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Did O’Neill play better during the season or did Fowler?
Why did Schildt go back to Fowler?
They’ve coddled him for two years, and he has shown no interest in playing defense. Coddling doesn’t work with him.
I’m more optimistic about this season than I have been the past three years. Hopefully, they’ll makes some more good trades and pick up a FA or two.
But we can look at the history of what they do.
And last year, Fowler was playing nearly every day even though he was atrocious in the field and at the plate. He finally got benched, they got a new manager, then the new manager started running him out there everyday again.
Then, after the season, he griped about his lack of playing time.
Sorry, if O’Neill is better out of the gate, he needs to play every day and Fowler needs to be the 4th OF. And if Fowler gripes publicly about his lack of playing time, he needs to be told publicly that he needs to earn it.
It’s not necessarily how it was conveyed, but it is the message for me.
Fowler needs to earn his playing time, not have it granted based on having the second largest salary on the team.
If O’Neill outperforms him, O’Neill should be playing.
And actually, I guess the ideal swap is Gyorko + JMart for McCarty + Brandon Lowe.
Two right-handed hitters for two left-handed hitters. All four players are on their respective 40 man rosters, and Tampa’s is full.
I think this is where the Cardinals need to put their thinking caps on:
Trade JMart & Gyorko for Joe McCarthy and Nick Solak (who has about 3 2B’s ahead of him).Then, the Cardinals can sign Marwin Gonzales.
How Toronto deals with aging players
“If we were playing tomorrow (Lourdes Gurriel) is playing short,” Atkins said at a luncheon of the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America (via the Toronto Sun). “(Tulowitzki) would have to over achieve to play shortstop at an above-average level with above-average performance for 140 games.
THIS is what the Cardinals need to do with Fowler
LoganAlpha, there is no telling what will happen next year at this time. The team will have a lot of flexibility but a lot of needs to cover. Should be interesting.
One thing is for sure, the Cardinals are going to have to go into next offseason knowing exactly what they are going to do the minute the world series is over.
I imagine the Cardinals are trying to get Joe McCarthy from Tampa, and Tampa is saying McCarthy > JMart, so they want the Cardinals to kick in a prospect.
Tampa wants a right-handed power hitter, the Cardinals want a left-handed one.
The only upgrade for them from CJ Cron is Nelson Cruz, unless they are trying to get prospects out of Cleveland/Seattle for taking on the contracts of Encarnacion/Santana.
I do believe Jose Martinez will be traded.
Gyorko, right now, I believe is quality depth. Carpenter will need rest. He can platoon a bit with Wong.
Really what we need to do is cut Fowler & Cecil (the only 2 players on the Cardinals with full NTC’s by the way).
But one thing that never gets talked about is revenue generated by a star player like Harper.
That’s really the only thing that should be talked about. How much marginal revenue for the club? From labor economics, you know that a person should be paid based on their marginal product of labor – how much they generate for a company (there are other forces, such as labor demand, etc, but we’ll test it out).
The Cardinals average 42,000 per game. Busch Statium seats 45,500. So, they can add 3,500 more per game on average. 3,500 x $30 avg seat price x 81 games = $8.5 million.
Now, let’s say they increase seat prices by 10% or $3 per game. 45,500 x $3 x 81 = $11 million.
Let’s talk concessions. Let’s say the average fan spends $35 on concessions per game and the club makes 10% (before you laugh, figure their game day operating expenses come out of concession sales – such as electricity for the ballpark, security, vendors, CGS, etc). So, that’s 3,500 x $3.50 X 81 = $1 million.
Finally, let’s say the club makes the playoffs because they add Harper instead of Michael Brantley. Each home game would bring $33 in ticket sales and $3.50 in concession sales or about $1.6 million in additional revenues. So, they have to play 6 home games in the playoffs to bring in an additional $10 million in revenue. That means they need to at least make it to the Championship Series.
Now, the Cardinals own part of their television network (do they still after it’s been sold?), maybe they also see an increase in advertising revenues during games.
But, if the Cardinals increased stadium capacity to over 99% AND increased ticket prices by 10%, they would be assured of about $20 million in increased revenue with Harper.
If they make it to the League Championship every year, they could get an extra $10 million.
But then you have to figure most employers only pay employees about 1/3 of what they actually generate for the company, and companies have cost of financing and internal rates of returns, etc.
In other words, Harper does not make financial sense for the Cardinals.
He probably does make financial sense for the Phillies, who only averaged 26,000 fans last year, down from a high of 45,000 when they were going to the playoffs every year.
