Jnevel

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  • in reply to: Goldschmidt & Arenado Numbers 2024 #245126
    Jnevel
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    $/WAR is an easy metric to use but it fits poorly in the baseball world. It works well if a team had an infinite number of players. But because they don’t, you really need to concentrate value.

    A 1 FWAR player is really not worth much at all. Certainly not $10 million. You ought to be able to find that player from your minor leagues. So the first WAR a player produces should be worth $850,000.

    A 2 FWAR player is again someone that you can produce internally, but they don’t necessarily come about all the time. So that 2nd “win” has a value of maybe $1.5 million. So a 2 WAR player is worth around $2.35 million. That’s the $850,000 for the first win plus $1.5 million for the second.

    The third FWAR is where the value starts to really increase. I’m thinking that “win” is worth around $10 million on the market. So a 3 WAR player should have a value of $850,000 + 1.5 million + 10 million or $12.35 million – roughly. This is a good player. A little better than the average major league player.

    Then, the price really goes up for that 4th or 5th win. Because you want to concentrate your value as much as possible when you only get 26 players on an active roster. Maybe $15 million for the 4th “win” and $20-25 million for the 5th “win”. Something like that anyway.

    So it’s not really that the market is $10 million per win. It’s more about what each of those wins provides on top of the others.

    Sorry to bore some of you with my rambling on this beautiful Wednesday morning!

    in reply to: Carlson to IL, Scott promoted #245113
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    Right now, as things appear, I’d guess we will get Gray and Nootbaar back in 2 weeks, Middleton back in about 3 weeks, Carlson back in about 4 weeks, and Edman back in 4-10 weeks. I’m really not sure on Rom but I wasn’t counting on him for a big impact anyway this season.

    in reply to: Carlson to IL, Scott promoted #245021
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    Brian, to answer your question on the 40 man move, I would think it has to be Rivas or Young who gets booted. The only other play I see is maybe Edman gets put on the 60 day if it looks like it’s going to be close to that before he’s back. I don’t see any other good options besides booting Carpenter out and there’s no way that’s happening. So I’ll go with Rivas.

    in reply to: Scott and Saggese provide solid insurance this season #244893
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    Mo has plenty of critics for his recent trades, but he did a good job to turn 1 1/3 seasons of a broken Harrison Bader into a season of Jordan Montgomery and future seasons of Roby and Sagesse. No matter what happens with these two minor leaguers, this has already been a big win.

    in reply to: 2024 Bullpen #244834
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    I’ll take the first group too, but it could be close. I agree with some of the points Mud is making. Helsley will likely be healthier. Gio seems like he’s got to bounce back some after years of being extremely consistent. I’m not sold yet on him because while the slider still looks great, I think the fastball isn’t quite as sharp as it used to be. With Pallante, last season he was unlucky with ground balls getting through for base hits. Plus now he has that nasty “deathball”. Romero is likely to regress some, but he should still be pretty good. And Liberatore has all the tools to be excellent in the pen if the Cards choose to leave him there.

    in reply to: 2024 Spring training news #244818
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    Robertson would likely be the next guy up in the pen and will almost assuredly get some opportunities this season. He was a decent get for O’Neill considering how much everyone knew the Cardinals wanted to trade him. We also got Victor Santos. I don’t know a lot about him other than he has one interesting pitch – I believe a splitter.

    JJ is right. O’Neill was mostly a salary dump, but also a team chemistry dump – that last part is an assumption based on lots of good data.

    I like Robertson. I think he would be in a lot of MLB bullpens. Ours is just a bit deeper this year with the acquisitions of O’Brien, Kittredge, Middleton, and Fernandez (along with King at the end of last season). If you add in the trade to get Romero before that, the Cards really have done a nice job of upgrading their pen. That allows guys in the minors to fully grow up before they are pushed into action. Now, can we do the same with our starting pitching?

    in reply to: Burleson is going to be a fine hitter, however #244816
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    Without a doubt in my mind, having watched quite a bit of both of them, Burleson is a superior defender to Yepez in the outfield. Yepez is horrifically bad out there. Burleson is competent, but slow at getting to balls. Plus he has a good arm. I’m not in any way endorsing Burleson to be in our outfield, but I just saw comments above and wanted to make it clear that he is at least a lot better than Yepez in the outfield.

    For the mathematical look:

    OF D: Yepez=M.Adams=J.Martinez<Burleson

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    “25” asked for bold predictions.

    Time to be the bold police. Shady, I’m not sure your post meets the criteria of this thread. Jager, all of your predictions feel very possible and not so bold. Maybe the team finishing in the cellar is marginally bold, but they were in the cellar last year so that waters it down. Gscottar – I also take issue with one of yours. Thompson becoming a #4 starter is hardly bold. It almost seems likely or at least very possible at this point. But the rest of what you have works!

