- This topic has 304 replies, 34 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I forgot answer your Brad Miller type acquisition question, and it deserves an answer.
We are an outfielder short, I bet we can all agree. Williams disappointed, Thomas too and Bader is injured. Edman is a plus infielder and belongs there, I agree.
What about Nootbar? Miller instead? Your choice. I accepted the auditions game plan once Wong was allowed to walk.
I don’t think the FO needs to go to either extreme, whether it be acquiring vets or auditioning youngsters. There needs to be a blend of both. The problem is that we seem to usually acquire or extend the wrong veteran and let go of the youngsters we should have kept. That isn’t an issue of team building philosophy. It is an issue of talent evaluation.
I’d be curious to know how well the FO evaluations line up with the posters who rank players here.
For instance O’neill vs Arozarena. Who did TCN like better at the trade date?
Are the FO evaluations really that much different from the forum? Or is all this hindsight second guessing?
I think talent evaluation is just part of the issue. The list of prospects who are performing well for other organizations is getting longer than we all would be comfortable with. Arozarena, Gallen, Kelly, Alcantra, Voit, even Gomber has been a revelation for the Rockies. What is interesting about this list of players is that none of them were ever top 100 prospects while with the Cardinals outside of Kelly, if I remember correctly. They were all top ten or top twenty range prospects for our organization but weren’t pegged as what they have all turned into today. Maybe the org thought some might hit their upper range of outcomes, but all of them turning into key contributors? Now, some guys we gave up haven’t done much, like Sierra, maybe Weaver.
But I think this touches on we may have a player development issue in addition to a talent evaluation issue. Other organizations were able to put the finishing touches on those guys that made them key contributors and have a few of them looking like potential stars. I think the organization needs to ask itself how are these other organizations doing this and the best way to do that is for us to poach from other smart front offices. Hopefully Dewitt will be willing to do that as we seem to be behind the curve.
Other orgs played them not blocked them. They didn’t continue to develope them, they plugged them in a starters role and said sink or swim.
When was Gomber ever given the opportunity he is getting from COL? Arozarena? Garcia? Voit? For me they lacked the opportunity, not more development.
I’d be curious to know how well the FO evaluations line up with the posters who rank players here.
For instance O’neill vs Arozarena. Who did TCN like better at the trade date?
Are the FO evaluations really that much different from the forum? Or is all this hindsight second guessing?
I don’t know the answer to those questions but I do know that one group is paid to make those decisions and one group isn’t. You would hope the group being paid would be more capable. That is the hope anyway.
But I think this touches on we may have a player development issue in addition to a talent evaluation issue
Good point. The two go hand in hand. Would this be under Laroque?
For me they lacked the opportunity, not more development.
True. I think both could be going on. Lack of development and lack of opportunity.
Jj-cf-stl, player development is rapidly changing and not all organizations are even close to being as equally good at it. Part of the reason we hired Jeff Albert in the first place was because we were way behind at incorporating technology and analytics into our player development. Alberts results aside, all the best organizations invest heavily in this stuff, trying to find the next edge, and are able to take players from other organizations and turn them into key contributors.
Part of that may be recognizing a certain player is well suited to your ballpark. Does Voit hit nearly as many homers in Busch as he would at Yankee stadium? Does Marco Gonzalez’s stuff play up as well at Busch as it does in Seattle? That kind of stuff I wouldn’t ding the Cardinals for.
But in the cases of Arozarena and Gallen, it’s pretty clear they made more changes than just being given more opportunity. Arozarena put on fifteen pounds of muscle and suddenly had a lot more power. Gallen’s stuff got a lot better after leaving the Cardinals, though that may have been in part because he was told to use sticky stuff by the Marlins. He recently admitted as much. It will be interesting to see how good he is without it.
The Cardinals in recent years have made more investments in using technology but we were pretty late to the game in that regard.
Is there something uniquely bad about his Tommy John compared to the hundreds who recovered just fine?
There is roughly a 20% chance of a pitcher not recovering TJS affects on MLB Pitchers
It’s very simple, actually.
In 2019 a player in our system put up the following numbers –
AA – .309/.422/.505/.937
AAA – .358/.435/.593/1.028
MLB – .300/.391/.500/.891You simply don’t trade a guy like that if the other team would take someone else.
Which they would.Bccran, all the reports I’ve seen are that Tampa was enamored with Randy Arozarena and thought he was likely undervalued by the prospect community and our own organization. I haven’t seen anything suggesting they would have taken one of our other outfielders.
