Comments on: Matt Carpenter: More Important Than Tyler Greene?

By: wileyvet

wileyvet — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 05:33:31 +0000

God! How pathetic is our situation that we’re bemoaning the fact that a 28 year-old be given playing time to see if he’s ready to take over the full time role at short. Tyler Greene has failed already how many times??? He should have had at least 3 all-star seasons in by now. Move along people.

As for Matt Carpenter, I don’t see him as any more then a good bench player because of his lack of power, albeit a great obp. He has great plate discipline for sure, so limited platooning next year with Freese would be ideal to up his trade value. I’m not sold on Cox yet either as a 3b judging by his errors and low slugging percentage. He could be battling Wong for 2b.

By: Hugecardsfan

Hugecardsfan — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 05:10:07 +0000

It’s hard to figure out which player is the future if Freese isn’t. Sure Cox is 3.5 years younger but Carp is a year further along and he is only 25. Carp’s OPS is significantly better than Cox’s and some of that is because of his OBP which is absolutely stellar….something awfully hard to teach.

I think Carp’s defense will never be matched by Cox nor will his batting eye. Just an opinion.

By: Hugecardsfan

Hugecardsfan — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 04:59:43 +0000

It only made sense for Tony to protect his time the year after the surgery. But, I don’t know if the attached ligament is more likely to be injured. Anything is possible, but Freese has proven that he can play 3rd and hit in the majors. It would indeed be painful if we traded him only to find that he not only can play, but gets better over the next 4-6 years.

By: Forsch31

Forsch31 — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:57:20 +0000

His playing time also was protected, so he wouldn’t reinjure them. He’s a solid third-baseman when healthy, but given the condition of his ankles–which is a permanent situation due to the injuries to them–his shelf-life is short and his durability will always be an issue. For the team in St. Louis, it is extremely important to see what the team has in Matt Carpenter, because it would be foolish to depend on Freese (and I’ve been one of his supporters).

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:43:31 +0000

I believe the argument was that there was no proof some players are “clutch”. I said I’m not saying they are clutch just that its fair to say RBI’s are a useful stat if combined with other things like average with runners in scoring position. This makes RBI’s less of a team stat as if a player has a good RBI total and hits better than normal with RISP then the RBI total can be attributed to his own peformance. I’m pretty much saying that RBI’s isnt a junk stat if you look at other stats involved.

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 23:38:18 +0000

Ok Andrew, Make up my mind for me. First you say you aren’t arguing that certain players are better RBI producers than the their averages would suggest and now you are claiming you believe those players exist.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 20:43:50 +0000

You don’t believe some players are better than others at driving in runs? It may be outdated but I do believe that some players have a knack of driving in runs.

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 20:18:06 +0000

don’t forget “gritty”.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 19:50:59 +0000

“Run Producer” is quite possibly the most meaningless term thrown around by broadcasters and fans outside of “Winner”. Maybe ‘Spark Plug”, too.

By: easy

easy — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:17:50 +0000

Whatever we think about Freese’s value or his ankles Matt Carpenter has to be the priority to get playing time this month. We have a modest treasure trove of young talent at 3b that needs to be sorted out and 20 some games of playing time for Carp could help do that.
I like Freese a lot but I think Carp could be the left hitting version of him. He’s pretty good defensively, has a little power and hits for a decent average. If he was used correctly, which means sticking him in the second spot in the lineup ahead of a trio of 3-4-5- sluggers, he’d chalk up 100 runs scored per year.
The other factor in all of this is Zach Cox. He needs to play at Memphis next year and we still don’t know what we have in him. If he can ratchet up his defense to match Carp and Freese then he’s probably the long term solution. If not and if Freese gets hurt again, then Carp could handle the job. The problem with all of this is that they all really only play 3b. Carp and Freese can’t play together with the varsity and Carp and Cox can’t play together at Memphis.
The trick is to get the most out of this logjam. If the club thinks it knows which way they want to go then they may have two pretty valuable trade commodities. Sorting all of this out, though, starts with bringing MCarp up and letting him play for the rest of the month. Depending on how he does it could help the club make a decision and also spark some interest from other teams.