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One thing I was thinking about is I have said and many others here have said they wish the team had a FO like the Brewers. I have to ask, what do we think the Brewers FO would do if they were running the team in regards to Brendan Donovan this offseason? I love Donovan as a player and he is one of my favorites, but I don’t quite think the Brewers FO would keep him around with Wetherholt waiting in the wings and would try to optimize Donovan’s value by trading him for a good SP3 type.
In all fairness to Noot. If he plays in 30 if our next 50 games he’ll set a career make in games played IIRC. My issue is that we’ve had a couple players playing through injuries until the point where they had to have a spell on the DL. Still Noot would be more expendable if Boy Wonder in RF could actually hit more than singles. Right now idk if we can really afford to lose him unless you’ve got someone not named Walker as the back up plan.
Saggese I’m not seeing it. If Fermin can play SS then I’d almost give him the not. Saggese seems to be limited on the infield.
I think you know my position on Gorman.
Yes we need a starter or two but it’s not going to break the bank. If we don’t see what we like from the pen the rest of the way it might just be better to grab a guy or two lurking around in FA when pitchers and catcher are set to report.
I just don’t see them getting an impact bat unless it’s someone looking to rebound and cheapish.
As I see it we have no heir apparent for the infield corners. I’m out on Gorman. I’ve seen enough unless they want to use him as a DH. I could see Donovan manning 3B at some point, and Walker, or Herrera, at 1B. Barring that all we have is Jesus Baez or Blaze Jordan, both relative unknowns, as possible corner infield replacements. There just aren’t any other possible corner infield bats in the entire system.
“One thing I was thinking about is I have said and many others here have said they wish the team had a FO like the Brewers. I have to ask, what do we think the Brewers FO would do if they were running the team in regards to Brendan Donovan this offseason? I love Donovan as a player and he is one of my favorites, but I don’t quite think the Brewers FO would keep him around with Wetherholt waiting in the wings and would try to optimize Donovan’s value by trading him for a good SP3 type.”
Milwaukee places an emphasis on defense (& base stealing), so I suspect the Brewers would look at Brendan Donovan’s defensive numbers all over the diamond to see if there’s one position where he fits much better than the others. And what they would find is that according to the Ultimate Zone Ratings and the Total Zone metrics and the Defensive Runs Saved yardstick, Brendan Donovan is a roughly average defender all over the place, infield and outfield. Except for one spot. He’s been amazing at the hot corner. (Yeah, yeah, small sample size, I know. But all three measurements say he’s great there.)
So the Brewers would probably find a way to put Donovan at third base on Opening Day, 2026, with Wetherholt at the keystone. If this means eating 50, 60, even 70 percent of Arenado’s remaining salary, so be it. If it means having a very uncomfortable conversation with Arenado about how the future Hall Of Famer is no longer the starting third sacker, so Nolan will agree to a trade, well that’s why Ollie Marmol gets the big bucks — uncomfortable conversations are part of his job description.
I’ve thought that Donovan would ultimately be Arenado’s replacement. Really nice to know that there are stats to support my thinking. I just can’t believe the Cardinals would just cut Arenado. Maybe Arenado will sits out more games than he ever has in his career, but they’re not going to win big next year anyway. And who knows what will happen inn 2027? The players are used to winning negotiations on every contract renewal. But this time there are so many empty seats around MLB that it makes you wonder. In other words, if the Cardinals can get through 2026, the Cardinals may not have to worry about what to do with Arenado in 2027. I think the best run franchises are Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. Hopefully , the Cardinals can join that group.
I don’t quite think the Brewers FO would keep him around with Wetherholt waiting in the wings and would try to optimize Donovan’s value by trading him for a good SP3 type.”
Frankly I wouldn’t mind having two Donovans around.
I think the best run franchises are Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. Hopefully , the Cardinals can join that group.
Interestingly, none of those teams have won titles since shortly after WWII, so as a fan hoping to see the Cards win a title some day, I hope that they don’t join that group.
If the Brewers had a player making $2.8 million on their roster who can play multiple positions, and they had multiple holes in their roster, I would guess they would use him to fill one of those holes.
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak could have gone out and floated any number of desirable players, from Brendan Donovan to Ivan Herrera to Lars Nootbaar, and found a market worth pursuing. Instead, Mozeliak kept things simple, and it was the right thing to do.
He’s leaving his position at the end of the season, ceding to former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, and in unloading only Helsley, Maton and Steven Matz — all impending free agents — Mozeliak did not overstep his bounds and make deals that should be the purview of his replacement. Other executives might have let ego get in the way in trying to put one final stamp on a franchise they’ve run for more than a decade. Mozeliak instead recognized this is Bloom’s team going forward, and figuring out how to pilot a group that’s good but not good enough is no longer Mozeliak’s responsibility.
