- This topic has 10 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
The Cardinals are on record for adding three starting pitchers.
Doughtful that they will go for one of the top free agents but will likely pickup a middle of the rotation type.
They are unlikely go after a top international pitcher if one is available.
That leaves trades, but who to trade. Lot’s of possibilities to use in a trade.
Catchers – Herrera, Knizner, Bernal and Jimmy Crooks
Infielders – Winn, Gorman, Edman, Donovan, Baker, Saggese, Dunn and Prieto.
Outfielders – Carlson, Walker, O’Neill, Burleson, Nootbar, Palacios, Gomez, Scott and Davis
Pitchers – Helsley, Gallegos, Thompson, Liberatore, Hence, Roby,Grafcello, Hjerpe, Robberse, McGreevry, Kloffenstein, Rajcic, Romero, Roby, Woodford and Pallante.
Who to keep and who to give up. Some of the above will go on to long major league careers, others will not live up to their current projections.
Mo has a poor track record in who to keep and who to give up.
He gave up Alcantara (20.0 WAR) and Gallen (17.0) while keeping Gant (2.5), Weaver (0.4) and Flaherty (10.0). All WAR post 2017.
He gave up Arozarena (11.4), Garcia (11.2) and Lane Thomas (6.2) while keeping O’Neill (10.1), Carlson (5.6) and Yepez (-0.3).
And the players he gave up seem to be on the upside of their careers while those kept appear to have topped out.
I expect Mo to pick up a middle of the rotation free agent and trade for another middle of the rotation starter and then announce that we will fill in the third spot from within.
I expect Mo to pick up a middle of the rotation free agent and trade for another middle of the rotation starter and then announce that we will fill in the third spot from within.
That would leave us without a top-notch starter, a #1, going into spring training. I expect that somehow, somewhere he needs to address that first off if the Cards are to climb out of the basement. And only after that let the cards fall where they may. So we’ll wind up with a Matz-type and probably an able bodied inning eater. Mikolas should be our #3 and Matz #5 at least on paper.
That may be enough to get us out of last place but realistically the NLC crown will still be out of reach in ’24. It seems that in the last few years we have been making a list of someone in the system to step up into the rotation with little success and a ton of disappointment.
Mo has a poor track record in who to keep and who to give up.
Mozeliak is just about due for a successful off-season of additions. Certainly the odds are in his favor. I mean even a broken watch is right twice a day. We’ll have to wait to see what he’ll put in our Christmas stockings this year…. and it better not be coal….. again.
ps…. I still think that Arenado will be the guy we trade. He must be fed up with the results of ’23 and with his clock running he will want to go to a contending team in ’24…. after all that’s why he came here.
NA, Goldy and also Contreras all would bring limited return if their contract goes with them. But they each represent a slug of payroll that would cover a good starting pitcher, or go a long way towards that. They also are theoretically replaceable with in house resources.
Yes there are problems with that, but there are problems with anything Mo could do or not do. We don’t know how much new money BDW is willing to hand Mo, but re-deploying sunk money would be a whole lot less of a problem. We should keep that bit of reality in mind.
Assuming that we keep all of our arbitration eligible players and accounting for the league minimum players I calculate our current payroll around $143M. We could easily bump the payroll up to $190M and be comfortably under the luxury tax so I am going to assume or hope that we have around $50M to spend, and it could be more if certain players are non-tendered or traded. I don’t know if we can plug all of our roster holes with $50M but you would think we could make a big dent in it. This may be a two year project though.
It isn’t realistic to expect 100% success with FA signings. An important element to making it work will be a willingness to accept mistakes/bad luck and, if necessary, eat some contract and try again.
I look at Matz as a current example of how this could go. Yes, the new guys will hopefully be better, but things can go wrong with anybody. Matz may have a couple good years still, but we’ve done two years of wheel spinning, counting on him and having to find replacements to take turns and eat innings. Given that two year history, it seems reasonable to think we are in for more of it with him for the final two years. We could end up with multiple Matz like scenarios playing out over the next couple years no matter who Mo signs. Or do we think BillMo is going to handle such things differently going forward? Why should we think so?
Cardinal fans should be well accustomed to the aquisition of lousy performing FA pitchers. There’s been quite a few of them that aren’t worth mentioning. The last successful FA pitching acquisition came to the Redbirds almost 20 years ago for well under $500K and was the winning pitcher of decision in their last WS Championship. He turned out to be pretty good. Johnny needs to be on the lookout for that type of bargain…
Or do we think BillMo is going to handle such things differently going forward? Why should we think so?
Time will tell but when we signed Matz we weren’t coming off of a last place finish. If our 2023 results don’t create a sense of urgency from the front office/ownership or a desire to try a more aggressive approach then nothing will. If there is one thing they really do care about it is ticket sales and surely they know that 2024 season tickets are going to dry up fast if there isn’t significant action taken this offseason.
It throws me off when someone like Yepez is used instead of Bader and Montgomery (11.6 WAR and 3.0) or Baders 2023 replacement – Nootbaar.
That makes those outfield WAR totals basically even.
Goldschmidt should be traded and if they can’t get three really good pitchers then Arenado should be out the door behind him – just go for a real rebuild not a bigger bandaid… but that is not how Mo rolls.
Both those guys will be back next year so – we’ll see what kind of pitching staff we can get. Need three starters and about 4 relievers – that all actually stay healthy and perform.
Not likely mate.
According to mlb trade rumors Ivan Herrera has one more option year after all. Some have mentioned dangling him in hopes of upgrading rotation. I hope the Cards hold onto him and Knizner. If they are going to dangle a player, I’d prefer they do so with Helsey who I keep expecting to need Tommy John surgery every year.
Brian probably sent them a memo about Herrera’s extra option year, he mentioned it a few days ago.
One of the great mysteries is what the catcher corps will look like on opening day. The FO has a lot to fix this winter, which is only right after they piled the season into a tree. I just can’t help thinking about last winter’s talk about increasing payroll. Fat lot of good that did.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.