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Starting the last game this year, the Cardinals need to decide what they are going to be – pick a lane and stay in it from a roster building perspective.
It seems like we have been heavy on both ends of the young, wet behind the ears rookie types and also the grizzled old past their prime wiley veterans.
I’d like to see a complete Astros style teardown / overhaul of the team and build it back with youth and a sustainable farm system.
The Cardinals have been stuck in the middle for far too long and it seems that it will take something fairly extreme to get the franchise out of the rut.
The Astros appeared in 7 straight ALCS and have two titles. The Cardinals just keep getting run over.
Now, regarding the complete teardown method – it’s not without risk.
Young players and pitchers don’t always pan out so you better have a bunch of them – especially pitchers due to career ruining injuries.
It’s ok to have and you certainly need a few veterans but those guys have to understand – especially early in the process – there aren’t going to be many wins.
The current roster is just a disaster as evidenced by the annual dumpster diving excursion each off season and trade deadline.
The problem is now that the window to get a prospect bonanza for guys like Goldschmidt has closed making any sort of rebuild even harder than it already would have been.
Imagine trying to build something on quicksand. Its a waste of time until you first establish a sound foundation. Then you can build.
An issue with a tear down and rebuild is if you are offing your veterans for young guys and prospects you have to be able to develop them into major leaguers and then help them make the adjustments necessary to sustain success as major leaguers. The Cardinals suck at that, especially as to impact players, so how is a rebuild supposed to work?
They first need to tear down and rebuild player acquisition and player development. They first need to tear down and rebuild the major league coaching staff. They first need to tear down and rebuild how they integrate analytics into all aspects of the system. If they can make substantial headway in those areas, they will have a foundation upon which to rebuild. They may be in the first stages of doing that or it may be a false alarm. We will have to wait and see.
Saw the box score showing we were 2 for 19 with RISP last night, and stranded 12. Can’t win too many that way.
I would be in favor of an overhaul. This method of trying to be just good enough each year and playing for the current season has worn down the talent. After some 10 years of that, we have nothing to show for it and not a lot of top tier players on the roster or the farm.
And as we have discussed over and over, the manager and coaches do not inspire excellence. It would be tough to go through, and we would be a team where opening day is the only sellout and many games feature 10,000 or less in the stands. Not too mention guys like Winn and Donovan would have to be part of a losing culture for a period of time. But I think it is the right approach at this point.
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