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I would look at 2 of Monty, Snell, Gray and Nola
I may take a flyer on Alex Cobb on an incentive deal….think he had hip surgery and may miss first month or 2….but he is a solid starter if healthy…cost probably won’t work.
Lugo is also interesting b/c he could slide into the pen if he is not a starter.
As for Relievers that’s tricky…I think they need 2 @ minimum and they won’t have much money left b/c they will have to pay for starting pitching, would like to see them get 1 in a trade maybe for O’Neal to a team desperate for an OF hitter with power
I look at it as this is do or die for the front office/Marmol….no way they will be back with another year like 2023
If they aren’t willing to spend to the extent that, on paper anyway, they can be considered contenders for something more than a 500ish wildcard team,I don’t see the point. You are better off with more of a rebuild. Nobody wants to hear that, but until this front office gets reorganized, it’s where we are at. Bringing in Sonny Grey as your top acquisition is the worst case scenario. I don’t see how you can add enough to it without trading core guys to fix the pitching. So you give up a Gorman or Donovan, a 2nd round draft pick, spend your money for the next 3-4 years. Where are you if you still are a 500 team? Mo can prove me wrong if he brings in one of the top guys AND Grey and fixes the bullpen. That’s what going for it looks like.
Its a very good concern KCB. We already know Mo and the gang are delusional. They thought over last winter the laundry list would provide an adequate rotation when it was obvious to normal people that it was not likely. Too many guys woud have to do what they had as yet not done, or not done lately. But after downing enough kool aide it all looks good. These are the same guys who will be ‘fixing’ it this winter.
Does anyone else have trouble sleeping, tossing and turning, wondering what exactly Mo means by “innings depth”. I am very concerned about what that turns out to mean. We could wake up at the deadline, take a look, and gnaw off our arm again. I hope that doesn’t happen, but maybe it needs to.
The pundits are not seriously considering the Cardinals for top tier starting pitchers and Mo has a poor track record in selecting second tier pitchers so I don’t have a lot of hopes that we will land a real number one or two starter.
What DeWitt needs to do is get a front office that can really evaluate baseball talent and go after a Bruce Bochy type manager like the Rangers did. And spend up to the luxury tax level.
It is unbelievable that they are standing pat with Ollie. His first year success was largely due to a career year from Goldschmidt, and all-star closing effort by Helsley and a great swan song by Albert. He was a terrible manager this year.
Yep, Mo’s amazing support of Oli is just another log on the fire of the organization’s deterioration. On the other hand, even if he wanted to, Mo likely doesn’t have the ability to lure the kind of proven guy he’d need to clean up that section of the mess. Mo can’t fix some of the problems because he can’t see them.
Since I haven’t responded to the original question, here is my take on what the Cardinals need to do.
1) Acquire 3 starting pitchers. 1 from the group of Montgomery/Yamamoto/Rodriguez. I don’t want to lose a draft pick on a free agent unless it would be Snell under the right terms. That would mean no higher than a 4th round pick with no more than 4 years on the contract. 1 from trade. 1 from the upper end of the middle tier starting pitching free agents. We don’t need another Matz.
2) Upgrade their player development system. There is growing evidence, as has been presented in this thread, that the Cardinals are behind the league in this area. They need to get back to the top 10 in development. The hard part is how to measure this. Draft position is only a small part of the problem. I believe they have been good at drafting and recognition of player tools. I feel they are not getting the most out of those tools.
3) They need to make some trades and get rid of some logjams. O’Neill and Carlson need to find another organization to try to bring out their potential. I am even open to trading Arenado to the Dodgers if we could get Bobby Miller. Gorman would be good at 3B with Donovan as his backup. How do we find playing time for O’Neill, Carlson, Nootbaar, Burleson, Gorman, Donovan, Edman, Winn, Palacios with only 6 batting positions. We also have Victor Scott making a case to be the CFer, shortly.
4) Get rid of Marmol. He opens his mouth to the media too often and I question his managerial decisions a little.
KCB said:
If they aren’t willing to spend to the extent that, on paper anyway, they can be considered contenders for something more than a 500ish wildcard team,I don’t see the point. You are better off with more of a rebuild…
If decisions are more driven by financials than competitiveness, this will not happen. Until fans stop coming and ratings really drop, there is no pressure to be more than a “do our best to make the playoffs” team.
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Until fans stop coming
I don’t know if competing for a WC berth will be enough going forward, but I agree that if it is, then that is all we will get.
What’s the problem? Just create more wild cards. Eliminate only the last place teams.
Oh wait. We still wouldn’t make the post-season!
The Cards have plenty of MOTO firepower with Goldy, Arenado, Contreras, Walker, and Gorman. And one of the best defensive infields in MLB if the play Arenado, Winn, Edman, and Goldy everyday. Now they need some innings eaters in the rotation who can stay healthy, and one more high leverage reliever. We’ll see if they can get that.
I have seen a figure of 2.4 WAR for Arenado in 2023. There would be alternative calculations which would vary some. Dollar value per WAR also varies. $6 Million is reasonable, but I have seen everything from just under 5 to 8. So that puts the value of Arenado’s performance at just under $15 Million.
Baseball Reference says he made $35, of which Colorado paid $16, so our cost was $19. That is a loss, but not too bad. $4M. Maybe a sort of OK mid relief guy, or a pretty useful arb eligable guy.
