- This topic has 676 replies, 43 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
14NyquisT said:
This description was evident before the 4yr contract.
Interesting assertion. The facts indicate Fowler’s two best career offensive seasons were his last in Chicago (123 OPS+) and first season in St. Louis (122 OPS+). He was age 30 and 31 at the time.
As far as Mr. Bornhop’s analysis, yes, Fowler dropped off significantly in multiple offensive categories in 2018 and 2019 to date. Yes, he is getting older, as all players (and message board posters!). Is any of this honestly a surprise to anyone?
As far as Mr. Bornhop’s analysis, yes, Fowler dropped off significantly in multiple offensive categories in 2018 and 2019 to date. Yes, he is getting older, as all players (and message board posters!). Is any of this honestly a surprise to anyone?
Perhaps it is to the front office?
Yes, I am sure that is it. Hopefully they will swing by Cardsblog and become enlightened. Problem solved!
Fowler’s Cubs history is interesting. He was only there two years. He was traded there in 2015 in his final year before free agency. That next winter, he supposedly backed out of a three-year deal with the Orioles over an opt-out. Instead, he re-signed with the Cubs for 2016.
Fowler and the Cubs also had a mutual option for 2017 that Fowler declined. The Cubs made him a qualifying offer and he declined. So it appeared they may have wanted him, but only for another year. They signed Jon Jay instead.
So at the end of Spring training the team was touting Dexter’s exit velocity as to why they were sticking with him. So now in the season his exit velocity is now lower than last year’s abysmal number so why isn’t that a reason to justify him sitting?
The problem with Fowler’s drop in production is how far his production dropped. No one expected him to fall off a cliff like this.
I know the team said they wanted him to focus on exit velocity during spring training, but I did not see reference to that being the reason he was starting in the regular season. If I recall, that decision was made before camp even began.
Here’s an MLB article to seems to support Brians above comment: https://www.mlb.com/news/cardinals-commit-to-dexter-fowler-in-rf-c301691522
At this point, though, Jose Martinez is a career .300 hitter and should be starting over Fowler. The Cardinals really don’t their investment in Fowler to be for naught but Fowler is not even the same player he was in 2017.
The huge contract most likely sapped the enthusiasm and the will to succeed right out of Dexter. It doesn’t make him a bad person. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that Dexter did not intentionally cut back on his training or preparation. Matter of fact, he probably trained in the same fashion as he always had except for one thing….the gusto to succeed was absent from his routine. It could easily happen to any one of us. Just as any of us would really never know how we would act if we were to suddenly find ourselves smack dab in the middle of an active shooter situation, the same can be said of how we would act or change if suddenly we had 50 million bucks in our possession?
Regardless, the team went to the press using exit velocity to justify to the fans why they were right to be sticking with Fowler. Shildt even said “we are able to validate what we speak about” in the article. Yet they can no longer validate it and nothing changes. I am not particularly down on Mo or Shildt but dont try to play me for a fool.
I don’t think they are messaging for you, CC, so I wouldn’t take personal affront with it. I sense the management has gone hard to the side of being supportive of Fowler after what happened last year. Making positive comments publicly are likely a part of that. They aren’t going to abandon that plan two weeks into the season.
Still, I imagine is it only expected to buy a bit of breathing room, as I bet that every single Cardinals watcher in the world knows of Fowler’s troubles. As has been discussed extensively over the prior 25 pages of this thread, the only real question is how long they will stay with him if the results don’t come. The numbers are there on the screen for us all to see, so why get upset over what you are reading into their messages?
Fowler has no value to this team unless he’s getting on base. I honestly think pitchers no longer respect him. So he has to go out and earn that respect again.
It should be a time share and honestly it should be based on limited stats due to Martinez’s limited exposure. Now Fowler should never see a lefty again and in many circumstances Martinez should play against righties. If they want to play Fowler then it needs to be limited until it’s proven he can no longer cut it. Play him 2 times a week if Martinez shines and have him be a cheerleader for now.
“Now Fowler should never see a lefty again and in many circumstances Martinez should play against righties.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself, booyah.
