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Later this morning, the St. Louis Cardinals will hold a press conference to announce agreement between the team and 3B Matt Carpenter. This is according to a tweet from Derrick Goold. The deal will secure Carpenter until he reaches 33 years of age.
The contract terms: six years, $52MM.
And here’s what is scary for not only the other NL Central teams, but all of baseball…
If you’re a fan of another NL team, all you can say to that is “Yikes!”
Last season, Carpenter was moved off his customary position of third base to transition to second. His presence seemingly filled two purposes. One was to provide some stability at the position. The other was to afford the Cardinals another year as they groomed Kolten Wong. During the 2012 season, the Cardinals utilized five different players at second, but it was the trio of Daniel Descalso (66) and Skip Schumaker (50), and former first round draft pick Tyler Greene (40) that accounted for the bulk of the workload in 2012.
During 2013, Carpenter showed he could handle the offensive side as he led the majors in runs scored (126) and doubles (55). He tied Adrian Beltre for the most hits with 199. Carpentered finished 4th in the NL MVP voting, was selected to the All-Star Game, and collected the Silver Slugger for NL second basemen. He crafted a triple slash of .318/.392/.481 with 11 HR and 78 RBI while serving as the Cards primary leadoff hitter.
This season, Carpenter moves back to third base. His 2013 provided the Cards the leeway to deal David Freese to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. St. Louis nabbed Peter Bourjos and Randall Grichek in the deal. Wong now takes over at second.