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Euro Dandy – Thank you for clarifying that Shildt said last year that the Cards felt confident with Edman at SS. That sets things straight and is the bottom line in going forward.
That Shildt came around to feeling comfortable is interesting but no longer relevant. For all intents and purposes, Edman was the third string SS.
The plan going forward is unknown and depends on how the new manager sees things, which we have no idea about yet. It would be a mistake to assume Marmol is a Shildt clone. For all we know that would apply to playing Sosa, too. It will be interesting to see what lies ahead.
I’m sure if Shildt said the Cardinals felt comfortable with Edman at SS, Marmol will factor that in strongly. The reference was to the “Cardinals”, not just Shildt. They had their heads together on a lot of thoughts. One thing seems fairly sure. Gorman is charging toward that starting 2B job sometime in 2022. That puts Sosa and Edman competing for the starting SS job.
Unless they sign a big ticket free agent from the outside. Which I don’t think they will.I do not think the Cardinals will sign a big ticket free agent SS either. I also believe Gorman could easily be the starting 2B by June 1, if not sooner. That means SS will be DeJong, Sosa, or Edman. Out of those three I like Edman’s chances. I am not convinced Sosa is an everyday player going forward and I wouldn’t be surprised if DeJong is traded. Even if DeJong stays his .284 OBP isn’t going to cut it as a starter.
There are other factors besides the glove. Edman and Sosa are still paid the league minimum. DeJong is not. Also, Edman is one of the team’s best base runners and stolen base threats.
This is such an interesting off-season for the Cards because there aren’t a ton of holes and there seem to be a lot of options for the Cards to use the available resources (money, players in trade, etc). It would be at least defensible (and within a reasonable budget) to go in any number of directions:
1. You could argue that there’s enough talent on the roster to win the NL Central with little to no changes. Jack Flaherty would be the second best starter on the market if he was a free agent this year, and Dakota Hudson would probably fetch a significant contract too. Getting them both for a full year will be a big bump for the beleaguered rotation. Mikolas will eat some innings. The pen stands to improve with some guys getting more seasoning. The offense should be better with a known commodity at most every position and expected improvement from guys like Carlson and Arenado. The defense is elite.
2. You could say that the team should go “all in” for Waino and Yadi’s last hurrah and the cheap primes of Flaherty, Carlson, O’Neill and the strong core with Goldy and Arenado. You could look to add a star via trade (Ramirez? Bellinger?) and maybe another via free agency (Scherzer? Seager? Story?) and push the payroll to where it would likely have been sans COVID…into the $180M+ range. The team would become instant NL Central favorites and maybe one of the NL favorites.
3. You could look to “let the kids play.” Gorman, Yepez, and Libby all look ready enough to contribute significantly in 2022. Burleson, Donovan, Oviedo, Rondon and Thompson may be ready too. We could just let the farm supplement the team and wade into the market after 2022 or 2023.
4. Mo could believe that minor tweaks will give us the edge. The middle infield could be a rotating platoon of Dejong, Sosa, Edman, Gorman depending on matchups and they could add some bullpen help (McFarland, Garcia, Leblanc?) and maybe an OF/DH candidate (Canha, Calhoun?) and maybe a cheapish starter (Wood?) and depend on internal improvements.
5. We could really go after starting pitching and believe the offense has enough in the tank. Say they traded Dejong for Manaea or Bassitt (solid #3/4 types from Oakland) and signed Marcus Stroman or Robbie Ray. Flaherty, Stroman/Ray, Waino, Hudson, Manaea is a very good rotation. Doesn’t leave much room for Mikolas and Libby may be delayed but there always seems to be injuries in the rotation. Sign a Brad Hand or similar arm for the pen for a year and the payroll stays $160Mish. This is actually becoming my favorite option at the moment.
