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bling, these things write themselves now. 1td’s September comment made me chuckle because I’d forgotten about that one, which then led me to humming that Earth, Wind & Fire song. Ba-dee-ya!
So it’s a net positive. Playing the long game, Gray will now have more juice left in the tank for the relatively more important October and November games. Unintended benefit. Mo’s got this.
I didn’t see anything relating to Indy ball nor about retirement, so I don’t know his status.
I heard Garcia say he is retired and doing insurance now.
With those odds, Petitti might be a good value.
Thanks for the commentary Brian.
bling, was that commentary or PBP? I’m wondering if Brian fired Pugs. Or did Pugs and his union negotiate for just regular season duty?
I’m not sure we’re average yet, Oliver. Last I checked we were 20 games under…Haha!
Yeah, but the gypsies will find a new toy to play with this season. And Oli is a year wiser.
Does any of the above make any sense at all?
Yep ZTR, makes a lot of sense to me. I agree with your take as much or more than anybody’s, but we are where we are.
It’s hard to always eliminate round peg/square whole syndrome, because the front office can’t just snap their fingers to make all the ideal moves. But there’s been a pattern for years now where they are often too willing to use questionable position placements as a solution to the lack of player transaction/acquisition success. Then when the going-in plan has those soft spots, in-season bumps in the road lead to solutions that sometimes look like musical chairs.
I think there are too many realistic points of failure not to see more of it in 2024. Who knows, maybe we’ll be fortunate and a lot of chips will fall in the right place after all the things that went wrong last year.
Yes the FO has all of the power but when things go sideways there is a leadership vacuum. Mangement made their bed.
Yep, don’t sell the front office short here. Their culpability goes beyond poor roster construction. There has to be some strong glue holding it all together, and with the existing staff, they are a fragile unit where a small ember can begin flaming out of control quickly.
Might need to get the data analysts to increase the weight on the leadership factor before running the next 1,000 simulations. Then down the road, maybe hire key positions like it matters. And I’m talking about guys with job descriptions where leadership should be a core competency.
That roster was the land of misfit toys in more ways than you could guess, held together (or not) by misfit coaches. Doesn’t give you a warm fuzzy going into this season when the stated purpose of one of your winter signings is to keep young fools in line.
Of course people are throwing darts at Arenado right now because he made the comments, but I’m not sure who should be most embarrassed by this. There are multiple candidates up and down the line. The Cardinal way/culture is turning into excuse-making. Hey, the guys at the top do it, so why not us?
“Lance Lynn” and “fit” should not be in the same sentence, lol. Fat people don’t become fit just by losing weight, only to regain it. Good thing is pitching is one of those “athletic” positions that doesn’t require a “fit” body. There are many examples.
Losing weight is usually good for obese people though, but there can be unintended consequences. Seems like I remember not too long ago a pitcher who lost a lot of weight, but then performance went downhill. Can’t remember who at the moment. Mechanics went all to hell without the fat. Probably put his body out of balance and alignment, haha.
Brian and gscott said respectively:
I think the move from Nike to Fanatics was an MLB-wide one.
The video referenced Nike as the culprit though.
I think it’s a joint venture with Nike outsourcing the actual material production. It’s a great combo, though. You get the Nike swoosh — with Fanatics quality. LOL.
I am going to agree with the quote from Matz.
I remember a similar article on Matz about this time last year. He talked about how he was disappointed in his 2022 season, didn’t earn his pay, and worked hard in the off-season to give himself a good chance of rebounding in 2023. Matz was my not-totally-serious pre-season choice for World Series MVP last last year, haha.
I’ll take him at his word that he’s putting in the work, but then all you can say is we need him to be luckier this year! It goes hand-in-hand with BillyMo’s approach to building a roster that has a “chance” of getting lucky in the post-season. We’re on solid ground.
By the way, who came up with the CBT thresholds? <snip> I think it was the owners and the commissioner’s office.
No. It’s collectively bargained.