I would think for the Cardinals to entertain a free agent switch hitter, they would had to have traded Gyorko…
Let’s put it this way folks, look at their current depth chart.
Their relief corps, which was worse than the Cardinals last year, has 4 relievers with sub 4.0 ERA’s and 4 relievers with greater than 5.0 ERA’s. The only reliever they have that had a sub 3.0 ERA last year was Rogers.
In addition to CJ Cron’s .812 OPS last year, they also have Willians Asutdillo, who managed a paltry .887 OPS in 97 plate appearances with 3 strikeouts.
Now, Astudillo is currently penciled in as their 3B, which he plays about as well as JMart plays 1B (his defensive value came from catching).
So, why trade your best reliever for a cost-controlled DH when you already have one?
If anything, I would think they are going to sign a Mike Moustakas or Derek Dietrich to be their 3B. I also think they will be looking to upgrade their relief corps.
They’ve already signed CJ Cron, Jonathan Schoop and Ronald Torreyes in free agency this year.
I am curious why so many people seem to think he has limited appeal as a DH.
Oh, he has value. But there are only about 3 teams that need a DH that don’t have one. And you can get a DH for a few million bucks.
Good relievers > DH
If Minnesota won’t trade, if they’re really trying to win their division (or at least take a shot at the wildcard) I think they’re making a big mistake, but that’s obviously their choice.
I’m sure they’re willing to trade. I just don’t think they’re going to trade one of their most valuable relievers for a DH while trying to win the division. And if they are going to trade, it will probably be prospects for MLB players. No need to weaken the MLB team in one area to improve it in another.
They’ve also openly stated they will be wading into free agent waters. Have you seen their payroll after this year? $0
Between MLB TV revenue, the pooling of 31% of local TV revenues, MLB merchandise/media, and small market revenues, every team has at least $100 million. That is before they produce any revenue themselves.
If you were managing a team, would you trade one of your most valuable relievers for a DH when you can get a DH for under $5 million?
We know they’ve talked to the Cardinals about JMart (they have too many lefties, not enough righties), I also read that they’ve reached out to Cleveland about Edwin Encarnacion.
Which would then open up Cleveland as a place to trade JMart.
No. They still received the picks and value in return. Why would a trade matter in the overall scheme of things?
For a team that wants to build through the draft, and places a high importance on draft picks, they’ve seemed rather ambivalent about the loss of draft picks the past few years, ever since Epstein started being vocal about it (as are fans of just about every team).
When the draft comes next year, and people are looking at the picks, do you really think they are going to think that is a St. Louis pick or an Arizona pick?
It’s simple perception.
gscottar’s explanation makes sense.
but if he doesn’t perform, he will be replaced at some point. Why are so many so gloomy?
He didn’t perform last year and the only thing that took him out of the lineup was injury
Well, I’m also considering that the Indians are looking for salary relief and still want to compete for a winnable division (where they only really have to beat Minnesota).
Being able to offer two MLB-ready pitchers and a MLB ready outfielder (a position they need) kind of makes up for the lack of Top 100’s, and is something most competing offers won’t be able to do.
plus solid southpaw Taylor Rogers for the pen.
I am curious why people think Taylor Rogers is available in any trade for JMart. Does anybody remember the Craig Kimbrel trade? Aroldis Chapman? Andrew Miller?
Since Minnesota is trying to win a winnable division, I would think Jose LeClerc from the Texas Rangers would be more available, as the Rangers have no chance at winning their division.
Yes. Most trades for a pitcher of Kluber’s stature involve at least two Top 100 prospects, if not three
Usually, teams make certain players off limits, I included Reyes, O’Neill and Gorman as the off limits players.
As for the Cardinals window:
– They have Goldschmidt, Ozuna, Mikolas, Wacha for one year
– They have Carpenter, Molina & Gyorko for two yearsThey would have control of Kluber for 3 years.
So, one of the popular refrains I hear often is that the Cardinals still don’t have a true ace.
Carlos Martinez has the potential, but hasn’t lived up to it. Miles Mikolas was great, but we saw what happened with the Final Boss in his second year.
This would be a trade that actually hurts, but probably makes us a much better team:
Kluber or BauerCorey Kluber for Dakota Hudson, John Gant, Adolis Garcia, Randy Arozorena
This is a trade I originally thought would have to include Carson Kelly, but since he’s no longer available, may have to be sweetened with Elhuris Montero.
