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I agree gscottar. A really good bullpen might be able to hide the sins of our starters. Especially if our offense can score a lot of runs and we should be able to do so. And, he might give Thompson another shot to make it as a long term starter. Maybe. So I’m all for that move.
I agree that catcher was top priority as it should have been. And I’m still coming around to Contreras but he’s growing on me with all his positive comments. I just would have preferred Moreno or Murphy like probably most everyone else. And 5 years for a catcher in his 30’s is such a long time. Murphy or Moreno and a good starter would have been golden. But the price sounds like it was too high so now we’re at plan B or C. We should still be really good. FWIW, Zips thinks we’re the 2nd best team in the NL but quite a bit behind the Braves. That’s something I guess. But I also agree that at the moment we’re going into the season with a slew of 3/4 starters.
I’m sorry you feel that way Nathan. I personally feel that focusing on bringing in overpriced free agent superstars is typically an ever failing pursuit. You never have enough or it just never quite works out. The teams that win are the teams that build a good team from within with the help of some good trades and a few key signings and then a little luck in the playoffs. The team that “wins” the offseason has never won the World Series. At least not that I can remember. It didn’t do the Tigers and Rangers much good last year. It was the Phillies the year before that. Typically, it’s the Yankees. This year, it’s the Mets. We will get to see if history shines on them after shunning so manny. Great teams are more than a sum of their parts. There are so many immeasurable nuances that can’t be found on a stat sheet. Talent is extremely important. But it’s also about heart. It’s about character. It’s about confidence. It’s about positive emotional connection at just the right moment. And so many other possible synergies that define us as humans. Which is why we play the games. It’s why March Madness is so fun. I look forward to a fun season.
I’d probably give them a C+ too. They have a really good team and didn’t do anything to make it worse. But, they didn’t do a whole lot to make it better either. Contreras is a nice addition for now but may not look like that in 3 years. And the minor league signings and rule 5 draft look like depth or lottery tickets. I mean I like some of the lottery tickets we bought, but the odds of them paying off are pretty low.
I think someone may get cut or traded in Spring training. We have Hurst, Mercado, Toerner, Antico, and Pinder who really all play the same position (CF). Walker and Gomez need to play every day in the corners. My guess is that Toerner gets cut and Antico has to start the year at AA. Toerner may also just get moved to AA to make room. And then there’s still Koperniak who could also be in AAA.
Oliver,
That seems shortsighted. There are no absolutes. Quantity at times is certainly also greater than quality. It just depends on the situation. The Cardinals vast amount of “quantity“ this year helps them not fall far when an injury occurs. And because so much of that quantity is developing talent, it gives some future possibility for someone or someones to be “quality”. Having 5 pitchers that are “quality” and no “quantity” behind them runs a huge risk with injury. Neither is better. Ideally, we’d have both. But we don’t. We have 2 good pitchers in Mikolas and Montgomery who would start for pretty much any team in baseball. Not elite, but definitely reliably good. After that, we have 4 pitchers where we basically are hoping for the best with. Then we have close to ten others who aren’t far behind those 4. Is that a perfect scenario or great plan? No. One elite starter would really, really help assuming they stay healthy. And I wish we had gotten one instead of spending so much on Contreras. So I get the argument. We would definitely be a better team with better pitchers. But I don’t think that means we’re not going to the World Series. This team has a real definite chance. It’s the best Cardinal team I’ve seen in quite some time. But I admit that my faith may be misplaced.
For what it’s worth, Kyle Reid just listed Pinder at #34 and he watches a ton of MiLB baseball. I personally have him at #48. He has a good hit tool and can cover CF and is a good defender all over. He’s really a future 5th outfielder – a guy you call up to cover an injury or who maybe occupies the 25th spot on a MLB roster. But that’s something at least. But we also have Hurst and Antico competing for that same role and I might be inclined to choose Pinder 3rd out of the 3. Close between Hurst and Pinder but I definitely like Antico best purely because his speed is very useable. He will just have to prove that he can still hit at AAA.
This is Pinder’s final year before free agency I believe so he’ll have to put it all together or head out.
I agree Brian. Great to see Graceffo make this list and awesome to see how high they valued Walker. I still think they are missing Burleson. What more could Alec have done at the highest MiLB level? You would think best AAA hitter would be a near automatic lock unless the guy is 27 or more. At least automatic to be somewhere in the top 100 prospects.
Chafin would give the team an easier option to try to develop Thompson into a starter at AAA. Plus, he’s likely better as a reliever than Thompson so I think that’s a good idea as well. We’d lose someone off the 40-man, but there are several fringe reliever choices anyway sitting there now. We’d just have one less of them to try out in ST.
That is not a true statement Oliver. This 2023 team is very different than the one in 2019. And very different than 2020. It is a little closer to 2021, but still significantly different. It is very close to 2022 but that was just 2 playoff games- one of which we almost won. So really small sample size there. Plus, even compared to 2022, we are still quite different because each of our very young players will have another full year of experience under their belt, which can make a huge difference. And our aging veterans have another year under their belts which may make them older and slower. The team is very different. And the circumstances will be too. Is my faith in this team based on hope and gut feeling? Yes, unequivocally yes. But that’s part of being a fan. I certainly agree this team can get better and improve their chances. But I still like their chances as is now.
