthy and get back active on this roster, those at-bats are going to be more difficult to find if production isn’t there.”

If Mozeliak had not crossed a line, he sounded at its edge and leaning over it.

He described the searching Carpenter as “wedded” to one version of his swing and connected dots between the hitter’s usual approach against the shift — continuing to hit into it while trying to hit over it — as the definition of insanity. He absolved Cardinals hitting coaches from the conversation when asked if they should be helping Carpenter make changes. And then, after suggesting multiple times that Carpenter diversify his game, Mozeliak found himself hinting there is no guarantee attempted changes would work.

Through a series of questions and answers Mozeliak painted the picture baseball is seeing more and more these days, one of a left-handed pull hitter with power who has been disarmed and deflated by extreme defensive shifts they either cannot or will not shake.

“Look, you can only build a line of reasoning for so long,” Mozeliak said. “At some point in this game you are truly measured on what you do. There is that old saying. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if something isn’t working, maybe you need to try to make some adjustments. I do appreciate the fact he is making hard contact. I do appreciate the fact he’s trying to remain positive in this. But, to some level, you’ve got to see production out of that. And so, hopefully his fortunes change, because it would help our lineup, and help our team. But, you know, at some point it’s going to be hard to be doing the same thing over and over again.”

The single biggest issue the team has is its internal player evaluation system. That's what has hurt them in so many trades and extensions. If you can't separate luck from skill and recognize aging curves, you end up extending guys like Mikolas and Carpenter when you could just let them play out their deals.

Jeff Bridich, whose tenure with the Colorado Rockies was defined by his falling out with and subsequent trade of franchise player Nolan Arenado, is out as the team's general manager, the team announced Monday.

The Rockies announced that Bridich, 43, and the club "mutually agreed" to part ways, less than three months after Bridich dealt Arenado to the St. Louis Cardinals for a less-than-overwhelming return - and sent along $50 million to help the Cardinals pay Arenado's salary.

I know we lost today but for the first time in quite some time, I feel a sense of optimism coming from behind that I haven't felt in some time.

Just heard on the radio that the Angels dumped Pujols.

Yup, yet we keep running Carp out there. And Pujols got DFA'd with better numbers than Carp.

That has to be one of the worst contracts ever signed in MLB history though. 10 years $245MM for a JAG or worse.

It’s been said many times - we got the best years of his career, and those idiots paid for them.

He hit .328/.420/.617 with 445 home runs in 11 seasons with the Cardinals and is a career .298/.376/.545 hitter in over 12,000 plate appearances.

In parts of 10 seasons with the Angels, Pujols authored a .256/.311/.447 batting line with 222 home runs in 1,181 games, though he's hit only .240/.289/.405 in nearly 2,000 plate appearances since 2017.

Ouch!

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/a...year-contract/

It was the best 11 years any player ever had. We got to see them all. No player, Ruth, Gehrig, Mays, Mantle etc. had a better consecutive 11 years than Pujols.

I was pissed that he left but it ended up being a good thing. Pujols made us championship relevant again after decades. For the rest of his life, he will deserve every standing ovation he gets from Cardinal fans.

so...since they released him, is he still obligated to still work for them for the 10 years after he retires like his contract supposedly said?
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I was just wondering that myself.

It's possible, of course, that another team might still sign him just for the name value alone.

Bring him in for a look?

Wouldn’t surprise me, frankly.

why not? probably run into one more often than Carpenter off the bench.

Apparently the reason he was released was because he wanted a chance to play 1B full time. Clearly not going to happen in St. Louis.

at this point in his career, demanding to play full time? With his injury history? Decline in production?

The only teams that would do that is non-contending teams looking to boost attendance.

Their DH slot was also pretty blocked by a pitcher.

If he's smart he will come home. Puljos could fill in for Goldy when he needs a day off just as well as Carp.


Take Carpenters AB's off the bench. I'm sure Pujols could give us more production off the bench than Carp. Thats a pretty low bar to clear. Seems like every time I catch one of Carp's AB's he's meekly swinging at something in a strikeout or meekly grounding out to the 2B/1B and leaving men on base in scoring position.

If I am the Cards front office I'm torn between telling him to **** off for accusing them of insulting him with a $225MM offer and being thankful he kept them from making a massive mistake and go ahead and bring him in for his last season.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...ve/4977322001/

"Technically, Pujols will remain an Angel for the next 10 years. Well, at least he’ll be on their payroll. His contract includes a 10-year, $10 million personal services contract, but it’s difficult imagining him representing an organization in the community after coldly dismissing him."

He's made $300 million at least, I don't see him debasing himself for 10 years for another $10 million.

i don't see him coming to st. louis to play part time.
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Why would anyone want Pujols with his .198 batting average? The guy is at least 41 years old. Likely 3 or 4 years older than that.

Outside of a fan draw for an organization that has attendance issues and a really shitty first baseman, I can't really think of a good reason.

I think it would be nice for St. Louis to sign him to a ceremonial contract so he could retire a Cardinal. Other than that, he's done and has been done for a long time.

For us, this year, he cant be worse than Carpenter and his 0.113 BA. Who just keeps getting crucial AB's with men on base and epic failing. He's the worst in all of baseball with 35+ AB's.

The best part is last week he started 2 games and he batted 4th (LMAO) and 2nd (LMAO) in the line up.

What. The. ****.

I wonder if Schildt is trying to make a point to Mo or something.

OMG I tuned in and saw that lineup and wanted to throw something. Carp is not going to get it going. This isn’t a slump. It’s been going on for 2 years for crissakes.

Yeah I read a couple of articles about how and why his exit happened. We don’t have a starter job for him. We are not so good that we can put a dead bat in the everyday lineup for past performance and nostalgia.

Heard this idea tonight on sports radio - Cardinals offer up Carpenter and prospect or two for Pujols to the Angels. Reason if you are going to have a shitty backup 1b at least bring someone who will bring in some money. Thoughts?

I wish we would just "dump" or shit without bring in some other shit. I do support bringing Pujols in for a one-day contract so he can retire a Cardinal though. Anything beyond that, Nah.

On the mention of making some money. Of course, that is all good and well, except they will not reinvest that money in the roster. So, **** that, the only thing it could do is keep Mo here longer.

Marp has got to have pictures of Mo ****ing a goat or something. :shake:

Pujols is a money whore. Prove me wrong.