- This topic has 401 replies, 35 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
BW, I fully understand everything in your post. I just don’t buy any of what the Cardinals are peddling and judging by attendance not too many people do.
Talking about technology, we’ve seen post on here for years now making fun to the calculators and computer geeks running the franchise. What the hell else technology could they employ at this point? At some point maybe they should listen to actual baseball people and not the Harvard trained geeks. Doubling down on “technology” isn’t going to help one bit.
This franchise is indeed in a death spiral. It’s been in one for a long while now and it isn’t just a player development issue. It’s a rot from the top down issue and very few have the stones to say it out loud.
TC, I understand your frustration. I get there every so often as well. Realistically, what do you think we should do as fans? Seems to me that the choice is to look for the best possible outcome and enjoy the game as much as we can, or just go full negative and quit following the team…?
Listen, it’s the Internet so we are all entitled to our opinions, but I guess I just don’t see this as a full death spiral. We aren’t going to become the Marlins or Pirates. Were you around in the early 90s? There were still enjoyable things about those teams, even if they weren’t on the ascent yet.
TC, what you’ve read here is mostly one poster going on and on about the evils of analytics. Other organizations do it, but better than the Cardinals.
But that is about lineups and player evaluation and roster construction, not player development.
Here are examples of the kinds of technology being used in baseball.
Read Randy Flores’s bio. What he was up to after his playing career. Then he’s an executive in the Cardinals system. Then Bill has to hire in the whole rotation and most of the pen. Then the entire top end of the pitching pipeline goes on the IL. Guess what, Randy and what he is all about are still here. That is because its what the Cardinals system is all about. Its why we draft pitchers with tore up arms because we have data that says they were fantastic before they blew it out. Its why we trade for a Roby and pretend he will do what has always blown out his arm without blowing out his arm. Its not going to get better because we’re doubling down on tech and lab coats. It works if you are the Dodgers and can buy your way around the carnage. If you are Cohen. If you are Henry. It doesn’work if you are Bill with a mid market budget.
I repeat, player evaluation by the front office and the process of coaches teaching players with the help of technology are two separate and distinct areas. Every subject seems to get hijacked by the same message. The subject here is the latter, not the former.
Players dont stop getting evaluated when they sign up. The same tech they have been immersed in since high school is still evaluating every move they make. The coaches are expected to fill their nitch. At the ML level Mo has said that the output of the analytics informs game prep and in game decisions. It is naive to think it does not inform and guide what PD staff are doing day in and day out.
I believe you are equating apples and oranges. That you have a beef with player evaluation for scouting and the draft, how they set the MLB roster and make the lineup, I get.
But that process is very different from what is being taught to hitters, fielders and pitchers and how. This is an area in which the Cardinals believe they are deficient and are planning to beef up.
You paint the entire canvas with the same broad brush, which I believe is not accurate. I will just keep repeating myself, so will stop until the next time you try to slam the square peg into the round hole.
I understand the sentiment of not believing ownership and the front office. They have earned the mistrust. I also agree that there payroll cuts are probably more than they have to do to be profitable but that is par for the course for the very conservative Cardinals.
But as I have said numerous times I would like to know how teams like Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Tampa can accomplish more than the Cardinals on HALF of the payroll expense. Could it be fancy player development, pitching labs, hiting labs, draft gurus, Harvard wonks who serve as VP of Whatever, etc…? If so, then maybe the Cardinals should try it. What they are currently doing is obviously NOT working.
We have made the following staff hirings and assignments for our minor league system:
Ryan Barba – Minor League Field CoordinatorJosé Leger – Asst. Minor League Field Coordinator / Baserunning Coordinator
Austin Meine – Minor League Pitching Coordinator
Ethan Goforth –…
— Cardinals Player Development (@CardsPlayerDev) December 23, 2024
Sorry to be so negative. I really hate the fall off. It was painful to sit in an empty stadium in August. I’d never seen it so bad in person. This thing is really not in a good place. It’s doubly different watching the money being spent by other franchises. The game has changed dramatically.
There’s a story on ESPN today about the top 10 pissed off fan bases. The Cardinals clock in #9 on the list and for good reason. In the story it says the Cardinals haven’t signed a free agent to a 100 million dollar deal since Matt Holliday. Say what you will about free agents but the top guys are usually those dogs you need to win at a high level. You can’t piece meal this thing.
The Cardinals had success and rested. As the saying goes what got you here won’t get you there. My problem isn’t rebuilding the player development system. My problem is who is charged with doing it. They failed, been failing, and that’s who you trust to fix what they messed up? That’s why I have very little hope this thing gets done and done right.
My problem isn’t rebuilding the player development system. My problem is who is charged with doing it. They failed, been failing, and that’s who you trust to fix what they messed up? That’s why I have very little hope this thing gets done and done right.
Technically Mo is still the boss but in reality Bloom is the guy rebuilding the player development system and he is relatively new.
I guess another way to pose the question being raised is if Bloom has control of player development decisions. I suspect he does. He has brought more new people into the organization in the last two months than over the last five years under Mo.
