- This topic has 37 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 1 month ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I’ve been asking that question for years now and like a Teflon POBO (nothing sticks to him), he is still here. I’m not sure even this debacle ends his reign of failure. Regular season wins are great and all but you play to win championships. No one celebrates regular season win titles with a downtown parade.
Unfortunately, no one other than us seem to be concerned . We draft yet another outfielder as our first pick ??????????? Flores needs to be fired as well
Unfortunately, no one other than us seem to be concerned . We draft yet another outfielder as our first pick ??????????? Flores needs to be fired as well
Flores is very good and would be snapped up before Sundown.
Other than maybe the first four or five slots, the draft is not going to help your club in the next couple of years. It is not like football or basketball where guys can come in ready to contribute right away. It’s more akin to college recruiting of the top athletes, where you get guys who are wanting to hone their skills for the next level.
Flores and his staff have done a good job of that.
The 4 top college pitchers in the draft were gone when the Cards drafted at #21. There was a big drop off after those 4, so they shifted to the very best position player available. Very smart move on the part of Flores.
This class appears to be a very big drop-off from the ’22 selections. If Davis doesn’t pan out…. yikes.
There are others in this draft class who have talent. Flores knows what he’s doing. For instance, Donovan was a 7th round pick. Who could have predicted his success at the major league level? Nootbaar was an 8th round pick.
Look at this data. Since 2015, the Cardinals have drafted players who have delivered the second-most WAR in MLB.
Scouting and player development do not seem to be the problem.
Let's try this one more time…here is drafted WAR since 2015 for each organization. Apologize for the earlier tweet that was incorrect, there was a bug in my code. Astros in the clear lead driven by Bregman, Tucker, Pena, Straw. Rockies at the bottom with just Rodgers, Lawrence pic.twitter.com/dROVlbakMd
— Down on the Farm (@downonthefarm12) July 13, 2023
Yea I think Flores did a fine job. We might be in a better position next year to get a better player but who knows
Love the chart…very illuminating and it begs the question with the Cardinals and Astros clearly ahead of everyone else why have the Astros been in the WS four times since 2015 and the Cardinals have advanced past the first round once since 2015? There are two possible answers. Either the major league manager and coaches for the Cardinals ruin the young talent when they get to St. Louis or WAR as a predictor of future success is not worth a pile of crap.
Referencing the chart, this is what I just got off FanGraphs for the Cardinals — a total of 73.3 WAR. Of that total, 14.4 have been earned on other teams, most of that by Gallen.
WAR PLAYER
===============
14.4 Tommy Edman
13.0 Harrison Bader
12.4 Zac Gallen
10.6 Paul DeJong
5.6 Dylan Carlson
4.8 Lars Nootbaar
4.5 Brendan Donovan
2.8 Ryan Helsley
2.7 Dakota Hudson
1.8 Jordan Hicks
1.7 Nolan Gorman
1.3 Matt Vierling
0.6 Andre Pallante
0.2 Zack Thompson
0.2 Kodi Whitley
0.2 Daniel Castano
0.2 Jake Woodford
0.0 Jake Walsh
-0.1 Luken Baker
-0.1 Scott Hurst
-0.1 Kramer Robertson
-0.1 Nick Plummer
-0.2 Jordan Walker
-0.2 Kyle Leahy
-0.4 Andrew Young
-0.8 Alec Burleson
-1.7 Andrew Knizner
================
73.3 TOTALIf the yardstick you are using says you should be good, but the reality is you are bad, then there is something wrong with the yardstick you are using. You can go ahead and keep using it if the results it provides make you feel good. But the results you actually get will continue to be what you’ve been getting.
Thanks for sharing the list, Euro. So the problem hasn’t been finding or developing players. And they only traded away one of the top contributors (to get pitching).
But six of the top seven on the list are hitters, which underlines their shift away from pitching in recent drafts. They got way out of balance and are feeling the impact of it now.
(Some discrediting the data simply because it doesn’t agree with predetermined notions is predictable.)
Having the best draft class is not the only thing that goes into any particular team. It is also the players from other organizations used to fill out your roster, not too mention management.
Houston has complimented their system talent very well, and perhaps have had better leadership. Leadership is tough to gauge as it is not easily quantifiable.
But this does give some reasoning behind why the Cardinals have been good year after year. This year a good chunk of drafted talent is excelling elsewhere, while the players we have in those positions are not nearly as good.
Also this season has been sort of freaky. We find crazy ways to lose, like that game where Hicks threw an easy out away by tossing the ball 20 feet over Goldschmidt’s glove. As Johnny Carson would say, “Just wild, wacky stuff.”
Drafting and developing productive major league players is an outstanding accomplishment, unless those players are producing for other teams. And has Brian mentioned, moving away from developing pitchers has been a big problem.
Scouting and player development of pitchers is what I have referred to in all my posts, not position players. Cardinals Front Office has failed in this part of their scouting and development plain and simple. If you been watching the games you can see the offensive players producing runs and then hang their heads when pitching fails to do their jobs. More noticeable this year as we did absolutely nothing to improve the staff, but this lack of talent development has been going on for years. In fact, remarkably over the years its nothing short of phenomenal that we have been as successful as we have as we have only had a real handful of really good pitchers in the last say 50 years
Yes, the fact that we have sub-par pitching for at least the last 10 years thus not seriously contending for a WS title.
Not doubting Flores ability to recognize position players but has failed seeing this in pitchers which is unsettling since he was a pitcher. He is probably strapped because of the almighty dollar as we all know, really good pitching comes at a cost.
The above referenced chart probably doesn’t include Alcantara. He wasn’t drafted by the Cardinals but he was signed as an amateur free agent, developed in the Cardinal minor league system, then traded away and won the Cy Young. He has accumulated 16.8 WAR in his career, almost all with the Marlins I would think.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.