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Rats – Take a look at Walker’s age. He just turned 20 in May. He started out this AA season as a 19 year old. That’s rare.
I think when you are relying on starters Mikolas and 40 year old Wainright as your aces, Hudson doing okay, Matz has been awful, you need an upgrade for a starter and a reliever. The Cards team pitching is 11th in ERA, and 27th in strikeouts also support an upgrade. This s all with arguably the best defense in baseball.
“Need”…? For what? To finish as more of a wild card round loser? I would vastly prefer to gamble on the prospects than trade for just about any starting pitcher on the market right now. The one exception would be if Aaron Nola was available. He’s a Cardinals kinda guy and I hope they are gonna be ready to go after him post 2023, or even before if the Phillies would trade. I do like Pablo Lopez a bit, but think he’d be expensive to trade for and I’m leery after the Marlins totally fleeced us in the Ozuna trade.
27 – Strikeouts are not a true barometer when the philosophy is pitch to contact with ground balls a priority.
I’m just stating that an expensive Soto trade is not needed, and a trade for a Clevinger, or Snell wouldn’t cost us highly ranked prospects, while improving our chances, especially since the Brewers are only a half game ahead. Hardly a wild card bid involved.
I disagree with strikeouts being unimportant. Strikeouts usually show pitching dominance. Couple more strikeouts with our defense would add up to less runs.
Burleson is probably a DH. Walker is probably a DH with the currently defensive alignment, although he may have a shot to play OF.
Exactly why I say move O’Neill for a SP, move Nunez, Baker, whatever lesser prospects for a RP. Let Burleson be LF/DH, Donovan DH/Utility, Yepez and Dickerson in there somewhere. Start getting Walker reps in LF. 2023 Burleson can pencil in as LF, but if Walker can play it and forces his way to MLB then he can be LF and Burleson and Yepez are DH/LF/RF/1B, if Walker isn’t ready then Burleson and Yepez are the same role just getting most of the reps in LF with Donovan still in the mix and also getting some DH and Utility. Keep the versatility available. There will be injuries to deal with and more guys AB’s at spots.
I agree with stlcard25 and bccran about our pitching. I would also like to see Pallante get more starts.
27 – The Cardinals place a big emphasis on ground ball pitching. It can keep the pitch count down, as well as induce double plays in a critical situation. Mikolas has a 2.51 ERA right now, and has only struck out 92 in 120.2 innings.
He’s not thrower, he’s a polished, professional pitcher.The Org seems to value defense, so they wouldn’t have a starting fielder who is only serviceable at a position. Prospects who are really limited defensively might be the trade bait. But, then again, the Org didn’t know Adolis Garcia could play CF and he’s above replacement level.
Well I don’t think the pitching problems are overblown at all. We have two starters you can regularly count on (Mikolas and Waino) and two relievers you can regularly count on (Helsley and Cabrera). The rest are bunch of wild cards. We aren’t going deep in the playoffs with this pitching staff, if we get in at all.
Gallegos, Hicks, Pallante, Fernandez, Oviedo, Woodford are not quite wild cards, IMO. The only available pitcher that I would want to make a play for is Castillo, and that’s not going to happen. Obviously, there’s no sense in giving up good prospects for a pitcher that’s not really better than what we already have.
STL had the opportunity to acquire a significant SP’r last offseason, but the FO chose to sign a back of the rotation arm on a long term contract.
Why should we expect these cheapskates to acquire anyone better than the has-beens Lester and Happ this deadline?
Second in attendance deserves better.
Ok….. back to the Soto fantasy.
For the Cardinals to be at least competent in pitching, several of our high draft picks need to come through. Let’s take a look at the last 6 drafts for pitchers –
2017 – First 5 picks among pitchers – Rivera, Kruczynski,
Seeburger, Summerville, and Patterson. None made it. Walsh was drafted in the 16th round and Whitley in the 27th. Total of 23 pitchers taken in the draft by the Birds.
None have become Cardinal starters.2018 – The first 5 pitchers taken were Roberts, Gingery, Gonzalez, Holba, and Justo. Not one of the 19 pitchers have made it. Roberts has been a huge bust. He was taken #43 overall. Gingery had a lot of potential by never recovered from surgery.