I think Mo and the organization deserve criticism for not properly evaluating Arozarena. But his stat line wasn’t even that unusual especially given his age. Nobody had him as a top 100 prospect until after the trade, and that was largely due to recognizing how smart the Rays are and figuring they saw something others hadn’t yet. The real problem I have with the Arozarena trade (in addition to the player development point I made) is that Mo and Girsch don’t seem to be better at evaluating our own players than the prospect community is, yet Mo and company should have way more information and skill in this area than they appear to have.
They would never trade away a Carlson or Gorman because their talent is obvious, but players like Arozarena and Gallen get misevaluated and become stars in other organizations.
Mo was asked point blank in a press conference if the Rays had insisted on Arozarena. He hesitated and then said, there were other players discussed and that the Cards need to take a look at how they value their prospects. That’s your answer.
It also sounds like either the manager of the FO is pushing the aged vets like Carpenter and such that are not performing over giving the younger guys a chance…sadly…that’s part of the problem and I doubt that will change anytime soon…
Logan, I think if you look pre-Shildt, you see some commonalities about who plays. The last two managers were hired for a reason and by the same guy. So you are right, it’s not likely to improve soon.
They’re getting squeezed between aging veterans and unproven youngsters. Need some solid guys in between in their most productive years.
Mo: We will give you Lane Thomas and Jose Martinez for Matthew Liberatore.
TB: How about Nolan Gorman instead of Lane Thomas?
Mo: We can’t do that but we would give you Tyler O’Neill instead of Thomas.
TB: That won’t do it but Randy Arozarena and Jose Martinez would.
Mo: Well, OK, but only if you throw in Edgardo Rodriguez.
TB: Deal.When asked in a press conference, Mo says that other names were discussed and the Cardinals need to look at how they value their prospects.
That also fits. What is known, for sure, is that TB valued Arozarena highly.
Yes, they valued him, but didn’t insist on him being included. Others were discussed.
Probably Thomas. Mo as much as admitted he made a mistake when he said they were going to have to review the way they evaluate prospects. I heard Mo in person touting Thomas over the off season.This discussion reminds me that even though the Cardinals have the reputation of a build from within organization often times they don’t do it. They trade away prospects before giving them a real shot and give the playing time instead to aging vets on big contracts. Isn’t that what got Jocketty in trouble which led to Dewitt turning things over to Mo and Lunhow?
Well, this is a recent phenomenon. Prior to the Ozuna trade, the last big trade the Cardinals did of multiple prospects for a star was Matt Holiday, which we 9-10 years prior to the Ozuna trade.
And these trades were made in search of a middle-of-the-order bat, which for years, the Cardinals could not produce in-house.
I agree, the flaw in the Cardinals development process is they don’t nurture players when they make the leap from AAA to MLB. Grichuk had too many strikeouts. Voit was “blocked” by Carpenter. TON was blocked by Ozuna, etc. They need to get better at how they transition players from AAA to MLB.
The Cardinals drafting philosophy over the years has been to draft pitching, pitching, and more pitching. With a sprinkling of high ceiling high school position players thrown in…..Plummer, Denton, Tilson, Kelly, D. Perez, etc. The feeling is that you never have enough pitching, and also that you can trade pitching for position players as needed to fill in. Mortensen was key in the Holliday trade. Marco for O’Neill. Alcantara and Gallen went in the Ozuna trade. Weaver went in the Goldy trade. Gomber and Locey went in the NA trade. So to have Carlson, Gorman, Herrera and Walker as future possible contributing starters is a treat. Maybe Winn, Nunez, Torres, and finally D. Perez and Plummer will work out.
Yes, they valued him, but didn’t insist on him being included.
So, you are saying, point blank, that this is a FACT? I still, to this day, have never found anything that says this. A good read on the trade was done which shows the Rays had targeted Arozarena for a while.
How Rays Got Randy from Cards … on 2nd Try.
It points out that the Rays said they had to give up something of value to get him. “The timeline got accelerated quickly. It came down to, ‘Are we willing to part with someone we value highly to acquire someone who can impact our big league team a little sooner?’”
I’ll go with what Mo said. He was asked directly whether the Rays would have taken another outfielder besides Arozarena in the trade package. His answer said it all.
It’s okay to agree to disagree.He was asked directly whether the Rays would have taken another outfielder besides Arozarena in the trade package.
Okay, but would we have gotten Liberatore back?
At the time, everybody was thinking the Cardinals got a steal because we gave up Jose Martinez and Arazorena for Liberatore and Rodriguez. It turns out, Liberatore and Arazorena were ranked pretty equally after the trade.
This is not the trade I would argue the Cardinals lost.
What if the other player the Rays would have accepted for Liberatore was TON?
What if they would have accepted Thomas, but we would not have gotten Liberatore, but rather some pitcher we’ve never heard of?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.