Season grades. (Let’s face it, we’re done)

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  • #170852
    Card4Ever
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    Free

    Grades
    (Sorry, they are/were Cardinals. I find it hard to give F’s.)

    Starters
    Waino A: Start with the only true hightlight. Where would this team be without him?
    Flaherty B: Awesome the first 2 months, then injuries derailed him.
    Kim B: 3.27 ERA, 1.4 WAR, decent #4 starter and relatively cheap.
    Mikolas D/I: Should be incomplete, but what a waste of $ the last 3 years.
    Martinez D-: I’m trying really hard to be nice here. Damn I wanted him to be good.
    Gant C-: And now a Twin.
    Oviedo D-: Over-matched.
    LeBlanc C: Not all that bad actually. Another hit by the injury bug.

    Relievers
    Reyes B-: A tale of 2 halves. Did he wear down?
    Gallegos C+: Brilliant at times, but not often enough.
    Cabrera D: Flashes, but mostly bad.
    Helsley D: The only one to have no HBP. So that’s something…
    Miller D: Another in a long list of bad signings.

    Position Players
    Yadi B-: Still league average player. Can’t quantify a lot of what he does.
    Goldschmidt B+: Over 4 WAR
    Edman B: Still would prefer him as a super-sub. Poor OPS & OPS+
    DeJong D+: .674 OPS, 88 OPS+, yikes.
    Arenado B: Good but not great season. Still very happy to have him.
    O’Neill A-: Who would have predicted and over 4 WAR for him.
    Bader B-: Great defender, may never be much of a hitter.
    Carlson C: Not a bad first season, but hoped for more.

    Bench D: Other than Sosa and Nootbaar, horrible.

    Manager, Coaches FO & Ownership.
    Schildt D: Handling a pitching staff and running out certain players….
    Maddux D: What was up with apparently trying to change everyone’s stretch position?
    Girsch I: We know Mo is the real GM.
    Mozelak D-: Got Arenado handed to him on a silver platter, then nothing else and nothing at the deadline. (Okay, a LITTLE something, but way too little and way too late.)
    Ownership D: Does he even care as long as the fans keep paying. We are starting to remind of the bad old CUBS. Too many fans content to sit in the bleachers and drink overpriced beer. Who cares if we win or lose.

    #170854
    grayssportsalmanac
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    Free

    The ownership is an old boys club that trickles down into the front office and management. Personally i know a few ppl from the drew baur area who say its run like a bank (if that makes sense to anyone) those at the top feed and everyone under better support the line or else they dont eat. Nothing changes as long as the bottom line is fat.

    Anecdotal- but I consider myself to be a huge cards fan. I probably watched 15 full games this year- 5 at busch and 10 either on hacked streaming or in a bar by chance.

    Point is if MY level of interest has started to wane imagine the casual fan- which to be honest- is what they care about. Lets hope we see cheaper ticket prices and tv options in the future – and more of a focus on running the organization like a corporation instead of a syndicate- just my .02$

    #170858
    bccran
    Participant

    Grays – I knew Drew. And I would agree with you about this ownership except for the overall record of success since they took over.

    #170876
    grayssportsalmanac
    Participant

    Free

    Fyi Didnt mean anything against drew personally he was a great guy and even better businessman.

    But like any true good businessman HIS first priority is the shareholder. Its only fair game for the fans to be able to push back and expect a better product on the field!

    #170879
    blingboy
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Cardinals ownership would be taking a longer term view rather than focusing on the next quarterly report bottom line like a publicly held company does. The CBA, Covid, MiLB restructuring all inject a lot of uncertainty about what a profitable business model is going to look like going forward. Going lean throughout the system may be a strategy to maximize flexibility to move in any direction once the future landscape comes into focus.

    As to minors restructuring, fewer players and fewer roster slots means players will need to move faster and be weeded out sooner. A different approach to development and evaluation seems unavoidable. I doubt we will continue to see guys who have 7 or 8 years in the system and still trying to establish as a complimentary piece on the MLB roster. How do you keep AAAA type depth guys on your AAA roster when you need those slots to keep the pipeline moving? It may be that the organization is trying to figure that out and what we are looking at is the first experimental prototype. It would seem easier to maneuver a leaned out system.

    But for fans, we are focused on the present and want to win now. We want them to make commitments to free agents and take on contracts with the CBA looming, pandemic uncertainties as well as other upheavals going on out there. Ownership may be more focused on minimizing the damage if everything that can go wrong next year does.

    #170891
    gscottar
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    I agree with that assessment bling. I think the organization will lay low until the cash flow picks back up, but as Brian has alluded to, the cash flow may not pick back up if there isn’t an aggressive enough approach to improve the roster. That is the conundrum. Chicken or the egg?

    #170916
    bicyclemike
    Moderator

    Paid - Annual

    Pretty good overall grades. I would go a little higher on Gallegos and Cabrera. I would give Gallegos a B- and Cabby a B-. He was a B+ before last night, but that was just a weird deal. I think there might be something to the Bucs seeing a characteristic in his delivery that tipped them off to what was coming. They were squaring up everything.

    I would lower Edman to a C. No way I give him the same grade as Arenado. He has been okay, but not above average.

    And I would hand out two Fs, one to Carpenter and one to DeJong. If you cannot hit .200, you do not pass my course in baseball technology.

    #170927
    1982 willie
    Participant

    I need to wait til end of season to hand out grades

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