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2024 was not great. It felt terrible to a lot of us mostly because we grew so disappointed in a few areas of the team. The team hit terrible with runners in scoring position. Goldschmidt declined rapidly and began striking out a ton and led the team in terrible hitting with runners in scoring position (if you don’t count Siani, who I guess was actually worse). Walker and Gorman greatly disappointed on offense and Carlson pretty much did as well, although he may have been brought back early from injury. To sum it up, the offense sucked. You know that already.
The pitching and defense were mostly ok. The team had one glaring weakness on defense and the starters were ho-hum, but overall, the run prevention side of the house did all right. The bullpen was extremely good with the back end of the bullpen being really fantastic to help keep the team afloat. If we had a “normal” closer, the team almost assuredly finishes below .500.
Let’s take a look at each position and how the team performed compared to other teams. And with that, let’s decide if we think 2025 will be better or worse.
Starting off at Catcher. The Cardinals employed 3 catchers – Contreras, Herrera, and Pages.
OPS: .794
Defensive Runs Saved: -4
WAR: 4.9That WAR was the 3rd highest for a position across all of baseball. The Cardinals catchers really knocked it out of the park. The defense was a bit of a struggle, which mostly showed up in the lack of control over the run game. Some of that could be on our pitchers, but overall, that aspect was fairly pathetic. But hitting? Our catchers were great at that! Even Pages, who is a fairly poor hitter, hit quite well in the moments that mattered.
Where does that leave us in 2025? The unit almost certainly regresses. With Contreras stepping out to be a DH/1B player, we’re left with a split between Herrera and Pages soaking up most of the innings. Perhaps Crooks shows up later in the season due to injury, but he probably doesn’t help much being that those would be his first MLB innings. Herrera is a good hitter, but he’s not going to run a BABiP like he did last season. My guess is this group overall falls from 3rd best to something like 20th best across baseball. That’s a bit of a bummer to start this conversation off, but the good news is that there’s hope for many other positions as we go through this discussion.
Thoughts on the Catcher position next year? Will they be able to improve on throwing out runners? How well will they hit? Will Contreras be pushed back into the position due to injury or ineffectiveness?
As I mentioned on another thread, the Cardinals spent $87 million on a catcher and still need a catcher. Herrera is not going to work out. He could double his CS% and still be bad. Pages could improve with the bat and still be bad. Crooks looked good in the Texas league like countless other guys who never panned out. Bernal has yet to play a season vs big kids. Personally, I think Contreras will not serve out his contract in St. Louis. I think the hope is he will be good enough at 1B to attract more trade interest than as a catcher/DH. Herrera will be moved as well as part of a move away from one dimensional players clogging the roster.
So, they committed $17.5 million per season for five years on a first baseman going forward who had already proven to be the best hitter on the team two years in a row despite the additional wear and tear of catching. This is nowhere near their biggest problem.
I don’t know if any of the positions will be better in 2025 than they were in 2024. 2025 is going to be a year of exploration and finding out what we really have in certain young players. I’m still not convinced that a majority of our fanbase is ready to accept that.
We give Winn credit for his line drives and opposite field skills. So far in their mlb careers, Herrera leads him in both catagories.
Having a $17.5 Million per year good hitting first baseman will not be a problem if he can play 1B. That small detail is unknown. But the point was they spent their catcher budget and still need a catcher.
What catcher budget? You are making stuff up. Talking about position budgets as if they are real is absurd.
But since you want to play make-believe, they freed up their $32.5 million first base budget by letting Goldy plus Carpenter go. Since the two remaining catchers make about a million and a half between them, that is a lot of budget space made available between the two positions.
But I don’t think the Cardinals wanted to find a first baseman elsewhere. That would cost money they probably don’t want to spend. And then, if Contreras was in LF, there would be the question of what to do with Nootbaar…
It doesn’t take a lot of skill to play DH which is where I think he will be a majority of the time. Mo never said that Contreras would be the everyday 1B.
To prevent Willson returning to catcher, and the uncertainty of Herrera as the everyday catcher, is a glove first vet necessary for catcher depth? Or is sink or swim on the 26man the correct approach for Pages?
I hope what they do is make due with what they’ve got until the next best hope comes along, which is Crooks, currently.
We covered Catcher. Overall, it looks like 2025 will be worse. It’s almost impossible to get better in the batters box and unlikely they’ll be better at defense. It is possible they see some improvement in framing and pitch selection as Contreras was not known for either.
Moving on to 1B. Here are the main 1B stats in 2024:
OPS: .758, 0 OAA, 2.2 WAR
Also note: with runners in scoring position, Goldschmidt struck out 28.5% of the time, had a .077 ISO, .203 batting average, and hit 40% below league average.
Just considering WAR, the Cardinals were 9th best in baseball at 1B. Overall, with just 2.2 WAR, that seems a little shocking. It certainly didn’t feel like 1B was a strength for the team this past season. But WAR doesn’t consider how hitters hit with runners in scoring position, and in that department, Cardinals first basemen (primarily just one) were abysmal. Lots and lots of runners were left stranded and that really set the tone for a frustrating year for fans.
