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Bernal for me at 6. Glad to see Baez got the 5 spot. I probably would have had Rodriguez higher, Matthews lower.
Looking ahead to when we get to the AA lefties, I have Mautz ahead of Henderson.
I’ll be curious to see who is rated the top from the 2025 draft who is not Doyle.
I have lots of uncertainties in the rankings this year, in large part due to the pitcher injury question.
I am with jnevel on the “hope they give themselves a chance next year” front. As he notes, it wouldn’t have taken much for this team to get the last playoff spot. They probably lose quickly in the postseason but youneverknow. For next year, replacing Fedde/Mikolas/Pallante with McGreevy/FA/winner of the Mathews, Leahy competition should be an improvement. Replacing Walker in the lineup with Wetherholt should be an improvement. Replacing some Pozo/Pages ABs with Crooks ABs should help. A bit more health from Herrera and Contreras should help.
That does not make for a team that strikes fear into the competition’s heart. It’s not a 2004 club. But it should be entertaining and offer a chance as we develop the pitching depth and hopefully a top flight bat that would make the team really a competitor.
My sense of the press conferences is that that is management’s thought, too. We’ll see.
All-
I was wrong about the Cards’ draft odds. I assumed that they would take the 8th spot in the odds as listed by the Tankathon site. Instead, they have the 11th spot. It’s just that three teams in front of them (the Rockies, Nats, and Angels) are ineligible. The “ping pong balls” for those three teams are then distributed to the other teams. So the Cards’ would have had a 1.4% chance of the top pick, but with the three teams being ineligible for the lottery, their chances rise to 2.35%. I don’t have the bandwidth to run the simulations for this system. The 11th pick would have a 15.5% chance of getting one of the 6 lottery picks. The Cards’ chances will be higher than that, but I don’t know how high. The increase from a 1.4% chance to a 2.35% chance is about a 68% increase. A 68% increase from 15.5% gets us to about a 26% chance. So…IF that’s a good back of envelope estimate of the odds, there’s probably about a 26% chance of the Cards getting one of the 6 lottery picks. I’d estimated 32% before.
The good news is that the other teams behind us in the lottery (Marlins, Dbacks, Rangers, Giants, Royals, Mets, and Astros) will also have odds a bit lower than I had estimated. If one of them wins a lottery pick and we don’t, we slide to the 9th spot. If two of them win lottery picks and we don’t, we slide to 13th. Per Tankathon, the 11th place team had about a 32.7% chance of sliding at least two spots. I’d think that number would rise a bit.
If someone wants to number crunch, both MLB and Baseball America have posted the odds. BA has posted what the odds would have been if those three teams were eligible as well as what they are now. And it’s not behind a paywall!
I apologize for being incorrect in the numbers I posted above.
Yup. The 9th place team has a 45.6% chance of sliding to at least 13. The 8th place team only 16.8%. About a 32% chance of a top 6 pick.
I think the five will be:
1. Gray
2. Liberatore
3. McGreevy
4. internal competition that hopefully brings in Matthews, but if not, Leahy or retooled Pallante
5. mystery acquisition by trade or FA. I’d love something more than a Lynn/Gibson signing, but I’d not get too depressed if it were a Lynn/Gibson signing.None of those guys is going to dominate, but I’d hope all five would give them a shot in a way that too often Fedde and Mikolas did not. Then use the year to see how the varied injured guys recover and how others develop to replace Gray and quite possibly the mystery acquisition.
I’m also curious what an offense adding Wetherholt and Crooks, sending Walker to AAA for the year and reducing ABs to backup level for Pages would look like.
Great stuff, Sooner. Thanks!
Re the lottery next year, I can confirm that I read the news of our eligibility from Derek Goold’s chat. He was emphatic and has checked sources.
The tankathon indicator erroneously doesn’t give us odds. If tankathon got the other teams ineligible for the lottery correct (most important that Colorado and Washington are ineligible), the 7th place team now is Miami at 59-66, and the 7th place team has a 42% chance of a pick in the top 6. Our record is 2.5 games better than Miami. We’re only 3.5 games better than current 5th in the lottery Baltimore, which has roughly a 64% chance of a top 6 pick. And we have the 4th hardest remaining schedule. Even if we remain where we are in the standings, I believe we would have around a 10% chance of a top 6 pick.
If someone else has a better understanding of the odds, I’d love to be corrected!
Thanks for the list, as always, Brian. I think if I had one person I’d move up it would be Zack Levenson. His April and May were….not good. OPS of .625 and .650, respectively. But he seemed to do something different in June. His OBP rose to .407, OPS to .786. Then his BA and slugging rose, so he had OPS at .872 in July and .951 in August. The system seems to have seen enough of him that they gave him the August promotion to Springfield, where at 23 he is 4 months younger than Chase Davis, and he’s off to a good start. I’d love eyeball judgements to complement the stats, but seems to me that he’s figured something out. I’ve got him behind Baez but in front of Davis as an OF at Springfield who has my interest. (Davis is having a good August, so perhaps I am underrating him?)
I might drop Honeyman a bit. Only a .715 OPS at Peoria, though I know he has not had so many minor league ABs.
And I think I’d move Raniel Rodriguez up in front of the injured pitchers, to 6th.
I guess I’d put Levenson around 30. I agree with jnevel re Watson. The top 30 then looks pretty interesting to me, though
I, too, would slot Doyle at 2. I’m curious where the other picks will place!