There is urgency for change with the Cardinals; it’s just not the sort of urgency that needed to be met by an outgoing executive. For all the disappointment the Cardinals have provided in the last three seasons — attendance is down in that time from more than 40,000 per game to less than 29,000 — they’ve got plenty of room to expand their payroll, a future star on the cusp of the big leagues in JJ Wetherholt and a wide suite of options going into this winter. In a division as competitive as the NL Central will be over the next half-decade, they’re going to need everything they can get.
Interestingly, none of those teams have won titles since shortly after WWII, so as a fan hoping to see the Cards win a title some day, I hope that they don’t join that group.
I see that reasoning used a lot but I am not sure why. BDW seems very interested in winning as many games as possible by spending the least amount of money as possible. In other words he wants payroll efficiency. You can’t get any more payroll efficient than MIL, TAM, and CLE. They have cornered the market on it. Gone are the Jocketty days of bringing in vets like McGwire, Edmonds, Rolen, etc…. If BDW wanted the old days he wouldn’t be bringing Bloom in.
The Cubs and the Brewers both look like they will be pretty good for the next 2-3 years – It’s going to be tough for the Cardinals to finish better than 3rd for a bit…
I don’t think I agree with some of you that the Brewers wouldn’t trade Donovan. The Brewers value team control highly and maximizing player returns. They consistently trade away their best players and try to get close to the majors guys in return.
I see that reasoning used a lot but I am not sure why. BDW seems very interested in winning as many games as possible by spending the least amount of money as possible. In other words he wants payroll efficiency. You can’t get any more payroll efficient than MIL, TAM, and CLE. They have cornered the market on it. Gone are the Jocketty days of bringing in vets like McGwire, Edmonds, Rolen, etc…. If BDW wanted the old days he wouldn’t be bringing Bloom in.
I use it because the poor house development teams have nearly 0 chance to actually win. Every card has to turn up right and then you still have to get very lucky. Bloom was also hired by Boston and they didn’t exactly shy away from spending forever, so I have some hope that Dewitt will go back to being a middle-upper market spender once the pipeline is supplying like it did in the 2009-2015ish days. If the Cards go full Milwaukee or Cleveland, then we will all probably pass away before we see the next Cardinals title.
If winning a world series is the only barometer of a successful model then that is going to be difficult although I will add both Tampa and Cleveland have at least made a World Series appearance since St. Louis has so maybe their approach isn’t so bad.
Basically the Cardinals have three choices:
1. Go completely out of character and become a top 5 spender along with LA, NY, Chi, Phil, etc…
2. Use their usual spending levels of a mid tier spender ranking in the 9-15 range. That hasn’t worked for a decade.
3. Go lower with spending but with incredible player acquisition and development processes like Mil, Tam, and Cle.
They will never choose option 1. What they should do is a hybrid of 2 and 3. Adopt the player development skills of Mil, Tam, and Cle along with a mid tier budget. Spending levels don’t always tell the story. How you spend it is just as important. The Cardinals have been terrible at spending for a decade.
4) rinse and repeat the 2023-2024 offseason w/out the Gray signing. Patch the pitching short term and keep the lineup intact to make another feeble attempt at the postseason. Show a 130’s opening day budget and skim again at the deadline.
Hire a ML manager who is not embedded in Mo’s philosophy, whatever it is. I don’t fault Ollie, he just came up in the wrong org.
Just stop grubbing after the lowest possible wild card as our measure of success. Hurray, hurrah, we finished fourth!
What does do nothing look like for Bill before and during 2026?
A lot like this season? Beat you to it!If the NTC’s decide to stay that cost ~73mil. (Gray, Nado, Willson)
If the Arbs double, which is high, that cost ~22mil. ( Noot, Donny, JoJo, Pallante)
If Gorman, Burly and Libby draw 3mil each, another ~9mil, estimating high.
~104mil for 10 players and 16 near minimums are needed. Call it 16mil and Bill can do 120mil easy, maybe 115mil.
I can’t get Cots to open but I believe our 2025 EOY is estimated at 132mil.
Your numbers are correct JJ. We will end up around 132M and can easily get to 120M next year by doing next to nothing. Just low hanging fruit and another year of NTC’s.
I am having the same issue with Cot’s. I am getting the message below:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com doesn’t support a secure connection with HTTPS
I will contact the guy that runs that site. I have emailed him before.
I do think there’s a decent chance that we move Arenado after this year. It may take us paying a good chunk of salary down, but it will probably save $10M or more next year. Payroll probably won’t go to $100M. Will it ever to back to that upper middle third/lower upper third where they were for the first 22ish years of this century?
Fangraphs also has a nice payroll site. They calculate things a little different in that they include buyouts from last year into this year’s payroll. I have always wondered about those buyouts. On the Cot’s site they just kind of magically disappear.
25, there is no top 10 payroll in both Centrals. The CHC rank 11th, and the rest of the Centrals are bottom third, if you will, because I believe we are 19th. The Twins just had a major sell off too.
The reset financially has started and likely continues in this neighborhood until we see Bill spend significantly. For how long? I hope it doesn’t require another Pujols/Molina/ Wainwright core, but it might.
I hate this reply.
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