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    After last year’s debacle of Bold Predictions, I’m almost afraid to try this again. Let’s try this again. Here are my Bold Predictions:

    1) Jordan Walker will be an above average defender. Maybe not by much, but more defensive runs saved than allowed.

    2) Andre Granillo will be the team’s closer or primary setup man by season’s end.

    3) Dylan Carlson will accumulate the most WAR in the Cards outfield.

    All my other thoughts don’t really qualify as bold so I’ll just stick with these 3.

    in reply to: Roster Matrix #244623
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    It’s no secret that we needed to cut some upper level pitchers. Just way too many to get regular playing time at a competitive level. I’m a little surprised about Sawyer. I figured he’d stick around another season. I figured they’d try Gragg out as a reliever before cutting him. He always struck me as a guy who should have been a reliever.

    in reply to: Should the Cards extend Goldschmidt? #244622
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    If Goldy isn’t here in 2025, then I think there’s 3 possibilities. None of those is a FA and none is Walker. They each depend on what happens this season.

    1) If Gorman continues to have back issues that plague him and 2B is deemed to exacerbate those issues, then Gorman will be the new first baseman. Donovan or Saggese or Edman would be the full time second baseman. This scenario seems most likely to me because it solves 2 problems – keeping Gorman in the lineup while improving our defense.

    2) A combination of one or both of Burleson and Baker depending on how they hit this year. They certainly could platoon well together.

    3) If Ivan Herrera hits the ball well and Contreras struggles at defense and framing but continues to hit extremely well, then Contreras could move to 1B and Pages could be the backup next year with a limited time share.

    in reply to: Cards v cubs farm systems #244534
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    I was certain that the Cubs should come out ahead on the position prospect side. Nearly all of the Cards position talent graduated in the past 2 seasons. And the Cubs have a lot of position talent currently percolating. That’s not necessarily a problem for the Cards if the guys we have who graduated in the past couple years stay better than all the Cubs players coming up. Can Walker, Winn, Gorman, Donovan, Nootbaar, Carlson, Burleson, Herrera, Scott, and Saggese outproduce the Cubs position prospects and younger prospect graduates? That’s really the question. It’s helpful to have learned that our pitching prospects definitely should. Thanks for this series Bob. Good work.

    in reply to: Blake Snell To The Giants #244533
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    Which would have been better for the Cards. Snell 2/62 or Gray 3/75 ?

    For me, they’re both similar in the risk/reward. Gray’s contract may have a slightly higher ceiling, but it isn’t a lot.

    Both contracts are probably untradeable – at least for any value. For Snell, if he’s good or average in year 1, he opts out and the Giants will have either paid market value for a good pitcher or overpaid for an average one. If Snell is poor or gets injured, then he opts in and the Giants potentially way overpay for the production they get. Gray has more variance because he’ll be in St Louis for 3 years regardless so each year could be different. Maybe one good year, one average year, and one injured or poor year feels most likely. Both teams are probably overpaying for the production they end up getting although there’s a small chance either comes out slightly ahead.

    I’m really not sure which one I’d rather have. Ideally neither. But I’ll take Gray in a toss up.

    in reply to: 2024 Spring Training game thread #244516
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    He’s fun to watch at Memphis. He’s sooo big. I think there would actually be some excitement around him if Goldschmidt weren’t such a fixture.

    in reply to: 2024 Spring Training game thread #244513
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    The “Big Kid” ain’t going to make the team. He’s headed back to AAA where he destroyed pitchers left and right last year. Goal is he has to hit 60 homers this time to get called back up.

    in reply to: 2024 Spring Training game thread #244510
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    1TD – I believe it will be Contreras approximately 30% of the time, Gorman maybe 20% of the time, and then either Donovan or whomever Donovan is subbing in for the rest of the time (I guess that includes him subbing out Gorman in Gorman’s 20%). Burleson may also pickup 10-15% if outfielders continue to be injured and he remains on the roster.

    in reply to: Burleson is going to be a fine hitter, however #244474
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    Burleson has tremendous bat control. However, sometimes the issue is that he does swing and hit the ball (rather than miss) because he often swings outside the zone and makes poor contact. This limits his strikeouts but doesn’t improve his success a whole lot. Yes, I’d generally rather have a ball put in play. But it would be a whole lot better if he’d just swing mostly at balls he can hit well.

    in reply to: Middleton injured #244469
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    Liberatore has a good pitch mix to be a starter. It’s just that his fastball consistently gets crushed so he throws it less and less and then guys can sit on his breaking pitches. But as a reliever, his fastball gets an extra 2-3 mph bump and goes from bad (because it was fairly straight and pedestrian) to at least average (because it’s still fairly straight but now “fast”). This helps his breaking pitches play up.

