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It is hard to argue with the five year OPS+ trend by DeJong. The last year he was above MLB average was 2018. Even if he gets hot and gets back to 80, can they afford a shortstop whose offense is 20% below league average?
2017 121
2018 102
2019 99
2020 87
2021 85
2022 26Gorman isn’t the defender DeJong is, but he also isn’t likely to be below-average offensively. Will the decline in defense be worth the upside offensively? It is time to find out.
I think DeJong can rebound but I don’t think the Cardinals can afford to play him anymore. They have too many alternatives that are more worthy of the opportunity.
We also don’t know how well Edman would be defensively at SS. The Cardinals might be downgrading at two positions with an Edman/Gorman combo.
I am not saying they shouldn’t try it but defense is a factor.
What is keeping Gorman in the minors are the offseason additions of Dickerson and Pujols, not DeJong.
Edman was a shortstop in college and played it in the minors as well. I don’t question his defense there.
Of course, defense is a factor, but I believe some weigh that more than the offensive upside Gorman offers. Will it more than compensate? That is the most relevant question, IMO.
As a reminder, this is DeJong’s current slash line for the season: .114/.203/.200/.403. Among all National League players with at least 50 at-bats, his OPS is dead last. No one is worse, so it is not like he is being unfairly singled out. His trend is clearly down. How long do you give him?
And if Gorman craters, they could always put DeJong back in. I can’t believe it will be worse to try it. Maybe the time off would help DeJong. Nothing else has seemed to work.
I think the first half of 2019 was the last time DeJong really produced effective offense.
I’m not for rushing players through the system up to St. Louis but……it is past time for DeJong.
Why not just give the job to Sosa for 2-3 weeks and see what happens? He hasn’t produced with the spot starts but – still seems worth a try.
Sosa is still out with COVID. Not sure how severe his case is and how long it will take for him get going. He wasn’t hitting at all before he tested positive. Sosa’s .410 OPS is almost the same as DeJong at .403. Maybe Sosa could go on a rehab to Memphis to get more at-bats.
Sosa had 326 PAs in 2021 and slashed .271/.346/.389/.735.
There is nothing at all wrong with that slash line, especially for a middle infielder. The org’s issue with Sosa as everyday SS must be either his defense or DeJong’s contract. I don’t know which it is, but I saw nothing wrong with Sosa’s defense last year.
The assumption that Edman can play SS everyday in MLB because he is a good defender at 2B and he played SS in the minors is unrealistic, IMO. He might be able to, though. It seems like if the ultimate plan is to disrupt the Gold Glove infield by inserting Gorman at 2B, then they might as well disrupt it now by trying Edman at SS and Donovan, or whoever, at 2B until they want to bring Gorman up. But that assumes Donovan or whoever would hit better than DeJong by enough to justify the defensive disruption. I don’t know that we could count on that.
LACF said:
What is keeping Gorman in the minors are the offseason additions of Dickerson and Pujols, not DeJong.
That looked to be the case at the end of spring training. But since then, both Donovan and Yepez were promoted ahead of Gorman and are still with the team.
The primary reason Gorman is not up, it appears, is that there is no starting job for him yet. I bet if Edman or DeJong went on the IL tomorrow, we’d see Gorman.
It seems like this is going to take longer to play out.
Since we have the DH now, is the roster matrix going to have a DH column, maybe with the player’s defensive positions in ( ) after the name. I am thinking about Yepez, who was 1B in AAA, but seems to be more a DH (OF,1B) now. Showing 3 guys in the 1B column looks clunky, and I am not sure if he or Dickerson is actually the 4th outfielder.
I don’t share everyone’s feelings on PDJ’s defense. He has gotten bailed out on occasion because Goldy will bail him out at first. When I judge good infield defense the primary thing I watch is how well did the throw hit Goldy at the chest. A good defender should be able to stand alone in the play and not require a baseman at any bag to bail him out. Judging how many errors one receives is a terrible way to judge a players defense. They would rather give a player a hit.
I would consider PDJ’s defense average at best. When you consider his offense, I believe he’s costing the Cardinals wins, none of which they can’t afford when fighting for a wild card.
Well if they only judged shortstops or Third basemen who routinely most of the time hit the first basemen in the chest, they wouldn’t have any to take about. I watch lots of games of other teams and throws are constantly in the dirt.
Donovan and Yepez were on the 40 man, Gorman is not. That is why they were promoted ahead of Gorman.
Dickerson’s .439 OPS isn’t much better than DeJong’s .403, and if he wasn’t on the team we’d have the roster space to promote Gorman.
If Dickerson doesn’t turn it around soon, he will be waived before DeJong.
Statcast Outs Above Average is the best metric for a player’s defense. Errors and Defensive Runs Saved rely on human subjectivity.
LACF said:
Donovan and Yepez were on the 40 man, Gorman is not. That is why they were promoted ahead of Gorman.
The Cardinals have 39 players on the 40-man roster. So the roster spot is not an impediment.
If Dickerson doesn’t turn it around soon, he will be waived before DeJong.
True enough, but I haven’t seen anyone suggest DeJong be waived. Just that he no longer starts. His multi-year contract decreases the odds of waiver exponentially.
I wasn’t big on Dickerson when we signed him and not much has changed. If we didn’t have minor league guys needing to get major league at bats he might be fine. But we had yepes and Gorman.
So Robertson took the open 40man spot.
“There’s no place for Gorman to start”.
There was, but the FO chose Robertson / Sosa / Donovan over promoting Gorman.
Do they not like Gormans D at 2B? Or is this about the Super2 cutoff?
Anxious to hear the latest Gorman spin from the brass, if they are willing to address it.
Do they not like Gormans D at 2B?
All we hear about are the homers. He could have a rubber glove and two left feet for all we know.
Suggest you watch MiLB and decide for yourself. All of Memphis’ games are streamed. IMO, defense is not the reason he remains in the minors.
Yes I’m afraid we have another 2 contracts that we will have to wait out, PDJ and Dickerson.
1982,
Yes I notice the same thing. Defense just ain’t what it used to be. It’s an offense oriented game but Manfred caters to that.I hope Matz doesn’t become a third contract we have to “wait out”.
I am afraid that was the case the day he signed. Four years was excessive.
Matz is not terrible. He is a number 4 starter and that has some value. My problem is that they signed him to four years. The Giants have an entire rotation of Matz types but they didn’t sign any of them for four years.
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