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Burly is a little bit of a mirage. Despite his good hitting this year his OPS+ is only 105 – he’s 5% better than league average. Combine that with poor defense and he is not all that valuable.
In around 1000 at bats Gorman has a 3.4WAR. Burly in approaching 900 ABs is only at .3 WAR.
Like some have said, Burly exudes a great attitude, and he has trended up while Gorman has trended down. But Gorman has shown elite level production, and Burly has been more of a pleasant surprise but not elite.
The real questions are can Burly keep improving, and will Gorman stay where he is and possibly keep getting worse? I would put Burly in a trade and take the chance that he is at his highest value, and Gorman will get back to where he was and then some. Could be a mistake, and I can understand those who would not do that. But this club will need to take some risks and hope their luck changes. Trades in recent years seem to always be negative for us.
What’s it gonna take to fix the Cardinals
I’ve been thinking about it and have come up with a novel idea on how to fix the Cardinals. How about if we try having power at the corners and defense up the middle? I know that’s a lot to ask for, but it just might work. Our catching defense, including pitch framing, is embarrassing. Herrera made a throw to 2B the other day that was so off line that he actually hit the pitcher in the back (I think it was Gibson) and the pitcher had to come out of the game early in the following inning. Gorman makes some surprising defensive plays now and then, but he’s never, ever going to contend for a GG. Even Winn with his elite arm isn’t really great at going and getting the ball. He does seem to have some leadership ability for such a young player, though. I like Siani a lot. I like his commitment to being the best he can be and his elite defense. I don’t think his bat has reached it’s ceiling yet, but time will tell. Scott II is still unknown, but he could be a future All-Star. Arenado and Goldschmidt at the infield corners no longer hit the way they used to. No one is willing to explain why, including them. (It’s not their age.) Our corner outfield ‘power bats’ are Walker, Donovan, Burleson, and Nootbaar. Take your pick.
And, of course, we could use pitching, pitching, pitching. We don’t have a stopper, plain and simple. Gray is a No.2, at best. It’s unusual for any of our pitchers to last more than 5 innings.
At least there appears to be hope on the horizon….
catcher – Crooks, and probably, Bernal
first base – I’d be okay with Contreras or Baker at 1B for
awhile, but neither of them is good at
fielding. It will probably wind up being
Burleson at 1B, anyway.
second base – So far Saggese’s defense looks pretty good.
Donovan deserves a stable position, IMO. Will
Wetherholt be our second baseman, or will he
eventually wind up at third?
shortstop – Winn should one day become a face of the
franchise.
third base – I’d like to see them start grooming Wetherholt
for 3B. But Gorman might get a shot at it
before Wetherholt is ready. No way Gorman
makes defensive plays comparable to what
we’ve seen from Arenado.
corner outfield – Walker, Davis, Baez…or Nootbaar, so far.
DH – Herrera.We’ve got at pretty good crop of pitchers coming up. Everybody knows who they are and the questions following them.
With Hence, McGreevy, Matthews, and hopefully, Roby contributing in 2025, and with improved offense at 1B and maybe even 3B, this team should be a few games better in 2025.
As far as free agents are concerned, I think they’d be foolish to go out and get a big bat. There’s just too much risk.
We could wind up with a Kris Bryant or a Fernando Tatis, Jr. Even the mega-contracts we gave our own Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado don’t really seem worth it.This is the biggest professional sports debacile since the last “Cardinal” failure. Does no one remember the other Bill Bidewell, ” the other 1/2 whit owner in STL. How did that work out? Unless there are MAJOR changes in spending, front office, player development, boycott the “deadbirds” in 2025. Pissed off fan!!!
Not 1 farm club pitcher is proving as a 3-5 srarter. Why is turner the big club hitting coach when you have one of the worst RISP in baseball. Don’t offer Goldy. Try to get some degree of pitching for Nado. We don’t need 2-3 more has been, average infielders that can’t play position or hit off the bench. It starts from the top. Big Mo,; has Everyone forfogt Mike Keenan? Oli Marmol, trade for another beer vender in the diamond seats. If you can’t get Yadi as pitching coach, Jimmy Baseball as hitting coach, at least make Stubby Clapp your manager. Atleast he has an iconic baseball style name.
Yeah, Willie Bidwell and the Big Red football Cardinals remain a clear memory. It wouldn’t surprise me too much if Willie Jr. packs up his team and sneaks off into the night to another city if StL. fans don’t start to show up at the ballpark to support the lousy product that he’s been selling to local baseball fans for past two seasons…They’ve already been forewarned by his adorable sprout.
The Reds not only fired Bell but also their game planning coach. On the Cardinals that’s Packy Elkins. So maybe Mo could blame Packy. That should have the BFIB pouring through the turnstiles.
Looks like changes are coming according to Katie Woo.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/09/chaim-bloom-to-take-on-larger-role-in-cardinals-front-office.htmlSo how do all these sweeping changes going to get us back into the playoffs next year?
It sounds good on paper but you still have to spend some money for improvements. I mean the goal is for the big club to win. It will take money and trades for that to happen next year. You might get one or the other but not both.
Sounds like an overhaul of the scouting and development could take a couple seasons. How does that help the big club now?
