Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
O’Brien can’t stay healthy. Romero is entering the last year of his deal and will probably be traded.
Crooks didn’t get an AB, but I’ve watched him hit quite a bit. What I hadn’t seen much of was his catching and what I saw there I loved. He was working with Svanson and Fernandez who he worked with quite a bit in AAA, but his hands were soft and caught the ball very smooth. One of those things when you see it you have to like it.
Just now back to school? My kids have been back since August 6th here in Southern Indiana. Now seems like a much more reasonable time to go back, August 6th was really early.
As stated before the reason I don’t like divisions with four teams
I don’t disagree. I’m all for 16 team NL and 16 team AL. Top 4 records from both leagues make the playoffs and thats it. Make making the playoffs mean something. But ownership will never go for it at all. They will likely want a 4 division set up to increase the likelihood of making the playoffs and more teams in contention longer and getting the revenue. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try to push 8 teams from each league making the playoffs too which I absolutely hate. 50% of the league should be in the playoffs, this isn’t the NBA. I’ll compromise with leaving it at 6 with the 2 top record division winners getting a bye.
Found it, and my ideas appear to be the same as they were 2.5 years ago.
I expect the two expansion teams will be in Nashville and Salt Lake City.
I do not expect the NL and AL to be disbanded altogether.
While eight divisions of four teams each seems to be all the rage it just increases the likelihood of a divsion winner having a losing record which is a farce. It happened in the NFL’s NFC South in 2022.
What would make more sense is to have a NL East, NL West, AL East, and AL West with each division having eight teams. Each division winner gets a playoff spot with a bye and then there would be four wild card teams from each league who wold open up the playoff rounds.
I made a thread on this years ago. I went though many pages trying to find it, but I gave up. I expect Nashville to get a team and then either Portland or Salt Lake City. There have been rumors and even hinting at breaking up the traditional AL and NL, and I really hope they don’t. I think the best think to do is move Tampa Bay (relocate to Charlotte?) to the NL and move Colorado to the AL.
NL
North: Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis
South: Atlanta, Miami, Nashville, Tampa Bay(Charlotte?)
East: New York Mets, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington
West: Arizona, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego, San FranciscoAL
North: Chicago White Sox, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota
South: Colorado, Houston, Kansas City, Texas
East: Baltimore, Boston, New York Yankees, Toronto
West: Los Angeles Angels, Las Vegas, Portland/Salt Lake, SeattleI know San Antonio has been mentioned too. If it was San Antonio over Portland or Salt Lake City then put them in the South and move Colorado to the West.
I say keep it at 6 playoff teams also. Each division winner gets in with 2 wild cards. I know they look at the money of the playoffs, but they should be hard to make and mean something. As far as scheduling. Each team could play same league, non division team in a home and away series (72 games), same league same division teams in 2 home and away series (36 games), and play 1 series vs opposite league (48 games). Put in 6 4 game series, played against same division teams, pushing those games to 42 and you have 162 games. As for the interleague series the NL North could play the AL North and West at home, the South and East on the road and then the next season they are flipped. Then you are guaranteed to get whatever interleague matchup the fans may want to see at home every other year. This also offers a balanced schedule they have been leaning more towards, while still playing roughly 26% of games in division.
I feel the same as 2023 deadline. I don’t dislike the moves that were made and think the return for what they had to offer is reasonable, hope some work out and we’re still evaluating 2023 because 2 of the “better returns” in Robberse and Roby have been dealing with injury. Svanson and Saggese look like at least valuable role players with potential as more. But, same as 2023 I wish they would have went deeper into tearing it down. I really feel this team isn’t going to be truly competitive until 2030 or later. Arenado is under contract through 2027 and seems like he’s probably not tradeable or they would have done it at this point. Gray is under contract though next year, with an option for 2027 that surely won’t be exercised. Maybe he agrees next year to waive it. Contreras is under contract though 2027, option for 2028, and I think he is tradeable but hasn’t been willing to waive the NTC. The money of those 3 isn’t helping the rebuild. I like Donovan and Nootbaar but they are running out of team control and the return for them could have really sped up the rebuild and giving a better look at guys like Saggese and given a chance to get a look at Church or Prieto or possibly even Wetherholt. I know eating the money of Arenado isn’t ideal, but probably should have just been done and move him and give 3B to Gorman and go with it. The said in the off season they were doing a “reset” yet here we are still stuck in the middle of competing and a rebuild with a .500 record in 4th place in the division (10 games back) and 5.5 games back of a wild card spot.
Interesting comments on Blaze Jordan. He is listed as playing 1B and 3B. If he’s got lead feet and can’t catch the ball, they shouldn’t say he can play 3B. The bottom line is that we’ll just have to wait and see what we’ve got. I hope he gets invited to spring training.
