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One of the advantages we have (our our FO has) is that we have a fan base that only really cares about wins. That seems obvious, but other markets might need a big name draw after a poor season to get fans back into the seats. The cardinals dont have that problem.
If we, yet again, make a legit effort to land a big name and that player chooses a larger market, everything else equal, we might just need to put even MORE focus on building from within. In other words just spend capital on prospects to trade…and add supplemental pieces via FA.
Its what weve been doing, but i dont see the point of spending 10-20% more than our competition on a mega contract to land one player
Well there are two different transactions coming up with Machado. Trading for him in July and signing him in the offseason. Those are really two separate conversations.
Right now the discussion seems to revolve around should we trade for him in July.
Not that it matters, but I thought it was interesting that at the age of 18, Machado changed agents from Boras to Dan Lozano. The latter also represents Albert Pujols among his many clients.
Depends on what the pitching really was. CMart, Reyes or Flaherty? – props to Mo. Anyone else, maybe not such a good decision
If it was Gyorko, Weaver and anyone of the Flaherty and Hicks then you don’t do it. Clearly they had big plans for Hicks. So that was a hard
However if it was Gyorko, Weaver and PTBNL pool of 3 pitchers not on the 40 man then yeah you do it. I mean all these potential starters coming out of the woodwork can’t all make it plus we’d gotten a pick from it when we offered a QO unless we agreed to sign an extension.
If the player was traded during the season prior to the offseason of his free agency, we don’t get a pick. We get nothing but a Machado rental for a couple, or a few, months.
If we could get Machado in a trade where we didn’t have to give up players that we need, I’d be okay with it. But I don’t think we should ever sign another free agent. The current regime has too much of a propensity to fail in the free agent game. I can’t remember the last time we signed a free agent that really paid off. Even Holliday was kind of dead weight for the last two years of his contract. It would cost a large fortune to sign Machado, and based on previous experience, it probably wouldn’t work out. So stay away. Its too early to pull the plug on Gregerson and Holland, IMO. But there is still Cecil, Fowler, and Leake that are holding this team back. Then, there are the ‘what ifs’ of Pujols, Price, and Heyward. Just stay away.
If the player was traded during the season prior to the offseason of his free agency, we don’t get a pick. We get nothing but a Machado rental for a couple, or a few, months.
If we could get Machado in a trade where we didn’t have to give up players that we need, I’d be okay with it. But I don’t think we should ever sign another free agent. The current regime has too much of a propensity to fail in the free agent game. I can’t remember the last time we signed a free agent that really paid off. Even Holliday was kind of dead weight for the last two years of his contract. It would cost a large fortune to sign Machado, and based on previous experience, it probably wouldn’t work out. So stay away. Its too early to pull the plug on Gregerson and Holland, IMO. But there is still Cecil, Fowler, and Leake that are holding this team back. Then, there are the ‘what ifs’ of Pujols, Price, and Heyward. Just stay away.
I can understand why you would feel that way given our track record but a team can’t shut off an entire avenue of potential improvement. Farm system and trades will only take you so far. There will be a need to sprinkle in a free agent now and then. Free agency in and of itself isn’t our problem. We just tend to pick the wrong guys.
I am aware of the qo going away if you trade for him mid season. I was talking about the offseason where it had been rumered we were close on a deal.I don’t even know if we would’ve gotten Machado and Ozuna. I know we would’ve passed on Holland and Gregorsen for sure to offset the cost and likely granted bowtie’s wish of filling the pen in house. Which now looks like a pretty good idea with Norris and Leone being traded for.
i get the knee jerk reaction to our FA abilities BUT why will no one talk about Mikolas’ signing? At the moment it is probably the best NL FA signing and 2nd best FA signing of the offseason behind Ohtani.
He has been an absolute beast and he is getting paid nothing AND we have control after the contract is done too
Norris was a steal too for his effectiveness
If someone said… THe Cardinals just signed a closer who will be good and wont blow a save until at least May29 AND a top 10 NL starting pitcher for a TOTAL of 10.750 million i think we would all be very happy with the FO and GM who pulled that off
the fact that these facts dont get any credit as GREAT FA signings is just ridiculous…i am in agreement that Holland Greger and Cecil and Fowler have been not so great so far…but we have some pretty impressive other gets that make the mistakes of those seem more palatable…not to mention that we arent really hurting TOO much in what we lost in those areas with our depth in relief arms and outfielders
plus…all of those guys coudl still turn out to be good…Fowlers season wasnt terrible last year despite similar struggles for extended times…even Cecil turned it around last year
Gregerson and Holland may do the same thing…just like Fowler and Cecil did last year…
Yes maybe they wont live up to their money…but with the quality of our depth combined with our very good trades and other FA signings…they dont have to
One point of clarification jager. I think Brian mentioned that Mikolas will be a free agent after next season.
