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Bling, I think the Cardinals are going to add several starting pitchers between now and opening day 2024. Most will be young cheaper guys but of fairly high quality. They really only need to splurge on one elite level $30M per year kind of starter and I think they might do it.
One prime guy and some new names to sort through would be good. The less next year’s laundry list looks like this year’s the better. Thanks for the deadline info.
Bob-
Can you say more about not making giving Flaherty $20 mill for a year? If Mikolas, Matz, and someone acquired at the deadline next week are three of next year’s starters, that still leaves them needing two. Flaherty, even if overpaid, seems to me a plausible candidate. He could be a bridge till either Graceffo or Hence is ready in late 2024/beginning of 2025. That would leave them only needing to win one bidding war in the offseason to round out the rotation. I’d think the price of pitching would go up in the offseason, and winning two bidding wars seems somewhat unlikely Of course, it’s not my money!
That relief appearance they put Libby in made absolutely no sense. He was groomed as a starter and had success, then Marmol upsets the rhythm and calls on him to pitch in relief?? It was just weird when it happened, and with the downward trend since then was either a major mishandling of a top prospect, or possibly a coincidence.
Reminds me a little of the mishandling of Jordan Hicks, although finally he has evolved into a one inning guy.
As for Arenado, I doubt he gets moved but if it happens the Dodgers are the natural destination. Good pitching prospects, plus Nolan would accept a deal there.
Ideally we unload all the guys who are great at looking good once it doesn’t matter anymore. Matz, Flaherty, Liberatore, Hicks, o’Neal, Carlson, Contreras. Once there is no pressure anymore suddenly figuring things out doesn’t mean anything. Keep the guys who had a smokin first third of the season. Give Walker a pass on that since they beamed him up.
Yeah, most anyone can bury 9 of 10 from the charity stripe during drill, but when down by 2 with 3 seconds on the clock that 15 ft. ain’t no bargain.
My all-time favorite NBA player is Rick Barry. He used that underhand free throw technique and would hit 90% of them. He always said that underhand was the best style as you can really deaden the ball on the rim, which allows it to fall through most of the time when you don’t hit it dead center.
Bling – You continuously talk down on Contreras but do not offer tangible proof of why?! Give me good baseball reasons of why you think the Cardinals made a mistake in signing him and what he has done this year that you do not like. According to Baseball Reference he is the number 6 Cardinal batter in terms of war . Also for some reason the table just below all of the pictures on that page shows him in the top spot overall.
Based on that it seems that you just have a personal dislike for Contreras. As I mentioned in a previous post it would not have mattered who was signed to take Yadi’s place, most on this board would have found something wrong with him. The poor pitching woes cannot be blamed on Contreras. The pitchers are not executing this year and adding to that we have a pitching coach who has never been a pitching coach before.
Contreras certainly hasn’t lived up to expectations, but neither has this entire team and I think it’s incredibly unfair and could be termed disgraceful in the sense of the manner in which both Johnny and the Redbird manager have focused on him as a primary source of this team’s failure. I’ve said before that I’m reasonably certain that other players around the league have certainly taken notice of the situation and it’s my view that it will contribute to this organization taking on a bad reputation and will have an adverse effect on the ability to sign FA’s in the future.
1TD – What was expected of Contreras that he has not lived up to? I believe they were looking for more offensive production from the catching spot, knowing they would dip defensively. I believe Contreras has been meeting that part.
To the point above, Contreras’ 2023 OPS+ is 110, 10 percent above the league average hitter. His career mark is 114. Seems to me that expectations of some are too high.
He hasn’t been at all bad, TN. What I was driving at, is that the entire team has been excessively lackluster and Johnny along with his swifty field manager placed him on the hotseat to stand in for each of their own utter failures. The only thing Contreras has done wrong can be compared to Matt Holliday in the sense that he wasn’t Albert Pujols just as in the same sense Contreras isn’t Yadier Molina. At any rate, the charade that Johnny and his field manager played may well backfire on them if it hasn’t already done so.
I agree TD! The blame for this debacle starts at the top.
DeWitt is happy and complacent to draw 3+million fans (which the Cards will do) so he will not fire Mozeliak!
Mozeliak will not admit that relying 100% on Sabermetrics will not get it done and so we will continue to go after the same type of players and coaches as long as he is POBO.
Marmol does not have the in”testical” fortitude to stand up against Mozeliak as he wants to keep his job! (See my earlier post concerning Libby and Shildt as proof.)
TN I mostly object to Willson’s work behind the plate, as catcher is included in defense up the middle, and is a big factor in pitcher effectiveness.
