Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
Does a two-year extension actually block any of the Cardinals key guys?
I mean, maybe at the end of that period, Gorman is ready for a late season call, but those guys all look 3 years out to me.
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Doesn't start until next year and if Gorman forces his way to AA this year, he's a strong run through AAA in the 2nd half of 2020 away from being ready to take over in 2021. And if Carpenter's option vests for 2022 he's blocked for 2 seasons.
I'd have assumed 2022 as his likely ETA as well, but you don't have to squint too terribly much to see him ready sooner than that. And even if 2022 IS when he's ready, Carpenter will either play well enough to amass those 1100 plate appearances or he won't and the $40 million you gave him for those 2 seasons just gets tossed onto the big flaming pile of wasted money all up and down this roster.
Moreover, it's kinda folly to project runways on guys who are doing things that historically aren't done at Gorman's age. Granted, there's still plenty of reasons he could fail, but guys with that kind of upward trajectory tend to move faster than we would expect/project. Pujols was terrorizing A ball one year, starting opening day the next. Soto didn't even take that long. Acuna went from strong talent to #1 guy in baseball in the span of about 12 weeks.
Truly 'precocious' talents do weird shit sometimes and what we've done here is ensure that Gorman can't. We had an option for 2020 that we could've picked up and had a much clearer picture for 2021.