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Brianpnoonan…at what point does it become practical to give out any free agent contract? Is it simply short term deals or situations where you can sign a megastar?
Of course, any team would love to have a farm system churning out average to above average players with an occasional star, but for those that don’t, filling in holes with the slightly above average free agent types seems to be the best way to remain competitive.
Overpaying for a year doesnt bother me.
You could look at players like lance lynn in his sixth year like an overpay.
Heck even two years.
Here is the thing… 2 WAR isnt easy to get. But it isnt hard either. Platoons if nothing else are relatively simple. And shuttling players to and from memphis isn’t difficult.
You could probably get 2 WAR from martinez at first base (voit might as well). You probably would get it from bader/oneill in right in some way shape or form.
Heck, we’ve had two different players give us that semi-randomly at shortstop the last two years.
As the cardinals… We dont have to worry about the lack of depth because we have it.
So as to what other teams should do? Lose more games to us, because we’ve done our job better than them. This is an advantage we should be using more but we aren’t.
The Royals seem to be trying to clear some payroll space to bring back Hosmer or Moustakas. One of the players they could move is Kelvin Herrera. I would like to see the Cards consider acquiring Herrera. His 2017 wasn’t great but his previous seasons were very good. He only has one year of control left at $7.9M so it wouldn’t require a huge financial commitment. I don’t know what kind of prospects it would take.
not a bad idea GScott….i’d worry they’d want more than they should though, still a lower level arm or outfielder might be worth it
So the Cardinals have to balance putting a competitive team on the field with rebuilding. Before the 2017 season, they had a need for a better player. There wasn’t much available as free agents. They didn’t have the prospects developed to the point of having much trade value with the exception of Reyes.
Fowler was ranked as high as the 2nd best free agent available. The Cardinals signed him. Did they overpay? Yes. Did they give him too long of a contract? Yes. Should they have signed him? Yes. The Cardinals had the money to spend and it doesn’t take away from being able to sign another free agent.
Like him or not, he made the team better last year. He should have been playing LF but he made the team better. He deserves to play this year, also. However, after this year, he needs to be replaced with the prospects.
a year ago I would have agreed that a 32yr old fowler with 3/50mm remaining on his contract would have been easy to place somewhere with a majority salary dump. The way free agents contracts are panning out this year im not so sure.Or are you suggesting that we sit him in favor of prospects? I don’t see that happening, do you?
Majority salary dump.
The free agent market is weird because they’re saving for next winter. I dont see how that affects everyone.
Even if it does, teams need outfielders. For some teams fowler at say… 12 mil isn’t expensive and they need a guy like that.
And no, we had no business signing him under any circumstances. We’d have been better off sending 10 minor leaguers for trout.
Wasting that many resources is asinine.
Grays, I think the Cardinals should trade Fowler, either at the trade deadline or at the end of the year. They may have to eat $2-$3 million/year for the last 3 years but they should be able to find a taker. He is still a valuable player. My only reason for this move will be that one of the OF prospects will be ready to take over.
Trading Fowler in-season would be unnecessarily risky. He has to approve any move due to his full no trade protection. That means the front office would have to approach his agent to negotiate this. Of course they will want to know which team and potentially tell the Cards how much cash he would need to agree to move. If the team is then not able to pull off a deal, they end up with a very disgruntled player for at least the rest of the year. The alternative is that once they start down that path, they are forced to take the best offer from a team Fowler is willing to go to. As we saw with Stanton, there can be real issues. It would just be better to not go there if they are in contention.
For those reasons, I would not be in favor of an in-season trade – unless the team has cratered. In that case, there should be other trades, as well. Not likely to happen, though.
If you hand out big long term contracts with no-trade clauses to older players you might as well expect a pair of handcuffs. Fowler is the poster boy for making the most of his contract year. The Card’s FO jumped in… and in this case they misappropriated solid salary money that could have been used for what we need now. So what we are left with….. a five day old albatross. I know, Monday morning reckoning, but still another FO faux pas.
I agree Brian…
also…I like Oneill and I like AdGarcia and Bader…and the others farther down…but Oneill is still Grichuk 2.0 with his all or nothing…and i’m not ready to get back to being forced into that, Bader i like…maybe the most…but will he grow or will he plateau…ADGarcia is a freak of nature with his size and speed…reminds me of Puig… could be awesome…not enough AAA to even know
My problem with trading Fowler would be in that Pham is old (i like him but he is older) and even if he stays healthy we may only have a couple good years of him..he is still a big question mark…and Ozuna is gone after next year…and if we trade Fowler too that leaves us with the possibility of no outfield…replacing Fowler after this year might be do-able..but then you are forcing us to have ANOTHER prime time ready to start impact OF ready to go the next year…and maybe more if Pham goes down or regresses for whatever reason…
There is no guarantee Fowler will stay healthy or productive, but he is at least here…i’d rather have more options than being forced into having to use ones that arent good enough while paying someone else to get Fowler’s production
And at the end of the day…if it is so obvious that Fowler should go why would anyone give us a good deal at all? If the reason is they WANT him, then why woudlnt we want him? Hard for me to believe that if Fowler is poor that 3mil less would be get any takers not to mention any kind of good prospect back…and if he isnt poor, then why woudl we want to trade him for unproven other players…Isnt that the trouble we got into with depending on Grichuk and Piscotty?
