In yahoo he has OF and 2b eligibility and will probably get 1B this year as well. Very solid hitter Berkman said last year that he could be a clean up hitter for a team some day and he has done nothing but hit. He just came back from offseason knee surgery and was hitting well on his rehab stint (I know he had one 2HR game).
When Berkman comes back you have to think he will only be a part time player but they will work him in quite a bit.
Heck, he's a part-timer NOW -- even with Berkman on the DL.
Going forward, it's hard to envision a path to playing time that allows for more than three or four starts a week. I doubt they'll use him at second very much given his knee issues, and all three outfield positions are locked down. Last year, he sat often against righties, and that doesn't figure to change.
Barring an injury in the outfield, I just don't see Craig returning much value.
wazzeus wrote:Heck, he's a part-timer NOW -- even with Berkman on the DL.
Going forward, it's hard to envision a path to playing time that allows for more than three or four starts a week. I doubt they'll use him at second very much given his knee issues, and all three outfield positions are locked down. Last year, he sat often against righties, and that doesn't figure to change.
Barring an injury in the outfield, I just don't see Craig returning much value.
Once he gets his feet under him and there doesn't seem to be any lingering issues I'd be surprised if he doesn't get ABs in 4 out of every 5 games. He's a very solid hitter and will get plenty of playing time as he can play multiple positions. They won't keep his bat out of the lineup.
I love him as a bench player. His 2b/OF flexibilty is nice even if he only starts 5 games a week. At the very least you can count on him starting vs all lefties + a couple other games per week, and he very likely can become a fixture in the top half of that potent lineup.
What happens to Craig when Berkman gets back? Of course it probably isn't about a month or so til Berkman gets back but I've been reading things that Berkman is progressing pretty well.
Craig's currently manning 1B with Jay, Beltran, Holliday in the OF. There's no way they take out Beltran or Holliday, and there's no way they move Beltran to CF with his injury risks, right? And there's no way they move Craig back to 2nd with his lack of skill there and injury risk as well.
Craig has been mashing the ball way too much to be taken out and he's been the 3rd best hitter on the Cards, probably the best hitter if you did it by per game stats.
"Chuck Norris has been known to throw a baseball 100 mph. I've been known to throw Chuck Norris 100 mph." - Brian Wilson
It will be interesting, that's for sure. Over the last two weeks, three have hit more homers, more RBI, and two have scored more runs than Craig on my team. I just can't bench him, even with guys like Harper and Freeman making me pay on my bench. But like you said, with their team coming back down to Earth, sitting Craig is the last thing they'd do. They will find a way to get him his 5-6 starts a week.
They probably will just rotate everyone. Maybe 1 day a week Beltran plays CF and Craig plays RF. Another day, Craig plays RF while Beltran sits. Yet another day, Craig plays 1B spelling Berkman. It's possible that Craig even spells Holliday every once in awhile. They will try hard to get all of those guys 5-6 games per week (with Berkman maybe getting 4 or so depending on his health).
No thought of a trade anywhere? Then again so many of those guys are injury prone they might just keep them all just in case someone goes down again...
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by jealousblues » Thu May 03, 2012 3:15 am 