sorry if i am wrong but i thought he was arb1 after next season?
baseball reference says 7.75mil this year, 8mil next year…then arb, arb arb for the next three years
it doesnt mean he isnt going to likely get a big arbitration number but control is still control
Brian mentioned in another thread that he has heard that there is a clause in his contract like Oh’s that will make him a FA after 2019.
It would be nice to get confirmation of that
i think the weekly chat is going on maybe i will pop in and ask
Let us know when you confirm it, jager, but I wouldn’t have said it if I doubted it was accurate. I was politely trying to correct another poster.
The front office for the Cardinals has demonstrated time and time again that they are not capable of targeting and signing a free agent that is worth the money. Mikolas came to St. Louis because he lives in Jupiter and was familiar with the Cardinals. They got Norris really cheap because nobody else would make him an offer. They’ve spent millions upon millions of dollars in the free agent market and have not been successful in years. All that money is down the drain. Its hard to imagine another team trading for Cecil or Fowler. We’re stuck with them unless we want to just let them go, and say we failed and now have $60M of dead money to add to the Leake fiasco.
I would love to know how much input Randy Flores has in the free agent signings. Fores is responsible for the coming draft.
Flores is not involved in MLB free agent signings. His beat is amateur scouting, not professional. Totally separate departments.
If you knew it for certain Brian that is the end of it…but when someone corrected me saying you “heard” it made me want to get confirmation…i dont think that is disrespectful wanting to clarity on a vague statement
also..he didnt answer my question in the chat so that is what it is
i will act from now on as if what you said was right but is it too much to get a real report on it? i have looked all around on the web and couldnt find any mention of it yet
not that it really matters in the end…as the FA move is still awesome even if he becomes a FA at the end of next year
also..MUD… Mikolas was highly sought after by several teams..especially the Cubs…we just got him before they did…which forced them to go with Tyler Chatwood and his crazy walk ratio
And as for NOrris…do you have any proof no one else was interested? if not that is just guessing to “prove” your point, which is not very convincing
I don’t understand why denigrating the Mikolas or Norris move is necessary when having your opinion on the other FA signings…you can still think those signings are trash while still applauding the Mik and Bud signings.. if the GM has to be ALL bad or ALL good to make for forming a valid opinion then you will never be happy in ANY GM ever for ANY organization
They all make mistakes and they all have successes…critiquing the bad ones and your displeasure with them is totally fine but there is no need to attack the positive moves as it might somehow invalidate your opinion on other moves
I firmly believe that the FO caved to the fan base and the idea that they had money to burn, and thus signed some guys that they otherwise would not have. Holland, Fowler and Leake probably all fit the profile. To be fair to Mo and Hirsch, the system did not have the outfield depth it does now even two years ago, and just like Leake, Fowler was signed more for his floor than his ceiling. It just so happened that the floor has come about two years sooner than expected.
No team is going to have every free agent deal work out well but for the most part, the Cardinals have avoided the kind of crushing signings that have other teams in the “crash and rebuild” mode every 5-7 years. Even with all the supposedly bad deals this team has made, they are probably still $20-40 million under the payroll that they could support heading into an offseason with a large amount of premium talent available to sign (it’s not quite as good as it looked a couple years ago but still very good).
There is zero doubt in my mind that the payroll could handle a Machado contract, but the question as always is…are the Cards willing to take the risk of Machado spending half his deal as more of a 2-3 WAR guy rather than the 6+ he’s going to be paid to be? That’s always the key question and judging by past history, I’d say the Cards are more likely to trade for Manny than sign him as a free agent, but I wouldn’t peg either as having a >20% chance of happening at this point (prob more like 5% for the FA).
Jags… No, I don’t know if there were other suitors for Norris. But he signed for one year and $3M. I think that tells you something. Mikolas was quoted as saying he came to the Cardinals because he grew up in Jupiter and was familiar with the organization. There is very little to support the notion that the Cardinals beat out the other clubs that were interested in him. Regardless, neither of those signings were comparable to the Fowler, Leake, or even the Cecil signings, all of which turned out to be dismal failures. I would not throw good money after bad by allowing this front office to sign any more of the higher profile, and higher cost, free agents. There is absolutely no reason to anticipate success based on a growing history of failures.