My views on the whole deal are evolving. IMO we are farther away than what I thought. We have to trust Bloom. But we also have to realize there are very few players on the current roster who can help going forward. We have to have enough patience and faith in Blooms vision and start identifying the kind of players we want and developing those players to fill our system. 25 is nothing but damage control and planning the 25 draft.
Technically Mo is still the boss but in reality Bloom is the guy rebuilding the player development system and he is relatively new.
Bloom isn’t the savior some of you think he is. He failed in his last gig majorly. Again what makes anyone think these guys can get it right? Blind loyalty isn’t doing it for me.
He did what he was asked to in his last gig, which was build up the minor league system. The owner switched strategy mid-stream.
Anyone that comes out of the Tampa front office knows what they are doing when it comes to player development.
Ignoring the fact that all players tend to decline in their 30’s, if Goldenado could play like they did in 2022 every year, they would produce 14.0 fWAR. In 2024, their total was 4.3 fWAR.
So, add 10 wins to the 2024 Cardinals and their record would have been 93-69, tied with the Brewers for first place. If any of those 10 extra wins had come from Milwaukee, St. Louis could have won the division outright.</em
I agree with Brian here but we would still be dealing with fools gold and a declining team as goldenado would eventually start deteriorating
Look at the arms in our club top 50- I don’t see anyone that has shown they promise that they can be relied upon to be even an upper level rotation starter. We have a serious player development and/or talent evaluation problem. Without new ownership enjoy at least a few years of cheap tickets. Merry Christmas everyone good to see some vets still posting-gray
I feel like the reason teams like Cleveland, Milwaukee and Tampa do better than us is simple! There evaluators of talent are far superior to ours! Those teams are able to consistently find young arms that can contribute year after year! Our system almost never helps! For 4 years we have been trying to prove that Liberatore belongs! During that time the Guardians and Brewers have brought up several arms that have helped them win divisions For whatever reasons there evaluators can look at a guy and say yes he can and he can! We can’t do that for whatever reasons!
Is your concern scouting (selecting the players in the first place/identifying ones to acquire) or player development (taking the provided players and turning them into major leaguers)?
Using the example of Liberatore, did the Cards not evaluate him properly while he was with the Rays or did he have the potential, but was not developed properly once he was in the system?
Was he always going to underachieve no matter where he was, or would he have realized his full potential with Cleveland, for example?
Of course, no one knows for sure, but one has try to identify the source of the problem rather than blowing up everything.
To date, it appears the Cardinals are focusing on the latter (PD) and not the former (scouting).
I don’t hardly follow the Redbird minor league system, but my view is that talent management is entirely devoid at the Big League level. It’s as though once these players spend more than a minute or two with the circus clowns who currently comprise the Big League coaching staff, they enter into a progressive downward spiral that continues until they either land with a different organization or find employment swinging a hammer or sitting at a desk.
Who goes? Who stays? I’ve read so many what ifs, we should do this and this team is interested in a mega-deal with the Cardinals….. mostly just to read about some baseball. Every team is looking to trade for every player on our roster… and then some. I’m done. I’ve had it up to my head. Yawn…. wake me when something actually develops.
The only thing Bloom is in charge of is PD, so that is where the change is happening. It doesn’t mean that is the only place that is a problem. Lets see if Flores and Marmol are here next year when Bloom’s authority extends to them.
BW, sorry for the late response! I hate to be a negative Nellie but I think both things are seriously flawed! I do think that PD is the worst of the two evils! It seems to me we have given up on too many players recently like Alcantra and Arozarena before they were fully developed! That is why we are now stuck with Gorman imo! Afraid to get rid of him because what if another team develops him! Hopefully we will turn the corner in PD and some of these kids will become quality players!
Talking about technology, we’ve seen post on here for years now making fun to the calculators and computer geeks running the franchise.
The reason for those posts were the Cardinals were comically bad at using technology for a competitive advantage.
We found out a few months ago that the Cardinals didn’t actually have an analytics team.
LACF said:
We found out a few months ago that the Cardinals didn’t actually have an analytics team.
Why do you think that?
This list of 16 people is from the team’s 2024 staff directory. They took direction from former GM Mike Girsch.
BASEBALL ANALYTICS
Title Name
Sr. Director, Baseball Development Jeremy Cohen
Sr. Director, Baseball Development Matt Bayer
Sr. Director, Analytics Kevin Seats
Lead Data Scientist Alan Kessler
Senior Data Scientist Garrett Greenwood
Project Coordinator Katie Kuhlmann
MLB Analyst Mathew Bennett
Amateur Scouting Analyst Julia Prusaczyk
International Scouting Analyst John Kern
Jr. Data Engineer Sabrina EscalonaBASEBALL SYSTEMS
Title Name
Senior Lead Application Developer Brian Seyfert
Lead Analytics Engineer Todd Heitmann
Lead Data Engineer Nathan Nutter
Lead Cloud Architect John Weeks
Application Developer Chae Hun Lim
Jr. Application Developer Mason Kelley
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.