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Well, according to Derrick Goold:
I went back and read Goold’s chat. His comments were a little less definitive than MLBTR’s headline. I think what he said was “at the end of season the Cardinals will look to see what a return looks like” or something like that. I am paraphrasing.
Regardless, the idea of bringing Gold back seems surprising to me considering his downturn, but on the other hand, the Cardinals are known to extend legacy players, assuming Goldy fits into that category.
In my opinion Gold only works on the roster as platoon bat against LH pitchers. Even if he takes a paycut he would be an expensive platoon player.
I would imagine if they brought him back, it would be a one year “make good” contract like Wainwright did for $5 million.
Otherwise, I cannot see them bringing him back.
I would hope they learned from this year that they need outfield depth and will bring in two outfielders if they transition Burleson to 1B.
It will be interesting to see how they handle budget pressures and how severe those pressures may be. The kind of commitment it might take to sign Goldy could be on the edge of affordability. Maybe a highly-incentive-based deal would be the way to go. However, they aren’t really “incentives” but really appearance and award-based.
Yeah, I fully expected them to pocket the savings from Goldschmidt due to decreased revenue/profitability this year.
Maybe sign 2 outfielders in the Tommy Pham price range.
Pocket the savings from Gallegos & Middleton and sign some cheaper relievers.
With Gray getting a $15M INCREASE in salary next year I don’t see how they could squeeze Goldy into the budget if they want to have any chance of other additions, unless BDW is authorizing a significant budget increase which seems unlikely due to the TV uncertainty and lower attendance and lower ticket prices this year.
If the team doesn’t pickup any options or re-sign any free agents, they’ll have roughly $50 million to spend if they plan to keep spending even with this season. I made my best guesses on everyone who will be arbitration eligible to get to that $50 million.
Gibson/Lynn would cost $11 million each. Middleton would be $5 million. I’m not sure if any of those will be picked up or not. Gibson seems most likely.
There are plenty of other roles to fill either internally or externally (Goldy, Carpenter, Pham, Crawford, Kittredge, Armstrong, plus any of those mutual options above they don’t pay for). Everything could be filled internally except backup SS which would be a stretch. That’s not the ideal team, but they’d still be competitive I think.
The big question marks are starting pitching and Walker’s status. Do they think McGreevey, Graceffo, and/or Pallante are ready to be full-time mlb starters (plus a slew of others that could be ready sometime in the season)? And, do they think Walker will be back to hitting form?
My estimates are close to that. The current 2025 40 man obligations are close to $110M. Let’s say arbitration will be around $20M and league minimum guys will be around $7M. That puts the total at $137M. If they keep payroll flat at the current $177M that would give you $40M to spend on at least 10-12 more roster spots and several of those won’t be leage minimum guys so that $40M will be eaten up in a hurry.
And we don’t know if payroll will even be kept flat. Over the last many years there have usually been incremental increases but I don’t know if we can assume that this time since their TV provider is trying to emerge from bankruptcy.
In general it seems like the Cardinals have too many players who should be platoon players and/or DHs. In other words, if folks are saying this guy needs to be part of a platoon or that guys needs to take DH turns, no they don’t, they need to be replaced with better players. I hope Mo has that in mind this winter.
If Mo does that he will be replacing about 10 of the 13 position player spots. That is a lot of work for an organization that tends to pursue the path of least resistance.
If we bring Goldy back for anything over bench money, it will be for his Cardinal legacy. The disturbing part is Goldy’s legacy is 8 seasons in ARI, and 6 in StL.
If they bring Goldy back its because they don’t have much else going on to draw fan interest. The bean counters are going “ok, the big hype sluggers Gorman and Walker fizzled, so now what?”
Goldy is the face of the franchise, and a fine one. He’s the headliner for Bill to market his franchise as respectable and competitive. It would be hard to do better.
We have W/L under the microscope. Bill has a few more irons in the fire.I have mixed feelings about Goldschmidt. He’s not that old, so why has his offense dropped off so much? On the other hand, I love his defense. There isn’t a player in the organization that can get outs at 1B the way Goldschmidt can. He and his agent were asking for 4 yrs/$97M at the start of the negotiations, and that seems over market. If the two sides can agree on his true market value, and especially if Goldy will come in a little under that, then I’d like to bring him back.
1B is a place to stash a masher who doesn’t move well. Pujols is the type specimen. GG defense is certainly a bonus, but I don’t think a weak hitter works there.
I get your point. And if that’s the case, then Luken Baker is our man. It’s hard to measure how many additional wins elite defense makes possible, and how many wins are generated by the intangibles that Goldy brings. And it might be impossible to figure out, in actual dollars, how much Goldy’s ‘face’ brings to the organization. But there’s value there.
mudville said:
He and his agent were asking for 4 yrs/$97M at the start of the negotiations, and that seems over market.
You have to be careful about rumors. The source of 4/97 was a PROJECTION from Tim Britton of The Athletic back in March of this year in an article in which he guessed what a bunch of contracts across the game might look like. He offered no background on how he came up with his estimates, but I agree his estimate was over market. Now, five months later, it is WAY over market.
For Goldy and the Cardinals, the two sides hadn’t even started talking, and they aren’t yet. Since then, Goldy took a steep dive in market value.
And even back then, Britton basically said his own projection was not likely.
“Coming off one of its worst seasons in a generation probably isn’t the time for St. Louis to commit to running it back deep into the future.”
No kidding, Tim.
At this point, it is hard to see how anyone would give Goldy more than two years at any price. He turns 37 one month from today. I’d guess the Cards offer one year with a team option for year two. The price will be a fraction of the $26 million he makes now.
P.S. As much flak as Gorman takes, his OPS right now is identical to Goldy’s (.677), with the former having more home runs and more RBI than the latter. If forced to choose between the two, I’d take the younger player with upside over the declining 37-year-old.
I think there would have to be some meaningful counting stat goal that everyday fans would buy into, like 700 homers or 200 wins. Goldy doesn’t have the icon status of Pujols, and even Yadi wore pretty thin without the counting stat plot line to distract from the on field performance. (The Yadi/Adam tandem start counting stat was a stretch too far for regular fans, although talking heads got some mileage out of it.)
It would be hard to justify a glove only first baseman, and I don’t see the fan base or local media buying in to that. Save us the suffering and give him the puppy this year.
To be fair, there is always the issue of needing to fill any hole you create. People say Baker or Gorman. Either of those could easily flop as bad as trotting the desicated remains of Goldy out there all year. People say Burleson but his OPS+ vs LHP is 46, so you are building a platoon into it from the start. You need the other half taking up a roster slot and fighting for DH turns, and you are opening a hole in the outfield for which there is not a slam dunk answer.
Goldy has his own split problem too, vs righties. To avoid that you plug in a lefty like Burly. Typically vs righties is an everyday player, so Goldys now the short platoon and the starter?
He can provide some slg% vs righties, but the obp is really not playable, unless an overall Gorman type result is acceptable.
I get your point. It was not misinformation. Rather, it was just one person’s made up nonsense that happened to get legs.
It happens with the so-called ‘legacy’ new outlets, also.
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