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It should be interesting to see how these three perform in spring training. Not sure if there’s room for all three to make the club out of spring training. I’m guessing at least one will.
My guess is that the OF coming out of ST will be O’Neill, Carlson, Nootbaar, Yepez, and Burleson. Unless they add a veteran LH bat, like Brantley.
Typical roster is going to have 13 position players – 2 catchers, 6 infielders, and 5 outfielders. Since the 2 extra infielders are DeJong and Gorman/Donovan, you probably have to categorize Yepez as an outfielder.
According to what you put out there, you have one too many already. Pick two Gorman-DeJong-Yepes. The team has several INFers that can fill in in the OF, Yepes-Edman-Donovan. And they should give Gorman a LFer’s glove this Spring. Put them in any category you want…. its the 13 spots that matters. And there’s a strong possibility the 14 you have up there won’t be the same going North at the end of ST.
I listed 13. The Gorman/Donovan is one of the 2 will start.
Catcher(2) – Contreras and Knizner or Herrera
IF(6) – Goldy, Nado, Edman, Donovan, Gorman, and DeJong.
OF(5) – TO, Carlson, Noot, Yepez, Burleson
That’s 13.
I find it interesting that Gomez appears to be the best power-hitting prospect in baseball, and we all just lump him in the Adolis Garcia category of players whose wart (singular) is too profound to allow him to flourish.
By best prospect, I am solely referring to production and exit velocity in AA and AAA.
I would be fine with Adolis Garcia in CF next year. Admittedly his arm and glove are superior to Moises, but his bat may be slightly worse.Isn’t it time for somebody to take a long drink from the reality jug and do what needs to be done with de Jong?
“Isn’t it time for somebody to take a long drink from the reality jug and do what needs to be done with De Jong?”
I hear you. It’s been very frustrating the past few years. But 12 months ago we all though Matt Carpenter was completely washed up — and back then he was eight years older than Paul DeJong is right now. Maybe we can get the Yankees or Rangers to fix DeJong for us. Hardy, har, har.
The frustration might be large, but the risk with DeJong is small. I’m 90-99% sure that the club (both front office and manager) currently considers Tommy Edman to be the starting St. Louis shortstop, not anyone else. But if, just for the sake of discussion, Brendan Donovan has a horrible sophomore slump, and Nolan Gorman does NOT look like he can play the keystone, then the possibility arises of Edman returning to 2nd base and DeJong to short. I don’t see it happening, but then I’ve been wrong before once or twice.
DeJong is 28 years old, and still has the talent inside of him to be a league-average batter, in my opinion. The question is, do the Cardinals have the individual(s) to get him back to that point?
“I find it interesting that Gomez appears to be the best power-hitting prospect in baseball, and we all just lump him in the Adolis Garcia category of players whose wart (singular) is too profound to allow him to flourish.”
Back in 2021, the man had a slugging percentage of .309 in Double-A.
Then it was .705 in 2022. An increase in slugging % of nearly 400 points is the greatest year-over-year jump that I ever heard of. To be blunt, if any hitter in any other organization saw an increase like that, I would simply assume the new power was achieved chemically, not naturally. Call me a world-weary cynic, but in my mind that’s by far the most logical explanation. Unholy power from a guy listed at 5’11”, and who was probably on the verge of disappearing from professional baseball, and had never hit like that before? The simplest answer is usually the correct one.I could be mistaken about Moises Gomez, but I just think 2022 was a complete and utter fluke, if it was even achieved legitimately. And I suspect the Redbird front office, and other organizations, sees things the same way, or at least mostly so.
“I hear you. It’s been very frustrating the past few years. But 12 months ago we all though Matt Carpenter was completely washed up.”
True. But the other side of that coin is that if we had held Carpenter in St. Louis for another year he could have continued his downward slide and be denied the opportunity to resurrect his career.
Thank you Bob for backing up my statement. The greatest jump in slugging pct…evah!
While I agree with your premise, are you really convicting a kid without any evidence? Am I correct that Gomez is only subject to random testing and may never even take one. or has he been testing and come out clean. Having watched him quit a bit, he reminds me of George Bell. Both were dominant sluggers who seemingly came out of nowhere.Bob, some may agree with you about PDJ but I think most feel like I do! He has gotten worse every season for 5 years! Even he will find it hard to get worse than he was last year but I believe it is possible! No other team would have been sticking him out there day after day to fail! If we don’t have better players than him we are in deep trouble! One of the 4 or 5 worst hitters I think I have ever seen! By the end of the year pitchers with 91 or 92 mph fastball would throw it right down the middle and he couldn’t even foul it off! It is ridiculous for him to still be on the roster!
We know PDJ will be in camp and getting reps. We also saw last year, in Memphis once he settled in there, and for a brief spurt in STL, that he has the capacity to hit. We also know its his contract year. And we know there was a coaching shake up including on the hitting side. Given all that, who knows what will happen?
Did you see Carp in the playoffs? It wasn’t pretty at all, which meant it was very familiar. A single, no walks and 9 Ks in 12 at-bats. The Yanks did not ask him back.
bling, it is good to see some optimism… DeJong is an interesting place to show it…
Easy to agree with you both Steve. Bob makes a good point about depth and you are not wrong about PDJ’s production.
At best he’s a bridge to Winn, but he’s running out of leash, and his fate belongs to him.
PDJ is 141 for 718 for a 196 average in the last three years! Yes he has had a good week here or there but those are his numbers! To me, enough is enough! We have younger players that are not gonna get valuable mlb reps they need because we are giving them to PDJ and that makes no sense to me!
bling, it is good to see some optimism… DeJong is an interesting place to show it…
To be fair, I didn’t say what I consider likely. We all know what is likely. But I do know what I saw for 150 or so PAs in July and early August, and it was a 1.000+ OPS. The physical capacity is there, but the head piece keeps going sideways. I consider it worth the price of admission this spring to see what happens.
As to Carp, he was out for a couple months and came back cold turkey because there was no minor league season left to get in any rehab. I don’t consider his post season any indicator. For the Yankees, Carp was a 99 year old injury fill in flier who didn’t cost anything.
Paul Dejong is little more than one league average season from being an all time Cardinal great. If he hits .259 with 30 doubles and 25 homers, look at his all time numbers. He may be number one in homers in club history at SS.
PDJ has never had a season where he hit 259 with 30 doubles and 25 homers so that would be his all time greatest season! I would bet my house that ain’t gonna happen this year or any other year!
It would have been brutal getting benched and optioned out after 5 years in the bigs. Similar to Matt Carpenter signing a minor league contract. I don’t remember much in the way of sulking or complaining from either. The odds may be long but I wish them both well, except when we are playing the Padres. But this year, if Paul is not making it happen in ST, I don’t think we will have to watch the futility much or at all once the season starts.
When you get to looking at the roster like this, I think it makes sense why they didn’t bring in a FA outfielder, which would relegate one of Yepez, Gorman, or Burleson back to AAA.
The AAA lineup is already pretty full though, with Herrera back, and likely Winn at SS. Walker, Gomez, and Mercado in the OF. Robertson and Luken Baker back as well. Fermin and Querecuto rounding it out. Putting Burleson back in AAA, for instance, doesn’t really help him or the other two major leaguers. All three have already had over 500 PAs at AAA.
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