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It will complicate things Gray ending the season on the IL with forearm flexor tendon strain (not to mention his age and the back loaded contract). That is something that can be bad now or be bad later. In the case of Middleton, it was bad now and he went under the knife and lost a season. With other guys it morphs into elbow ligament trouble, as the attaching point of the forearm flexor tendon is right where the UCL is and they are part of the same anatomical structure. The astute will remember that Gray had loose bodies or spurs removed from his pitching elbow several years ago, which is another worrying event as we know from Hjerpe’s experience. Removing them mediates a symptom but does not correct the cause, which is likely to be trouble again, sooner or later. Hopefully, opposing GMs will have their blinders on and Mo can keep the focus on Sonny’s impressive K/9, which I assume was the strategy successfully employed when Mo was shopping for a starter.
Various voices now have the Cards offing Gray, Lynn and Gibson, and possibly Matz and Mikolas if takers can be found. Need I point out the problem which looms.
Gray and Pallante were the only two starters worth much this year. It’s hard to imagine that they would jettison Gray while trying to compete in any way. Trading your #1 starter with two years to go on the deal signals a full on tank coming, which I would be very surprised to see from this franchise.
Yeah trading Gray is a sign to fans you don’t care about winning. Ownership can respond to poor attendance in one of 2 ways. 1 is to acknowledge the fans unhappiness and spend or shuffle chairs to bring in players the fans may like to watch. The 2nd is to let it become a negative feedback loop and decrease salary. Looks like Dewitt is taking approach 2. It will probably be quite a few rough years in STL if he does.
Various voices now have the Cards offing Gray, Lynn and Gibson, and possibly Matz and Mikolas if takers can be found. Need I point out the problem which looms.
It is only a problem if you are worried about the 2025 w-l record, which at this point, I don’t think is our biggest problem. They need to put all of their resources in the player development system to rebild a decade of neglect.
Yeah trading Gray is a sign to fans you don’t care about winning. Ownership can respond to poor attendance in one of 2 ways. 1 is to acknowledge the fans unhappiness and spend or shuffle chairs to bring in players the fans may like to watch. The 2nd is to let it become a negative feedback loop and decrease salary. Looks like Dewitt is taking approach 2. It will probably be quite a few rough years in STL if he does.
ATM I get what you are saying but I am actually encouraged by these developments. It is a sign that the Cardinals have finally realized that they need a rebuild instead of trying to churn out 87 win teams every year that get you nowhere. We have been in purgatory for too long.
It is only a problem if you are worried about the 2025 w-l record, which at this point, I don’t think is our biggest problem. They need to put all of their resources in the player development system to rebild a decade of neglect.
How much could the club legitimately put toward the development team? $50M? 100? At some point it feels like it will be impossible to spend what they are saving on payroll and it will just be Dewitt pocketing the savings.
At any rate, I don’t believe that any professional franchise ever truly has to tank to reset any part of their organization. Sure, moving on from aging players and big contacts may be helpful but St Louis is not Pittsburgh or even Cincinnati and we should not be acting like we need to be in order to get our act together. You can be semi competitive and still set yourself up for a better future.
Nightingale likes his clicks for sure and no better way to get them than to rile up an easily baited fanbase.
I don’t buy it and don’t buy the whispers of a full on rebuild. I do buy them dealing Helsley and not taking the options on Gibson and Lynn. I could see a trade of a couple young guys for a bat.
One would think there will be a question about it at the news conference. But what would they say? And will the media meekly accept a non-answer or dig their teeth in demanding some meat? It will be interesting.
“We don’t comment on potential trades,” is pretty much what every team says. Expecting more or something different is probably not realistic.
Team’s don’t need the media to let other teams know that players are available. They handle that themselves.
With a .500ish team after a last place season the year before, any player 30+ is a potential trade option.
If pressed, they might say something like we are not going to fire sale our core around which we will build the team. Or they might say something like there are no sacred cows and anything is potentially on the table. Which of those they said would tell us something about more than just Sonny Gray. But I agree they will evade if allowed to do so.
I agree it would be great if they divulge some details about their plans.
But there is no “allowed”. You can’t make someone comment about something they don’t want to comment about. If they say they don’t want to comment, continuing to press the matter is being a jerk. Some media are expert at re-wording the same question differently, which generally makes the target angry.
I don’t think angry works for them right now, and I think they know that. IMO, the whole point of the mea culpa forwarded by Katie is to counter perceived arrogance. Whatever they are planning to hit us with Monday will work better if the arrogance is replaced by peceived humility. Angry doesn’t work in that case. Neither does obstinately refusing to say anything of substance if pressed to a point that the obfuscation is glaring. But that situation will not be leveraged by a powder puff press pool.
If they shop Gray, they should be shopping everyone who makes more than $10 million per year.
About two weeks ago, Denton assured us the Cardinals would be talking to Kittredge about re signing. He made $2.6M this year.
I mean how much does it really cost to revamp your minor league infrastructure?
It would be easier to decline all the options and pending FA and trade Helsley and go out and get a bat via trade. There’s your money for this so called revamping.
By jettisoning Gray, the Cards are signaling their fan base that a full re-build, from the ground up, is in order.
I like it…
Sometimes a marathon runner needs to slow up for a while in order to win the race. Cards aren’t going to win in 2025 with Gray, so let’s see what he’s worth on the open market!
The more I think about this, the more incredulous I become. Gray turns 35 in a week, finished on the IL, is owed $60 Million over the next two years and has a no trade to be bought out. How do you ‘shop’ that?
Bling, you really don’t think teams would be interested in Gray? Teams across the league will be very interested in him. His salary is still very reasonable for his production.
The Cardinals have done a masterful job of spinning their upcoming payroll reduction.
Rather than acknowledge it is a direct result of fan apathy and dismal attendance, they have painted it as through they have sacrificed the minor leagues for the sake of the big league club.
Reports say the Cardinals only have five minor league instructors, while the Brewers have 15.
Okay, so how much does that cost?
Glassdoor shows that average MiLB coach makes between $47-84k. So, let’s say the Cardinals are going to pay each of these 10 new guys $100k each. That’s $1 million.
Now let’s say travel + benefits doubles that. So, now we are at $2 million.
But the Cardinals are now saying they are going to part ways with all impending free agents, and are hinting they are shopping Arenado, Contreras & Helsley.
This is not to reinvest in the minor leagues.
This is the Death Spiral Brian predicted and it is in direct response to Cardinals fans not supporting the mediocre product the Cardinals put on the field the past two years.
Welcome to the new reality… Fans aren’t stupid, though. The Cardinals have lost the trust of the fan base and all the spin isn’t going to rebuild it. Results will take time.
Minor league instructor salaries are one thing; facilities and equipment are another. How much do fully kitted out pitching and hitting labs cost to build, equip, and maintain?
I have no idea so this is not a rhetorical question.
Also, if a youth movement it is to be then using 2025 to retool the minors and ‘see what you have’ with your higher level prospects (while also adding to their ranks) while building a warchest for 2026 isn’t a bad idea – IF the saved money is allocated for 2026 player salaries and not for bonuses and golden parachutes.
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