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Just wondering here:
1) Why don’t we have any starters that are any good?
2) Why do our hitters keep swinging and missing at sliders? Is it the hitting coach?
3) How many runs has our outfield defense cost us this year?Thoughts?
r/Esteemed Rat
p.s. this thread is NOT a knee jerk reaction to today’s dismal performance.
We don’t have any starters because the owner is cheap. They keep trying for bargains and this season all those chickens have come home to roost
Offense is fine. It’s a 100 win, WS worthy offense.
OF defense has been a little rough at times but did not cost us the game tonight.
1) We do have 1 in Mikolas. He is still good. He just started off bad. And we have 2 others in Liberatore and Montgomery that should be at least ok. After that, we have several guys in the #5 or #6 starter group. That’s not a winning formula. We either need 1 top of the rotation starter or 2 other guys like Mikolas to have a good shot in the playoffs. That may be too much to ask for.
2) I think all teams see this. But O’Neill has was so poor at this for so long that it has conditioned us to say WTF every time we see it. But yeah, Arenado has looked bad at these this year and so has DeJong. Basically our free swingers who are RH all go for them.
3) maybe 20. It’s quite a bit. Outs turned into singles and doubles. Singles turned into doubles. And a couple doubles turned into triples. Plus, we haven’t “robbed” a single HR this year. Bader probably would have had 3 of those by himself already at this point (assuming he was healthy!).
As for the starters, one thing that has hurt is the organization felt Flaherty would be a top level starter. He has not developed into what they and many of us thought he would. Meanwhile we dealt what we thought was depth in young starting pitching, and a couple of those guys have become very good. Some bad luck, and some short-sightedness there.
The offense looks like it will be sufficient. And it seems Ollie has been trying to play the better defensive outfielders most of the time. Unfortunately two of them, O’Neill and Carlson have been hurt a lot and have not hit much. Hard to say how many runs we have given up from poor outfield play, but it has likely cost us a game or two.
A few years ago we thought we were set with elite starters for a decade. We had Michael Wacha, Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, Alex Reyes, and Trevor Rosenthal to name a few with Flaherty coming up the ranks.
Obviously it did not work out that way.
It almost never works how you plan, right? Pitchers are fragile and get hurt easily. Plus, there’s sometimes a thin line between pretty decent and not very good – especially with relievers.
We are not out. We really are just one good pitcher (from a trade) and 1 righting of the ship (in Montgomery most likely, but I guess it could be Waino/Matz/Flaherty) from a dangerous playoff team. Our offense, bench, and bullpen are good.
So I’m changing this post to 3 things we need to do:
1) Trade for a good starting pitcher at the deadline. This has always been the case since coming into the season. But if it wasn’t obvious then, it definitely is now. Look for the Cards to package Gomez, Yepez, Herrera, and a young pitching talent or two for a starting pitcher. Baker or Burleson could go as well, but I hope not. I’m just guessing at names obviously, but these are all expendable with some value.
2) Be patient with Liberatore, Burleson, Carlson, Gorman, and Donovan. These guys are all still very young. They are all still growing and you can see the improvements in their game. They are not maxed out. Liberatore might give up 5 runs today. That doesn’t mean he’s bad.
3) Please for the love of everything that is sacred – keep Yepez out of the outfield. He cannot possibly be expected to outhit what he gives up in poor defense.
Concerning the 2nd item, jnevel, I’d have to say that the last 3 names have demonstrated that they certainly have the ability to play and remain situated at the Big League level. The first 2 names still have some genuine question marks. And yeah, patience is certainly a virtue. I guess that’s why the phrase was coined and had been around for a while…Haha!
Oliver, who said Mikolas is a “#1”? I just said he’s good and not bad. And he is good. I’m pretty certain every team in baseball would have Mikolas as a top 4 starter in their rotation.
If Mikolas was our #4 we’d be in high cotton.
If he was our #3 we’d be leading the division.
As it is with him the pretty clear #1? Trouble.
1) Why don’t we have any starters that are any good?
We don’t have any starters that are any good because we haven’t developed a middle of the order power bat since Pujols 20+ years ago. So Mo thought he had to have Ozuna. But for that we would have two aces at the top of the rotation.
There’s way more than three questions, but this is just priceless and exposes the emperor without clothes…(8 minutes mark)
Another way of looking at it is we don’t have any good pitchers because Mo and BDW failed to sign Pujols. If they had, Mo wouldn’t have thought he needed Ozuna and we would have two aces right now.
Do we know for sure that Alcantara and Gallen would have become aces had they stayed in St. Louis? Would Arozarena have been as good if he stayed? I don’t think we can assume that. Some players perform better/worse in different environments.
