GatewayRedbirds.com

Per Derrick Goold's P-D Blog:

Derrick Goold wrote:Four position players were moved to minor league camp after Sunday’s game: 1B Tagg Bozied, 2B Edgar Gonzalez, C Eli Marrero and C Brian Esposito. Bozied and Gonzalez are expected to be everyday starters for the Triple-A Redbirds. Marrero will have his sore right elbow examined by team doctors on Monday, but La Russa said he believes Marrero will accept the assignment to Triple-A.

Does this mean Jolbert Cabrera is making the team? I think Marrero earned a spot more than he did. The other ones make sense.

Doesn't necessarily mean Cabrera's going to make it, simply because he'd still have to beat out guys like Schumaker and Rodriguez and Miles, which isn't likely to happen.

I'm really surprised that Marrero was sent down. I thought I read that Larussa said that they signed Eli with the intent of him making the team. I guess I heard wrong?

Marrero & Edgar were sent down? Jeez. That's.. not cool. Marrero was tearing it up. But I guess if they intended to stick him behind the plate, it was a bad idea with Bennett being the back up and the outfield being more crowded than Sidney Ponson's fridge.

Surprised Marrero signed back with the Cardinals.

LaRussa never gave him a fair shake when he was here before IMO

Marrerro came back as a non roster invitee for the simple fact that he lives in the St. Louis area...

according to the story he has a bit of an elbow problem so the Cards are sending him down and assuming he will accept the chance to play in the minors to prove his elbow is healthy, and I could see him making a return late April/May whenever Taguchi or some of the others start to falter

raddy wrote:Surprised Marrero signed back with the Cardinals.

LaRussa never gave him a fair shake when he was here before IMO

Gee, I am shicked by THIS stance.. And Marrero went on to such great things after he left the Cards. Is it really surprising that a guy who had to sign a non-roster invitee deal and has a SORE ELBOW is getting sent down????

Marrero is being sent down because the Cards don't need a third string catcher on the ML roster. Especially considering the fact that they extended Bennet for a lot more money. We don't need him at this point. He was blatantly told that a condition of his invitation was that he could play catcher. Bennett was signed for a lot more money than I expected, so Eli is naturally the odd man out. He wasn't offered a job to be a utility man as a 5th outfielder, so this should not come as a surprise.

More to the point, it was Marrero who wrote his ticket out of town, when he became disinclined to catch, preferring instead to play the outfield. Of course, with Drew still on the team as well, that gave Eli plenty of opportunities, but still...

Jmodene wrote:More to the point, it was Marrero who wrote his ticket out of town, when he became disinclined to catch, preferring instead to play the outfield. Of course, with Drew still on the team as well, that gave Eli plenty of opportunities, but still...

Yeah, I said it a lot at the time, but Eli's only real value was being an average bat who could catch. In a corner OF position, he's a tick below average defensively, and his bat isn't good enough then to make him a starter. He's in J-Rod territory there.

But as a super-utility man now, he could have some value to a team. Too bad his bat has slipped a bit and he's constantly battling injuries.

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