Hey Brian, your post says pretty much what I was getting at in the last sentence of my post above it. I was just much more economical with words than you 😉 Or maybe I wrote the headline and you the article.
I think there’s a lot to what you said in BDW’s case. Some billionaires might treat professional team ownership differently than strictly business, because they can afford to, and they are fans too. Who doesn’t like a trophy? We all can name an example. BDW, however, never seems to stray too far from his business principles.
He built teams to win, not just hope to get lucky.
Ha, the harder I work the luckier I get. Seems like teams with better managers and players are luckier most years.
Perhaps being a lower-tier lucky team has a better low-risk return on investment most years.
In a pinch I bet “Eddie” can help out the bullpen.
Nope, but Matt Carpenter can.
But I’m also fine if we get none of them.
That’s the beauty of limiting your targets to low altitude. Fans don’t get so PO’d when you have to tell them it just didn’t work out.
Brian, you are absolutely right about those connections/friendships. I was well aware of them, but haven’t thought about it in a while and it didn’t even cross my mind when I quoted Parcells. Subliminal maybe, lol. Birds of a feather.
TLR had over three decades of experience managing. Of course, his input would be considered.
I liked Parcells’ line, something like if they want you to cook dinner, they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries.
It’s not happenstance that Mo has hired 3 rookie mgrs since TLR. He wants a burger flipper in the dugout, not a chef.
Rickey’s final stretch run in StL was not good. It was pretty rich that he called a couple icons (Musial and Groat) too old to be playing before they had stellar seasons, when it was he who was too old to do his job.
Matt Carp had a good 2022, over a small right field porch, but he wasn’t able to carry it over to 2023.
Haha Mr Brock, please forgive me, but I couldn’t resist taking a small liberty with your quote.
I don’t care a whole lot what Goldy, Arenado, et al do or say at a public event with a large intention to generate public awareness/interest, and ultimately help sell tickets. It’s nice when leaders step up and take responsibility in the appropriate forums with straight talking, but is that what this is about? I care more what they do than what they say. I really feel that way with BillyMo. Can’t believe ’em. They do a lot of talk-around on so many things.
So carry the cynicism further and maybe that’s the way Goldy, Arenado, et al, feel to a degree. Maybe they felt like BillyMo let them down last off-season (and maybe this year) and they aren’t inclined to participate in the talk-around now. Maybe they feel like it’s better to say nothing than share their honest feelings.
It wouldn’t surprise me too much if when the ’24 season comes to a close that Edman has more innings logged at SS and 2B than CF.
I said something very similar on a previous post somewhere around here. A lot of variables though. If it were a bet, I’d take the over on what Mo has indicated and the under on what GameCard wants, haha! Edman is a gold glove infielder. It remains to be seen if he can be that elite in CF. Regardless, I hope he takes his consistency at the plate up a notch. When he’s scores, the Cards seem to do well. I wonder how Edman scoring/not scoring correlates with the Cards winning/losing?
It is a player with an extensive history with the club . . . History suggests that they won’t be able to control themselves.
Yep, and the most recent history includes a significant poor strategic decision, PLUS subsequent poor day-to-day tactical decisions. Those often go hand-in-hand with the Cards as the top brass can’t seem to separate the two, which compounds some problems unnecessarily.
We’ll have to hope for the upside on this one. One thing I’ll say for Carp, he gets paid the same whether he plays or stays home. He wants more than just the paycheck. He obviously loves the game and wants to play.
Again, the $740K is not a throwaway.
I guess you could say the Cards are paying the Braves 740K instead of some other player. Maybe Anthopoulos will treat Mo and Bill well next opportunity, lol.
Cards will have a set lineup — until they don’t. I’ll be surprised at the end of the season if Edman’s innings played by defensive position make him look more like a CFer than a multi-position player. It’s how they roll, no matter what they say. Peg and hole shapes don’t need to align. And no need to come back and say they had to because this guy didn’t perform, that guy got injured, a certain matchup screamed do it, etc. That’s just stuff. Stuff happens every year, throughout the year, to every team.
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