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“In his last 5 games Winn’s 7 for 17 which translates to a .412 avg. and the Cardinal manager decides to sit him.”
“Our manager makes a lot of odd decisions.”
“Winn is 22. He’s swinging a legit hot bat. Why keep him out? This move is inexplicable!”
And bear this in mind also: 22-year-old Masyn Winn, sporting a .349 average, easily the highest batting average on a team struggling to score runs, has now been given three days off, out of just 16 games played.
I’m beginning to understand now what’s going on. Ollie Marmol is a paid double agent employed by either the cubs or Brewers. Only thing that makes sense.
It’s like we have opposing forces at play here, both for Oli and our game thread posters. The Quality Starts goals for the season, vs individual game management of the SP by Oli.
After 4 IP Miles had faced 12 batters and allowed 0 ER with an effective pitch count. Miles blew up in the 5th before he could get thru their lineup twice. He was down two runs and sacks full by the time ARI had batted twice thru. Just twice.
Mikolas = goat of the game, but that’s hindsight. I didn’t once say “pull him” during the game, and Oli gave him every possible chance to salvage his start.
This same scenario where our vet SP can’t get 15 outs may happen another 50-100 times.
This rotation needs a SP2 & SP3, ASAP.
Indeed some definite hitches in our skipper’s swing. Let’s hope he can straighten it out. What we’re witnessing here is a poor team transitioning into a good team. Growing pains along this path are to be expected. This still promises to be a fun summer.
A few points . . .
Winn has never played 162 games in a season. He’s incredibly young because he rose so fast through the ranks so he doesn’t even have much in the way of longer minor league seasons under his belt. That’s why the team signed Crawford. Crawford was an all-star not that long ago and still is a solid SS defender. He was signed to play about 1 day a week. It’s on Crawford that he can’t seem to hit. Not on Ollie. Ollie is trying to keep Winn fresh and ready for an entire season. That’s his job.
I don’t know why Mikolas was gassed in the 5th. It doesn’t seem like he should have been other than he was suffering through a long inning. Maybe it was the change in temperatures going to AZ? But that’s on him. He needs to have the stamina to be able to get through that inning and he obviously was suffering. So they went to Pallante. Pallante gets groundballs more than 70% of the time. It’s a rate that is uncanny – unheard of in almost the entire MLB history. And . . . he got a 2 hopper infield groundball. It was hit fairly hard and it just barely eluded Gorman at 2B. If Gorman gets about 2 more inches over, that goes for an out and the damage is limited and suddenly we are saying Pallante did a good job. The reality is he did neither a good or a bad job. He just did what he does. He got a groundball and we couldn’t get it. We can’t always go to Romero or his arm will fall off soon. And besides, he may have also ended up giving up a hit that eluded a fielder by a couple inches. This is baseball. It happens all the time. I’d have preferred Liberatore, but apparently he was sick. So you do the best with who you have while considering that you have to get through 162 games.
I don’t know what to say about the offense. It’s been ugly after ugly. Yesterday they did have some hits and hit some other balls hard that got robbed. I guess that’s promising. But Scott has been a near automatic out and Siani would likely be no different given his history. You always expect there to be someone at any given time who just isn’t hitting well. That happens. But right now, it’s a whole bunch of some bodies. I’m not sure putting Noot in CF is going to solve all of those issues. It might help. Or he might quickly hurt his ribs again diving for a ball. Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that stupid collision between Carlson and Walker in the 2nd to final Spring Training game has really had a powerful impact.
I keep asking but never get an answer. Who you gonna start over Walker? Last I checked, Nootbaar cannot play all three OF spots at once… 😉
Thankfully Mo was able to swindle $50M from the Rockies in the Arenado trade or that trade would be looking really bad considering how many years he’s signed for.
Well BHC, he did set himself up to hook one soon, in a game thread, short sighted kind of way.
By going to R-CF a couple times he knows his upper is closed, he’s doing a plus job on the outer half, and baiting an inside pitch.
So, if the Cardinals finish outside of the playoffs again this year what do we expect to happen?
Mo and Marmol out – new POBO who then hired his man to manage or – ownership ejects to keep the band together one more year to get Mo through his 2025 contract?
Walker currently has a 94% success rate in RF, which puts him in 2nd place behind Jack Fraley.
