- This topic has 161 replies, 27 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I need help here … completely dumbfounded by this move for sure.
Unfortunately, I have been able to watch only a couple of games this season. I have had to listen to the radio broadcast. I have not left these games feeling that the catcher is horrible and that is the primary issue for pitching performances to date. Am I wrong?
Can’t the bench signal in pitches if pitch calling is the issue?
I cannot believe they better off removing Contreras as the every day catcher as planned. Let him play out the season, see if things improve and trade him if they do not. IMO, they have significantly diminished his trade value while turning over the day-to-day duties to two journeymen catchers (at best).
All I can say is wow!
The pitchers have pitch com and can call their own pitches. They can also just shake off and not a throw a pitch they don’t agree with. This is why I don’t have a clue why this is happening. Seems like the easiest fix to me, rather than scapegoating your brand new catcher and possibly ruining the relationship for good.
If it is the pitcher who doesn’t want to use pitch com but instead blame Contreras, well then I have no sympathy, either call your own pitches or shut the **ll up.
Not letting your 87 M dollar catcher catch for stupid and easily fixed reasons is imbecilic to the extreme.
Everyone knows that the Cardinals front office has an analytics department, everyone does now days. But did you know they basically have two of them? One is called Analytics and the other is Baseball Systems. I’ve been watching that situation grow like fungus on a dead rabbit in the back yard for a few years.
The job titles of the people could as easily go in one department as the other. Analytics has a Lead Data Scientist and Systems has a Lead Data Engineer. Analytics also has a Senior Data Scientist, which is somehow different from a Lead Data Scientist, and you must need to have both. Systems not only has a Lead Data Engineer, but also a Systems Engineer, an Analytics Engineer, an Applications Engineer, a Lead Applications Engineer, a Senior Lead Aplication Engineer and a Lead Cloud Architect. I like that last one. Wow. A crusty baseball guy is supposed to wade into that?
Somebody posted some tweets from former Cardinal minor league pitcher Paul Schwendel. He was real concerned about who knew what about all the gadgets, “trackman/raposo/new age pitching techniques and training methodologies”. Its no wonder he couldn’t pitch, he was looking for answers from a machine that never played the game, and so were the people who were supposed to teach him.
I get that data and science can be useful tools, but it makes a shitty baseball religion. It is now expected to do more than it can do. It can supply information but not answers. It can advise but not make decisions. Baseball is a game played by people and not everything that matters can be effectively quantified. The computers can’t help you with that. You can’t watch a young player with your face stuck in the display screen. You are going to miss what needs to be seen.
1964cards says this about the Contreras situation. IMO, they have significantly diminished his trade value while turning over the day-to-day duties to two journeymen catchers (at best)
This is so true but add on that Kizner will be playing while Gorman, Donovan, Edman, Burleson and Yepes are not in the lineup.
The Contreras contract is now a huge problem (Fowler II…. the money could have been better spent elsewhere.) because its for five years. Many of the guy here commented that it was a terrible acquisition from day 1. I just wanted the FO to add a solid catcher. I thought we had one but it seems I was wrong.
From the out of sight, out of mind Dept….. what will become of O’Neill??
This house of “cards” was put together on a windy day.
Conteras can be a fine DH but that is not what they gave him $87M for and he will blocking several younger players. He is now basically another JD Martinez or Nelson Cruz yet the Cardinals could have signed either of them on one year deals, not 5 years $87M.
Here are our most logical trade candidates as we get closer to the trade deadline:
1. Montgomery: He is in his final year of team control and should have some value even as a rental.
2. Flaherty: He is in the final year of team control and I don’t see him back next year. He probably has little value but we should be able to at least get a low level prospect for him.
3. Burleson: He is a DH who is now blocked from that opportunity.
4. Yepez: See above.
5. DeJong: He is on the final guaranteed year of his contract and might fetch a low level prospect.
6. VerHagen, Stratton, Hicks: All three are in the final year of control and you might get a low level prospect back.
You could also probably move Helsley or Gallegos but those guys could still have value for the Cardinals if used properly.
Mikolas and Matz are untradeable because of their contracts.
I wouldn’t try to trade Contreras. Trading a guy this early into a five year contract would send a terrible message to future potential free agents. We are just going to have to ride it out with him as DH for the foreseeable future.
I should also add O’Neill to the trade list. We should probably move him before he loses all of his value. He might be a non-tender candidate at the end of this year.
What is Happening In St. Louis?
