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With the bad trades the Cardinals have made recently, I wonder what happened to their analytics department? Something has went askew in the organization and until it gets fixed I’m not confident in Mo putting together another WS team.
That’s a good point, BHC. He could go one of two ways –
1.) Keep his head down and be ultraconservative. Make as few moves as possible to stay well below the budget and not risk more mistakes. Hope to skinny into the playoffs again with pitching.
2.) Try to make up for his mistakes by unleashing big splash moves to buoy the offense and pique the interest of the fans. The TV ratings weren’t very good in 2020 and some say it was because it was such a boring team to watch.
Is no-one willing to choose to bring back Fowler or Carpenter, over Bader and O’N’eill on a one year minimum salary? No-one?
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I’ll choose Bader as most likely of the four to bring positive value to the roster.
I’ll guess Martinez gets 3mil guaranteed with 3mil in incentives, if he were a FA.On the recent trading history, hindsight is always much clearer.
National minor league expert Kiley McDaniel of ESPN was on The Karraker and Smallmon Show the other day.
Kiley was set up several times several different ways to criticize the Cardinals for their trades, but he didn’t do it. His key points.
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– None of the breakout guys were top prospects. (That means everyone and their analytics missed on them.)
– The Cardinals have a good player development system turning mid-tier guys into major leaguers.
– Organizations can have a hot hand, but only for a while.
– Sometimes it is just luck – good or bad.
– Any organization could have gotten Arozarena, but even TB traded away the NL Rookie of the Year.Here is the specific Q&A:
RK: “You were aware of Randy Arozarena, Luke Voit and Oscar Mercado, who had a pretty good year last year in 2019, in addition to Pham and Grichuk. We are looking at these guys, asking, ‘What did the Cardinals miss?’
“From your perspective with the trained eye watching prospects, did the Cardinals mess up moving these guys or could they have not seen this coming?”
KMcD: “The Cardinals have had a history of… not mediocre, but mid-tier prospects coming to the big leagues and breaking out. The Matt Carpenters, the guys from five to seven years ago that were the core players. Even Goldschmidt, who obviously did not come up through the system, they just broke out in the big leagues. They weren’t expected. Even Kolten Wong was never really a top 100 prospect.
“They were guys that broke out because of the sort of system, the player development, the coaching in the big league level put them in the position to succeed. Looking for a certain type of talent. Jack Flaherty was a late first-round pick. It wasn’t like he was a slam dunk to turn out into this sort of guy.
“Some of it was like you saw with the Giants, too, where they had a run where they were in the playoffs every year and things kept working out. You could say there is some sort of hot hand effect where they were just better than everybody else in a way that is hard to pinpoint. Or they just had a good five-to-ten year run of developing guys and nobody is actually that good over a sustained period – even though a lot of the same people are around.
“So after a little bit of a fallow period, it could be that the skill was always there. It could be that they were a little unlucky.
“Like Arozarena, anybody in baseball could have put together a package to acquire him. Everybody had the ammo to figure out a way to get him. And Tampa Bay did it. And Tampa Bay is probably the best pound for pound run team in baseball. They also traded away what looks like the NL Rookie of the Year in Jake Cronenworth. They probably didn’t think he was going to be that good that quickly. But Tampa Bay had so many middle infielders, they didn’t have a place to put him. They turned that into a trade for some guys that could help them out, too.
“It is just sort of one of those things that happen when you start moving guys around. At least one of three of those kind of deals, you say, ‘Umm, I probably would have done it a little bit differently. Traded for or traded away a different guy if I could.’
“And it just seems like the Cardinals haven’t been quite as hot in terms of picking the guy to put in the trade or picking the guy to leave out of the trade in the last couple of years as they had the 10 years before that.”
I think Mo gets a rougher time than he probably should on the extension front. Off the top of my head, he’s extended these guys in the last bunch of years (since 2013ish):
Carpenter (twice)
Craig
Waino
Wong
Cmart
Dejong
YadiI am going to grade those tougher.
The first Carp extension was great, the second one has been a disaster.
The Craig extension was actually terrible, we just somehow convinced Boston to take him. Can you always count on getting that lucky?
The Waino contract was a mixed bag. He had a few very good years and a couple of injury riddled years.
CMart another mixed bag. See above.
DeJong’s extension has been good.
Yadi’s extension was an overpay IMO. It was all about legacy.
Jaime Garcia’s extension was bad. Injury after Injury. At least we got Gant for him.
Generously, I would give Mo a C-minus on internal extensions. It probably should be a D+.
Is it hindsight when I said at the time Arozarena was going to be a good player and better than O’Neil who the Cardinals keep putting all their money on?
Also, you can throw in the Ozuna trade as being a bad trade considering how well the four players the Cardinals traded away have done, which includes 3 MLB starting pitchers. Its hard watching an offense that ranked almost dead last in MLB in every category except strikeouts while watching guys they gave up on dominate for their teams.
Grichuk was traded away for nothing – a low level minor leaguer they released after two months. Mercado granted had an awful 2020 but so did the rest of the Cardinals outfield and his 2019 was better than any of the Cardinals’ outfielders 2019. Voit almost won the AL Triple Crown. Arozarena was never given a chance even when the rest of the Cardinals outfielders were sucking and then discarded. And then there’s Tommy Pham who was traded for a relief pitcher which I was the case at the time, although someone on this site insisted that wasn’t the case.