I don’t think the big league club will be a playoff team next year or perhaps not even 2026. In fact, if they do the rebuild correctly we shouldn’t be. We have had a decade of decisions made for the short term that have gotten us nowhere. We need to build from the bottom up and for the long haul and stop the half measures.
Yep, to do this right you punt on the next two seasons, and look to take a step forward in seasons 3 and 4 then hopefully be back near the top for awhile after that.
I don’t think the big league club will be a playoff team next year or perhaps not even 2026. In fact, if they do the rebuild correctly we shouldn’t be.
Not sure I’d go that far. The bar for making the playoffs isn’t that high and it would merely take a good development team in place to help players like Walker, Gorman, etc and some luck in having Mathews and Hence advance and stay healthy, and you’d be right there by 2026. Far stranger things have happened.
Well it appears the cardinals arent going to fire the coach so def another down year regardless. A good chance that even less fans come next season.
Katie Woo’s article is an indictment against the ownership and entire front office.
The FO completely abandoned the minor leagues and Latin America. She compared the Cardinals to the Brewers who have 15 minor league instructors compared to the Cardinals’ 5 instructors. When the Cards threw Jordan Walker in right field they did so with no outfield instructor helping him. Even when he got sent down this year there was no outfield instructor to help him which is why he came back and looked worse. The Cardinals have no infield instructor, no outfield instructor, no Catching coordinator, among other positions. Also, it appears the ownership gave MO a lump sum of money that he had to distribute between the big club and development and Mo spent most of the money on the big club, thereby eroding the minors.
It will be interesting to see how ownership will manage the restructure. I am sure the player development side of the business will be overhauled by Bloom and those he hires. I wonder if they give him a year to solely focus on the revamp of player development while Mo is left to put together the big league club for the final year of his contract (with firm guardrails). If so, I would expect collaboration in decision making on player moves.
Katie Woo’s article is an indictment against the ownership and entire front office.
The FO completely abandoned the minor leagues and Latin America. She compared the Cardinals to the Brewers who have 15 minor league instructors compared to the Cardinals’ 5 instructors. When the Cards threw Jordan Walker in right field they did so with no outfield instructor helping him. Even when he got sent down this year there was no outfield instructor to help him which is why he came back and looked worse. The Cardinals have no infield instructor, no outfield instructor, no Catching coordinator, among other positions. Also, it appears the ownership gave MO a lump sum of money that he had to distribute between the big club and development and Mo spent most of the money on the big club, thereby eroding the minors.
That is a pretty damming indictment of the Cardinals.
Yes, Moxeliak admitted the draft and Cardinals payroll come out of the same bucket earlier this year. So, Wetherholt’s bonus will reduce what the Cardinals have available for payroll next year. But I thought it was just payroll & bonuses that were affected, I did not realize they gutted coaching positions (and analytics staff) for the big league payroll.
Talk about short-sighted.
Remember all those years ago when Pham blasted the Cardinals on his way out of town? I guess there was some merit…
Not arguing with the vast majority of what she wrote. The exception is the OF instruction. If that is not McGee’s job, then what is it? He is a full time MLB coach.
Yes McGee is a major league coach, not a minor league coach. McGee wasn’t in Memphis working with Walker.
I didn’t look up the details, but my guess is that since he became an outfielder, Walker has spent as much if not more time in the majors vs. the minors. Learning can happen in the majors, too, or there wouldn’t be coaches there. I am only saying that I am not blaming all of Walker’s slow transition to the OF on the minors. McGee and the MLB coaches have responsibility, too.
Heck, if MeGee was good with Walker (which I question), and they don’t have minors OF instructors, why did they not send Willie to Memphis with him? If Walker is that important to the organization, I can’t believe that wouldn’t have been better than worrying about interrupting whatever Willie does with the MLB team.
P.S. My bet is that if Walker had kept developing offensively, he would never have been sent back down, no matter how his defense looked. My view is that his core problem is with the bat, not the glove. And there are multiple hitting coaches in MLB vs. only one per team (plus rovers) in the minors.
Bottom line, I think putting the bulk of the blame on the minors for where Walker is today is not justified. Some, yes, but the majority, no. That is how I feel.
The other point Katie made not totally focused on here is the cyclical nature of the problem. Because the minors pipeline slowed down, they chose to divert money to the majors payroll. That led to even less resource working on development, which only slowed the pipeline more, making the MLB financial need even greater.
Of course, there are other interrelated factors, including bad trades, but it is an interesting problem for which the primary answer – spending more money – would be hard for DeWitt to swallow, especially right now. This is why I am not optimistic a quick fix is coming. It took years to get here and it may take years to recover, IMO.
New names will be nice on announcement day, but what changes will be backing them up?
Entering the final 2 games of the season the team is:
23rd in runs scored
13th in runs allowed
13th best in overall defenseNone is good, but one is clearly worse.
Why didn’t the team score runs?
19th in OPS (virtually tied with 18 and 17)
18th in WRC+
28th in OPS with runners in scoring position
29th in WRC+ with runners in scoring position
24th vs Left Handed pitching
24th in stolen bases
25th in home runs
20th in doubles
21st in walk %
29th in pull %That’s a whole lot of poor offensive stats. The team was ok in some areas. Strikeouts, hard hit%, and line drives were fairly positive.
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