Well he has to be added to the 40 man or exposed to the rule 5, so I’d guess he’ll be on the 40 man and thus part of Spring Training.
I’ve been all for blowing it up and building around some of the guys who are now running low on team control. And I’m now in the blow it up and include Donovan and Nootbaar in there and get some return. I love Donny, but his value is sky high this season and Wetherholt is pushing for a MLB job. It’s way past time to tear in down and build it instead of trying to stabilize a falling structure with no foundation. Gray and Contreras aren’t going to waive, reportedly, so we’ll just have to use them the best we can until they decide to or their contracts expire. I’d trade Arenado, Nootbaar, Donovan, Fermin, Matz, Mikolas (NTC too though), Romero, Maton, Helsley, and DFA Hampson.
1. Wetherholt 2B (L)
2. Winn SS (R)
3. Burleson LF (L) – needs to be 1B/DH, but Contreras won’t waive NTC
4. Contreras 1B (R)
5. Herrera DH (R)
6. Gorman 3B (L)
7. Walker RF (R)
8. Pages/Pozo C (R)
9. Scott CF (L)Prieto IF (L)
Saggese IF/OF (R) – Get him learning corner OF
Church OF (L)
Pozo/Pages C (R)Gray, Liberatore (L), McGreevy, Pallante, Mikolas (if he won’t waive NTC, if he does then Leahy/Graceffo for the rest of 2025)
Leahy, Graceffo, King(L), Fernandez/Munoz/Roycroft, Svanson, ??? (L), Granillo, O’Brien
Even if they don’t want to bring Wetherholt up yet then 2B can be Saggese and Prieto and hold on to Fermin for the other bench spot since he’d just be a throw in anyway.
There is no good reason to keep Contreras other than the difficulty/cost of moving him.
Same can be said about Gray. But they both have no trade clauses and have said they want to stay in St. Louis and not waive them.
New hitting coach?
Couldn’t agree more. You can see the change in philosophy, better at-bats, better approach. I’m not one to blame the coaching often, the players play. But the coaching has to lead and put the players in the best opportunity to succeed and I don’t think Turner Ward was doing that. The offense looks completely different now with new leadership and essentially the same players.
I agree. Gorman hasn’t been awful. I know the overall stat line right now isn’t impressive, but watching him he looks much better and the underlying stats show quite the improvement.
I like Scott batting 9th. Especially with Nootbaar hitting 1st, Scott works as a secondary leadoff hitter there without putting added pressure on the kid. Noot becomes more of a 2 hitter if Scott is on base and I like that too. If you hit Scott 1 and move Noot to 2 and Donny hitting 3rd it makes the first 3 guys all LH too, and Noot and Donny need to be at the top. Leave it be for now wit Scott hitting 9 and let things work themselves out there.
Gorman results aren’t there, but watching his AB’s this year compared to last year are night and day. He looks much more comfortable at the plate, hands are getting to the zone quicker, and pitch recognition is much better. I don’t know if he’s ever a .260+ with 40+ HR they want him to be, but I think he’s made huge steps in the right direction of being a productive hitter. I said when he first came up a few years back I thought he was much more “Russell Branyan” than a star player. But Branyan was serviceable.
Walker is still pulling out terribly and getting fooled a lot. He’s young and was rushed. I’m not saying he won’t ever be anything, but some guys take longer to figure it out. If developing was actually focused on then he would need to be playing, but they held on to guys and winning needs to be the focus, and it is really hard for me to say he needs to be in the line-up until they start selling off a lot of these guys if they can’t be in contention.
Left hander Andrew Abbott is making the start for Cincinnati. Cards going with the RH heavy line-up
1. Nootbaar LF
2. Winn SS
3. Donovan 2B
4. Arenado 3B
5. Contreras 1B
6. Baker DH
7. Walker RF
8. Pozo C
9. Barrero CFSiani has option years and they will option him. I’m perfectly fine with Barrero over Siani for the bench. But I really don’t know that they option Walker, even if right now it looks like the best thing to do for this roster construction. If Arenado is moved at some point it would open up for Walker to be back in RF, Nootbaar to LF, Donovan to 2B, Gorman to 3B…but we’ll have to wait for that day. Koperniak needs to be in a corner, CF out of necessity only. Nootbaar is a better CF option than Koperniak. Who gets DFA for Barrero? I think it would come down to Loutos or Munoz. AAA SP of Matthews, Hence*, Robberse*, Roby*, Munoz*/Graceffo*. Pen Munoz*/Graceffo*, Rom(L)(Healthy?) Bedell, Gomez, Raquet/Mosqueda(L), Weiss, Granillo, Kaminzky(L), Loutos*, Roycroft*, Anderson, O’Brien*, Svanson*. Thats a lot of RP and none overly impressive, so DFA Munoz or Loutos. Anderson is available for all teams to claim per his contract when they sent him to minor league camp. Cardinals either let the team claim him or block it by adding him to the active roster and paying him the major league portion of his contract, which I think was set at $1.1 million.