    Could he still be an effective starter with his current fastball? Maybe with elite command. Otherwise his ceiling might just be a #4/5 starter. And that’s not terrible. It’s a little useful. But I look at it like we have a trove of guys vying for #5 starters who could probably do that same job today. I’d rather have an elite lefty reliever. And Liberatore seems to potentially be able to provide that. I think it maximizes his value to the team.

    in reply to: Oli Extension #244416
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    Rating a manager is tough for fans because we probably don’t see 85-90% of what they do. They’re very likely to side with a Manager when the record shows good results and against the Manager when it doesn’t.

    I’ve said this before, but I think it bares repeating. I think Marmol is a good tactical manager. And at the same time, I think Marmol was 100% the wrong person to lead the team last season. His personality was not what the Cardinals needed last season. However, I’m willing to commit that I think he’s actually almost exactly the right manager for this year’s team. I know that sounds a little ridiculous given that so many of the guys are the same. But the situation is completely different. Last year we were supposed to win and win easily. So last year, we needed a steady presence who was wise and not temperamental. Someone with lots of experience who had been through all the little hiccups before. Someone who could mentor rookies, easily lean on veterans, and ultimately achieve what we were supposed to achieve anyway. Someone who could respectfully tell Adam his career was probably over. Someone who had already been there and done that. But not this year. No, this year we need someone who is scrappy as is willing to fight like heck for each win. We need a leader who is irritated with what we got last year and wants to force that result to change. We need someone who has a chip on their shoulder because they feel this team underachieved and who won’t let that happen again. I think Marmol is that person. And I feel so much better about having him at the helm than I did going into last season.

    in reply to: Middleton injured #244300
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    I think Mud has it right. 4 guys are virtual locks to make it. Pallante has pitched well, has his new “deathball” to combat righties, and still gets ground balls at one of the most elite rates in MLB history so he’s in. Fernandez has been solid enough to keep rather than giving him back for peanuts. So he’s in. O’Brien has been one of the best so far (after Helsley & Kittredge) so I think he’s now earned a spot.

    That leaves 4 possibilities for the last guy (Wilking Rodriguez has had serious command issues so I’m excluding him): King and Liberatore from the left side and Robertson and Leahy from the right. Of that group, Leahy has had the best results, but he’s not currently on the 40 man roster so someone would have to get booted out if he were added. With Liberatore, the Cardinals may still obstinately want to keep him as a starter. I understand that, but with the logjam of starters in the Minors, I think he should be moved to the pen and be the final guy. King hasn’t looked very good and Robertson looks like he’s still ironing out a few of his pitches which could be done at AAA. So my preference would be Libby for that final spot but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Cardinals go with King despite him being the least deserving just because he’s a lefty and has the most MLB bullpen experience.

    in reply to: Future Rotation #244095
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    Matz and Mikolas are already under contract for 2035. They will be whatever they will be whether that’s a SP2 down to SP5. I’m just looking at all the others on rookie contracts saying one of them should turn into an equivalent of a SP3. That could be Thompson. He has a leg up right now. But we have a whole season to play.

    in reply to: Future Rotation #244090
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    JJ – I 100% agree with your post here. Although I do think a SP 3 will come internally.

    In 2025, I believe it’s likely that Saggese is at 2B, Contreras or Burleson (or possibly Baker) is at 1B, Scott is in CF, Carlson is the 4th OF, Gorman is the nearly full-time DH, and Donovan becomes the super sub while Edman is traded. I love Edman. I love Goldschmidt. But this configuration works better given who we have in 2025 and it frees up money to spend on a good starting pitcher as JJ suggests. Plus it helps keep Gorman healthy. But 2025 is still a long ways off and things change.

    in reply to: Cards v cubs farm systems #244085
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    Thanks Bob for this continued series.

    in reply to: Cards v cubs farm systems #243885
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    This is interesting Bob. I’m enjoying this little series. It can maybe be a bit out of context since we don’t have ages. However, I’m at least game for the ride you are taking us on.

    in reply to: Future Rotation #243841
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    Given the age of our rotation, I’ll guess that Thompson is a starter with 120 innings this year. Rom also gets significant innings as a starter with a few going to McGreevey and Graceffo.

    In 2025, Lynn will be retired and Matz will move to the bullpen due to injury concerns. Graceffo and McGreevey get most of the work with Bedell as the main #6 starter. Gibson has his option picked up and throws a second year alongside Miles and Gray. It’s a boring rotation, but steady. We get to see some action from Hence, Roby, and Hjerpe as fill-in starters.

    In 2026, with any luck, 2 of Hjerpe, Hence, and Roby join Gray in the rotation after Gibson retires and Mikolas’ arm falls off leaving him injured for the season. The other of that big 3 trio suffers a TJ surgery. McGreevey and Bedell stay as solid, but uninspiring starters. Graceffo moves to the pen joining Granillo as one of the best back of the pen combinations in baseball. Rajcic becomes the 6th starter. Showalter and Ixan Henderson battle it out for next starter up with Ruben Menes looking like a future stud option waiting in the wings.

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