The Willson Contreras saga is bewildering but it’s only the most recent move in a string of questionable roster management decisions. https://t.co/eY6NhFFJAJ pic.twitter.com/HKe811a6ya
— viva el birdos (@vivaelbirdos) May 7, 2023
Making Sense Of The Cardinals Roster Drama https://t.co/m5yel2umTJ
— viva el birdos (@vivaelbirdos) May 7, 2023
There is some incomprehensible word salad from Marmol in three tweets from Jeff Jones about the Contreras situation. I am not posting it here.
It seems the Cardinal front office personnel have been taken over by zombies – like in “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.” Lately their decisions seem to be more and more bizarre and non-sensical.
Just a day later and the FO is already backtracking on some of the Contreras things they were just saying yesterday.
Wow. This is a must read. I’m trying to figure out what changed so quickly from yesterday? #stlcards https://t.co/a0Ba7Q89MO pic.twitter.com/rHGF49XiSK
— Brooke Grimsley (@BrookeGrimsley) May 7, 2023
The amount of incompetence and dysfunction being displayed is an indictment against this FO. Mozeliak needs to be fired. DeWitt wont fire him but he should be fired. This is ridiculous.
Meanwhile in other Cardinals news, here is John Denton holding Mo’s and Marmol’s water:
This is what #STLCards manager Oli Marmol (far left) talked about during the pregame — having catcher/DH Willson Contreras (far right) close by in the dugout to talk through situations with he and pitching coach Dusty Blake (center). pic.twitter.com/vEPctIwHdM
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) May 7, 2023
Everything Marmol said today, that Denton reported on, is just gibberish. Contreras isn’t a rookie ball catcher just drafted out of high school. He’s been a catcher for 8 freaking years and has won a WS ring. Making him out to be the scapegoat for the FO not fixing the pitching issues is disgusting.
More Marmol on Contreras: "(cont.) … understanding our internal system of executing the game plan for each individual pitcher. The reality is, it's more than he's ever had to do. Nothing against the way he's done it, but it's very different & it's a lot of work.”
(2/2, end)
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) May 7, 2023
It’s real simple. Marnol’s got to go. And I’ll add that in light of the most recent excessively surreal events, I’m beginning to feel as though there’s a sliver of a chance that Johnny may be losing a little sleep. I’m entirely aware that he seems untouchable, but everyone’s mortal.
Making him out to be the scapegoat for the FO not fixing the pitching issues is disgusting.
Mo can’t blame injuries this year, so he has to blame something else, its really that simple.
I don’t have numbers, but I don’t remember the pitchers getting destroyed every time Romines was back there, and he couldn’t have known any more about the pitchers and how we do things than Contreras. And Romines hadn’t been an everyday catcher for 8 years including for a WS winner.
My understanding is that they announced the outfield thing before talking to Contreras about it. He asked if he could focus on catching and DH only. They agreed.
FWIW, I get where Contreras is coming from. If they want him to improve as a catcher, learning the outfield would be a waste of time.
So it is less of a flip-flop and more of the Cardinals not being coordinated. Not sure which is worse.
There is a danger in making conclusions from snippets of an article without having read the whole thing. But snippets is all I could do, not being a subscriber to The Athletic.
Among other aspects, I am particularly interested in whether Mo fleshed out the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ as to Contreras returning to catching. It seems like the interviewer would have inquired about how that might go and when. Making a rather enigmatic statement, and just leaving it at that, invites wild and crazy speculation without providing guidance or boundaries. I wonder to what extent that aspect of this was fleshed out in the conversation with Willson, once it belatedly happened. He seems just as confused about all this as we are.
I imagine they don’t know how it is going to play out so better to not close off any possibilities. By default, there will be speculation no matter what is said or not said. It is a mess and will continue to be.
Rosenthal now has a “they should have known better” article up. Figures he might as well capitalize on the mayhem while he has a chance.
I’d like to know who thought publicly humiliating Willson was the way to go. There is a tactic that never backfires.
I noticed that Mo shot down the shake off alternative by arguing the pitch clock, but pitch com was not mentioned. Pitchers can call their own pitches relatively easy now you know. And what better way to learn your pitchers?
Pitchers can call their own pitches relatively easy now you know
We just faced Ohtani who was calling his own pitches using a device strapped to his upper arm under his sleeve. Pitchcom I guess. The announcers mentioned it a couple times.
As I have mentioned, if Romines can handle it, Contreras can handle it. The whole thing is nonsense. Mo is desperate for any excuse other than his system is broken and his philosophy sucks. The clumsy handling ads another layer of embarrassment.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.