ST. LOUIS -- As he settled in for a winter back home in Texas, Matt Carpenter started with his annual exercise of evaluating the season that had just ended. And when it came to his own individual performance, two things struck him as inadequate.
One was his defense, which was too inconsistent for Carpenter's liking. The other, his baserunning.
"I feel like I can do a better job of that," Carpenter said of the latter. "And that has nothing to do with speed. It's just making better decisions."
Indeed, Carpenter made a series of curious decisions on the bases in 2017.