The Cardinals are, for some reason, still saying things about Jason Heyward, who signed with the Chicago Cubs this offseason after playing just one season in St. Louis. Manager Mike Matheny got snippy when Heyward told reporters that one of the reasons he left St. Louis is that the Cubs have a younger and less injury-prone core of players, and now old, recently injured starting pitcher Adam Wainwright is echoing Matheny.
Wainwright was asked about Heyward’s decision to leave while on Bernie Miklasz’s radio show. He talked about how he difficult it would have been for Jason Heyward to carry on the legacy of Adam Wainwright (“he didn’t want to play there after myself, and Yadier [Molina] and Matt [Holliday] were gone”) and explained that he is really, definitely fine with Heyward leaving for a bigger stage:
“We’re not mad about that at all. We love Jason. And it really comes down to a personality trait. If he’s the guy wants to carry the torch, if he’s the guy that wants to be ‘The One’ — the cornerstone guy that you build a team around, then he takes that contract. But he wants to be a part of a system that he knows is going to be there for years and years. And there is nothing wrong with that. Listen, we know Jason so well. He is such a great teammate, and such a great guy. We love Jason. And he’s going to do great for Chicago. It just wasn’t the right situation for Jason and frankly it wasn’t the right situation for us. we’re going to find that guy and it may be somebody already there.”
A helpful tip for Adam Wainwright: whenever you have to clarify that you are So Not Mad, you are definitely a little bit mad.