- This topic has 177 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Brian – You and I both know that it’s been a perfect storm against a lineup that was structured to win. Who could have predicted the sharp decline of Goldy and Arenado, the backward slide of Walker and Gorman, and the injuries to the pitchers picked up at 2023 trade deadline. All happening at the same time. Was all that BDW’s fault?
The pitching pipeline dried up to the point all five starters to open the 2024 season were free agent signings. That is as anti-Cardinal as anything I can think of.
Whose fault is it? The Cardinals’ fault. It starts with the owner and goes on down. No free passes given out here.
One man’s explanation is another’s excuse, but the recent results speak for themselves. The process wasn’t working so they had to “reset”.
Cardinals placed 3rd in attendance at a little over 3.2M in 2023 and placed 7th in attendance at a shade under 2.9M in 2024. I’m going to guess Billy Jr’s. going to feel a slight sensation of hunger with a significant downturn in attendance in 2025. It won’t surprise me if paid attendance falls well below 2.5M in 2025 with the Cardnals sinking to somewhere lower than 10th in attendance. If that turns out to be a reality, Billy Jr. will be sad.
The pitching side has dried up before. How many of the Cardinal starters on the 2006 and 2011 World Championship teams were originally drafted by the Cardinals?
Drafted, instead of acquired, so you could exclude Wainwright. I’m out, fair evaluations don’t hide, they acknowledge.
2011 Opening Day Roster – Kyle McClellan and Jaime Garcia were in the rotation. That was 14 years ago, BTW…
The Cards starters in 2011 were –
Carpenter
Lohse
Westbrook
Jackson
Garcia
McClellanOnly 2 out of 6 were home grown.
Here are the starters for the 2006 World Champion Cardinals –
Carpenter
Marquis
Mulder
Suppan
Reyes
WeaverNumber of homegrown, Brian? One out of six.
We loved those years but they’re over. 10 years since this team was really relevant. They’ve won, yes up until the last few years. Playing Pittsburgh Cincinnati and the Cubs with only a sage Brewers team to compete against in their division. Yes the Brewers are sage. We need to get like that. We just out spent them enough to win that division. But we can’t even do that anymore. Organizational overhaul, reset, or whatever you want to call it is in order.
2006 was almost 20 years ago, two decades ago. That is like talking about the WWII years in the mid-60’s. No longer relevant in any way to today.
Could the 2024 83 win team have made the postseason with prime years Pujols in the lineup? How deep do they go?
Every roster is different. To complete a 26man with 0-3 affordable stars is when Bill spends to fill in the final pieces.
There’s a huge difference between Pujols/Molina/Wainwright and Donny/Winn/ Pallante. Fill in those final pieces, at todays cost? You see Bills answer.
It’s not just the last two years. There were no playoffs in ’16, ’17, or ’18 either.
The last time the Cards were really good was the first half of 2015.
Yes they won 100 games and the division that year but they rode in on their first half record and were easily dismissed 4 games to 1 by the Cubs in the Divisional Series.
Well, I guess the pipeline sure does dry up when you don’t hold onto some guys like Gallen, Alcantara, Flaherty, Wacha, Hudson, Reyes, Martinez, Oviedo, etc. But perhaps these things come in waves and Pallante, McGreevy, Hence, Matthews, Graceffo, Hjerpe, Rajcic, Bedell, etc. will reverse the home grown dry up.
I do think there’s an argument that had some things broke right, some of the latter teams could/would have been better. Certainly this last year’s team would have been a lot better if Goldschmidt and Arenado had hit more like they were expected to hit, especially given all the close games the team played.
But there have also been a lot of mistakes. The team brought Walker up too early. That was clearly an issue watching him try to play right field with so little experience. The team also either stopped focusing on developing pitchers (by prioritizing hitters) and traded away pitching depth exasperating the problem. They also apparently sacrificed minor league instruction to try to make-up for the loss of pitching depth. There were missteps with Carlson for sure. These are directly attributed to Mozeliak and DeWitt.
