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I will be absolutely delighted if you are right. I would even go so far as to tender my resignation to the Pessimists’ Club.
Love that optimism. Only wish I could connect with it. I’m more looking forward to seeing what Donovan can do at 3B. Walker does look like a linebacker going into 2025. But will he be able to hit the baseball? As far as outfielders are concerned, I’m looking forward to seeing if the constant offensive improvement by Siani in 2024 can continue throughout 2025. All those strikeouts make me want to leave my seat when Gorman steps up to the plate. I’m interested in seeing what Saggese can do at 2B. That said, Gorman and Walker are still very young, and that plus their natural talent, give reason for hope. And there’s still a reasonable chance that somebody makes a sensible offer for Arenado. If he gets in the right frame of mind, he could add some wins for a team.
Let’s examine the odds of what GScottar put out there:
Matz Stays Healthy – His past shows he is hurt most seasons and he’s extremely unlikely to clear 120 innings. But, Matz is nearly irrelevant to the equation in my opinion. Whether he is hurt or not doesn’t change anything. It would be nice if he could be an effective bullpen option in my opinion, but he’s not needed.
Noot Stays Healthy – Evidence again is against this happening. He says he’s focused on it, but I don’t think this is something that’s likely to be helped much by focusing. It could happen, but odds are we’re going to get 350-500 at bats.
Contreras Stays Healthy – He’s generally been healthy throughout his career and now that he’s not a catcher and getting hit with the bat while trying to frame pitches, this one feels likely. This is one of the main reasons he is now 1B/DH.
Gorman Rebounds – Gorman has proven he can hit for stretches of time and that he can be terrible for stretches. I’m not sure what the odds are here. He’s probably better than last year, but I’m not sure he’ll be good enough to be impactful.
Walker Rebounds – I’m actually fairly confident this one is going to happen. I’m just not sure if we’ll see it right away or not. Walker dominated in the minors prior to last season and was a very good major league hitter his first season. Yes, we have a whole season of evidence against him last season. I don’t think that was the real Walker though.
Mikolas Rebounds – This one seems extremely doubtful. Mikolas doesn’t have the stuff he did his first couple seasons. I’m just hoping he equals last season and provides more than 10 quality starts. Being as good as last season would be fine though.
Arenado Rebounds – Maybe a little. But probably not by much. His swing is too slow now so he’s not pulling the ball like he once did. I’d count on him being what he was last season and at best, just marginally better.
Pallante Blossoms – He did look really good in a relatively small sample size of starts last season. I’m always nervous when he’s on the mound because righties still tend to hit him solidly. Overall though, the Cardinals just need him to be as good or better than Lynn/Gibson. I’m pretty confident that happens.
McGreevey Blossoms – Anyone’s guess here is as good as mine. He was splendid in a few starts in 2024. But AAA McGreevey was generally just ok. His adjustments late season seem to have helped but hitters will adjust as well. He just needs to be as good as Lynn/Gibson. I’d put those odds around 50/50.
There are lots of other factors too. Catcher defense, relative health of players, Winn repeating his offense and improving his throws, CF offense, bullpen volatility without Kittridge. If everything goes right, this is a really solid team. It probably won’t happen that way. But with a new Spring, we get a new hope.
Let’s play this out further. Let’s say a majority of the above miraculously happens and the Cardinals wake up on the morning of July 15 and find themselves 2 games out of first place in the division and in possession of one of the wild card spots. What would you do then?
1. Abandon the “reset” and trade some promising prospects for some high end rentals in order to make a run at the division and a deep playoff run.
2. Stand pat by neither adding or subtracting. We don’t lose prospects but we also don’t gain prospects by dealing our vets on expiring contracts.
3. Stay with the “reset” and go ahead and see what we can get for Helsley, Fedde, Matz, Mikolas, etc….
4) none of the above
The reset is financial. 45mil of our FA’s-to-be, will be traded or allowed to walk, by the start of free agency next offseason. The only way to prevent that is by signing them back.
The reset happens with or without making decisions in July. Whether or not the budget fluctuates during the season, overall, has no long term affect to the reset, as long as multi-year costly contracts aren’t added in July.
JJ – your number 4 is the same as #2 with some repackaged logic.
The only reason to hold onto Fedde or Helsley at the deadline for me is if we are winning the division and they are playing well enough that we believe we can do a qualifying offer which they will decline and we get some picks. I guess either could be signed long-term but I don’t think that’s likely to happen. Otherwise, trading them for something makes sense. I’d still like to see Feddde traded now, but the time for that is running short.
5) The reset happens with or without Arenado for 3 seasons. Bill could hold around 120mil, if that’s his choice going forward in 2026, but we see Bills best case this winter. The budget will continue to fluctuate by win probability each season, at the deadline, like it has. Buyer/seller, who knows, we will see, while waiting for the next Pujols, Molina and Wainwright to step forward.
I disagree J. I think Bill expects more revenue w/Helsley & Fedde until the dealine, than without them. And, a reduced player return for them, by then, as acceptable before trading them away. Looks like hold and flip, but that’s fluid too. Its as if we need to start each reply with “as of today”.
6) If max prospect value for Helsley / Fedde were the plan, they’d be traded by now. As deadline chips we hope a nice return is coming. In prospect value those trade returns should fit nicely on a list, but STL should also be open to acquiring 0-3 players. As sellers, trading back control seasons.
JJ, what you described is option 2. Stand pat, keep the turnstiles turning by keeping the vets, and let the reset happen organically through attrition. It also does nothing to promote PD system by adding prospects through trade.
3) yes, with an unknown time of trading. Now? deadline? Hard to endorse that much unknown when Helsley and Fedde are involved in 3), even for this hypo.
No news is good news?
Waiting on a good deal, is better than a fire sale?
That’s all I got🙉
It’s raining too!adding prospects through trade.
I’m not much for trading to get prospects. It seems to me that all we’d get would be 2, maybe 3, mid level prospects. And we’ve already got enough of those. Of course, there’s always the ‘luck factor’ where we get a mid level prospect that ultimately becomes a star, but that’s highly unlikely. It does look like the trade deadline might be the best time to trade Helsley, and/or, Fedde.
The current Cardinal way dictates that the collection of mid-level prospects can never be large enough. The same could be said for washed up members of the rotation.
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