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Not cute. It simply shows that not all pitchers that have been mentioned are “aces” by some folks definition on here.
I got caught off base in the sense that my primary concern entering last year’s post-season was my impression of questionable SP’ing, but I was convinced that the Cardinals could overcome that perceived weakness by slugging their way past any potential opponent. I genuinely would have felt better facing SD or MIL than the Phillies. Not at all because I was reluctant to face either Nola or Wheeler, but simply because Philly handled the Cardinals pretty well at 4-2 during the regular season. In any event, I’ll always contend that the silly shuffling of the batting order contributed to the total lack of hitting and there’s no question that numerous in game decisions by the Redbird field manager were the primary factors which led to that game 1 loss. He’s now a second year manager and experience is the only genuine teacher. I certainly hope he learned something from that unfortunate experience.
Not trying to be cute at all. You just need to win your argument so I don’t have anything else to say.
That’s not nice, Oliver. All of us are just presenting our opinions.
Every single poster on this thread.I’m not trying to demean Mikolas, because he was a steadying presence in the rotation…but he’s not comparable to Nola. Miles benefitted from the best defense in the league, while Nola had a bunch of butchers with the glove behind him. Mikolas had a 3.87 FIP to Nola’s 2.58, and a 2.4 WAR to Nola’s 6.0. 30 of 30 MLB GMs would take Nola over Mikolas for a game, season or career.
In fact, Nola is the pitcher I’d most like to see become a Cardinal. Time for BDW to pony up if the Phillies are dumb enough to let him hit the market.
I doubt BDW would put 30 million dollars a year for multiple years on one arm. He likes to spread out the risk.
Whom did you want them sign, jj? And how would that play into the payroll budget? And which of the 5 starters that they have now would you demote? I wanted them to sign Quintana instead of Waino. But even if they had done that posters would still be crying about not having an ace.
I’ve stated my offseason plans multiple times. Most recently in a thread you started.
The current pitching staff is worse than at seasons end. Risk managed.
Nola had more Bref value last season than the 5 starters we have lined up today. Hope is not a strategy.
I don’t know why you care that some of us are “crying” for an ace. You are happy and agree with what the front office and ownership is doing. You should be happy and not pay attention to us crybabies. The team is where you think it should be. Be happy.
We constantly fuss about the same thing! A few on here are convinced the cardinal pitching we have right now is good enough to win in the playoffs, while I think most disagree! I personally see this group of pitchers as good enough to win our division and that’s about it! Our 1 and 9 record in our last 10 days we have need for major improvements! I’m hoping we do great but expecting an outcome very similar to last year!
One-more-time. The playoffs are 2/3 of a year away. Much to track over the next number of months – not only how the 5 pitchers Mo has mentioned do, but also how Hudson, Liberatore, Pallante, Woodford, Thompson, Graceffo, McGreevey, etc. do. And to see if there needs to be a major starter addition in July. Don’t understand at all why some people think the roster right now will be the roster on October 1st.
Straw man argument. No one on this board (that I’ve seen) suggested that they won’t try to improve the team at the deadline or that the roster will be the same in the playoffs as it will be on Opening Day. The concern is over the quality of player(s) to be added and whether or not the player(s) will make an impact in October.
One more time! I’m not stupid! I know we can make changes before the playoffs assuming we are in them! We all know who the pitchers on this staff are! We all hope they are good enough to win in the playoffs and we all know there will be injuries and additions to come! What I doubt is we will get a solid number 1 and 2 pitchers to help us really make a deep playoff run! No need to list our roster of pitchers! I know who they are!
Depth is fine to have, but when it’s called up early because the mlb pitching staff was weak to begin with, it decreases the probability of ever developing an ace from within.
Liberatore, Pallante and Thompson would have been better served as AAA starters if developing an ace was the goal.
Instead, the are called up to fill roles that weren’t re-inforced w/mlb talent over the winter. Brooks, VerHagen, Naille, Wittgren and Naughton? Really?
We’ve done even less this winter, but spending the bare minimum on pitchers does “manage risk”.
If the model doesn’t buy top end pitching, and we constantly rob developing starters to re-inforce the pen/rotation….
Their pitching model is about money, not baseball results.
The way I see it the current Cardinal rotation is a bunch of average to above average pitchers but no aces. Mikolas, Montgomery, Flaherty, and Waino are all number 3’s and Matz is a number 5. Personally I think Hudson is a number 3 or 4 and is better than Matz but I think the contract and being LH will win out for Matz. Hudson is an undervalued asset IMO. He struggled last year but a lot of pitchers struggle the year after TJ surgery. 2021 was a TJ year and 2020 was a solid but shortened year. His last full season of 2019 when he was fully healthy he was an absolute horse. I expect him to bounce back in 2023.
Back to the quality of the rotation, ours is probably good enough to win us the division but it just doesn’t stack up well in October. Sure we could potentially trade for an ace in July but when is the last time the Cardinals traded for an ELITE player in July? I would say it was Matt Holliday in 2009. They got John Lackey in 2014, which was a good trade, but I don’t think I would consider him elite. History says the Cardinals won’t make that trade in July.
I really don’t get why people call Flaherty and Mikolas #3s. They’ve pitched better than that, and they may again. No one can predict.
Miles benefitted from the best defense in the league,
Mikolas also benefitted from a pretty good offense, and still managed to end up with a losing record on a team that won 93 games.
One might argue that calling them #3’s is a compliment! In his last three season Mikolas is 23 and 30 on winning teams! Most contending teams would not be counting on those numbers for a number 3! Flaherty pitched one good game last year! He is always hurt! His greatest season to date he won 11 games! Most contending teams probably wouldn’t be counting on him to be a #3 either! Even if Flaherty got back to his top form could he maintain it for a whole season? History says no! Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Flaherty pitches all year and gets back to form and wins 22 and Mikolas goes back to his 18-4 season of 2018! But keeping your fingers crossed is a risky way of hoping to win it all, if that really is the goal!
Yeah, I can’t help but notice that of all the potential Cardinal SP’ers, Hudson’s received the lion’s share of flak on these boards. Sometimes to the extent that I’m reluctant to say anything good about him…Haha! I’d say some of the criticism is certainly warranted. It can be more than unsettling at times when watching him work one of his turns, but my impression is that he’s remarkably effective for a couple of innings and then suddenly becomes reluctant to retain command of the zone. Additionally, I’ve seen him revert to this pattern even when no trouble is looming. At any rate, as you mentioned, he worked a shade under 175 IP’ed in ’19 and posted a nice 3.35 ERA in 32 turns. And along with Wainwright and Mikolas, he’s the only pitcher on the Cardinal roster to have ever recorded over 15 W’s in a season. I’d be extremely hesitant to pull the pin on him at this juncture.
1td, I think you hit the nail on the head with Hudson! When you look at his numbers you say “he’s pretty good” but when you watch him with your eyes he is hard to watch! Seems to have no clue where the ball is going and is SO slow! I think we are fans who watch every game get frustrated with him even when he does well because of his slowness and overall body language! Hope he can win 15 again this year! We need him!
Maybe that pitch clock will help him. Who knows? It might hurt him if he can’t get accustomed to it in a pretty big hurry. The last thing he needs is to take too much time and have a ball added to the count…Haha! I know it’s going to take me some time to get used to it, but I don’t have to work to Big League hitters who are trying to beat my brains out and place me into the soup line…Haha!
Incidentally, is a pitcher charged with a PO attempt if he merely steps off to check on the baserunner?
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