I found where I explained what I’d do with the rotation, near the bottom of this,
I don’t really think they will keep Siani up, but do you keep Walker up and not playing every day? If he’s up hes going to play every day. So then who becomes the odd man out? None of the others in that starting 9 deserve to sit either. I think Fermin has done enough to make the team, Barrero is close, Fermin adding some LF/RF play helps him. Barrero SS and CF primary positions help him. Deciding factor to me is Fermin is on the 40 man and Barrero isn’t. Barrero can go to AAA and play all over the place with Helman and either be ready when they are needed.
I am very cautiously optimistic about this team. No, I don’t think they will be good. A LOT has to go right for them to be a consistently good team this season, but I think there is the possibility of them being the “surprise” team of the year. But I still think they will be too inconsistent and finish poorly, but only time will tell. But maybe I’m with you gscottar, maybe its just the excitement of opening day coming that is leading to optimism about this team.
I think with Arenado on the team Walker is the weak link in the 10 guys for 9 spots, but I really doubt they would option him out again. Winn’s struggles this spring I think he needs moved down until he figures it out, take the pressure off. And even as well as he played last season for a rookie, his stats weren’t really leadoff hitter quality. They seem like they are going to give Arenado the veteran benefit too and not hit him 6th where he belongs, so something similar to today’s (3/19) line-up…
1. Donovan – LF (L) (Utility)
2. Contreras – 1B (R)
3. Nootbaar – RF (L)
4. Arenado – 3B (R)
5. Burleson – DH (L) (1B)
6. Herrera – C (R)
7. Gorman – 2B (L)
8. Winn – SS (R)
9. Scott – CF (L)
Fermin- IF/UT(R), Baker- DH(R), Siani- OF(L), Pages- C(R)vs. LHP could leave most of it the same and swap Baker in for Burleson. Maybe Fermin in LF, Donovan in RF, Nootbaar in CF some days too to get Fermin so AB’s.
I’ve posted somewhere else, I don’t remember which thread, but I like the idea of a 6 man rotation. Gray, Fedde, Pallante pitching every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. M-Th are made up of Mikolas, Matz, McGreevy. If there is a 7th game for the week, which doesn’t happen all that often really then Liberatore and Leahy combo could give 5-6 innings or option out Leahy, bring up a AAA SP for the game, then option out that SP, and bring in Roycroft for a week or so, then Leahy could be brought back. McGreevy needs a shot. The only way Mikolas and Matz have trade value in a few months is to be starting them. The other 3 are going to start.
Gray, Fedde, Pallante, Mikolas, Matz(L), McGreevy
Liberatore(L), King(L), Leahy/Roycroft, Maton, Romero(L), Fernandez, HelsleyIf today’s line-up is more in line with what they are thinking for opening day I don’t hate it. With Arenado on the team, I think Walker is the one who is the weak link to get left out, but I don’t know they will make that decision to send him back to AAA again. Winn struggles in spring, could put him 8th in the line-up to start the season. I’d probably flip Nootbaar and Donovan, but either way is OK.
1. Cubs (88-74)
2. Pirates (80-82)
3. Reds (78-84)
4. Cardinals (76-86)
5. Brewers (75-87)Cubs pitching will keep them from being better, but still win the division.
Pirates will ride their pitching and have enough offense to stay close to .500 in a poor division.
Red pitching will struggle, offense and a good manager will keep them in games, but won’t be enough to get to .500.
Cardinals will be inconsistent and streaky, will hear conversations of “they did the right thing not selling off in the off-season and need to be buyers to win a weak division”, and won’t trade away any of their pending free agents trying to win the division. Then will hit an extended cold streak and fall to 4th in the division. (Maybe this is just my pessimism)
Brewers loss of Adames will mean more than they thought and with injuries are unable to meet expectations.Complaining about lineup construction day one in ST is about meaningless as the first ( if not all) NFL preseason game.
It wasn’t complaining about a spring training line up. It was gscotter saying it could be the opening day line up and me stating the only line up I’d like to see early until things shake out the way a long MLB season does.
I don’t think “case closed” on it, but even a slight improvement isn’t going to justify playing him vs LHP over about anyone. It’s going to have to be a substantial improvement. But vs RHP he’s going to be a must to have in the line-up.
Thanks for the info. But I agree with Oli on this one. I think Burleson is serviceable in RF if necessary, but needs to be at 1B where I think he best fits defensively. Though if he’s going to be a regular 1B he needs to be able to hit LHP. At DH hes much easier to platoon, and like I’ve said previously I think he has to be platooned because vs RHP he was one of the best hitters in the league and vs. LHP he was one of the worst.