The St. Louis Cardinals had exhausted their use of left-handed first baseman Matt Adams. With Matt Carpenter moving full-time to first, the Cards did not need a second left-handed hitter to man the position. In addition, Adams was flailing to say the least.
The general thought was that Adams had reached the end of the rope with the Cardinals and even fans- me included- were begging for him to be sent elsewhere. Many of these fans- me included- believed that Adams needed a change of pace and needed to be away from John Mabry.