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BicycleMike:
With Contreras I would prefer sending Herrera down, but that is a tough one.
I was thinking he was out of options and we wouldn’t be able to, but I was surprised to see Herrera had 1 more option year. After looking, Herrera was given a 4th by MLB. I had forgotten about that.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/10/ivan-herrera-eligible-for-fourth-option-year.html
I have to give Nikolas credit he has been pitching much better than I expected lately. His stuff seems to have a little extra movement instead of being so flat and he is inducing weak contact now. I’m glad to see Oli be very conservative though with Mikolas in late innings. Any signs of danger, and out a RP in. Mikolas really shows the 3rd time theough the order affect and most of his runs allowed lately have came in the 6th+
Regarding Walker, yes he is working on things right now. Katie Woo at The Athletic has an article with some answers from Mo. I’ll give a brief paraphrase of the Walker quotes, but will share the article link as I don’t want to directly quote a couple paragraphs from paid material.
Walker is working on what sounds like a pretty significant tweak to his swing to modify his bat approach and put the ball in the air more. The club is being patient with him and realizes a chance like this may even take an off-season to fully be implemented. They also are watching his performance and want to see XBH hits improve along with his OBP.
Chase Davis has really been heating up in June. He is hitting .313 with a .421 OBP and a really good .750 slugging. Another HR tonight and he drew 3 walks.
Walker also had a good day. He went 2 for 3 with a walk and double. Hopefully these two young OFs can continue their recent successes.
Could Mo pry away both Mayo and Kjerstad from the Orioles for Helsley?
Helsey has good trade value, but no way we get both. They are both top 30 prospects in baseball and they wouldn’t trade both for someone even as valuable as Luis Robert.
I see them valuing Mayo more internally, but even getting Kjerstad out of Helsey will be difficult. We may have to include some other player to tack on a little more value.
Well it is concerning that the same people who were right there and did not identify Herrera’s issue are also standing right there looking at Bernal and Crooks.
For context, here are Longenhagen’s defense most scouting grades in each of our catching prospects. Longenhagen is much more conservative on handing out tool grades especially on the defense side which is why I like his ratings. They tend to be the more realistic output.
Herrera (2023 report) – Fielding=35/40, Throwing=40
Pages – Fielding=50/50, Throwing=60
Crooks – Fielding=45/55, Throwing=60
Bernal- Fielding=40/55, Throwing=55Much better defense reports on the non-Herrera catchers in our org. No grade on Sammy Hernandez, but here is what Eric had to say on him.
Hernandez is a raw, athletic catcher who came back from Toronto in the Génesis Cabrera trade last year. He needs to develop as a defender (his crouch is still comically high) and improve his plate discipline, but he has rare bat speed for a catcher.
I’m glad to see Pages getting a run at C. I think this is the best lineup we can put together T the moment against a LHP.
Carlson needs to continue taking advantage of the playing time against lefties and show he deserves a starting role.
We really have our work cut out for us today with Imanaga going for the Cubs and Pallante for us. Maybe we can get to the BP quickly.
Bernal has been having a really good month so far. His offense has been picking up. Hopefully the defense is progressing as well
Rincon with another outing to show I was wrong about moving him to the BP. Good to see.
And Thompson continues to be an enigma. When he doesn’t walk a lot of hitters, he gives up a lot of hits and runs. When he walks a lot though, he hardly allows hits and then no runs.
I liked Fernandez getting the 8th in a 1 run game. He has been pitching very well and I like the gradual increase in leverage. Giving him the opportunity late in a close game is going to increase his confidence and I see him being a late inning RP for this team in the future.
Yeah and it was a load of, well you know what. Marmol’s game plans isnt the worst part of his game managing, it is his player management) relationship. It seems like Marmol and the FO wanted an easy scapegoat for the pitching problems and landed on Contreras. He isn’t a great game caller, but the pitchers said it wasn’t him that was the issue.
Oli really mismanaged O’Neill publically calling him out. Sure yell at him or whatever else in private, but it doesn’t help the org in any way to publicly call out a player. You just reduce your negotiating power when you inevitably trade them later.
Wrigley and day games. We will have 4 day games in a row. I dont mind the weekend ones, but I’m not a fan of weekday ones. 1TD has to ride solo in the game day thread. I can sometimes put the game on in the background while I work, but even then it is mostly just looking up every now and again to see the score.