0.2 dWAR in 538 innings. Contrast with Knizner 0.3 in 296, or for example Sean Murphy 0.7 in 583. That is horribly bad. Among the worst in MLB for primary catcher.
Even worse is pitch framing. Baseball Savant has him ranked 48th and with -3 framing runs, both of which are horrible.
He also spent May and much of June sucking at the plate.
I accept you are entitled to your opinion, but in this case it is wrong, IMO.
It is my opinion that the Cardinal brass and scouts woefully underestimated how bad Contreras’ defense and game calling is, even though many others seemed to know. Now that the Cardinals have figured it out they seemed to be panicking and are ready to ship him out, possibly this winter.
I was ok with the signing at the time but I have also come to the conclusion that his defense is inadequate. The difference is that it isn’t my job to figure these things out before doling out $87.5M.
Did the Front Office miss badly on Contreras’ defensive skills, the effectiveness of the pitching staff, the effectiveness of the teams defense or some combination of the three? I cannot put everything on Contreras.
My goal for the trade deadline is to come out of it with
Arenado
Goldschmidt
Gorman
Walker
Donovan
That is a decent offense for next year! I wish we would trade anyone else for any decent offer! I assume we will still have Contreras and Noot so that would give us 7 decent players! So it comes down to can we trade the other 18 or so for 3 good starting pitchers!
My guess is no so at some point we are gonna have to SPEND to get a solid 1 and 2!gscottar said:
It is my opinion that the Cardinal brass and scouts woefully underestimated how bad Contreras’ defense and game calling is, even though many others seemed to know. Now that the Cardinals have figured it out they seemed to be panicking and are ready to ship him out, possibly this winter.
I was ok with the signing at the time but I have also come to the conclusion that his defense is inadequate. The difference is that it isn’t my job to figure these things out before doling out $87.5M.
Ding, ding, ding.
For eight years now, Contreras has been an above average hitter and below average defender. The Cardinals saw that first hand from the other side in more than 100 head-to-head games over seven seasons. This isn’t news.
Like I said before, expectations were out of whack – apparently by the team as well as some fans. Or perhaps the team knew but was willing to accept the negatives after failing to swing a trade for a younger, cheaper catcher. Since then, their public stance regarding Contreras has been one blunder after another as their comments helped devalue their own asset, turning bad to worse.
It follows that Catchergate was some sniveling pitchers and limp wristed coaches looking for a scapegoat to explain their woeful performances.
“Thanks, Bob! I’d managed to forget that relief appearance and had not seen the co-incident velocity problem. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that any physical problem is of the sort that an offseason will help.”
You’re welcome, Gags. I’m trying to stay optimistic, but down in AAA Liberatore’s velocity just keeps deteriorating. Last two starts for Memphis the 4-seamer has averaged 91.5 and 92.2 MPH, compared to an average 4-seam fastball of 94.75 during his excellent 8 early starts, and 95+ in his first MLB start.
Link to Brooks Baseball:
https://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=669461&b_hand=-1&gFilt=&pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&time=game&minmax=ci&var=mph&s_type=2&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=07/26/2023I suspect it’ll be the operating table this winter for Matt. I’m just praying it’s an elbow, not shoulder.
And speaking of Liberatore, somebody mentioned that he hadn’t been “dominant” since A-Ball. I’m not so sure about that. Over those first 8 starts this year in AAA he posted an ERA just above 3.00 in a league where the overall ERA is a morbidly obese 5.24. To me, when you’re beating your league ERA by more than 2 full runs, that easily qualifies as dominant — modest sample size and all.
At any rate, whatever the cause(s) of Liberatore’s massive decline in velocity/effectiveness, we clearly can’t pencil him in for the 2024 Redbird rotation. Or any point beyond that, either.
Fire Marmol. Please.
I’m with you, Steve60, in the context that those are the only 5 names among position players I’d place in the off limits file. Regarding pitchers, I’d add Mikolas and Helsley only because Mikolas seems to be a consistent middle rotation pitcher and Helsley’s been pretty good insofar as being the only reasonably consistent option for recording the final 3 outs. As for the remainder of the current roster, there’s 3 or 4 names that I’d like to see simply disappear from view even if they had to pay a hauling and disposal fee to incur the service cost of removing them. Not unlike a scrap tire fee added to the cost of new ones.
I didn’t like the Contreras signing. I will say upfront I don’t like his personality or demeanor. But the main reason was way too much money and years for a catcher on the wrong side of 30. I wanted the money to go for pitching. Yes he can hit but is not like he is Murphy when it comes to hitting. We are stuck with him. I am biased because I don’t like it but we would be better off without him IMO.
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