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Another reason for the perceived delay in announcing the Piscotty trade – the reality called logistics.
A’s team doctor William Workman went to Pebble Beach, where Piscotty was playing golf, to do Piscotty’s physical yesterday. Did it at an AirBNB. Forst appreciative that Workman got up early to drive there, help get deal done more quickly.
90 wins is a wild card team.
I say again — we need more.
And yes mo could be posturing. But given he says this every offseason at some point and they pretty much atand pat after that I doubt it.
Because Rats we need at least another bat. You’re banking that Gyorko and DeJong will have the same type of season as 2017. Gyorko really faded the second half and in my humble opinion he is not an everyday player. Molina is a year older his production from now on will go down. Carpenter is fragile and also on the wrong side of 30. The outfield looks good but Pham’s vision will always a concern. They need more offense. Either a 3B or 1B with power or both.
I agree with your points NJ.
However, every team has question marks. My point is that if – IF – our regulars play near their potential we should be okay offensively. We have no idea what Gyorko, DeJong, Pham, Carpenter, etc, any of them, are going to do in 2018. About all we can is what all the other 29 teams can do – keep your fingers crossed.
r/Rat
Though given the last few years we know that most of them will play badly and miss chunks of the season with injury and such like that, right now we’re dependent upon players that haven’t performed well over the last several years as a whole…Ozuna was a good start but we need at least another bat and then some pitching help…
Moving the Fowler discussions here. To all those who are basically saying to dump Fowler: looking only at on the field production, which position on the team could stand the first upgrade and why?
I may not like Fowler’s contract but it is currently a sink cost. If the team needed to move him, they could, but what would it take to replace him and his production?
The best way to replace Fowler would have been to acquire Stanton AND Ozuna (and Gordon and Barraclough) in ONE trade with Miami. That was the only way to get Stanton here, and Ozuna and Stanton are both offensive AND defensive upgrades over Fowler.
Some say Stanton would have never come here, I say the fact he listened to the Cardinals proposal, said this team was several years away even with him, and said the Marlins were just two pitchers away indicates he probably would have come here had we brought some of the best players from the Marlins here as well. We could have done so, and it would have cost just $15 million more in payroll than last year.
I also pointed out in advance that the Cardinals would use the selling point of cost of living in their sales pitch, it would fall flat, and everybody would forgive them and say they made a valiant effort. Afterwards, Mozeliak acknowledged that the Cardinals need to adjust their sales pitch, and Goold reported they used cost of living and “thin traffic” as part of their pitch. Ridiculous.
If you are selling a superstar on cost of living (especially one coming from a state with no income taxes to one that does have income taxes), you are either purposely not trying to get him to come here or an idiot.
But that ship has sailed. How are you going to replace Fowler now?
A couple of people have suggested replacing Fowler with JD Martinez. They are both basically statues in the outfield, but Martinez gives an offensive upgrade. The problem is, we know we are not going to outbid the Red Sox.
Trade for Yelich? Then you are giving up 4-5 of our top prospects. Mo just made his second trade of multiple prospects for one player in ten years, I don’t think he is rushing into that type of scenario again.
AJ Pollock might be available from the Diamondbacks for salary relief. Send Grichuk and another OF prospect back in exchange.
Now, as to which positions can stand the biggest upgrades right now? We don’t have a closer, so getting a closer is the biggest upgrade right now.
Goold has reported the Cardinals preference is not to pay for a closer, but acquire one with multiple years of control or develop one from within. Well, we know the asking price for Colome is going to be high, so are the Cardinals prepared for Tuivalala to step into that role?
I guess right now, I’d be looking to sign somebody like Tony Watson or Addison Reed. I don’t think the Cardinals are willing to pay Reed though.
I think that the fact that the cards dont cater to big name players has been made obvious has hurt too…
“This contract is too much…” etc has probably been driven home to the point that people dont feel like we are trying to win.
You refuse to make deals for big names.
You come in second on free agents repeatedly.
…and your team has stagnated.
…people notice and call you on it sooner or later.
I should have mentioned that I was referring to a position player upgrade. Obviously, without a closer, that is the biggest need.
Other than that, I see posters still fixated on Fowler. Do you REALLY believe he is the weakest link on the team? Or is he just the biggest whipping post because of his contract? I don’t think Fowler would be remotely close to as bad of a defender as JD Martinez…..and I don’t like Fowler’s defense.
Article on MLB and visual acuity. I put it here because it probably had the most relevance for Pham.
https://www.sporttechie.com/dr-daniel-laby-technology-sports-vision-training/
Brian, feel free to fix the link.
CC, I did, but you can do it yourself anytime you post a link.
Here is a reminder how.
Paste the link into your new post.
Then highlight the link with your cursor.
Then click on the LINK box just above (3rd from the left).
A popup box will open.
Make sure the link is in both of the top 2 fields (called URL and Link Text).
(I also check the box that says “Open link a new tab,” but that is personal preference.)
Then click the blue ADD LINK box at the bottom of the popup box.
The HTML code needed will be added to your post.
Click the red SUBMIT box as always to complete the post.An OF of Ozuna, Pham, and Fowler is not bad. Many teams would like to have that OF. The question is who will be the 4th OF, not counting JMart who will probably split time between RF and 1B.
