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The possible replacements at 1B is also an interesting consideration. Gorman, Burleson, Walker among them. And I’m pretty sure Saggese could be groomed to play 1B. If his bat would merit it with no openings at 2B or 3B.
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With all due respect, Saggese is hitting .226 at Memphis with a .692 OPS. And you want him at first base?!?!?
As another poster pointed out, the Cards have a lot of guys. So far, Masyn Winn & Nolan Gorman are the only two worth getting excited about. The rest until they prove otherwise, are just guys.
1B is of interest to me, but not because I am overwhelmed by our excess quality. Goldy will be gone. We know Baker and Burleson can play 1B, but don’t know if either could play it every day at the ML level. Gorman and Walker we know about even less. But all are possibles. Only Baker would not open a hole elsewhere on the ML roster. A hard to fill hole despite what some imagine. I would mention that Saggese is hitting .225 in AAA right now, so lets quit talking about him for a few months and see what happens.
Saggese? .225 in AAA. With a 692 ops? And that profiles as a MLB first baseman how?
There is a complete basic misunderstanding of MLB positional performance requirements/expectations by some here.
BR has the Cardinals 30th at SP & CF, by war.
The only two in-house starters I like for 2025 are Gray and Gibson (TBD). That’s pretty lame.
The CF’rs behind Edman are not starter quality for 2025 and Edman is a FA after 2025. Looks real thin.
We used to have a lineup that made Edmans league avg bat look weak. Now we’re getting plus D in Siani, buts it’s not 50-ish ops+ pts better than Edmans CF D.
BOCfan, you underestimated Burleson, too. Some posters have a better ability to project than others. Saggese is going to be a very good MLB hitter. Not sure if either Burleson or Saggese will be able to put up the numbers preferred at 1B. But I wouldn’t count them out just yet.
Shady, I think you are penciling in the new shiny young guys like they are guaranteed to be quality MLB starters. That isn’t how prospects work as most bust. Prieto and Fermin aren’t even highly rated prospects either. Most outlets see Prieto as a decent bench player who can hit a little, but doesn’t walk, can’t field well, and doesn’t hit for power. Fermin is likly just a poor bench or depth type. Saggesse is more highly rated, but his upside looks to be a Donovan type, but that is still only a chance.
You also have to consider the AAA environment is a hitters paradise and many guys stats are elevated by the league. Public orgs and teams themselves have minors translation to MLB expected stats. The crazy thing is for AAA pitchers, they expect that the AAA stats are about what you would see in MLB just due to the hitters environment. Hitters see a massive drop in OPS for MLB translations. It varies player to player as well based off the skillsets. I wouldn’t know much more about the exact OPS drop as Dan Zymborski (ZIPs guy) mentioned this in one of his chats and I am regurgitating what I recall from that chat.
ATM, that’s interesting. Just curious, did you project Burleson’s development into a very good MLB hitter? Many posters really doubted him as he was developing at the MLB level. I just liked his bat to ball skills. Regardless of the stats at the time. I believe there’s more power to come from Burly.
Sorry that you find it necessary to personalize each of my posts.
I don’t agree with your assessments here but you are most welcome to opine regardless of factual backup.
I am hopeful the Cardinals can find lower cost prospects to fill high value slots. But given the front offices’ recent record I find that unlikely as a successful business model.
Additionally, constantly asking/forcing players to slide into defensive positions they are unaccustomed to….has led to a serious regression in the teams previously elite defense the past few (post Shildt) years.
If sellers and he stays healthy, Helsley could get us a nice return similar to what the Yankees did with Chapman back in ‘16.
And I would think Goldy could fit somewhere for a contender, but it’s a little more complicated.
Kittredge is likely gone. I would be surprised if he is a Cardinal in August in fact, although you can make the case that if we get hot and are within say 5 games of Milwaukee in late July, everyone stays and we add players. Then we might do some roster tweaks where we release Crawford and perhaps Carpenter. Leadership? Bah-humbug!!!
I would be surprised if the Cardinals actually sell at all. Of the 15 teams in the NL guess how many of them currently have a winning record? The answer is 4. The Cardinals can continue to bumble around at .500 and stay in the playoff mix so they might look to add modestly at the deadline.
I am not saying that would be the smart move long term because it isn’t but I don’t think they want to sell two years in a row and look at a ton of empty seats in August and September. They are probably hemorrhaging revenue right now so they need to sell tickets.
Yeah, it seemed to me that expanding to 12 postseason berths reduced the amount of activity at the trade deadline. As long as there’s a sliver of hope, it’s difficult for an organization to hold a fire sale and give the impression to their fans that they’ve packed it in.
Shady, I don’t want to devolve another thread into a Burly conversation
I’ll just say I trust professionals whom their whole career is built off analyzing prospects more than you, other posters on this site, or even my own evaluations. Will the professionals be wrong sometimes? Absolutely as baseball is very hard to predict, but they are going to be right much more often than even knowledgeable fans. They also are paid to analyze all systems and aren’t going to have as much bias as fans of a specific team.
Again and with all due respect, Burleson is NOT a very good MLB hitter! He’s worked hard and in his third year he’s now an AVERAGE MLB hitter. This cannot be disputed in a reasonable way.
Burleson has a .755 OPS & 114 OPS+. Sure, on the Cards that may seem like a very good hitter, but in reality, its average. It’s not terrible, but it sure isn’t All Star caliber either.
Now allow me to be fair. Nolan Gorman has a .809 OPS & a 129 OPS+ and I wouldn’t say he’s a “very good mlb hitter” either.
So Mr Shady, my advice is to cool your jets a bit on your Beloved Burleson as well as your new pet projects like Saggese, Prieto, or Fermin. Yes, we all want them to become stars and help the Cards win games. But it’s far from a sure thing.
He’s not been around long enough to be termed a “very good” Big League hitter, but you pretty much have to acknowledge that he’s turned things around in the last few weeks. I mean, he’s collected 33 hits in the last month of games. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Maybe I overdo it with Burleson. But he has helped keep the Cardinals team heads above water since Contreras went down. There was some discussion this week between by some quality local radio personalities speculating that Burleson is the best hitter the team, right now. The way Burly, Winn and Gorman have progressed. Get Goldy and Arenado going. Add Contreras and Edman and the Cardinals might have something going. Carlson could be “icing on the cake” if he gets it going. Of course, the pitching needs to hold up.
The anti Shady/Burly crowd are showing their true selves again. Just the same. Burleson has hit a number of ground balls this season within reach of MLB infielders that were hit so hard that MLB infielders couldn’t handle them. Very, very impressive velo. I wish some of them were over the fence. The anti Burly crowd can’t seem to fathom just how consistently hard Burleson hits MLB pitching. They likely feel he should be at Memphis. lol
Yeah LA is right. No one wants to see Burly fail as the Cards need all the talent they can get. But there are so many conversations he is brought up that he doesn’t need to be involved in. Everyone here knows Shady thinks of Burly like his son/grandson and nothing other than pure complements will do; not everyone feels the same on his potential, but to each there own.
And I’m nauseated by hyper-sensitive posters that have undermined Burleson and me for supporting him for a couple seasons. Now, many of the doubters of the past are jumping on board for Burleson. Many of the doubters now have a problem admitting that my loyalty in the past, not their’s, is coming to fruition. Message boards are so entertaining. At least this one is fairly civil.
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