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Well if we get Montgomery and that’s basically it outside of hopes n prayers, we are just where we were last year and we saw how that went.
I said it before the season ended and I said it during the postseason. The Cardinals aren’t going anywhere until they understand major change must occur from the top down.
The Cardinals are in the worst spot in sports. They are caught in the middle and missed the best of Goldschmidt and Arenado. They had a small two to three year window to go all in and didn’t. Now they are stuck with a bloated payroll by their standards and not much room to maneuver. Their system developed prospects have underwhelmed and now have very little value.
Mozeliak is not gonna be the one to fix it. He’s the creator of the problem and can’t see the path that should be followed to change the course. They need a total reset. That means painfully dealing their top two stars and now. Goldschmit and Arenado have to be dealt so they can repurpose money to change the tide. I know that isn’t popular and would mean a couple of years of well below average baseball but that’s the only way out of this purgatory they find themselves. Doing the same thing they always do won’t work. So brace yourselves because next season will be more of the same.
TC, a key underlying assumption in your comments seems to be that ownership is NOT also responsible for the status quo problem. Or if they are part of the problem, they are willing to make major changes in the direction of the organization, but are currently being held back by the people they hired to run the team.
I am not comfortable with that assumption. Rearranging the deck chairs won’t help, IMO. If you want real change, it has to start from the top. But as noted, their DNA is set.
The 91 losses were built on poor rotation choices last winter.
Hudson and Woodford gave us 20 GS of releasable production. Remember, Hudson was tendered an arb1 by the FO last winter, by their choice. 20 starts gone.
Flaherty was also offered an arb contract last winter and made 20 GS. He also helped put us in seller mode. 40 GS gone.
Wainwright signed back as a FA. Turns out the problem wasn’t his mechanics as he believed, but it was a nice con job for 17.5mil. His 21 GS brings the total to 61 GS, gone from 2023.
At least we are free of those choices, this winter, and not contractually locked into more of the same. There is budget room to fix the rotation, but again it will be about choices.
Nola has been below-average in two of the last three years. The starter you are talking about is a fairy tale.
His durability isn’t a fairy tale nor is his dominance in the postseason. I want guys who answer the bell every five days instead of guys who just show up once in awhile.
BW, most certainly ownership is 100% responsible. I didn’t mention them because short of them selling the franchise today they aren’t going anywhere. So I didn’t address their role in what I describe as a total breakdown mess. I agree with everything you said.
The Cardinals are in a unique and unusual position. The only other losing season they’ve had this century was 78-84 in 2007. In 2023 it was 71-91. Far worse than anyone imagined. The worst in 30 years.
BDW now has a Cardinal fanbase problem. In order to get the fans excited again, they’ll have to make some impactful moves this off season. Will they go crazy, folks, go crazy? No, but they have to make enough moves to make the needle jump with the fans. A public recognition that a large problem exits, and they didn’t solve it last off season. The most interesting moves will probably be trades. Mo seems to be better at those than FA signings. And he probably realizes that.
I agree that trades is more than likely where they try to get better but who do they have that people would be willing to give up to get better pitching. I don’t see a lot in the minors. Anyone you could name off the roster that would get us something that matters would be criticized by some then and later if that player broke out. If you think you got the the non pitching roster to get the job done, you almost have to go after guys in free agency. Trading one or two of those guys suddenly means you may not have that non pitching roster to compete. You arent going to get a really good pitcher just players that have underperformed to this point whether it be injuries or anything else.
The Cards have a surplus at MI and OF. It may take trading several players like Edman or Donovan or Carlson or O’Neill or
Burleson or Gomez to get a deal or two done, but they have no choice.I agree LA although I think Lynn could potentially be significantly better than the 2023 version of Wainwright. It would be hard not to be.
I would view our current rotation as:
1.
2.
3. Mikolas
4. Lynn
5. MatzWe still have two acquisitions to make.
That’s if the Cardinals aren’t doing their usual praying thing and hoping Lynn fills that number 1 or 2 spot
UGh 10mil for Lynn, seems like there was better options to spend that kind of $$ on……don’t like this move really at all..
Lynn, Mikolas, Matz.
I don’t think the rest of the Central is going to be too concerned about facing them – pretty much be like batting practice.
Ex-Cardinal reunion could be:
Monty 25mil estimate
Wacha 12mil estimate
Mikolas
Lynn 11mil (signed 1/11mil or 2/23mil)
MatzMonty, Wacha and Lynn could use 48mil of the offseason war chest, with 2oo+ contracts available to trade.
They can still save this, in spite of the Lynn signing.
Mikolas hasn’t had a winning record since 2018. How many times did he give up a lead last year? He needs to be the back end innings depth guy, not a mid rotation. He turns 37 in May. We’ve got him, Matz and Lynn. The #5 is going to be Liberatore, unless another laundry list guy beats him out. So unless our #1 is Jesus, we haven’t got a prayer.
Wacha has been good the last two years but not totally healthy. I would take him over Lynn. The Lynn signing is baffling
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