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GM Michael Girsch acknowledges that the Cardinals are not where they want to be and are focused on winning in the regular season. He contrasts that with some other teams that know they will make the playoffs.
Do you appreciate his candor, are you upset that the Cardinals are no longer elite, both or neither?
#STLCards GM Michael Girsch joined #BKandFerrario to discuss the team's offseason approach to improve the rotation, and why it differed from many others around the league.
PODCAST: https://t.co/HB1VXuXpTh pic.twitter.com/DRhXgFlaFJ
— 101 ESPN St. Louis (@101espn) April 8, 2024
Girsch is the Loch Ness Monster!
Plenty of stories of his existence, but very little evidence.
Is he real or just a myth?
I like the honesty. The organization in the last 10 years or so has always looked at what they need to do next year, without thinking as much about how transactions will impact them five years down the road. That operating method has hurt them in the present as they dealt away younger talent that has done well, and the players they have brought up have not done so well.
I did not hear this in Girsch’s comments, but what gripes me about the organization today is their non-on-the-field excuses for not winning – things like lack of leadership, or weeding out players who don’t care. That is just noise and trying to pass the buck rather than standing up and saying you as management have done a poor job of evaluating talent.
Girsch was a little more open here, saying they needed to be better at that. What I don’t like is saying they have to go about it in a way fans won’t like. I suppose that refers to more limited resources than some other organizations.
To put a positive spin on things, at least we are not in the situation the Mets are in.
Sounds like the classic case of asking yourself easy questions so you can look like a genius.
Nothing surprising, I think they’re acknowledging that they are a business and business hasn’t been so good the last few years so they’re in softball mode until things get onto the good side of the ledger again. Dewitt knows that just making the playoffs 6 or 7 years in 10 with a 3-5 early flameouts and one or two runs brings the cash in just as well as trying ($$) hard when it comes to the crapshoot of October.
O.k., so to paraphrase, we’re not where we want to be. We need to do better. We can do better, but it won’t be soon. We just want to start winning consistently then we’ll work on fielding that playoff class team.
To be honest, his remarks are a little scatter-brained. He changes thoughts mid-sentence quite a lot which indicates he hasn’t thought through how to explain their position. Seems to differ quite a bit from the POBO’s comments too which over the last few months were about shoring up the rotation and the bullpen to field a winning team this year.
He mentions that they brought up players last year that weren’t ready for the show, and gave away good talent to do it. I’d say the organization also brought in a GM a few years back that wasn’t ready for the big leagues.
So, yes, we’re frustrated.
Whatever happened to “just win, baby!”?
Bling – how true.
I don’t want to root for a team whose only concern is the bottom line, but in modern baseball, I suppose that would mean not rooting for anyone.
BDW, Jr. wants to win a WS as much as any fan. 2 reasons.
1.) His legacy as an owner (with the long legacy of the DeWitt family in MLB) is measured by success on the field.
2.) The further the team goes into October, the more revenue is generated.
We here on TCN comment quite a bit about cash flow, and how DeWitt cares more about making money than anything else. I always wonder about that. He has a ton of equity in the ball club, which can be turned in to cash should they want to do that.
Like any for-profit organization they want to show a bottom line in black numbers and not red. In the past they have done that and built winning teams. In recent years however, management has simply made too many mistakes. They have not been good. To cover those mistakes they would need to be more risk tolerant and hand out big contracts to free agents. They are not comfortable doing that though as historically they have paid under-market for production.
It is an uncomfortable place for management. They need to either cash in on older players and commit to a full rebuild, or go out and bring in proven productive players. But they are trying to walk in the middle – not commit to a rebuild, and bring in cheaper players who have had some success, hoping they can hold down the fort while younger players mature.
@bccran wrote:
BDW, Jr. wants to win a WS as much as any fan. 2 reasons.
1.) His legacy as an owner (with the long legacy of the DeWitt family in MLB) is measured by success on the field.
2.) The further the team goes into October, the more revenue is generated.
Wish and hope are poor business strategies. Half measures (pitching staff) result in halfa$$ed outcomes.
Shilling for the FO is exhausting.
bccran said:
1.) His legacy as an owner (with the long legacy of the DeWitt family in MLB) is measured by success on the field
2.) The further the team goes into October, the more revenue is generated.1.) His legacy is cemented if they never won another game. Three rings vs. two is not that notable over time. In the earlier days, the right people came together – Albert, TLR, Yadi, etc. and made it happen. They’re all gone now.
1.) A legacy has an associated price. The team today is not close enough to risk spending the incremental money to be a top contender. Hence the Cardinals have been falling in payroll spending relative to other teams.
2.) You may want to look into where playoff revenue goes. It is not nearly as lucrative as you think. They’d make a lot more filling Busch all season long like they used to do.
2.) The further the team goes into October, the more revenue is generated.
In a vacuum, this statement is true for every team, including teams like the A’s, Rockies, and Marlins. Which underscores how there are a lot more variables in the equation that owners are trying to optimize/solve for.
The emergence of the invisible Girsch from Cardinal obscurity makes one wonder what has been the contribution of Chaim Bloom so far this year? Or perhaps he was traded when I wasn’t looking.
This organization doesn’t have the right people with the right stuff at any positions to make this a winning organization. The players were capable just a couple years or so ago but instead of really going out and trying to make something happen we just fell into the hope game of getting hot n lucky at the right times. Now we have an older team far as the pitchers and the bigger stars are older as well, calls for more prayers than hope actually. Going out and making a bigger splash probably wouldn’t have been the smart thing to do. However at least it might have ignited your fan base and sometimes that is something more than nothing. Now we just play the wait n see game to see if better decisions can be made far as our pitching especially. I still don’t think we have the right people anywhere so I’m not very hopeful.
CIF said:
The emergence of the invisible Girsch from Cardinal obscurity makes one wonder what has been the contribution of Chaim Bloom so far this year? Or perhaps he was traded when I wasn’t looking.
I had a long chat with him on the back fields one day in spring training. You won’t see a quote from him all year. He is advising Mo, not the media or the public.
I haven’t spoken with anyone above him about that. If I was a betting man, I’d give it better than 50% odds.
I haven’t spoken with anyone above him about that. If I was a betting man, I’d give it better than 50% odds.
I would, too. And I think he would be a good hire.
It would not be shocking if a newly annointed Bloom would bring in a GM of his choosing. So does Girsch ride the horse until its shot out from under him, or take a proactive approach to the emerging landscape?
There could be turnover at any one of the key positions, or maybe they will all stay. There is a GM and three AGMs currently.
No 13th round pick, no rings.
This is the long and the short of it. In general you could say this about any inner circle Hall of Fame level player(although many were signed or drafted more highly), but the Cards won their Series basically by lucking into an all time great with a lottery ticket pick. This has inflated the view of the organization for most of the last 24 years.
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