Albert, I agree. I’m just saying there was bound to be a huge drop-off if Contreras got hurt. I’m not blaming the organization at all in this instance. Herrera is an excellent back-up catcher (although arm strength obviously needs some improvement and maybe could have been addressed better in the past offseason).
Ah sorry I misunderstood. I thought you expected the Cards to go out and sign or acquire a Catcher to ride the pine behind Contreras. Starting caliber catchers aren’t going to sign up for that.
We have a lot of catching depth in the org, but we will see if any develop the right combo of hitting and defense to grow into a starter to replace Contreras in a few years. At least the org depth means we should be able to keep cost controlled backups for a while. Once backups get to arb years, you should trade them off unless you have no cheaper alternatives. With Herrera and Pages now, and then Crooks, Bernal, and maybe Sammy Hernandez afterwards, we should be able to keep a decent home grown back up.
I look forward to seeing Eric Longenhagen’s rankings as he seems to often be more realistic on tool evaluations. Sometimes I feel MLB Prospect Pipeline isn’t willing to hand out below average grades on tools of top talents even when they actually are below average. Eric also has good info from the teams and he factors that into his evaluations as well.
This draft class just feels off to me. It is a very 1B top heavy draft, although I think Condon will make an alright RFer. Players drafted as 1B have not historically done well even as top draft picks. I really am not a fan of Caglianone and I have a feeling he lasts into the 10s despite being projected in the top 5 always. The guys swings at everything. He didn’t strike out much in college, but that approach will be exploited by pros.
I like what I have seen of Wetherholt, but that is a big if depending on the physical evaluations. I originally liked Montgomery, but looking at the history of college bats striking out at his rate, I would skip him.
I don’t like taking pitchers at the top of the draft given the double risk with them. They can bust first of all, and then the odds of a pitcher staying healthy are so low especially for top stuff guys. I would consider Hagen if he is available, but I bet the Royals take him.
I’ll probably be burned for liking Griffin since he has the best tools in the draft, but the biggest bust potential as well. It all depends on what the org thinks of his hit tool and if they can work with him on it. Rainer is definitely the safer of the HS SS but doesn’t have the same upside.
There just aren’t any players I love at the top of this draft beyond Condon and Bazzana, and neither makes it to us.
I’m not sure what you expect production wise out of a backup catcher if Herrera isn’t it. I very much don’t like his glove, but he is a good hitting catcher and is viable as a fill in. The reason losing Contreras hurts so much is Contreras was so good. It doesn’t matter who you put back there, unless they are one of the top 5 catchers in MLB, you will notice a large dropoff in production at the position. The Phillies are about to go through this with Realmuto as well.
Matz may actually be an improvement over what we have as a #5. May is the key though. He has had stretches where he pitches like a #3, and then gets hurt or falls off a cliff performance wise.
Edman coming back will be a good help. As much as I like Siani, Edman will be an improvement over Siani in the starting lineup. When Edman is back, Fermin will likely be sent down. Fermin at least has options and stays in the org while Crawford would have to be released. Less depth in the org.
Hopefully he can. He certainly had a really good day yesterday in the double header. Davis has the raw physical tools, but he needs to refine them.
Gray looked much better tonight and hopefully he can continue pitching to that standard. The bottom half of the lineup has also played very well today
I’m glad to see Honeyman in Palm Beach now.
Paniagua pitched really well tonight with 5 shut out innings with 8Ks and 0BBs. I would have considered moving him to the pen when Mathews was promoted, but Paniagua has really shown since he deserves a starting spot. He is 24 though so he needs to get to AA.
We have a lot of pitchers that are either in AA or should be soon with so few spots available. There aren’t rotation spots in Memphis either. It will be interesting to see how we sort it out as some guys may go to RP and others could be in deadline trades.
I imagine if Mathews continues to pitch at the level he has been for the next month in Peoria, he will get promoted to Springfield. Seeing him continue to pitch well in A+ where he is more age appropriate gives me some more confidence in him overall. If he pitched to the same level of production in AA with high K rates for a month or so, I think he will sneak onto the back end of some top 100 prospect lists.