‘Totally separate departments’ doesn’t mean Flores has no input. But I do want to apologize for suggesting that he might be the main culprit for these free agent failures. Obviously, I don’t know who the real culprit is. Somebody is responsible for this, though.
Mikolos article in the PD indicated that Mikolos told relatives in STL that initially he was negotiating with 6 teams.
Mud, can you do some research and tell us 5 teams with better track records than St Louis in free agent signings the last five years?
I’m genuinely curious because generally I think this team has done a decent job getting value for the $$.
just because Mikolas chose us because of his Jupiter home doesnt mean that was the ONLY reason…also as CC said that article said he had other teams pursuing and an MLB article talked about him being being of interest to several other teams too..
and more importantly…in a chat with Goold in the PD Mikolas himself is quoted saying the Cubs were interested
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/mikolas-pham-team-up-to-beat-cubs/article_6ef2987f-a16b-5916-8258-9d3864c1d551.htmlI think that is pretty clearly proof and it was against our main rival and main divisional rival…and they were looking for a similar type of pitcher as they ended up going with Chatwood
And as for Norris’ dollar amount being some kind of indicator…well he got the saem or MORE than:
-Watson, Albers, HErnandez, Romo, Stammen, Duke, Hughes, Logan
and a million or less than Duensing, Petit, Rondon…and just over a million less than Rodney and Kintzler…Gregerson only got 5millionthe dollar amount was highly competitive for the type of reliever we were looking at…add in that we were initially more interested in him as swing player means he probably got MORe than typical “long men”
There is NO indication he wasn’t desired by other teams and his price was competitive to the reliever market
Norris and Mikolas being signed for so LOW amount of money and getting such HIGH amount of return is absolutely just as big a deal of a signing as top dollar guys
Yeah Leake, Fowler seem like poor moves at the moment… but Cecil and Gregerson are not that big of money deals either really..they’re not great either…but it’s not like the LEake or Fowler deals..and Holland’s 1yr deal is expensive but only hurts this year and is gone…and we probably didnt NEED him anyways so with NOrris success it doesnt really matter to the team makeup
and we got out of the Leake deal relatively well…and he wasnt terrible in his tenure really either…carried the team at times…and Fowler’s deal hasnt been as bad as we all think (outside of defensively maybe)…this year hasn’t been good…but last year overall ended up relatively decent…i still think it was too much money and a year too long …and yeah i think we got bullied into it but it hasnt even been 1.5 years of the contract so it is hard to know how he might turn it around…
Holliday’s deal was good and provided us quality for the amount invested despite the last couple years of health the overall deal was good…Suppan deal was good, Lohse deal was good, Berkman, Beltran good…even Oh’s deal was pretty great even with his last year struggles…he was elite the year before and for good money
Fowler, Gregerson and Holland are still TBD for how good or bad they may turn out…maybe even Mikolas and Norris too for that matter… it will be hard for Cecil’s deal to end up being good with his poor play and injuries…but it is borderline
I see little reason to forgo going after the FA market in any way…
I do not see the Cardinals as a likely candidate to acquire Machado. For one, the FO is not going to take the risk of a two-month rental. A few years ago they may have done that, thinking that the experience of playing in a pennant race in St. Louis would entice the player to re-sign.
But the “baseball heaven” magic has pretty much worn off. Players are going to seek their best deal, regardless of where it takes them.
And truthfully, I think the club can win the division anyway. The biggest problem right now is a lousy bullpen, and injuries. Once DeJong is back, and if we can stabilize the ‘pen things will look pretty good.
But that bullpen question is one that may not be answered in the affirmative. The club may just be stuck with a bunch of inconsistency all year. I thought this might happen when they announced they would do a lot of shuffling back and forth in the ‘pen. I think right there you are setting up a basis for inconsistency. And then all the DL issues and guys who just are not very good – it’s pretty much a mess.
You hit the nail on the head Mike. Walt Jocketty’s old strategy of trading for a rental then re-signing them just doesn’t work anymore for whatever reason. I don’t think Mo will gut our farm system for two months of Machado knowing there is a good chance he will sign elsewhere in the offseason.
Yes if we could make the proper additions to this bullpen we will be a serious contender.
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