A decade ago scouts crisscrossed this area of Texas scouring for such talent, and these two later-round picks, mined from nearby, have emerged as the Cardinals’ corner infielders and the franchise’s cornerstones for years to come.

They knew of each other while playing for Houston-area high schools. They played against each other in college. And, teammates for the first time as Cardinals, their paths from college to All-Star had parallels. They each faced doubts from scouts entering the draft, they each shed weight to change their body type, and, as one evaluator wrote, they each “became elite players at the major-league level.”

Their advocates shared similar reviews: To know what they could do it wasn’t enough to know their numbers or know the scouting reports.

You had to know them.

“Look at that ’09 draft: Carpenter is a face of a franchise. Goldy is Goldy, an MVP candidate. Trout is Trout, of course. Arenado is the face of his franchise,” said Allison, now Seattle’s vice president of pro scouting. “I sat and listened to enough evaluations of Arenado about how he couldn’t run to know there’s more to it. Matty and Paul, looking back, you see where it came from. We knew this: They’re just baseball players. They had a great understanding of the game.”