St. Louis Cardinals: Matt Carpenter is sticking around for a while

The St. Louis Cardinals called a mystery conference today and it turns out a beloved player is sticking around for a while!

The St. Louis Cardinals announced on April 10 that one of the best players of the last decade, Matt Carpenter, would be sticking around for a while.

It started at about 1 pm in the afternoon when the team called a press conference without a known reason. This, of course, sent Twitter into a frenzy. Had the Cardinals signed a free agent? Was Harrison Bader or Jack Flaherty receiving an extension? For an amazingly long time, nobody found out about the meaning of the conference. Then about 15-20 minutes before the scheduled conference, Derrick Goold announced that Matt Carpenter was the man to be extended.

Signed through this year with an option for 2020 before the extension, the team moved that option to 2022 and tacked on a couple of years so that Carpenter is guaranteed $37M over the next two years.

Carpenter is as deserving as anyone of an extension with the club as the career-Cardinal led the league in homers (36) last season and was in the top ten of MVP voting at age 32. Since coming up in 2011, Carpenter has finished as high as 4th in the MVP voting while tacking on three All-Star appearances.

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Matt Carpenter has more or less served the role of different players at different times in his career. He has been the starting first baseman, second baseman and now the third baseman while at times being a power hitter, but in other years being a gap hitter. So much so that in 2013 he broke Stan Musial‘s doubles record by hitting 55 in the year.

While his hitting style has changed at times, there have remained a few constants about Carpenter’s game. He always plays without batting gloves, has a high OBP and bats leadoff. While his batting average has dipped in the last few years, that OBP has not which is why he is still so good at the top of the batting order.

As a career .273/.376/.469 batter, he will likely finish his career in Cardinal red, which is just where he should finish.

Now the St. Louis Cardinals have as many top-tier third base prospects as the Cubs do World Series Championships but this deal should have no effect on blocking the likes of Elehuris Montero, Nolan Gorman or Malcom Nunez as they will all be due to come up right around when Carpenter’s deal is going to finish.

The Cardinals are usually one of the best teams at locking up the players that they want to keep around as the core of the team. In signing Carpenter and Goldschmidt longterm, there will be not only a strong leadership core but a strong duo across the diamond and in two of the top three of the lineup.