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For all the reasons/excuses for Ozuna’s two disappointing years in St. Louis, the fact remains that not a single one of the 30 MLB teams offered him a multi-year contract that would have paid him anywhere near what he felt he was worth. So he had to settle for a cut-rate one-year deal.
All of you who think the Cards made a mistake are apparently better at player evaluation than 30 front offices. Not that 20-20 hindsight has anything to do with it! 😉
In a normal environment, Ozuna’s market this winter would be big. But since this is 2020, he could find tough sailing as a free agent once again. The universal DH, which was not an option last winter, should help him some.
Of course not all 30 Gm’s were in the market for a player like Ozuna, BW, for the following reasons –
1.) Many teams already had their budgets tied up with highly productive MOTO bats.
2.) Many low budget teams couldn’t tie that much of their budget up in one player.But you already knew that.
Perhaps the key point was lost, so I will repeat it. Not one competitive multi-year offer was made.
He took less from the Braves than the Cards guaranteed him at the start of the winter.
BW – this thread is about our offense. Last season we were firmly in the bottom half of Major League Baseball in almost all offense categories. This year we are just as weak, if not weaker. Why is that?
This year we are just as weak, if not weaker. Why is that?
The most grueling schedule in the history of baseball would be a good place to start.
Okay, 25, I’ll play that game. Who do you choose for your middle of the order bats this year?
I’ll take Juan Soto, Mike Trout and Cody Bellinger, please. 😁
In all seriousness, it would be nice if anyone acknowledged exactly what this team was stuck going through this year. I don’t know how it’s really possible to make definitive statements about the future based on what happened this year. Even the best years this year run a huge risk of small sample noise. I still like our team and though I’d like to see a little tweaking, suspect a good run at October baseball is probably going to be in the cards for next season as well either way. This is an 88 win team +/-5 wins depending on luck with injuries and such, IMO.
88 win team only if they improve the offense significantly. You can go that far ranked last in MLB in both doubles and home runs.
The offense will improve significantly from not having to play two games a day twice a week with 0 off days. Still, when your pitching and defense are top 5, even a last place offense in home runs can go far. The Cards consistently ranked near the bottom of the league in HRs after Albert left and did pretty well. Kansas City made the World Series while ranked last in HRs in 2014.
They went through a lot this year, 25. But to be excited about an 84 win pace? And to make the playoffs when you’re 2 over .500 and over half of the MLB teams make it? Not sure about that.
Under the biggest schedule crunch in MLB history, with the loss of a third to a half of their roster due to COVID, with multiple projected starters missing significant time, with injuries to key pieces in the rotation, with the offense gone ice cold, with no legs underneath them due to multiple doubleheaders every week, with last place homers and doubles, with stolen bases dropping from leading the league to nearly last, with all that…
They still finished 5th in the NL, and would have made the playoffs in a regular season. You can choose to downplay that if you’d like and mope around because this Cardinal playoff team doesn’t meet your viewing standards. I won’t.
I’m actually looking forward to the playoffs, 25. Maybe they can pull off a miracle. I’m still a very loyal fan and always will be. But, as I’ve said, this is a team that frustrates the heck out of me with so little offensive spark, and I hope they do something about it in the off season.
Four teams from the NL Central made the playoffs and the Cardinals had the best batting average of the bunch. Hmmmm….does pitching and defense matter or should we only focus on offense? I didn’t realize there was more than one dimension to this game.
The NL Central had the five lowest team batting averages in the league: Cardinals .234, Brewers .223, Cubs .220, Pirates .220, Reds .212. Yet four of them made it to the playoffs. That kind of year for the hitters. Also shows how good pitching was in the division.
— Tom (@Haudricourt) September 29, 2020
So you guys somehow want to include the Brewers in your discussion point? A team that made the playoffs with a 29-31 record?
The whole paradigm has changed now and probably forever. Owners aren’t going to be under pressure to build 95 win teams any longer. Average teams can now get in the playoffs, therefore, it really doesn’t matter how good your offense is as long as you have good pitching and defense.
“Hmmmmmm….does pitching defense matter or should we only focus on offense?”
The easiest way to sort the postseason teams for 2020, without using a W/L or win%, is the runs allowed column. The 16 lowest runs allowed teams all made the postseason.
The whole paradigm has changed now and probably forever. Owners aren’t going to be under pressure to build 95 win teams any longer. Average teams can now get in the playoffs, therefore, it really doesn’t matter how good your offense is as long as you have good pitching and defense.
This is a fair way to look at things. I would think that there will be impetus for a few teams to buy each year both in FA and at the deadline to improve their shot at October, and a few teams to buy so that they might have a better chance at a title. This isn’t terribly different from how it is now except that the former category may pick up a couple and the latter lose a couple.
Shildt made a similar comment on Zoom yesterday. The teams that make it to October do so because they have good pitching. That doesn’t mean the offense cannot and should not improve, but it seems some take for granted the importance of the team’s strengths as they are right now.
So, if one points out that we have a very weak offense, that poster doesn’t care about pitching and defense?
So, if one points out that we have a very weak offense, that poster doesn’t care about pitching and defense?
No, it just means that not every team can be good in all phases of the game. Sometimes a team can only be good in one or two phases of the game, which is where the Cardinals are right now. It would be nice if we had a $250M payroll budget and could go buy whatever we want to upgrade the team but we don’t and we are going to have to wait until some of our mistake contracts are gone.
It isn’t like I haven’t said that 1000 times already but hey we are only at page 32 of this thread so let’s shoot for another 32 pages. Maybe this will be the longest thread of all time for TCN.
bccran
But, as I’ve said, this is a team that frustrates the heck out of me with so little offensive spark, and I hope they do something about it in the off season.Since it is not the off season, yet, can we stop with all the kvetching about the offense until then? Maybe then you could start back up on talking about the failure of the offense on what seems like every thread.
Every thread, Forsch? I started this thread on the offense, so I guess it’s okay to post here and address the offense. right? And then I posted on the former Cards thread. That’s pretty much it, unless it was on a game thread or two. Long way from “seems like every thread”. I have a suggestion for you. Why don’t you stay off this thread if you don’t want to talk about the offense. Deal?
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