- This topic has 2,485 replies, 69 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
The results appear to be virtually the same before the deadline and after.
So we didn’t do any better with Montgomery that without him. I wonder if they noticed that.
I saw this from Our Bernie on Scoops:
“. A bullpen filled with versatility and matchup flexibility can really help a manager at this time of the year – provided, of course, that the manager is astute enough to make the correct maneuvers.”
Good point. It’s not just about who is on the roster.
This on MLBTR, the context was talking about Roby and others in AFL.
“Notably, the Cardinals have struggled to finish their pitching prospects. Their matriculated pitchers like Zack Thompson and Matthew Liberatore often show little understanding of pitch design. Even Johan Oviedo took an instant step forward upon leaving the Cardinals. It’s unclear if this is a persistent organizational failure or pure happenstance.”
What does little understanding of pitch design mean?
It’s right up your alley…
“Pitch design is about using cutting edge technology by incorporating data analytics and high-speed video capture to help pitchers develop their pitching delivery and movement patterns. Pitching is about many things, including strength, mobility, mechanics.”
https://rocklandpeakperformance.com/pitch-design-basics/
It is not clear how the writer can evaluate this, but I am guessing they believe the Cardinals are behind the leading edge in using technology.
It will be interesting to see if some of the changes foreshadowed in Player Development are intended to address this.
I’m not sure how we will know much about those sort of changes. But I am convinced the problem is not just the roster. It follows that just changing the roster will not solve the problem.
Brian’s pitch design link reminds me of the million mentions of Wake Forest’s state-of-the-art pitching lab during the CWS. Also mentioned was some MLB orgs have visited Wake Forest to see their facility.
Not specifically mentioned in the link, minimizing injury risk (in addition to performance) is also a supposed benefit. Cards could use some of that too.
This is exactly the kind of stuff Mo said he’d be shifting his focus to when he became the newly created POBO and Girsch the GM, but as we’ve seen, that was just talk with little to no substance.
The Cards had big plans for a pitching lab, etc, but I suspect a lot of it fell by the wayside in the post-COVID budget cuts in Player Development.
Here is a discussion on the topic from 2 1/2 years ago.
On the money side…
Maybe there would be conditions under which Mo would be in favor of reducing his own departments’ budgets, but that seems unlikely. Perhaps it would be a factor if his personal compensation is tied to the team’s overall financial performance. Otherwise, why would he want to spend less money on trying to improve the organization?
In other words, I would look upstream…
Goold discussed it this August. He put a very positive spin on what to me has looked like business as usual. Helping pitchers optimize their offerings is hardly a new idea. However, the techniques used to try to accomplish it are not generally in the public eye. It wouldn’t be a major stretch to assume the Cardinals are trying to put a positive face on a project that hasn’t been carried through as originally intended.
Q: Derrick – thanks for your chats and unbiased writing. It’s nice to see journalism that digs deep into a story without offering an opinion. Can you give some insight into what the forthcoming pitching lab will bring to the Cardinals development of pitching? Is it additional equipment to analyze prospects and their mechanics, or is there going to be additional staff, as well? So I guess I am asking what are other teams utilizing now, that has put the Cardinals behind in pitching development?
A: you’re already seeing it, actually. pallante’s pitch and the work he’s doing to get right-handed batters our. the search for a swing-and-miss slider from him. liberatore regaining and holding the velocity. those are examples of the lab at work. and it’s happening here i real time. mcgreevy, graceffo, and hence are all products of the cardinals “lab” that they have in place, even if it’s not an actual location. and as the spring training facility grows and updates and modernizes you’re going to see more of it. from an on field example, look for some of the developments of the slider and sweeper in the near term. look for some of the prospects to develop those pitches into miss pitches. kloffenstein is another example.
and, yes, to your point one of the areas the cardinals have fallen behind is staffing. full stop. that is going to be a topic in the near future for all of us to discuss. look for more on that.P.S. If this is tied to the Jupiter renovation, which has been delayed, it isn’t going to change in 2024. I hope that is not really the case.
Take a look at the some of the assembled technology assembled when Hjerpe was rehabbing in August. How it was used is unclear.
Thanks for the additional info, Brian.
