At the end of the day, players are assets to the franchise I root for. That doesn't mean I don't care about their well-being, it just means I want to maximize their value to the franchise I root for, winning baseball games.
Sometimes that means players have more value in trade than they do to the stated goal above.
It reminds me of the Wedding Crashers scene where the kid tells Vince Vaughn to "make me a bicycle clown." At the end of the day, my biggest interest in you is through the Cardinals winning baseball games.
Which, in all honesty, is why I implore all players to get every dime that they can get in the game. As soon as they aren't good, most fans will want you elsewhere, and a team certainly has very little loyalty to you past what you can do for the owner.
This!
Which is why I'm always on the players side for money and even when they request trades. Even if it's off my team.
You can’t just play anyone at first base because they’re on the team and aren’t great at another position.
I get that. the defensive position hierarchy is a real thing too. It’s likely that Gorman and Walker would be at worst serviceable 1B after coming up with average to plus grades at 3B.
Because you say so? You don’t learn first base in the big leagues.
Imagine the boost our players would get from signing a couple of reliable SP and trading for a proven ace? We have the offense in place. Defense will improve with more strike out pitching. Bullpen could be filled with some of the in house SP candidates and maybe sign a flame thrower.