But they have him due to make $35M again in 2024 with Colorado paying only $5M. So, a comparable performance is going to result in $15M+ in the hole. So now we are out a pretty good player. Good enough to make a difference.
NA put up 109 OPS+ and an unexciting 0.3 dWAR. Yes, I know dWAR is suspect, but I note that 0.3 is an order of magnitude or so lower than what he has produced in the past. The large underform defensively isn’t suspect. The 109 OPS+ is a career low other that his rookie year, 10 years ago. 33 year old guys can have a resurgent year, I don’t dispute that. We could gamble on that happening.
I’m not known to be a huge Gorman fan. I am not sold at all. But I think I am mostly not sold on his ability to overcome trying to develop and maintain ML level skills in the Cardinals system, rather than not being sold on his inherent ability. Similar to how I felt about Paul DeJong during the early part of his slide. But he put up 117 OPS+, in what seemed like an off year a lot of the time. He did put up a small negative dWAR, which is probably not horrible for somebody who is not a middle infielder playing middle infield. He produced 2.4 WAR, worth nearly $15M, for min wage.
Mo and the gang need to make some hard decisions, which shouldn’t be all that hard. Do we want to win or give away another puppy dog in a few years.
Good post, bling. But I was left wondering at the end what are those “not hard” decisions, in your view?
There should be no such thing as a good young player being blocked. The resource represented by the player blocking him needs to be redeplyed where there is a need rather than kept where there is a surplus. In this case, the 3B excess should be redeployed to the rotation need. Mo’s computer would have to be pretty stupid not to have spit that out by now.
I want to address this “innings eater” myth. That’s just code for average pitching. Problem is,the Cardinals “innings eaters” weren’t average. They were horrible. And our bullpen wasn’t overworked. Our starting pitching was right at league average in innings pitched. Our bullpen was below league average in innings pitched. We just need better pitchers.
I assume your figures are right, KCB. So then, if our starters were right at league average in innings pitched, what does Mo mean when he says we need “innings depth”?
KCB said:
Our starting pitching was right at league average in innings pitched. Our bullpen was below league average in innings pitched.
This is confusing to me. If the starter innings are league average, shouldn’t the relief innings be league average as well? (unless a lot of extra inning games changed the skew?)
Do you have the underlying data?
Taking a quick look at MLB.com team pitching stats and sorting for starters, the Cardinals have 848 IP which ranks 14th of 30. Sorting for relievers, 530 IP ranks 20th.
I did some math for fun. The Cardinals 848 IP over 162 starts comes to 5.23 IP average per start. The #1 team on the list, The Mariners with 901 IP (The AStros are #2 with 900) comes to 5.56 and the last on the list, Giants with 729 averages 4.5.
I assume these numbers are skewed by the use of an opener by some teams. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem like IP by the Cardinals rotation is remarkable.
The thing that is remarkable is that the Cardinals pitching staff ranks 29th in strike outs and Batting Average Against. In other words, KCB is on to something. The problem is our pitchers stink. I wonder what Mo is talking about with “innings depth”.
Baseball Reference says he made $35, of which Colorado paid $16, so our cost was $19. That is a loss, but not too bad. $4M. Maybe a sort of OK mid relief guy, or a pretty useful arb eligable guy.
Arenado’s contract is very complex and confusing. I did some research on this last year with the guy from Cot’s and Derrick Goold had an article about the contract last year. The $16M from Colorado counted against the 2022 salary deferral so the Cardinals paid the entire $35M in 2023. Colorado will pay $5M in 2024, 2025, and 2026, and nothing for 2027.
https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league-central/st-louis-cardinals/
Management gambled some of the future in recent years, for the one extra big bat they felt they needed to make a run at a ring. It worked okay as the club did get to the post season several times.
This time it is different. They want to win in 2024, but are starting with a last place team. Unless you make Texas size changes, it is not a good plan.
I am not sure there is enough difference makers we could realistically get to turn this ship around. And I am not sure we have the right field management to lead what would be a more veteran club expected to win.
Don’t have any answers – but going for a winning season in 2024 just doesn’t pass the smell test for me. I would pursue more of a rebuild approach, even though that compromises your fan base.
Get younger and more athletic, go ahead and let Ollie stick around another year given that the pressure would be off, and assess this thing next year at this time.
There are a lot of good posts and ideas in this thread but one idea that I see popping up that concerns me is that the Cardinals should go hard after Blake Snell. I would urge caution on this idea. He is going to get a massive contract based on his 2023 season but in his 7 seasons in MLB (not counting the covid 19 year) he has amassed more than 130 innings only twice. He is a trip to the IL just waiting to happen.
gscottar, your mention of the hazzard associated with Snell illustrates a more general hazzard. Snell would represent a huge investment and a big chunk of payroll. He would be the stopper ace upon which the rotation is built. There would have to be some very substantial drop off down through the rotation since the budget is limited. The same is true as to any rotation configured with a top shelf #1 type at the top. If he goes down, the rotation is already greatly diminished, and then add your #6 into the mix. Unless, of course, ownership is going to go out and get a new stud to fill the hole, which of course, Cardinals ownership would not. Its a lot of eggs in one basket. A lineup with less at the top, but more throughout might be better for the Cardinals. Given normal attrition, and given the state of what we have in house, Mo needs to bring in a lot of guys who are better than what we have. He needs to do that more than he needs to bring in a Snell.
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