I think there is more pressure for a young player to play in St. Louis than in Miami, Tampa, or Arizona. Those three teams don’t have high expectations and don’t have much of a fan base. The fans that do show up to their games are usually rooting for the visiting team since they are located in snow bird country.
But here the expectations are much higher. We sell out most games and our fans expect to win. Each game and at bat is scrutinized. Another example is Oviedo. He is doing fairly well in Pittsburgh because they have zero expectations and pressure. He never felt that comfortable here.
There’s way more than three questions, but this is just priceless and exposes the emperor without clothes…(8 minutes mark)
TexssCard, I’ve thought the emperor with no clothes analogy is very apt for Mo because he’s usually the mouthpiece, but really there’s no separating Mo or the DeWitts with this stuff.
I wish I could have seen DeWitt’s facial expressions, because it really sounded like he was about to break down and cry a few times. It’s obvious they’ve got no answers to many relevant questions about all the things going wrong this season. Instead, III just attacked the questions. It’s too bad the real StL media rarely pushes hard on issues many fans talk about.
Cards’ brass is so used to media that plays along, gets along, and therefore will get to lob more softballs later. It really was amazing to hear a billionaire hem and haw and almost cry when the interviewer didn’t let him wiggle off the hook. DeWitt sounded so weak I actually felt sorry for him. Daddy couldn’t have been too happy.
That was some interview! Didn’t answer any of the tough questions but the non-answers were telling. Mo must have a suitcase full of naughty pictures that’s keeping his job safe.
The biggest question is why is there payroll so low compared to other teams
There $38 million below the Rangers, $26 Million behind the White Sox, $40 million behind the Braves, $25 million behind the Giants
I would find it hard to believe they don’t bring in more revenue than at least 3 of those 4 teams if not all.
That was definitely an ambush of an interview and I’d bet ol’ Bill won’t talk to that guy again anytime soon.
Here is the unsaid answer, “We swung and missed on our projections for the entire starting pitching rotation; BUT our division sucks, badly – so we may yet get away with it again. We have had some recent luck dumpster diving at the deadline too.”
That interview is priceless! Finally somebody asking the questions we are all thinking of!
The answer that bothers me when III says the Cardinals are in the top 10 in payroll! He knows that is not true! We are 15! Anyone can look that up! I don’t know the gentlemen doing the interview but he should be given an award!
Slaten missed some points as well. While pointing out Wainwright and Contreras he didn’t mention the millions wasted on players that didn’t produce a bit. And that list is long.
III mentioned a winning record. That’s great and all but that isn’t the goal. The goal is a winning record and competing for championships. Everyone knows that’s not what they are efforting to accomplish. They simply want to spend enough to win enough games to keep fans engaged at a 3 million clip. It’s their business model.
The managers point was spot on. I keep coming back to the Rangers. I absolutely love what they did last season to now. They blew out their wonder boy metrics geek and replaced him with a baseball man. They also hired a manager that knows what the hell he is doing. They still kept some of the computer games boys but it’s a great blend. They also addressed the pitching something the Cardinals have failed to do. They look formidable and while they may not win it all this season they took a huge step forward. That’s the model the Cardinals should follow but won’t, because they don’t thing they have a problem.
It is unlike Cardinals brass to walk into a situation where their stated narrative will not be unchallenged. It seems like there has been a shortfall of clean and crisp lately.
I do think that Slaten, the interviewer, was attempting to get a sound byte from a DeWit wiggling out from under responsibility by pushing it off on Mo. That would have been golden. That didn’t succeed, to BDW3’s credit.
It is a known technique used by interviewers to put the interviewee into a position where the proposition has already been stated or implied and all they have to do is agree or fail to disagree. That is much easier and more likely to happen than the interviewee stating the desired proposition himself. BDW3 did not take that bait.
There was little new besides the novelty of a DeWit squirming on the hot seat. The payroll narrative began over the winter, that’s not new. Rotation candidate quantity over quality is not new. Acknowledging Mo’s heavy involvement downstairs with tactics series to series might be new. But I for one already knew that OliMo is real.
I am not clear on whether that audio was of a segment over the air on KFNS or an internet podcast. Whichever, there will be a problem with access to the Cards’ brass going forward.
I really didn’t think Slaten’s questions were that hard hitting. A skillful interviewee could have handled that with ease. BDW III acted like that was his first ever interview, or as bling pointed out, was shocked that a member of the STL media was questioning their methods. In NYC or Philly those questions would have been considered softball.
TexasCard: I keep coming back to the Rangers. I absolutely love what they did last season to now. They blew out their wonder boy metrics geek and replaced him with a baseball man. They also hired a manager that knows what the hell he is doing.
Too late for this season but exactly what we need for ’24. Has anyone seen or heard Girsch lately. If someone should bump into him tell that the rotation is lacking.
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