Is it hindsight when I said at the time Arozarena was going to be a good player and better than O’Neil who the Cardinals keep putting all their money on?
I remember you saying that. It was a minority opinion then, so good call there. I was a big fan of Randy then and thought he could be a starting quality LFer. He looks to be at least that, and maybe more.
I’ll also add that I’ve not given up on O’Neill just yet. His plate approach improved this year and he got nothing for it. I’ve certainly seen no evidence that the Cards have kept “putting all their money on” him since he came up. Injuries waylaid him last year, but this year (probably due to the short season) he didn’t get much of a leash within games and toward the end of the season as Shildt tried everything to get the hot hands in.
I’d like to see O’Neill prioritized over Fowler in 2021 unless we can find a clear upgrade via free agency or trade. Fowler has no ceiling for this club and is gone anyway.
RA had much better stats in 2019 than any of the other young outfielders. It had to be because of the cell phone video. Nothing else makes sense.
What if the Rays insisted on Arozarena or Carlson in the trade for Liberatore instead of any other OFer? Would it make sense then?
“Nothing else makes sense.”
Trading your #7 prospect for what becomes your #3 prospect doesn’t make sense? yes there were others involved but Mo addressed what he thought was the greater need at the time.
If you wonder what the greatest need is, jj, check out who came in last in the entire major leagues in total bases, home runs, and doubles. It’s embarrassing for a proud, successful franchise. Pass that along to Mo if you wish.
BHC, take your bows, but like all of us, there are misses as well as hits. (P.S. I do give you credit on Arozarena, as you posted it at the time that you thought he would be better than O’Neill. It is still early, but that is clearly the case so far. Not everyone making claims can back them up as you can.)
However, regarding Cabrera, I take exception. You cited a report at the time that suggested Cabrera would ultimately be a reliever and assumed it was gospel instead of the opinion it was. I hadn’t seen him pitch either, but I do this for a living so I checked with a couple of personnel people who told me the Cardinals would likely keep him as a starter. That is precisely what they did. He was in Memphis’ rotation in 2019. Like many pitchers before him, including Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Lance Lynn and Dakota Hudson, Cabrera mostly worked out of the pen after getting called up. In his few starts, he did not look good, but since he has been pretty strong in relief. It may be that he never goes back to starting now, but even if so, no one knew that for sure in July 2018. This organization keeps its best prospects as starters as long as they can, and Cabrera fit the bill. It is the way they do it.
bcran,
You’re using hindsight (2020) in your opinion. GM’s make trades in real time. Mo’s top 8 prospects were position players, he had 8 outfielders within high minors or mlb, he dealt two, from depth, and added an arm to the top three prospects list. Sound strategy.Perhaps we should all refocus (myself included) on what this thread is about – what the Cardinals need to do GOING FORWARD. Instead, we keep getting pulled back into rehashing the past, making the same woulda-coulda-shoulda points over and over that no one can do anything about.
The report I cited was from guys who scout the Rays system and they labeled him as a MLB relief pitcher, but regardless of rather or not Cabrera was going to be a starter or reliever, they still gave up on Pham. The Cardinals sold low and put their money on other players which seems to be a miscalculated theme with the FO.
Going back to my original comment, the Cardinals need to improve their FO and analytics department before doing anything.
There are many (yourself excluded) who understand why Pham was moved. That Williams hasn’t worked out or that Cabrera isn’t what you wanted him to be is downstream from the trade itself.
BTW, there is another thread the community asked be started to discuss coaching and management separately from this topic, because the talk on this thread had become too broad.
How do you talk about needs going forward unless you talk about the shortcomings this past season? You can’t.
There are many (yourself excluded) who understand why Pham was moved. That Williams hasn’t worked out or that Cabrera isn’t what you wanted him to be is downstream from the trade itself.
So because I don’t agree with how the trade went down I don’t understand the (lack of) rationale behind the move?
bccran, repeatedly citing 2019 Cardinals Ozuna and Arozarena does not further discussion on the 2021 roster. A team need is power, but it isn’t coming from either of them.
BHC, I am not interested in discussing the 2018 Pham trade further on this thread about the 2021 Cardinals.
What is everyone expecting from Carlson if he plays pretty much everyday in 2021? Assuming there is a regular 2021 season of 162 games. Would this be close to what everyone thinks he is capable of:
.275 average
17 homeruns
75 rbi’sI’d take that from Carlson in 2021. But thats not going to solve our offensive woes. I think its pretty much a given there is currently nobody on the roster that will solve our offensive woes in 2021.
r/Esteemed Rat
Bcc, yep. He lodged a stateement about me and then doesn’t want to address what he posted about me. No wonder I dont visit this site nowadays.
Please stay, BHC. He’s gone overboard in micro managing subject matter vs. monitoring inappropriate behavior, but very well could come full cycle around. It may be just a phase. Intentions are still good and site is excellent.
What is everyone expecting from Carlson if he plays pretty much everyday in 2021? Assuming there is a regular 2021 season of 162 games.
I’d peg Carlson anywhere from a .750 to .850 OPS in a full 2021 season. Nothing in that range would be very surprising to me.
The rest of your post, unfortunately, is correct. The offense is going to need multiple 100 point OPS jumps at various positions to have a real impact. The downside includes the hit the defense, base running and pitching take to attempt to bolster the offense.
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