1 pick to go and the Cards have not chosen a catcher. They took Campos and Kross in the 4th and 5th rounds last year. They took Crooks in the 4th round in 2022. They took Tarlow in the 19th round in 2023. They took McKeithan in the 16th round in 2021. And Antonini in the 18th round in 2019. Guess they are feeling good about that position this year? 🙂
Edit: Jinxed it. They took a catcher in the 20th.
Albert-
Yup, CF seems to be the thing. And I could well imagine him an upgrade there over Barrero.
Thanks.
I wonder if there’s a chance they would dip into the AA lefty pitchers if needed. Henderson, Hansen, Mautz.
Thanks, and that makes sense. I saw Gazdar on the bubble and figured Rivas was better on the bubble than Gazdar, though there’s more uncertainty with Gazdar since he’s new. My bet is that Fermin and Barrero will be gone after this year to open up roster space. I’m curious if they will protect Prieto, and I kind of doubt they will. With Saggese promoted, I’d think Rivas would play infield for Memphis, if he doesn’t get taken in the Rule 5. (I don’t think they’ll protect him). I keep hoping they will try Wetherholt in CF….
The Davis, Watson, and Ortiz debuts make sense, and I might have Ortiz just a bit higher. I don’t follow the Dominican guys enough to know the two debuting. Of the five dropped, Rivas is the hardest for me.
Quick followup on Rivas….he’s a year younger than Gazdar and is playing at a higher league. SS is Gazdar’s 2nd position, but Rivas’ first. And Gazdar’s .749 OPS this year isn’t that much higher than Rivas’ .710.
Thanks much, Brian! I was going to push for Baez over Davis. Glad to see that change.
I’ll lightly push one fringy player….I’d bring back Rivas. After a terrible May (OPS .549) he’s had a more solid June (OPS .771). Seems rough to drop him when he had a better month.
He’s still only 22 and the Cards thought enough of him to send him to the AFL. He seems like he has a better chance to play in MLB than Prieto to me in that he has the defense and still has the room to grow the hit tool. Or compare to Fermin. Fermin’s age 22 season, his AA OPS was .712, basically the same as Rivas’ .710, and Fermin doesn’t seem to me to have Rivas’ D. If Fermin had better shortstop D, I wonder if he’d be the utility guy now instead of Barrero. I think there’s a good chance Rivas ends up as a backup infielder for at least a couple years.
And as a bonus, Saggese might have 45 days’ service already. He was up Sept 10-29 last year, so 20 days. This year, April 4 to 28, which would be 25 days, but I suspect he was optioned before the game on the 28th so that day would not count? Hope you leave him in the rankings anyway!
I’m wondering if they will leave Roby in AA till the first half is over. Springfield has a two game lead in that league and winning a playoff spot, having a place for some folks to experience postseason baseball would be good. Plus building a culture experienced with winning.
I’m unsure when the 2nd half starts. In AAA, the first half ends June 22. I’d think it would be the same for Texas League, but I’m not sure.
If I just counted right, the Cards lost 4 games in the first 23 in which they blew saves, a stretch where they went 9-14. I don’t think they’ve had such a game since, a stretch in which they have gone 23-10. One source indicates they have blown 7 leads total. I don’t know when those were. I’m inclined to think that part of the slow start was the pen and that this was a somewhat fixable issue so that the team we see now is more like what we will see than is the team we saw at the beginning. Assuming they stay healthy.
Thanks jnevel and jj!
I am encouraged by your takes on Pozo’s game calling and ability to work with Libby. I’ve been trying to figure out what we have in Pozo. His superior BA and ability to avoid striking me out are intriguing. Initially I figured he was just a 4A catcher you use for a bit then send back to the minors. But I am beginning to think he instead could be half a catching squad. Which makes the catcher traffic jam all the more complicated. Herrera, Pages, Pozo, Crooks, Bernal….and eventually Rodriguez. I’d hate to trade any of them. I figure we will eventually trade at least 3. Hope they make the right calls.
Thanks jnevel and jj.
While Pages might have caught a fair proportion of Libby’s starts, my point was that Liberatore was the pitcher for a particularly high proportion of Pozo’s starts. As best I can tell, Pozo has started 13 games at catcher. The SP’s?
Libby 7 times
Mikolas 3 times
Pallante 2 times
Matz 1 timeNo games with Fedde or Gray.
I’ve not calculated it, but Pages must have a larger percentage of his games being thrown by people other than Libby. I’d think that Pozo had a bit more than half his games with Libby might inflate his averages. Now….could be that it’s Pozo making Libby better. Dunno.
I’m with jnevel–in the hunt means either in position to be in the playoffs were the season to end that day or within a couple days. Maybe more if the team in front of them is in the process of crashing and burning.
Also agree on the buy/sell strategy. Much will depend on whether any of the shuttle relievers get hot between now and then–Fernandez, Graceffo, Munoz, O’Brien, Roycroft, Swanson…maybe even a Graillo, Roby or Hence. If one of them really steps up, I’m not sure I’d trade for another reliever. If none does, well, I think they could use a righty to supplement Helsley, Maton, and Leahy. And will Walker get it together? If not, a RF upgrade.
I could see dealing Gorman, but worry that it’s selling low. I’d like to see him sent to Memphis for a bit to at least boost his value by posting some good numbers there, though that is not guaranteed. Maybe Siani would bring something for a team that needs good CF defense and can handle a light bat. Definitely a catcher could be bait.