As of now the 4th OF is Grichuk. I still think there is a good chance he gets moved this winter. If so there should be quite a spring training battle between Bader, O’Neill, and Adolis Garcia. We know that Bader and Garcia can play CF, not sure about O’Neill. I’m assuming he is more of a corner OF. That might limit his opportunities.
Based on last year I suppose Bader will be the favorite but who knows who will have the better spring and who knows what injuries we will have. I do like our OF depth though.
Depth is precisely why Grichuk may not be traded. None of the Triple-A guys are clearly ready yet. All it takes is one injury to either Pham (history), Fowler (age, history) or Ozuna for Grichuk to again be a starter and for Bader to backfill as a reserve.
A dark-horse candidate would be Jordan Schafer too. We could always sign someone like Granderson if we traded Grichuk away too. I really would like them to trade Bader as well. I think his value will never be higher and he doesn’t have a place on the team. (not for nothing though, a similarly ranked prospect at a different position)
I hear your argument, Brian. But I also think they want to see what they have with Bader, O’Neill and Jose Adolis Garcia. Best way is to use them in 4th OF role, as the toughest leap is from AAA to MLB. By rotating the three up and down, nobody will go into a prolonged funk and they can all get playing time at AAA. Use AAA to correct what they see as wrong in MLB.
C2016, we will have to agree to disagree. My firm opinion is the Cards will be better served over the long haul for Bader, O’Neill and Adolis to play side-by-side every day in the 2018 Memphis outfield until they are ready and a spot is ready for them.
Schafer was mentioned above. The only reason he is still around is for his promise as a left-handed pitcher. If he gets substantial at-bats as an outfielder for St. Louis, that would be a very bad sign, IMO. (reference Huffman, Chad)
IMO, you don’t trade away depth just to get rid of depth – you do it to try to get better. I would have no problem with them trading Grichuk – if they could get prospects of the quality of Munoz or Schrock, for example, in return. The two filled a need – middle infield at the upper levels. On the other hand, if the best they can do is to get a Juan Yepez lottery ticket (as they did for Adams), I would keep Grichuk.
P.S. Let’s not forget there are boatload of free agent outfielders currently available that do not require compensation. I question how much of a market Grichuk would have alone. If they really want to move him and get some value, it might have to be part of a bigger trade. And who knows if they pull that off.
Well if we trade Grichuk and if Bader, O’Neill, and Adolis Garcia stay in Memphis, my preference would be to sign Jarrod Dyson. He is an elite defender and shouldn’t be cost prohibitive.
I agree, I wouldn’t trade Grichuk just to trade him. Either you get prospects or you get a decent reliever in return. And I agree his trade market is being hampered by all the free agents out there. But SF, KC & AZ are all on budgets, so Grichuk’s $2.8 million projection might be better than paying a free agent, especially for teams looking for power (AZ, SF, TOR).
I also think the Cardinals might have mishandled Grichuk and Piscotty when they came up…They made a bet that both of them would develop two years ago, without signing a proven-MLB outfielder to be a starter.
That bet worked for Piscotty, didn’t work for Grichuk.
Maybe at the time they would have been better served signing an OF on a one year deal and rotating Grichuk and Piscotty up and down with the idea of letting them make mistakes and working on things when they go down. I think that is a better development method than giving them a starting job and then demoting them. Just psychological. If you know you are a 4th OF and are being developed, demotions don’t sting the psyche as being a starter and demoted.
I wouldn’t trade Grichuk for prospects either but we might need to move him to get Colome, Archer, or Donaldson.
Brian – This comment “None of the Triple-A guys are clearly ready yet.” doesn’t really apply to Bader or O’Neill in my opinion.
Bader had a full year of AAA (after 160 PAs in AAA last year) and got more than a cup-of-coffee of playing time in STL this summer (90 PAs). Similarly, O’Neill got 600+ AAA PAs last year. I don’t see either having anything left to prove, although ideally both would begin the year in AAA. Trading Grichuk or Bader makes sense.
C16 – Another aspect of your point is that perhaps the way that Grichuk and Piscotty ended up developing is just another reason why Fowler was signed. Fowler gave the team an above-average player to bridge the gap for our prospects and allow them to break in slowly and shift away from Grichuk and Piscotty after they failed to live up to expectations.
I suspect some are focused on O’Neill’s homers instead of looking at his whole game. He whiffed at a
30.5%27.1% rate in Triple-A last year, for Pete’s sake! What will it be in the majors?That is worse than Patrick Wisdom, who is banished to the minors and went unclaimed in the Rule 5 draft because of a very similar profile – lots of homers and lots of Ks.(I did an in-depth Double-A and Triple-A comparison between O’Neill and Grichuk in the (free) O’Neill prospect article posted this morning. I go into detail why there is no reason to rush O’Neill.)
Bringing up O’Neill too soon dovetails with what C2016 noted that perhaps too much was expected too soon from Piscotty and Grichuk. I just don’t get the rush the prospects thinking – especially for them to rust away on the bench in St. Louis. Instead, let them play and develop further in Memphis until there is a real need.
Yes, Pads, that is precisely why they wound up signing Fowler, but if you are looking for a bridge, you don’t sign guys to 5 year deals with full NTC’s.
Brian, I think that Garcia, Bader & O’Neill can get 350+ PA’s each in AAA and still get MLB experience by rotating them throughout the year, say on 3 week stints. Obviously, if one is doing exceedingly well, you let them stay up longer…
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