I admit that I am not overly astute on defensive metrics but if the insinuation is that Walker is currently the second best defensive RF in the NL I am going to have to pass on that.
I keep asking but never get an answer. Who you gonna start over Walker? Last I checked, Nootbaar cannot play all three OF spots at once… 😉
Walker’s offense is so bad right now we could probably go with an OF of Donovan LF, Scott/Siani CF, and Noot RF. At least Scott or Siani would give us consistent defense. Walker might need a tune up in Memphis.
“Winn has never played 162 games in a season. He’s incredibly young because he rose so fast through the ranks so he doesn’t even have much in the way of longer minor league seasons under his belt. That’s why the team signed Crawford. Crawford was an all-star not that long ago and still is a solid SS defender. He was signed to play about 1 day a week. It’s on Crawford that he can’t seem to hit. Not on Ollie. Ollie is trying to keep Winn fresh and ready for an entire season. That’s his job.”
Wow. I honestly didn’t expect anyone to defend Marmol on this point.
Brandon Crawford is an old terrible ballplayer who used to be really good, just like Matt Carpenter. I never saw any announcement that Brandon Crawford was specifically signed to start one day per week, but maybe I missed it. But even if you feel you DO have to start him weekly, it doesn’t have to come at the expense of Masyn Winn every time, when Winn is one of the few Birds hitting the ball with any authority.
At any rate, as Jim Edmonds pointed out on the air a week ago when Winn was receiving his second off day of the very young season, a guy like Masyn should be playing every day. He should play every day precisely because he IS young and durable, and needs the maximum amount of MLB experience in order to blossom.
Let’s check precedents, for context. Albert Pujols was younger than Winn when he played 161 of 162 games. But perhaps Marmol is smarter than LaRussa. Willie McGee played 123 of a possible 132 games after the Cards called him up as a rookie — but maybe Marmol is smarter than Whitey Herzog, too.
What Marmol is doing is simply contrary to all industry norms. Bobby Witt, Jr. played 158 games last year. Gunnar Henderson played 150. Giving Masyn Winn 25 or 30 additional days off, on top of all the scheduled off days of the season, is frankly insane. Nice, generous people may find a way to rationalize it, but it’s insane nonetheless.
Logic and reason confirms Crawford’s solitary purpose is as an emergency SS, but now it’s becomong clear that his other role is to protect the delicate and vulnerable babe in arms Winn from the harsh and cruel world of mean and evil boogeymen pitchers like Gallen who may be lurking under the youngster’s bed at night just waiting to devour the poor little guy. It’s a horrific scenario…
I admit that I am not overly astute on defensive metrics but if the insinuation is that Walker is currently the second best defensive RF in the NL I am going to have to pass on that.
I am sure it is a small sample size issue. It doesn’t seem like there have been nearly as many balls hit to him this year as last. But he is not the absolute disaster he was in RF last year (except for colliding with Carlson).
Bob, it’s nice to have hindsight as your friend here. But Masyn Winn is young and no one knew (or knows) if he’s going to hit at a league average or better rate. So far in a small sample he has. And while Crawford is likely not going to be all that great at the plate, he came in to this season as the solid alternative to Winn in case Winn doesn’t cut it. No one knew he was going to have an OPS in the .300’s. And it’s a really small sample size – like 10 at bats. And Winn is certainly not the prospect Henderson or Witt were or the kind of hitter Pujols was. So I think the plan coming into the season was play Crawford roughly 20% of the time. But with how they are both playing, that’s probably down to 10%. I doubt it dips too much less than that. That would still be 140+ starts for Winn. And if that happens, that will be great for both Winn and the Cards future.
If Edman returns before the half way marker I’m going to guess that the Cardinals will pay Crawford his $2M and say “Thanks and goodbye.”
I have to agree with Jnevel here – Crawford was brought in to act as insurance, and you can’t have him just sitting on the bench rotting. The insurance policy was twofold – 1) If Winn can’t hit like he couldn’t last year and 2) If he gets injured
They were planning on Edman being starting CF, which makes it difficult for him to be backup SS. Especially if he is injured/gets injured again.
Crawford plays one position. He has to play sometime.
Frankly, with them not extending Goldschmidt, and all the veteran leadership they brought in on one year deals, it looks like they are planning on having a selloff at the deadline.
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