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People act like they really believed a losing season would cause ownership to completely change character and throw their business model out the window. 3/75 is right in their wheelhouse. No. It doesn’t make us a deep in post season team. But spending money this winter wouldn’t do that anyway. Ask any number of teams that tried the buy a title approach. When baseball operations and player development get fixed we can think about another flag. This winter is about being competitive next year.
1tough asked:
Is the ’24 5 man better than the ’23?
gscottar replied:
Is Gray, Gibson, and Lynn better than Monty, Flaherty, and Waino? I would say definitely yes.
But even if one accepts this, along with Mikolas and Matz not getting worse, HOW MUCH better is the new rotation? Two wins or even five wins better would still lead to a last place finish.
My point is that they need a WAY better rotation, not just one that is maybe marginally better.
Again, I don’t think the Cardinals are finished. Adding Juan Soto from the Padres, like Mososi suggested gets us closer. Then we trade for another pitcher and we are in WS contention.
Carson Kelly, Luken Baker, and Oscar Mercado were 2nd rounders, unless you consider them failures. Kelly was the 1B centerpiece in the Goldschmidt trade.
None of them produced a 2 WAR season for the Cardinals. Kelly & Mercado have one 2 WAR season each to their credit.
But even if one accepts this, along with Mikolas and Matz not getting worse, HOW MUCH better is the new rotation? Two wins or even five wins better would still lead to a last place finish.
My point is that they need a WAY better rotation, not just one that is maybe marginally better.
Comparing the 2023 and 2024 rotations isn’t really apples to apples anyway. The 2023 rotation lost Monty and Flaherty the final two months of the season and we are assuming we will have Gray, Gibson, and Lynn all season. I guess we should be comparing them to Hudson, Woodford, Thompson, and Rom.
From an ESPN article…Pitchers who are good at age 30 don’t seem to be out of the game within two and four years as much as they used to. The staying power of those pitchers has consistently increased throughout baseball history. After that, it’s a little mixed. Perhaps this suggests that modern surgery more often helps those in the first half of their 30s and before, whereas after that they don’t recover quite as well — or simply hang ’em up.
Pitchers born since 1960 do indeed appear to be maintaining their effectiveness better. The percentages of those pitchers as they grow older stay closer to their age 30 performances more often than in the past.I guess we should be comparing them to Hudson, Woodford, Thompson, and Rom.
I mean, if you want to break out a spread sheet, you could compare them to two-thirds of a season of Wainwright, Montgomery & Flaherty + one-third of a season of the back-fill guys.
Or you could just eyeball it, and say how much of an upgrade is Lynn vs Wainwright, assuming Lynn doesn’t lose another 0.5 mph on his fastball?
How much of an upgrade is Gibson over Flaherty?
How much of an upgrade is Gray over Montgomery?
We traded Montgomery and Flaherty because we were out of contention. This year, we can trade every single pitcher if we are out of contention.
So i guess the debate is whether Billy Mo should have gone after another 25mil guy instead of Lynn and Gibson, and kept SP5 open for Thompson/Libby/Rom?
SP1 & 2 was my only focus. I wanted two 25mil guys and wing it in trades, to fill holes.
But, if we lose a SP early on, Lynn/Gibson was the right call. Our minors SP depth is blocked better now, and they need to be.
I’m not going to criticize their choices. Billy Mo spent like they said they would, and on the rotation like they said.
The demand to trade a Noot/Gorman for starting pitching has lessened, and I preferred the lineup stay intact anyway.
Bring on the Sosa for Romero trades. Thin out the redundency.
My only criticism is signing Gibson. If they had signed Clevinger or Lugo the annual salary would have been the same with more years, 3 maybe? Plus we could be in the same boat next year, needing 2 starters. I guess they are banking on some young prospects being ready.
Brian is right. This rotation is not even a Division winner. It is third or fourth place at best and that is if you squint.
It must be admitted that we now have innings depth. And 3 starters, which is more than two and a swing man. Mo said what he would do and he did it.
I think if guys stay healthy and I know that’s a loaded question I think we got pitchers who can eat up some innings and make our bullpen more effective. I still would like to see one more good starter preferably younger but we also need bullpen help. Maybe turn someone like matz there.
If the starting five includes Matz the average age during the season of the starting 5 will be 35.2 years old. Laughing thinking that group is gonna give you a full season of competitive baseball. I’m yet to see anyone explain why this is a good thing.
Yeah, 35.2 years of age…And the guy who’ll be walking from the dugout to remove the baseball from their hand will be 37. This could be interesting to watch.
At this point I’d rather have O’Neills future arb salary as cash in hand. I might have suggested that before 🙂
O’Neill could still be traded… If he had been let go for nothing, a segment of fans surely would have attacked the FO.
This a good base on a budget. I like the flexibility built in the Lynn/Gibson contracts for developmental arms to rise.
If Billy Mo can patch the pen together we stand a good chance to be buyers at the next deadline.
The same FO that put together last year’s rotation is putting together this one. That alone is reason for pessimism.
And as has been mentioned, we are coming from a long way back. Getting a little better won’t matter. There is still time and resources to put together a killer bullpen. There is still time and resources to make improvements on the position player side. We need to get better defensively. We probably need a different catcher. We need bench players who are playable and can be integral to game strategy rather than mostly just sitting there. We could benefit from a better coaching staff. There are a lot of areas for improvement.
So the point I wanted to make is that while we need to get a lot better, all the improvement doesn’t have to be from a better rotation. The rotation just has to not suck as much.
We can’t get zero WAR out of RF. We can’t get negative WAR out of SS. I say that not to pick on those guys, but rather, to point out that it wasn’t solely the rotation that got us 91 losses, so it will not be solely rotation upgrades that solve the problem. What if we get 5 or 6 more wins out of the rotation. 3 or 4 more out of the pen. 5 more out of defense. A couple more from the bench. Now where are we?
I would add a few wins from improved integration of analytics with game prep and decisions, and a few wins from better integration of meaningful input from a veteran coaching staff. But I am limiting it to what could actually happen. But a lot of factors added up to 91 losses, and expecting it all to be made up by rotation upgrades misses the mark.
Still need to add a front line pitcher and then yes, it would be nice to have one of the young pitchers force their way into the rotation like Wacha / Kelly did over a decade ago.
Bullpen still needs shoring up, etc.
Work has been done but there is still quite a bit left to do as in Mo isn’t even at the 1/2 way mark yet…
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