The Cardinals signed free agent Mike Leake on Tuesday.
Which opened the door for more talk on the biggest moment in the MLB off-season so far – Jason Heyward leaving St. Louis.
At his introductory press conference, Leake knew what to say:
https://twitter.com/Total_CardsMove/status/679420285980819456
Do you really care about anything else he said? Probably not. Dude knows the stakes for 2016 (and beyond) and wants to mix it up.
But it’s still too soon to make any mention of the Cubs without talking Heyward.
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I never linked to it, but Matt Whitener of I-70 Baseball had one of the first pieces I saw that forwarded the idea that Heyward didn’t move from the Cards to Cubs because it was a better situation, but more because he wasn’t confident he could be the man when the Cardinals core decided to retire.
An excerpt (emphasis mine):
In the clear declaration that the Cubs did not have to offer as much as the Cardinals did to successfully land his services, implies there is something deeper to his decision. And the arrows point towards a belief that the Cubs are simply an easier –not better— place for him play.
He appears to be a player that is more comfortable being a part of the solution than the reason for it. Major League Baseball and the big business contracts that come with it is not a game that is played with your friends in a sandbox. It is a game where men take responsibility on their shoulders for eight months a year and live up to their paychecks.
Now it seems as if the players have picked up on this vibe.
Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright went on the Bernie Miklasz Show and had the following to say (again, emphasis mine):
A great teammate. One of the best teammates actually. A great friend and a great person. But when you look at that money that was offered to him, there’s really not much more our management can do than offer him that contract. He knows that we’re going to be in a position to win every year. and what it comes down to is this: he didn’t want to play there after myself, and Yadier (Molina) and Matt (Holliday) were gone, on such a long contract.
It really comes down to a personality trait to me. The person that we want to give that kind of money to, that big money to, he needs to be a person that wants to be the guy that carries the torch. He needs to be a guy that wants to be the person, that after we leave, he carries on the tradition. And that’s just a personality thing, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But we’re looking for that guy who wants to be the man.
Woah. The narrative is starting to take hold, it appears.
Jason Heyward: great guy, great teammate, great player… scared to be the man.
We’ll never know if this is true or not. And it doesn’t really matter beyond making the Cardinals feel a bit better about being turned down even after he experienced a playoff series and love of Cardinals Nation.
Still, it’s a fun little passive aggressive tactic that is spicing up the off-season.
April can’t get here soon enough.
Photo: SportSpyder
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