Post by Matt on Sept 6, 2022 20:35:50 GMT -5
It's been a few dreary years in St Louis.
After seasons of 103, 84 and 91 wins but no postseason success, the Front Office made a decision to step back and see what happened. So seasons of 52, 29 and 53 wins followed. Having missed on a few names in draft classes, and still having a big issue with a decision made in the Commissioner's office, it looks like the Cardinals are coming out of that few seasons of badness.
Gone are Darryl Kile, Felix Jose, Paul Quantrill and Kenny Rogers...all having non-surprising success on the teams they were traded to in the tear down. There are lots of new faces on the roster this year for the Redbirds.
![]()
![]()
The Cardinals have called up the following rookies in the lineup: Catcher Toby Hall, 2B Aaron Miles, 3B Brad Fullmer, 2B Travis "Pronk" Hafner and OF Mark Kotsay. All having varying degrees of success, which is expected of rookies in the messed up ratings system of league we all live in right now. The newest call of the bunch goes to Travis Hafner, who just recently picked up the ability to play 2B. When we caught up with "Pronk" and asked him, his reply was simple: "I saw Belly (2B Mark Bellhorn) went down for the year. I know that the big club wanted to give Brandon (top hitting prospect IF Brandon Phillips) hopefully another season to grow in AAA. I went to the AAA front office and pitched my point of view and they let me try out 2B....and after a couple of weeks I impressed enough I got the call." When GM Matthew Carpenter was asked he said "Travis came with the idea, we talked it over as an organization and decided to give him a shot. He's been great so far, he's got a long way to go defensively, but he's making the plays he should right now. We've got Eck and Aaron Miles to help him out on the defensive side, so we're encouraged with the possibilities."
The front office also jumped into the FA market and made 2 big signings for the OF in CF Ray Lankford and LF Albert Belle. "We knew we had a large group of rookies coming up, so bringing in Albert and Ray, to go with our other vets in Hunter, Deshields, and Olerud will help give some leadership and depth to our lineups. We might have spent too much, but with the rookies we knew we had some salary space, so we took a couple of chances."
![]()
![]()
Carpenter also wanted to discuss the even bigger changes to the pitching staff, but had to run because it was gametime and he wanted to keep an eye on how things were going on the field, so we'll catch up with him later on that topic.
After seasons of 103, 84 and 91 wins but no postseason success, the Front Office made a decision to step back and see what happened. So seasons of 52, 29 and 53 wins followed. Having missed on a few names in draft classes, and still having a big issue with a decision made in the Commissioner's office, it looks like the Cardinals are coming out of that few seasons of badness.
Gone are Darryl Kile, Felix Jose, Paul Quantrill and Kenny Rogers...all having non-surprising success on the teams they were traded to in the tear down. There are lots of new faces on the roster this year for the Redbirds.
The Cardinals have called up the following rookies in the lineup: Catcher Toby Hall, 2B Aaron Miles, 3B Brad Fullmer, 2B Travis "Pronk" Hafner and OF Mark Kotsay. All having varying degrees of success, which is expected of rookies in the messed up ratings system of league we all live in right now. The newest call of the bunch goes to Travis Hafner, who just recently picked up the ability to play 2B. When we caught up with "Pronk" and asked him, his reply was simple: "I saw Belly (2B Mark Bellhorn) went down for the year. I know that the big club wanted to give Brandon (top hitting prospect IF Brandon Phillips) hopefully another season to grow in AAA. I went to the AAA front office and pitched my point of view and they let me try out 2B....and after a couple of weeks I impressed enough I got the call." When GM Matthew Carpenter was asked he said "Travis came with the idea, we talked it over as an organization and decided to give him a shot. He's been great so far, he's got a long way to go defensively, but he's making the plays he should right now. We've got Eck and Aaron Miles to help him out on the defensive side, so we're encouraged with the possibilities."
The front office also jumped into the FA market and made 2 big signings for the OF in CF Ray Lankford and LF Albert Belle. "We knew we had a large group of rookies coming up, so bringing in Albert and Ray, to go with our other vets in Hunter, Deshields, and Olerud will help give some leadership and depth to our lineups. We might have spent too much, but with the rookies we knew we had some salary space, so we took a couple of chances."
Carpenter also wanted to discuss the even bigger changes to the pitching staff, but had to run because it was gametime and he wanted to keep an eye on how things were going on the field, so we'll catch up with him later on that topic.
