- This topic has 105 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Kittredge could be useful for a year or two if his arm holds up, but I think Mo will end up looking bad for giving up Palacios. As of now we have no 4th-5th outfielders who are everyday playable in brick and mortar baseball.
I give the trade a grade B.
Palacios will do more for Tampa over the next few years than Kittredge does for the Cards, I strongly suspect — but the Cards need pitching much, much more than they need outfielders. Especially with Victor Scott arriving soon; August I’m guessing.As for the Burleson discussion, I fully expect him to be underutilized and eventually released a la Juan Yepez in 12-24 months, or meekly traded for a sack of dented baseballs, a la Tyler O’Neill. Burly or Carlson should’ve been packaged with Donovan or Gorman (plus a prospect probably), to bring in a #2 starting pitcher type, e.g., Cease or Bieber. But instead we’ve still got our dysfunctional cluttered roster, and an aged marginal rotation. Thanks for nada, Mo.
Forgive me for my ignorance Cardinal Nation, but can someone explain to me why Dylan Cease would be such a good thing? When I look at him, I see the Mark Muldur trade over and over again. He’s led the league in walks and wild pitches both a few times. He has only 1 season above 3-WAR (albeit it was extremely dominant). He really wasn’t that good last season. Yes, he so far has been durable and he does strike guys out. But is that really worth Nolan Gorman (or maybe Donovan) and 2 pitching prospects when Cease will only play once every 5 days at best? I’m just struggling with the Dylan Cease love out there I see on the internet. As if getting Dylan Cease suddenly turns us into a good team. Can someone explain to me why this wouldn’t be Mark Mulder all over again?
Speaking as someone who absolutely hated the Mulder trade from the day it was made, I don’t really see the similarity. But rather than compare those two twirlers, I’d just like to articulate some of the reasons I want Cease for the Redbird rotation.
Over the past four seasons, Dylan Cease has made more starts than any pitcher in the majors. Cease 109, Gerrit Cole 108, Aaron Nola 108, and Jose Berrios 108. That’s the top four.
Cease just turned 28 last month, so time is on his side. Basically, with his age and track record, there’s no starter in the sport who is more likely to stay healthy over the next couple of seasons.
He’s coming off a down year to be sure, but over the past four years his cumulative ERA is 3.58. The aforementioned Gerrit Cole — irrefutably a star pitcher if not superstar — has a 3.08 ERA over those same four seasons. And if your ERA is exactly half a run worse than a star/superstar over an extended period of time, then you’re really, really good.
The team that trades for Dylan Cease gets two years for a grand total of around 20 million bucks. These days that qualifies as a true bargain, assuming he continues making his starts and posting an ERA in the mid-3’s.
———————————————–
Anyway, if all of that is insufficiently persuasive, consider also that Cease finished his 2023 campaign with a September flourish, permitting just 5 runs across his last 4 starts while fanning 31 men in 23 innings. And per the Brooks Baseball website, Cease was throwing slightly harder in September than he was in April, June, or July, which can only be a good sign. (Mulder if memory serves was shellacked numerous times down the stretch, immediately prior to being acquired by the Birds.)
As for who would be traded away, I would NOT send more than one pitching prospect, that’s for sure. But trading Gorman or Donovan (and Burleson or Carlson or both for that matter) is darn near essential at this point. Because — just like 12 months ago — there aren’t enough at-bats to go around, for all the guys who need to play every single day due to either their ability, age, or experience. This is a terrible situation, just like 12 months ago, and the best remedy is to trade from useless position player depth to address the pitching shortfall which remains a borderline emergency in my opinion.
I had also advocated trading from strength to address weakness, but that is a road not taken. Instead of a Cease, we get a Lynn and a Gibson. Much lighter versions of the same thing. Reliable, competent innings every 5 days all season long. The team desperately needed that, and light is much better than nothing. The question remains what to do with unuseful position players and now also a clutter of upper level pitchers, mostly of dubious value. I personally have no faith in Mo and the gang to make anything of what is a huge mess.
I have come around to not favoring trading a pre arb lineup regular for what is essentially a finger in the dike. A rebuild featuring trading off post prime bronze busts would be a different situation. Including a pre arb regular to facilitate aligning a new wave of young talent would be fine. But trading Gorman so that Mo can avoid the consequences of a failed development system and talent evaluation blunders is not fine.
Everything that has happened this winter, roster, staff, front office, reeks of smoke and mirrors aimed at pushing back the judgement day when ownership comes to understand that they have been sold a handful of magic beans. But, as far as smoke and mirrors goes, I think Mo has done a good job of it. I think the team will do better next year. But I have no faih that the future is any brighter beyond that.