We have two aaa outfield top 100 guys at fowlers position plus arozarena, ja garcia, and others… And you’re worried about pham?
If pham gets hurt we need another all star. We have more than enough people that can fill in for fowler or in center or both.
…and you’re worried about pham? Wha?
yeah i am worried about Pham until i see him have 2 healthy years in a row with good production not to mention his eye problems are not a surgery fix, it is an issue that changes and he must adapt to keep up with…this time last year he was 5-6 on our depth chart…there is no guarantee he will be good THIS year let alone in 2 years
two top 100 outfielders… and all that depth…sure..it’s fine and all…but there is nothign for sure with those prospects…Sierra, PLummer, Piscotty, Grichuk Tilson, Ramsey (i think), Valera…all top 100 guys (and some of them werent even top 100…they were just in our top 20-30…. even when we had top gusy they havent turned into much so far)
and you want to depend on them to carry the team… yo usaid if Pham goes down we need an AS…well at what position because you have already anointed a potential 2020 outfield of Bader Oneill AdGarcia… should you trade Fowler, lose Ozuna and Pham to show his age or get injured
Dont agree with me…i dont care
but i dont want to get stuck having to depend on young outfielders turning into all stars…Piscotty and Grichuk have soured me to that…now…if it is the trade deadline and Fowler is stinking it up…and Oniell or Bader or whomever is awesome…yeah give the kids ABs… but if Fowler’s offense is like he was last year (even with his injury) and he wont be playing CF so cant harp on that… then what is the problem with gong with the veteran?
If fowler stinks…then no one will give anything for him nor take on a big part of the salary (and that is even if he allows it)…3mil off…wont happen unless he is playing well…and if that is happening wh ywoudl we go with unproven items behind him unless we are in tank mode….which if Fowler is playing well might be a tough thing to happen seeing as no one is expecting him to be good at all it seems
One shouldn’t expect Pham to break down, and he’s not that old for an OFer, and there is the possibility of extending Ozuna. With the amount of OF prospects we have waiting for an opportunity, the probability is that at least one will be a starter and one a 4th.
That assumes the FO sees fit to realize the error they made in obtaining Fowler. They will take their loses financially before having an overpay be the fourth outfielder.
Pham’s 29. History tells us that players peak during their 27-29 year age range. So, one should expect Pham to have regression.
Boars and Ozuna already stated they want to test the market i believe…unless he’s terrible for 2 years we will haev to overpay to get him…which means we probably wont right?
this topic is about Hosmer and Moose though….getting back on topic seems to be in order
Moose at the Bruce rate (3yrs-39) seems a gamble considering…but more years nah…and more money…only if it was a 2yr deal maybe…
Hosmer…i still like him…but the years and the amounts thrown around for him right now are pretty crazy for the amount of upgrade he’d be for us…
I hope Fowler is a Cardinal for life. His $16.5M a year is going to set us back forever though. Ridiculous statements all winter. I think I’m going to need a word-filter for “Fowler” on this site….great discussion on Hosmer/Moustakas though.
Ridiculous? Because the math says he isnt worth 10 million and his replacements starting this year are basically as good as him? Yeah they are young and BARELY worse… But by next year they wont be.
We effectively paid 80+ million for 3 WAR. The day criticizing that is ridiculous is probably 100 years off when the dollar is worth significantly less.
Jager, it has nothing to do with depending on young players to be all stars.
the problem is we paid all star money for an everyday starter. Nothing more.
If he was an all star (5 WAR) we wouldnt be having this conversation. He has never been that good and moving to a corner spot makes it nearly impossible with his talent level.
I would give anything to not be having this discussion. 75% of our offseason has been spent discussing a guy that is not going to be leaving the roster anytime soon. Talk about beating a dead horse.
Trading Fowler away would be addition by subtraction. Another outsider who doesn’t fit the Cardinal model.
From San Diego:
The #Padres got their man. Eric Hosmer is their new first baseman. https://t.co/ox6tAoeDVe
— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) February 18, 2018
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