Let’s start by taking a little journey back in time, shall we?
It was the winter of 2021. The Cardinals were coming out of their COVID season with limited budgetary resources. (Argue for or against that all you want, it’s irrelevant to my point…) Mozeliak talked with the team’s beat writers and spread the word far and wide: “platoons”.
They didn’t have a lot of money to use to upgrade their offense. So, they planned to generate more runs by creating a versatile roster that could allow then-manager Mike Shildt to shift lineups based on platoon splits to maximize effectiveness.