That said, ownership and management aren’t complete failures as some would categorize them here. I believe they truly do want to win and are trying to field the best team they can within a reasonable team budget. I believe Mozeliak has a long list of really good trades that he’s made (to go along with 2-3 terrible ones). Trading has probably been his strong suit whereas free agent signings is probably where he’s had the worst results. It’s not a terrible management/ownership group. But they are a stale group that got complacent and rested on their laurels of past success too much. I’m glad we are getting a new leader with a different approach. But he’s going to make mistakes too. I think it’s important that we don’t overreact too much to them early on. As fans, we have little choice but to hope it all comes back together and we can once again bask in the glory of a World Series championship.
You’re right on a number of points, Jnevel. I like Gary LaRocque, but he’s 71 years old and has been in the business for almost 50 years. The game has gotten a lot more sophisticated from an analytics standpoint, and who knows whether the game passed him by or he simply wasn’t given the resources in equipment and personnel to compete with other systems. Perhaps there was too much loyalty given to Gary by Bill and Mo, based upon past successes. But they’re getting on the right track now with Bloom, Day, Cerfolio, Kochan, Pierpont, et al. That’s the most important thing.
From VEB today….
The Cardinals have still gotten nowhere with their plan to “reset.” They could have traded some players and received some interesting young prospects in return. However, they still have not made a single move that impacts the Major League roster. You could say that John Mozeliak is going out in style.We all know the problem. Who is going to fix it. Mozedliak hasn’t even done a baby step.
Perhaps some FAs of worth are asking for multiple year deals, and Mo wants Chaim to have pretty much a clean slate to work with.
Most of us on this forum have lived thru the most recent glory days of the Cardinals. There’s a whole generation that can’t remember any of that. Until they make some new memories for those fans, attendence will continue to plummet.
Good generational synopsis. Couple that with the lack of enthusiasm for baseball by youth today and it puts storm clouds on the horizon for the industry.
The industry is fine for the top 15 clubs whose budgets account for two-thirds of the total spent last season (Cots). They’re killing it.
Bill will have his financial reset done by next offseason. He’s showing no interest in joining the hard chargers, financially.
All he needs now is a Pujols / Molina / Wainwright core to step up, and a PD that doesn’t fail on first rounders. TBD.
I mean, not re-signing, Lynn and Gibson does open up a couple of rotation spots.
They did let Goldschmidt walk without so much as a by your leave…
We are still saddled with Matz and Mikolas.
Arenado is still here although he could be an Astro.
I’m not at all happy with Siani as a starting outfielder – but maybe he won’t be.
Truthfully I’d rather have Gorman at third so Donovan can play 2nd so we can see what we’ve got.
Obviously Walker and Gorman and to some extent Nootbar are in their put up or shut up year.
I agree with all the above ZTR except the part at the end about Walker. Given his age, as long as he shows some solid improvement, then I think the team continues to commit to him – even if he’s only a 1.5 WAR player this season.
For Nootbaar, it’s not about performance. He just needs to stay on the field and continue to otherwise do what he’s done. I’m not sure if it’s make or break or not for him, but it’s close.
Just as I concluded in the long exercise I went through a couple months ago, I believe the 2025 team is better than the 2024 version. The pitching should especially be better and I think the defense improves just a touch. The offense could also easily be better depending almost entirely on Gorman and Walker adjustments. That was all assuming Helsley, Fedde, and Arenado stay. My guess is they will be somewhere between 80-90 wins in this scenario. My preference is still to trade Arenado and Fedde now because 80-90 wins is unlikely to qualify for the playoffs. I’d rather not be saddled with Arenado’s salary long-term and open an opportunity for Gorman (or maybe Wetherholt/Saggese in 2026). I’d also rather reap the rewards of a Fedde trade rather than get a much smaller deadline return or no return at all. But if they don’t trade them, then this team should be solid – just not good enough.
Returned?? I am still waiting for Matz’s first healthy, productive season with the Cardinals. He had one decent year with the Mets and one with the Jays in his walk year and that is about it.
Mikloas did have a pretty good run when he first came over from Japan.
Matz Era –
2015 – 2.27
2016 – 3.40
2017 – 6.08
2018 – 3.97
2019 – 4.21
2020 – 9.68
2021 – 3.82
2022 – 5.25
2023 – 3.86
2024 – 5.08He had over 20 starts in 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2021. 17 starts in 2023. His overall ERA is 4.28.
If he stays healthy, he can be a solid member of the rotation in 2025.
Mikolas? His overall MLB ERA is 4.16. He could also be a solid member.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.