Why would you sit Carter? Over the past 30 days his OPS is .858 which ranks 12th among MLB 1B's. Since June 1st that number goes to .960! Over the past 30 days his OBP is .369 which ranks 10th among MLB 1B's He hasn't been anything like the guy that carried this team on his back for a couple of months last year, but he has been very solid for a month now. The early season stats were so awful it still makes his overall numbers look really bad. If Singleton could come up and be better than a .858 OPS guy, that would be awesome (would make him a top 30 overall OPS guy in MLB)...I kind of doubt he would do that though it is possible I suppose. Bottom line, Luhnow isn't about to move Carter out of the lineup for Singleton at a point when Carter has put up solid numbers for a month's time Valbuena has been terrible, no doubt. He hit into a lot of bad luck most of the year, then has just been flat out awful lately. If he is still going like that when Lowrie returns then yea, i'd expect to see Lowrie as pretty much the everyday 3B. Have to remember though, Lowrie is nowhere close to returning. It will be at least the All Star break before he comes back, so who knows what the situation will be at that point.
This is my issue with Carter; he's only valuable if you slice and dice his season up into little conclusion-confirming pieces. Great, he's had a nice three weeks; he's actually been back to god-awful during the 7-game losing streak (.300 SLG%; .608 OPS). The bottom line is that, overall, he's been a terrible baseball player this year. His hot streaks are certainly worth riding; the question is whether or not they're worth his cold streaks, which are freezing. I'd much rather give Singleton his shot. Chris Carter is 28 years old - he is what he is.
I agree overall, and I'm hoping that he can be moved before the deadline now that he's at least shown up for some significant period this year. (I know we disagree on something fundamental in there re:trade value, but it doesn't matter anymore.) I'm hoping Luhnow is waiting to see if values are driven up towards the deadline as they often are...rather than waiting to see if it should be Carter long-term.