Where does that leave us in 2025? It’s hard to say. It looks like 1B will be manned by some combination of Contreras and Burleson. GScottar and I are both of the belief that it will be Burleson on most days (against righty starters) with Contreras starting against left-handed starters. Contreras would just DH any day he’s not starting at 1B. That makes the most sense to me. Burleson mashes righties and Contreras mashes everyone. Given that Goldschmidt was regressing on defense (as Brian also pointed out in a recent article), I think the defense is probably comparable. My guess is that our defenders a slightly better at fielding balls and slightly worse at receiving throws. Maybe that OAA goes down to -1 or -2. The offense can only get better in situations with runners in scoring position as it’s hard to be worse. And overall, I do think the OPS will rise if we keep Burleson from hitting against same sided pitchers and with Contreras in the mix. The one question mark for me with this strategy is if a right-hander starts the game and then the opponent brings in a lefty, are the Cardinals going to give up their DH by moving Contreras to 1B? Or, are they perhaps going to have Luken Baker on the bench specifically for that situation? That seems like overkill to carry 3 1B/DH guys, but we kind of did that last year with Matt Carpenter and at least in this case Baker would have a purpose where Carpenter really didn’t.
What are your thoughts TCN? Do you think the Cardinals carry all 3 of Contreras, Baker, and Burleson? Does the offense improve at this position? How scared are you that the defense regresses?
As bad as the team was against left handed pitching last year, it feels like Baker will probably be necessary to give us any type of threat off the bench from the right side. Pages, Burleson and Gorman may be our bench bats and none of them give you much of anything against lefties.
Burly should have more leash as an everyday bat in the clubs current developmentally focused approach. Pencil him in wherever, but pencil him in for 600 PA’s.
Your analysis seems accurate to me jnevel. If we do go with three 1B/DH types I hope it is Baker over Carp. We don’t need anymore legacy deals. Having said that it is also possible that Baker gets squeezed off of the 26 man roster. I think he does have one option remaining so he could be stored in Memphis again if we had to.
Burleson:
vs RHP – 821 PA’s – .266/.320/.427/.747 slash line
vs LHP – 174 PA’s – .209/.244/.288/.533 slash lineBaker:
vs RHP – 84 PA’s – .183/.298/.310/.608 slash line
vs LHP – 64 PA’s – .218/.313/.382/.694 slash lineGorman
vs RHP – 957 PA’s – .222/.300/.443/.743 slash line
vs LHP – 222 PA’s – .223/.306/.401/.707 slash linePages
vs RHP – 136 PA’s – .226/.282/.387/.669 slash line
vs LHP – 82 PA’s – .256/.281/.359/.640 slash lineHerrera
vs RHP – 229 PA’s – .307/.383/.427/.810 slash line
vs LHP – 96 PA’s – .247/.323/.329/.652 slash lineContreras
vs RHP – 2765 PA’s – .254/.359/.445/.794 slash line
vs LHP – 947 PA’s – .271/.365/.508/.873 slash lineSince the 2024 offense was horrible, it seems inadvisable to go into 2025 with all the same guys minus Goldy. On the other hand, going with a lame duck PBO and field manager might mean the reset will focus on overhauling the development system and minor league operations, with nothing much happening at the ML level other than letting some younger guys play.
All that said, it would not surprise me at all if they use 1B and DH as a dumping ground for everybody who can hit some but doesn’t fit anywhere else defensively. Platoon bats, oven mitts, no speed, no arm, whatever the’ve got. Run, say, 8,000 simulations to figure out how to maximize the matchups and statistical advantages, and have a combo Chinese fire drill, three ring circus going on out there day in, day out. I expect to see exactly that. If Bloom is smart he will stay at Roger Dean until its over and he assumes command.
But maybe they will do some sorting of the ML roster to clean it up some. Time will tell.
What are your thoughts TCN? Do you think the Cardinals carry all 3 of Contreras, Baker, and Burleson? Does the offense improve at this position? How scared are you that the defense regresses?
No, I don’t think they should carry all three. But I do believe they will.
From purely a roster perspective, I would give Baker the Nick Dunn treatment.
Burleson should not play against LHP’s, and should not play in the outfield.
Herrera should always be in the lineup against RHP’s – either as a catcher or DH. He negates the need for carrying Baker.
As for Contreras – I don’t know how well he’ll be able to handle 1B. There is a lot of footwork there, and he will need to make decisions as to when to come off the base to prevent erratic throws from becoming errors versus trying to record the out.
With the prospect of Contreras manning 1st base, I’m missing Goldy already and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. Even with the immense uncertainty surrounding our Birds, I have a hunch that 2025 will not be the train wreck that many envision. Can’t wait for spring training….it’s only a shade over 3 months away.
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