Two days of inactivity at the Winter Meetings bled far into the third day, causing expectant Cardinal fans to twitter nervously. What in the world was Mo’ doing down there in Nashville? Cutting a country album?

Then came the news that the team had reached an agreement with left-handed reliever Randy Choate. Signing the 37 year-old journeyman addressed one of the major admitted needs of the team, even if it was about as exciting as listening to Mozeliak read the phone book. In other words, it was yet another pick off of the scrap heap.

Choate has some decent stats over the last several years. Here’s what he’s done since 2009:

While those general stats aren’t exactly inspirational, consider these fairly impressive splits:

I’m not sure anyone would complain much if he came close to that kind of performance, which is certainly better than Marc Rzepczynski last year.

I think the terms scare fans more – three years at $2.5M a year ($7.5M total). Basically, Choate is finishing his career as a Cardinal. Will Choate survive three seasons of postseason-bound baseball? Let’s hope so. For the record, Choate has largely avoided the disabled list – he’s never had surgery throughout his career. So I guess there’s that hopeful bright spot.

With the left side of the bullpen now complete, the team appears ready to stand pat on the whole shortstop/second base problem. Mozeliak was quoted as saying that he feels confident about Rafael Furcal‘s ability to throw a baseball across a diamond approximately 500 times this season. Meanwhile, a dazed Mike Matheny insisted that “someone” needed to “step up” and take the second base job. Who knows what that means.

ACCEPT THE INEVITABLE

Ultimately, the Cardinals’ uninspiring trip to the Winter Meetings is yet another edition of Mozeliak’s “wait and see” game. Get used to the idea, Cards fans; the middle infield simply will not be addressed until next summer’s trading deadline.

On April 1, 2013, Mozeliak intends to field virtually the same team that limped out of the NLCS last fall. He’ll let those pieces play for a few months, see what works and what breaks, and then fix it at the trading deadline in July. This seems to be Mozeliak’s favorite strategy.

I can’t argue with the strategy given Mozeliak’s success rate. And I’ll admit that it’s difficult to assess and fix future problems at the Winter Meetings. However, such a course does feel non-committal, boring, safe. It also seems insulting considering the increased ticket prices that were announced last week.

After all of the speculation and hype, Cardinal fans were handed a Choate. Suck it up.