6. They could go for broke on offense. Sign a SS, trade Dejong, Edman or Sosa for bullpen help. Work on trading Bader for Bellinger, who could probably use a change of scenery to help (but is pricey). Bellinger-Goldy-O’Neill-Arenado-Story-Carlson-Yadi-Edman (plus a DH potentially) is a fearsome lineup and payroll would be in the $170Mish range. The rotation would be vulnerable, to say the least.
Likely there will be some hybrid of thesw approaches I expect there will be at least one “big” move this year. Whether that is a signing or trade, I think we will add someone of value. Most likely to the rotation. Add a little to the pen and maybe an OF/DH bat and the team probably is a 90 win NL Central contender. Milwaukee is probably due to regress a little but will probably be around there too. So the September run will have to happen again, but Mo and Dewitt seem to be comfortable with letting our October dreams be subject to a little more whim than fancy in the last 5-6 years.
One thing that worries me about Sosa is his unsustainable HBP numbers. They really carried his OBP.
To expand on this, Sosa had a BB% of just 5.2% (lower than that of Edman even). For the season, that comes out to 17 BBs in 326 PAs. He also has 17 HBPs, which is pretty crazy actually. He’s 9th in all of baseball with that total with about half the PAs of the rest of the leaders. Sosa has never really been one to take walks in the minors either, although he did have 16 HBPs in his 2019 full AAA season.
If you drop his numbers of HBP down to even a league-leader rate, he’s all of a sudden a below-average hitter. Does that still play? Edman and DeJong were both below-average this year with the bat as well, but maybe one of the three can break through next year. I agree with the poster saying that Edman should focus on SS defense all off-season so he can be sharp come 2022 should he be asked to step in at SS.
I have nothing against Edman,
I believe that to be true until Edman put on a Cardinal uniform and won a starting job.
Here are several other factoids that are far, far more relevant to the current situation than college results, minor league playing time, how scrappy he is, how he plays at 110% and all those happy words.
I knew that any praise of Edman would be followed by this type of commentary. Some fans appreciate the sort of “give it your all” players…. some totally dismiss it. I will file it under “for what its worth”.
Good summary stl25. I think you covered all of the possibilities well. With the Cardinals sitting just under $135M right now I think they will only spend another $20-$25M. That limits what they can do unless they move some more salary out. Most likely they bring back Garcia and McFarland, and sign a moderately priced starter and bat, unless they go the trade route. Going the trade route could allow them to bring in splashier players but could certainly impact the farm system.
Some good stuff. Lots of scenarios that can end up with the club being competitive, including the old “best trades are the ones you never made.”
I will say it again though, I think Sosa is a player. Yeah he had a lot of HBPs, but the guy passes the eye test. Takes good ABs, is athletic, has good instincts. You cannot assume he have the same numbers next year, but less HBPs. The talent looks to be there to keep improving.
BikeMike,
I agree with your assessment of Sosa. But…..if we get the chance to land one of those free agent SS’s, like a Story, Seager, Correa, whatever, I say we pull the trigger. I am hopeful that Arenado could persuade Story to come to St. Louis on a somewhat friendly contract.Unless we pull that SS trigger I am not expecting much news this off-season. Especially with the CBA issues coming in early December.
r/Esteemed Rat
Good summary stl25. I think you covered all of the possibilities well. With the Cardinals sitting just under $135M right now I think they will only spend another $20-$25M. That limits what they can do unless they move some more salary out. Most likely they bring back Garcia and McFarland, and sign a moderately priced starter and bat, unless they go the trade route. Going the trade route could allow them to bring in splashier players but could certainly impact the farm system.
I think the Cards will spend a little more than you do but it may not be all the way to $170M. Attendance was definitely down across the game but the Cards were still 5th in attendance. There’s a shot we are 3M+ fans next year and it would definitely be easier with the on field product being good all year.
25’s post was right on the button about possibilities. My only disagreement would that I don’t think they will do anything significant.
Mo and junior hinted at doing nothing with the firing of Schildt.At their annual end of the season press conference they will say they are going to find the talent they need at Memphis. Mo will say they won’t be adding any expensive talent from the outside. He’ll use Mospeak but it will mean the same thing.