Starting Fowler against any lefties, while Jose Martinez is available, constitutes managerial negligence.Martinez, career, versus southpaws: .325/.400/.550
And as you insightfully opined, my fellow fan, Dexter should never see certain righties either, i.e., the ones who qualify as “power pitchers” per Baseball-Reference. Fowler’s OPS against such pitchers has plummeted from .806 in 2016 to .635 in 2017, then finally to .443 last year. (Martinez has a career OPS just over .700 when facing said moundsmen. Not world-beating, but vastly superior to Delicate Dexter.)
Obviously the best thing for the organization would simply be to release Fowler and platoon Martinez and Tyler O’Neill in right field for the remainder of the season. Per Fangraphs, since the start of last year Dex is tied for the 4th-worst position player in the majors with a total “value” of minus 1.4 WAR, from a .569 OPS and negative nine runs on defense. Rotten in 2018, rotten in Spring Training, rotten so far in 2019.
Playing him doesn’t save any money. Not a nickel. And releasing him doesn’t cost any meaningful money of course, since he’d promptly be replaced by dirt cheap internal options — but oh the public humiliation for all involved, if Dexter were given those walking papers.
Playing him doesn’t save any money. Not a nickel. And releasing him doesn’t cost any meaningful money of course, since he’d promptly be replaced by dirt cheap internal options — but oh the public humiliation for all involved, if Dexter were given those walking papers.
Well said Bob. You hit the nail on the head there. Admitting mistakes is not a strength of this FO.
One of the P-D writers made a comment the other day that Shildt has probably very quietly implemented a platoon in RF without stating so. Look at the AB’s.
Fowler- 34
JMart-27
O’Neill-22Not a lot of difference there. Fowler may start the game but one of the other two usually finishes the game. Sometimes they finish for Ozuna as well.
VEB has an article up now that since June of last year, Martinez is approximately a league average hitter (103 wRC+). Have a look:
https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2019/4/12/18301860/jose-martinez-cardinals-victim-of-pitching-analytics
well stlcard25, I read that or tried to. its a lot of useless stuff. anybody could have seen that watched the games, that Martinez trailed off the second half of last year. this year he isn’t getting as much opportunity so I wouldn’t count it. I do remember him getting a game winning hit the other day. what that article doesn’t tell you but you should already know is that fowler is a well below average hitter. so even if you say Martinez is average, he still is a big improvement over fowler.
Fowler’s current 2019 stats:
.313/.403/.433/.836
OPS+ 125
bWAR 0.7 (third among position players behind DeJong and Goldschmidt)Fowler’s career stats:
.263/.361/.420/.781
OPS+ 106I just love reading back in this thread. Now I have to go warm up the crow. How do you fellows like yours – rare or well done? Now it is time to choose a new victim to put on the spit.
Obviously, his numbers on 4/23 will hold up through September. Show some patience before you pass that crow across the table.
Not to worry. Enough crow to feed the masses at the end of the season. Personally my own discomfort is with Superstar Carpenter but if he keeps hitting those doubles to Braun I will be content. He will soon be able to have a #1 tattooed on his arm to indicate his permanent batting position.
I think a lot of Dex’s comments from last season were the result of pure frustration. A lot was expected of him and little was delivered. The entire fan base and even the management was down on him. I don’t think his comments were any worse than what Pham did and he seems to have a lot of supporters that blame the FO for his leaving. In my view it was good riddance – you can only have one team – the Cardinals – and not room for Team Pham. But that is history so why digress.
Sorry to be Debbie Downer concerning good ole Dexter but going into last night his exit velocity was 83.9 mph, which ranked 331st in MLB and his BABIP was .386, which is not really sustainable.
Derrick Goold had a series of tweets and observations about Fowler and fans yesterday. Here are a couple of examples.
Dexter Fowler received so much of the attention (again) in the weekly chat, and the cherry-picking for flaws continues to confound me, somewhat. #warbling https://t.co/39MvSCRXKF #Cardinals #stlcards #MLB
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) April 23, 2019
Within the chat today there was a question about Dexter Fowler's low average exit velocity. A good question. And it prompted a look into what he was lacking: fly balls. Waay off his career norm — and those are high exit-velo balls in play. More here: https://t.co/39MvSCRXKF
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) April 23, 2019
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.