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Any word of this being a possibility? Anybody?
https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2017/8/14/16141686/cardinals-august-trade-justin-upton
Pham, Fowler, and Grichuk have been doing great in the second half.
Pham – .891 OPS
Fowler – .854 OPS
Grichuk – .975 OPSUpton would cost $21.1M a year for the next four years too. That being said, Upton would be an upgrade and he can opt-out of his contract this off-season. It would be a bold move. I don’t know who Matheny would bench though, likely Pham in this scenario.
Quote from the article.
You might notice that when I was talking about the Cardinals’ outfield depth I skipped over the slew of prospects currently inhabiting the Triple-A and Double-A outfields. That’s because, frankly, I don’t think any of them are significant enough to hold off making an upgrade.
I think it’s more of who would get moved we get Upton. They’d want to move someone out of OF.
This isn’t happening this year any way but dare to dream.
So basically the guys that we have are to good to trade but bad enough that we couldn’t get anything with them anyway…
Well looking at this from a defensive side the issue is unless Upton Mashes us into the series and just puts up monster numbers. He’s not opting out of that deal. We’d almost surely have to deal an OF of the roster to accommodate him for one this season. So who goes between Pham, Grichuk and Martinez? Then there’s the issue of Dexter Fowler’s transition into LF. Which I’d imagine happens no later than 2019. Upton isn’t RF and his arm which was solid at the beginning of his career is losing strength and he’s not as agile as he once was. His best position LF and moving forward after his contract likely to the role of DH at some point.
Plus if you weren’t going to trade for Jay Bruce. You sure as heck aren’t trading for Upton. Bruce was a better fit due to his true position being RF, his bat being on a level of Upton and his arm being pretty good even though the defense is unspectacular. A true rental who would’ve cost you nothing but you’d still have to find a home for one of your OF’er on someones team.
Getting Upton for 20M a year would set us up for the next 4 years. With Fowler, they would be making up the best OF in MLB. We need power so badly, Upton could bat 3rd and Fowler cleanup to provide us with two HRs. They would be dirt cheap as a duo in our OF.
Upton is hitting home runs at a 1 per 20 PA rate. DeJong is hitting home runs at a 1 per 14.5 PA rate.
Who’d have ever thunk it. Can it last? No one knows, but he sure looks good right now. Maybe we should think twice about blocking
the Martinez, Pham, Grichuk, Piscotty, O’Neill, Adolis Garcia, Arozarena, Sierra, etc. crowd with an Upton type until we see how our own players develop and perform at the major league level.Upton is by far superior to any of those on our depth chart, except for Fowler. Sure I could see trading those 8 for Upton. I hope Mozeliak thinks the same way.
The strong trend in MLB is to develop from within. Cards of course are a part of that. Have been for a long time. The grass is always greener. Why is that? Bignameitis?
I don’t have an issue with acquiring Upton. We can always trade that outfield depth for other needs similar to dealing Marco for O’Neill in the first place.
Upton is too streaky for my taste. He is having a good year this time but next season could be a total bust. I think he is too expensive to take a chance on.
If you possibly have a future Upton in your system who doesn’t cost you 20 million dollars a year, you should probably consider that as a businessman. Shouldn’t
you?Right field has been our weakest offensive spot so far, and it is a position that is customarily offensive oriented (along with a strong arm if possible). So while Upton does offer a significant upgrade there if you use April-mid August numbers, that does not necessarily mean he does the same thing from here on out.
I am not convinced he is a significant enough upgrade to take on now, and looking ahead we appear to be looking at a glut of outfielders.
So I would pass on acquiring him. However, if we do make the plunge I would not be overly upset about it.
858booyah
Quote from the article.
You might notice that when I was talking about the Cardinals’ outfield depth I skipped over the slew of prospects currently inhabiting the Triple-A and Double-A outfields. That’s because, frankly, I don’t think any of them are significant enough to hold off making an upgrade.
I’d like to point out that this statement from the article is ridiculous.
*First off, two of our outfielders have moved into the MLB top 100 prospects list, O’Neill went to #97 and Bader is at #100.
*Secondly, Sierra is at #46 on the Baseball Prospectus mid-season top 50.
Finally, the two Cubans we signed, Jose Garcia and Randy Arozarena, should be much more highly thought of than they are ranked right now. They’ve both been very impressive.
Why do some people want to 100% depend on prospects when 99% of the time they never touch or make any impact at the ML lvl??
bccran
If you possibly have a future Upton in your system who doesn’t cost you 20 million dollars a year, you should probably consider that as a businessman. Shouldn’t you?Justin Upton was the #2 prospect in baseball heading into 2006. BJ Upton was the #2 prospect heading into 2004. Oscar Taveras is the only position player that we’ve had recently that comes close to that level.
bccran
Why do some folks always want to trade top prospects for an overpriced major leaguer?
In an Upton trade, we wouldn’t lose a top prospect in acquiring him. However, I don’t think he’s overpriced. I was advocating trading our prospects for some other teams’ prospect ala the O’Neill/Gonzales trade.
i don’t think he’d cost atop prospect
and the issue with him having an opt out after this season muddles the interest too..
i’d love him for the stretch run… but i would either want assurances on him NOT opting out OR…assurances he WOULD opt in before i decide
it’s a weak market for hitters and i think he might get a bit more than what he has left…but it is a gamble with lots of money…
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