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Yeah, Gorman looks pretty good with the glove and I think Walker’s already shown improvment in RF. I think he’ll develop into a more than decent OF’er.
RBK, i feel you are wrong on that. We’ve seen some fine hitting from Burleson recently. Let’s see if Noot is a proficient before making a wild claim like that.
What you “feel” is entirely subjective and irrelevant. More importantly, what is your supporting evidence? What are the facts? Let me help you out . . .
The FACTS are these:
Nootbaar: .246/.351/.429/.780. 116 OPS+, 117 wRC+
Burleson: .239/.295/.368/.663. 82 OPS+, 83 wRC+(And that’s not factoring in defense.)
Nootbaar has produced that hitting line in just a little less than 2 full seasons in MLB. That’s a 41% difference in offensive productivity. And you say “let’s see if Noot is proficient before making a wild claim like that???” More like let’s see if Burleson is proficient at anything. I mean, in the words of John McEnroe, you cannot be serious.
And since we’re at it:
Carlson: .243/.322/.394/.717. 99 OPS+, 99 wRC+
Burleson: .239/.295/.368/.663. 82 OPS+, 83 wRC+Maybe you should stick to comparing Burleson to Carlson as a hitter–at least he has a shot at catching Dylan. Of course, there’s still that pesky fielding thing to have to deal with . . .
Carlson hasn’t hit enough to be a regular, either. He has had a longer leash because he is a good fielder.
Burleson’s been swinging the bat much better as of late with 6 hits in his last 18 AB’s. But he still has a lot of work to do in the area of generating any significant offensive production. For the season he’s only pushed 2 RBI’s across HP, has only scored 2 runs, and has 10 hits but only 12 TB’s. Bottom line is that he needs to hit with runners aboard and amp up the power a bit. His rip is a controlled one and he obviously looks strong enough to generate some significant power. At any rate, when he stands in and swings the bat he impresses me as the type of LH’ed hitter who could be dangerous. Until he proves he is, my impression will be a wrong one.
In my view, Carlson’s been a bigger disappointment with the bat than has Burleson. They practically talked about him like he was another Musial…
No doubt expectations were higher for Carlson. And objectively he has been disappointing the last two seasons. There’s still time, but the clock is definitely ticking. All that said, he’s still a better player than Burleson, and they’re the same age.
Mr Shady, with all due respect, you should probably slow your roll with your praise of how well Burleson is hitting lately.
I know you have a disdain for facts & statistics, but, here’s where your Burleson stands as of today:
.256/.293/.308/.600 67
These are the numbers of a bad hitter. A bad hitter with absolutely no power. Keep in mind, a league average hitter has an OPS+ of 100. Burleson isn’t even close to league average.
Can he turn it around and have a good season? Maybe. Let’s hope so.
But come on man, let’s not pretend he’s been Willie, Mickey, and The Duke.
Yeah, but a week ago he was hitting .167 and looked like he’d need a license to sell insurance before too long.
It appears to me that Mr.Shady and Burleson are polarizing characters. Burleson looks like most of the guys I work around. He just has a better swing. I hope he can stick around. But his numbers all need to get significantly better, or I think he will be an Athletic soon. Or a Marlin. Shady is firmly in his corner. Kinda like a pr guy. Carry on.
Wow, nootbaar comes back and matches Burly’s RBI total and already has more home runs than him in a single game. You have to love his proficiency. This is exciting!
Carlson hasn’t hit enough to be a regular, either. He has had a longer leash because he is a good fielder.
First round pedigree gets a long leash.
In recent years the Cardinals org has gotten into the habit of getting overly excited too soon over not much. Carlson had a grand total of 18 games in AAA after hitting .280 in the Texas League. Then I guess waved a magic wand and he’s a major leaguer, touted through the roof, issued the lowest uni number not yet retired. Really? Of course he hasn’t lived up to the hype, it was made up out of thin air.
I agree with this. Pitching and defense wins championships.
BenFred: Cardinals can't afford to sacrifice defense even as pressure on offense builds https://t.co/AFk7VWjbGJ
— STL Cardinals News (@STLCardsNews) April 13, 2024
It’s all about tradeoffs. There is always some level of offensive productivity that can more than compensate for subpar defense. But with Cardinals, most of the guys who are bad defenders don’t have the kind of bats that meet that bar. And of course, the tradeoff is on a sliding scale: the worse the defense, the better the offense has to be to justify playing time.
I’m sure there are other examples, but I always think of the ’04 Red Sox and the twin oven mitts of Manny and Ortiz. Between the two of them they accounted for 269 RBI’s and 84 HR’s. That’ll make up for quite a few Das Boots…
A less extreme example would be someone like a Matt Holliday during his Cardinals tenure: below average fielder according to pretty much every metric, but enough offensive production (138 OPS+) to more than make up for it.
I don’t know how to formulate any defensive metric, so I can only rely on an eye test and I recall Holliday as gradually developing from a genuine OF liability in the early portion of his tenure with the Cardinals into a pretty good LF’er during the final three or four seasons in StL.
He was pretty consistently below-average throughout, but he wasn’t the kind of liability someone like Ramirez was.
Holliday OF Defensive Metrics (DRS/UZR/OAA)
2010: 5/7.3
2011: -2/1.7
2012: -6/-2.8
2013: -14/-6.3
2014: -3/-5.6
2015: -6/-1.7
2016: -8/-4.3/-7In other words, below average, but not catastrophically bad to the point that it destroyed his overall value given his offensive production (138 OPS+).
It’s not easy to forget the line drive that handcuffed him for an E-7 in the 9th inning of game 2 of the ’09 NLDS. Not only was the Das Boot an ill-timed one, but that baseball hit his glove at waist level and should have been an easy out. And I always used to sympathize with any Cardinal SS who was placed in harm’s way while backing up into shallow LF on an easy pop fly with the 240 lb. Holliday recklessly bulldozing towards the IF at full throttle. At any rate, you kind of knew he was jinxed in the OF when they had to stop a game in order to remove a moth that had lodged in his ear…Haha!
. At any rate, you kind of knew he was jinxed in the OF when they had to stop a game in order to remove a moth that had lodged in his ear…Haha!
This reminds me of something I’m sure happened. Do you remember the camera catching Daniel Descalso wiping a buggar on Pete Kozma? I can’t find anything about it on Google
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