2019 – First 5 pitchers taken – Thompson, Locey, Pallante,
Thomas, and Ralston. Better. Thompson was taken overall #14 in the draft. He should be a #1-#3 on the Cardinals right now. He has struggled at times, but they need to give him a shot at the rotation. Pallante is doing well. Thomas is having a decent year at Memphis and Ralston is still in the hunt. He had a decent year at Peoria last season, but has only pitched a dozen innings this season due to injury. None of the other pitchers like Gragg, Lunn, etc. are doing that well.2020 – A really weird draft during the pandemic. Only 5 rounds, and the Cardinals only selected 3 pitchers –
Hence, Prater, and Bedell. Hence is a gem. Bedell has had injury problems. Prater was drafted in the 3rd round and needs to start coming on.2021 – First 5 pitchers drafted were McGreevy, Love, Mills, Graceffo, and Ruiz. Graceffo has done great. McGreevy needs to kick it into high gear.
The summary? No matter how well you draft, even if you’re lucky only one or two pitchers are probably going to make it into the major league rotation. And you’d better be right with this first several pitcher picks. It’s really nice to see detailed writeups with the draft, like those that TCN does every year, but realistically most of those guys won’t be guys we can ever root for in St. Louis.
What do I see as the major problem right now? The bad pitchers draft in 2017, the busts with Roberts and injured Gingery, the trading of Locey, and the injury to Bedell.
Just MHO.To me Walker’s stats don’t indicate the 2nd coming of Roberto Clemente, or whoever. Why does everyone think he’s got superstar written all over him?
I would say it’s because he started the season in AA at age 19 and didn’t turn 20 until May.
Level Average Age
AAA 28.2
AA 23.8
A+ 22.4
A 21.2
A- 20.9
R 19.4I don’t expect anything significant by the deadline. I see us letting the younger guys play out the season and see what we’ve got going into the off season. Mo should be in good shape payroll wise and with an assortment of prospects and controlled players to shop with.
What do I see as the major problem right now? The bad pitchers draft in 2017, the busts with Roberts and injured Gingery, the trading of Locey, and the injury to Bedell.
Just MHO.Well, the 2017 draft was shortened due to the Astros hacking scandal, and of course the loss of draft pick due to signing Fowler. So their hands have been a bit tied. I’d say there’s enough talent still to outfit the Cards staff for the most part. But the guys who’ve made decent progress will need to continue (Libby, Thompson, Thomas, Graceffo, McGreevy). That’s a tall ask for any staff, although we’ve had a run of bad luck lately with our high ranking pitchers. We’ve definitely kept some guys who didn’t pan out as hoped (Reyes, Flaherty, Weaver to some extent) and traded solid to good performers like Gonzales, Gallen and Alcantara.
bb said:
The Org seems to value defense, so they wouldn’t have a starting fielder who is only serviceable at a position.
I took a look at Soto’s metrics and drew the conclusion that he is one of the game’s poorer outfielders.
Among the bottom four at his position in the NL in three of the last four years (including 2022) with negative scores according to the SABR Defensive Index.
Losing those first few picks in 2017 and the drastically short draft in 2020 have taken their tolls.
Would rather have a healthy and productive O’Neill hitting behind Arenado.
2021 –
O’Neill – .286/.352/.560/.912/34 HR/ 15 SB
Soto – .313/.465/.534/.999/29 HR/ 9 SB / higher OBP and OPS because of walks.
O’Neill far better defensively.
Soto has had 5 good years. O’Neill had one good stretch. I would vote Soto. His offense more than makes up for his average defense. He is a major bat that this OF has been lacking for years. That one year Tyler shined. But it was just one year.
KC – Since we already have major bats in Goldy and NA, I’d rather have a balanced outfield of reasonably good hitters and excellent defensive players. Gold Glove types who average .270 -.280 with maybe 20 or so home runs.
If Tyler hit like he did that one season I would agree. Haven’t seen any reason to think he will. Have seen a lot of reasons to think he won’t.
How many years do Bader and O’Neill get? They have been consistent. Consistently inconsistent. An occasiional hot streak keeps you wishing. Bader has been around since 2017, Tyler 2018. Hots streaks followed by very cold streaks. Mixed in with the yearly injury. Some injuries of the false variety because they have been hitting so poorly. This OF needs a steady performer. Carlson is headed that way.
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