As for looking upstream, I get that, but I don’t distinguish between Mo and upstream when discussing the executive/strategic realm of the org. So BillyMo if you like. We’ll never know the exact amount of actual control Mo has over many “items” vs just carrying the water. He’s usually the mouthpiece though, so he’s usually gonna get the attributions. We know they all were complicit in the horse hockey spewed out the day Mo was named POBO.
If you have corporate experience, you understand the role of Finance. Not letting anyone off the hook, but without intervention from the very top, when revenues are down, expenses are cut. That is not unique to any business or industry.
The most important item as I see it is that DeWitt has to be willing to invest when revenues are again down. (One can assume 2022 was better for the bottom line than 2023 will be.) That would be a major departure in course.
This applies to Player Development, the MLB payroll, and most items we discuss here.
Wonder how quickly they expect the lab to bring real results? Wake’s lab was opened in 2019 and was given a lot of credit for the program’s CWS run in 2023.
Also, it obviously seems to be something more suited to shaping young prospects. Wonder how it would be expected to work for an old dog like Wainwright? For example, his collapse late in 2022 was attributed to biomechanics, at least for a while. Would a guy who has been pitching a certain way already for two decades be able to make a significant change that would help?
Yes, I understand finance in big orgs very well. Mo understands finance with the Cards way more that you or I. Yet he still says what he says.
I was surprised to see Goold say,in August, they were trying to get more swing and miss out of Pallante. I had previously noticed his K/9 fell off drastically in the second half.
It shouldn’t take a wonk to know the rotation needs an 180 IP trend, with an FIP under 4.00, as many times as possible. Cardinal Nation knows it. This is on Bill, and forking over the dough.
shopping for wonks in the scratch and dent aisle
Haha. AI might eliminate the wonks someday soon anyway.
It shouldn’t take a wonk to know the rotation needs an 180 IP trend, with an FIP under 4.00
It’s not really as hard as it’s sometimes made out to be, is it jj?
Have you been enjoying the Rangers rebuild Euro? I liked the off-season where they nabbed Seager and Semien. We need to do the same at SP1 & SP2 as best as possible.
The Rangers also brought in a veteran manager with a great track record. Our club is unlikely to do this without a significant shift in philosophy.
I mentioned this before, but earlier this year our local SABR group toured a pitching lab run by former MLB hurler Jason Hirsch. His lab is more geared to high school and college age pitchers than big leaguers.
He also incorporates a hitting lab in his facility.
One interesting side note – in a Q&A session he was asked about the Rockies philosophy on pitcher development, and said the Rockies do not fully embrace the power pitching, swing and miss theory. He would fully embrace it if he were to be a decision maker in their system.
Sounds familiar, although maybe we are seeing a change in the Cardinals culture.
It took the Rangers two years to do their rebuild. They got the bats before the 2022 season and the pitching before the 2023 season. They also canned their longtime analytic PBO and replaced him with an ex player.
Have you been enjoying the Rangers rebuild Euro?
They are geniuses. 😉
On top of the roster adds, they even think having a wily manager and staff is a plus.
If Bochy quit today he’d be a pct. point under .500 as a field manager and would still be inducted into Cooperstown. Best I can tell, only Connie Mack and Bucky Harris are members of the HOF despite being under .500 as a manager. Bruce Bochy knows exactly where he is when he’s standing on the top step of a Big League dugout. I wish the Cardinals never had to play a team that had him situated on the top step…
This quote from WDW III directly addresses the question I posed yesterday.
“Willingness, I would say, to look at a pretty difficult financial year in order to try to get this thing back on track.”
He expects the Cards “to climb” in the payroll rankings.
Translation: The owners are willing to increase spending even though revenues are down. This is a positive – if they make substantive change, not just round up current numbers. The latter has happened before, leading to a healthy skepticism among the fan base.
Show me!
In an interview with Business Journals, #STLCards President Bill DeWitt III said a lot of things that should make fans optimistic for 2024
After the club’s worst season since the ’90s, he instilled some confidence for next year by saying, “We’re trying to be aggressive in… pic.twitter.com/smNxbV2IXl
— STL Sports Central (@stlsportscntrl) October 11, 2023
A rise in the payroll rankings would seem to require a decent bump in payroll, unless others will drop back too. We will see.
The Cards should be around 7th-10th in most years in payroll. This year they were 15th or 16th, depending on the source. To get to 10th, they’d need to spend at least $30M more next year. To get to 7th, it’ll take more like $60M more. That’s above this year’s payroll.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.