From ownership’s point of view there is no need to spend any substantial money this winter. No big expenses are needed to retain the players that got the team into post season this year. The core can all be here next year without much additional expense. Added to that core are some pitchers returning from injury, Hudson, Flahery, Mikolas, Hicks. Then add the position players and a few pitchers that are ready to make a run at the bigs in spring training and the organization should be able to put a better and deeper team on the field in 2022. Mo and BDW can easily convince themselves of that.
A proven shortstop, a starter, a lefty reliever, maybe a DH type guy, all would be nice but I can’t see where ownership would think any are necessary to be competitive. Besides that, they don’t want the next Fowler blocking the pipeline at the top, they don’t want the next Mikolas making big bucks for not playing or the next Andrew Miller making big bucks for nothing.
bling, I think your assessment is pessimistic, but realistic. I’d like to see them strengthen the offense, but I would not be surprised if they will say they don’t have anywhere for a newcomer to play. A trade is always possible, but impossible to predict.
One place I do feel a difference is likely is in pitching. Last winter, they added no one from the outside and got caught lacking depth. I bet they learned a lesson and will bring in more arms this winter, even if “low hanging fruit”. Probably not a Scherzer type though…
FWIW, these StL radio yakkers see the Cardinals offense as top 10 in MLB (top 1/3) next year and top five if they add an external bat.
Believe it or not: The #STLCards will have a top 5 offense in MLB next season? #BKandFerrario
PODCAST: https://t.co/UqnZwyH9vS pic.twitter.com/LEeF0iHNiL
— 101 ESPN St. Louis (@101espn) October 29, 2021
Good assessment.
Assessing Cardinal Needs for 2022 https://t.co/6sN1ANuaCm pic.twitter.com/gktShWJhav
— viva el birdos (@vivaelbirdos) October 29, 2021
From ownership’s point of view there is no need to spend any substantial money this winter.
This is what I would bet on. Some combination of #1, #3, and #4 from stlcard25’s post. And it might work out well for next season. I’d be very interested in how they do their risk analysis for these decisions. Obviously, they didn’t do well in this regard last year.
True that these things are hard to predict exactly. An opposing factor to making no changes is Mo/BDW will look very bad if Marmol flops. Therefore, they might try to reinforce the roster more than if Shildt were still managing.
With all the variants of this pandemic floating around, plus not knowing how the agreement is going to end up, I can’t see them making any major moves right now. Perhaps an experienced but not expensive starter, a LH reserve outfield bat, and a reliever or two. At the most.
The bench was so bad this year that even having a couple of playable options will be an upgrade. The rotation could be ok but will need some injury luck. I’d love to see two options added there. The pen has the arms to be good, but bullpens are so volatile to begin with. I could see the Cards winning anywhere between 81-98 games next year with the right (or wrong) moves.
As mentioned before, a really good off-season to me (at this point) would involve:
Dejong to OAK for Manaea
Sign Stroman
Sign McFarland and another reliever to low cost deals, or trade from some minors depth for one.
Sign a lefty bench bat like Calhoun, Pederson, Rosario, MillerWouldn’t break the bank and would make us a very solid NL contender.
The bench was bad more because they had contract guys who couldn’t hit taking up space. Carp and DeJong. Half that problem resolves itself and the other half hopefully will be resolved this winter. And before Nootbaar the 4th outfielder never sis anything. I am OK with giving in house players the roster slots and ABs. As Brian mentioned above, pitching is really where we could most benefit from an acquisition.
I could easily see a bench of Nootbaar, Donovan, Yepez, Rondon, and Knizner. With Sosa at SS and Edman at 2B. DeJong traded. Gorman feeding in at 2B after several months putting either Sosa or Edman on the bench. Burleson also coming into the picture mid-season.
I agree cranny. The DH might give your bench guys regular ABs. I do hope they can find a way to move DeJong or he will be the new Carpenter. I place the chance he will rebound offensively near zero.
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