Thanks Bob. I appreciate your well thought out argument. But I’m still not convinced. That’s quite a few innings on his arm over the past 3 seasons and with his strikeout stuff, it still feels to me like an injury waiting to happen. I may be 100% wrong. But if he does become injured with TJ surgery, then we lose most of these 2 years of him plus a whole lot of years of other good players. There also is a lot of risk that he’s going to be a 3 WAR pitcher, which is good, but doesn’t really move the needle enough to be worth the haul that we give up. There’s no way I would trade Gorman straight up for Cease. No way. Donovan plus Hence? Yeah, I’d consider that. And yes, I agree we still have clutter but that’s basically just Burleson at this point. We don’t have a good way to give him the at bats he probably needs to get better. However, he likely doesn’t move the needle much on a Cease trade. I’m happy to throw him in there if it helps. I don’t really see Donovan or Carlson as extras. They are needed and there’s plenty of at bats for them. And Herrera is needed too. There’s one more spot at the end of the bench where I’ve advocated for Siani who doesn’t need to take at bats away. The same thing would apply if that’s Fermin or Kennedy. Baker would cause clutter, but I’m assuming he has to go back to AAA if Burly is still around.
Forgive me for my ignorance Cardinal Nation, but can someone explain to me why Dylan Cease would be such a good thing? When I look at him, I see the Mark Muldur trade over and over again. He’s led the league in walks and wild pitches both a few times. He has only 1 season above 3-WAR (albeit it was extremely dominant). He really wasn’t that good last season. Yes, he so far has been durable and he does strike guys out. But is that really worth Nolan Gorman (or maybe Donovan) and 2 pitching prospects when Cease will only play once every 5 days at best? I’m just struggling with the Dylan Cease love out there I see on the internet. As if getting Dylan Cease suddenly turns us into a good team. Can someone explain to me why this wouldn’t be Mark Mulder all over again?
I view Cease in similar terms to Sonny Gray. If you look at their performance for the previous two years combined it is very similar and Gray just turned that into $75M. Cease would probably get more than that if we was a FA since he is six years younger. In my mind Cease and Gray are what Jack Flaherty should have turned into but unfortunately didn’t, which is a solid number 2 starter who can occassionaly challenge for a Cy Young award.
“You have to give to get, and this is something the Cardinals need to do, no matter the cost”
I do not agree with this.
Cease and Flaherty career stats are very similar and they are the same age. Flaherty’s shoulder problems are concerning. But career wise they are stat twins.
Maybe so but no teams are ling up to trade for Flaherty. He had to settle for a cheapish one year deal and will have to really turn things around for the opportunity to get more than that.
I didn’t say that meant the future was equally bright for both. But take a look they are amazingly similar.
Dakota signed a cheapish one year deal, Flaherty agreed to 14mil.
Cease and Flaherty are each others most similar player (BRef), which is not common.
Cease and Flaherty are each others most similar player (BRef)
Which only proves that its nothing but algo driven twaddle. In real world baseball they are polar opposites. Cease broke into MLB in 2019 and has not missed a turn since. Contrast with Flaherty.
It strikes me as just how the Cards FO looks at things, with their nose stuck in a spreadsheet full of numbers with no eye for the game on the field. Think for example about somebody like Johan Oviedo, who Mo happily offed for a rental. He just did 32 starts and turned in 15 quality starts, 1.373 WHIP, for a terrible Pirates team. Exactly the performance Mo just went out and spent $12 Million for from Gibson and another $12 Million for from Lynn. Oviedo isn’t even arb aligible yet.
Some view twaddle as information. When it supports your opinion, you break out the twaddle too.
I view the twaddle as nameless, like the numbers do. You are doing the opposite.
Especially when we use our built in name bias. We all do it.
Who doesn’t think of Cease as a CY-2?
He has made 123 career GS, and I have maybe seen five of those starts. The numbers have seen every pitch and every outcome. If you have seen every pitch of Ceases, then I yield and trust your opinion as = to the numbers.
Otherwise, I have to trust the numbers.
The number not reported is how many starts were made out of how many potential starts available to be made as 1/5 of a rotation. Think of it as answering the bell percentage. And adjacent to that number is percentage of starts made which were quality starts.
These are numbers which are vitally important to the success of a team over the course of a season, a bit of brick and mortar reality about which the wonks seem oblivious. But if those percentages were reported, the stark difference between Cease and Flaherty would be inescapable. I am compleely convinced that this illustrates the sort of situation that the Cardinals organization presently finds itself in. Talent evaluation decisions are perfectly sound within the framework employed by the system, but have little validity in brick and mortar baseball.
Similar suggests one player will be better than the other, and avoids viewing them as equals.
I also agree Cease is the choice between the two, but what does their high similarity also say?
what does their high similarity also say?
Maybe it says if your decision is based upon the numbers that are similar, it may be wrong.
The numbers I trust are $$$$ numbers. If Cease were a free agent today would he be signing for 1yr/$14M? I don’t think so.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.