I want to reiterate my point above. If we had 4 1968 Bob Gibson’s on our playoff roster (probably each making $40 million per season) for the last 4 playoff years and they all threw complete games while allowing 1.12 runs in each game (I realize 1.12 is not a real number of runs), we would still have lost over half of those playoff games. So our problem is not as simple as just spending money. Sometimes things are far more complex without easy solutions. And there’s no sure thing. But I personally still really like the way the Cardinals have found a real nice balance going into 2023 and I like their odds, even if Vegas doesn’t.
A lot is being made about how we need top of the rotation pitchers to be winners in a playoff series. And the evidence is mostly that the Cardinals have not been good in recent playoff series. And that means that if this team wants to win a World Series it either has to spend money on a top of the rotation guy or just get really hot (lucky) during the playoffs. After all, look at our recent performances. But something inherently has bothered me about this line of thinking. First, and most obvious, baseball is a team sport. Your job is to outscore your opponent. So if we can just have a better offense, then we can still win with average pitching. Heck, the difference between a top of the rotation guy with an ERA of 3.00 and our guy with an ERA of 4.00 is only one run per nine. But second, as I laid out earlier in a comment, I was thinking that it’s really been our hitting and not our pitching that has failed us in the moment. So I looked to see if what I remembered being true was actually true. Since 2019, the Cards have played in 15 postseason games. Our record is a dismal 4-11 in those games. But you know what, we scored 0 or 1 run in 8 of those games. So in those 8 games, it would not have mattered if we had Gibson with his 1.12 ERA pitching because we didn’t score more than the requisite 1.12 runs in over half of those playoff games. And, if we exclude the 13-1 shellacking of the Braves in our game 5 NlDS win, we scored just 39 runs over 14 other playoff games (and 9 of those runs came in one other game). On the pitching side, our pitchers mostly performed well. In 10 of the 15 games, our opponents got 4 runs or less.
I’m not sure that I’m taking any side here. I just do think that for whatever reason, our offense tends to get very tentative in playoff games and I think that’s the reason that we’ve lost a lot of them lately. And I don’t really know why that is. Maybe it’s just in our head? Maybe we need the right leader to snap us out of that and get our hitters to be comfortable? Maybe we just need hitters who perform better in the clutch? I don’t know. But I do know that one pitcher doesn’t fix this. Not even 1968 Bob.
I’m not sure Wins matter much but I would have to think that Mikolas has the best chance to get to 15 of them. He generally pitches deepest into games.
I think the Cardinals have 3 number 3 pitchers all with possibilities to be a number 2 or number 4. But there’s very little variance there (unless an injury occurs). Low ceiling, high floor. Then we have 2 others that are probably 4’s but could fall below that with not much ceiling above that. So that’s not great. Not even good really. But it’s probably passable because of our defense and half the games played at Busch. Plus, we should have a very good bullpen to bail us out of some jams. The other plus is that we have about 4 other guys backing our top 5 up who are all likely 5’s or 6’s. That gives us an extremely high floor that we haven’t really had the past few seasons. Overall, I think this makes our pitching fine. Not good, but not bad.
I 100% agree that it isn’t always about talent. Some guys do very well under intense pressure and others don’t. This is a factor not really seen in most stats. For instance (small sample size clearly), Mikolas and Quintana both stepped up admirably under pressure. And also for instance, most of our hitters imploded. And I think that’s generally been a trend for us in the past few postseasons. So while I expect our offense to be great during the regular season, I do worry about it getting lost in the postseason. Someone needs to be the leader and set the tone there the way Pujols or Rolen or Berkman or Beltran or Craig did for us when we had success in the past.
Of course there are concerns! There are always concerns. Always some tweak that could make the team a little bit better. All I’m saying is that the Cardinals brass has done a great job of developing and trading for players to make this team in 2023 a fantastic looking team that has a good shot at a World Series. Pretty much no team ever has a better than 50% shot at winning the WS. Even 25% would be incredible. But 50% or better seems to be the standard that fans want to hold the Cardinals to as they forget about the 20 other teams that are doing their best to also win a championship. We can’t just buy any player we want or trade for any player we want. Some of those players want to go to a certain city or be in a certain situation. Some players have good stats but aren’t good teammates and we don’t want them. Some teams value one team’s prospects better than ours. And sometimes it’s just not worth the trade ask because it makes the team worse in the long run. And the Cardinals truly are a team that cares about the long run. They want a chance to win every single year. And they never go all in to try to just win this year and say screw the future. And I love that about them. Consistency is a valuable trait. And I guess that’s what the topic of the thread is about. Except that I think consistently good is a better description that conservative. They weren’t conservative when they traded for Ozuna or Goldschmidt or Arenado (or extended Goldschmidt). They were trying to be consistently good in every case. Today, so many people want instant gratification. But I personally love the Cardinals approach of consistently good and I’m glad we’re not letting AJ Preller or Dave Dombrowski run our long-term prospects into the ground. This is the Cardinal Way. It’s what this team is about and has been about for at least the Dewitt era. This is the legacy that George Kissel instilled upon the organization while he shaped its culture for all those years in the minors. And I’m glad to be a fan. Especially in 2023.
I think I’m with you 1toughdominican. While San Diego certainly has a great shot too, I’m going to say the Cardinals score the most runs in the NL this year. There are really only 2 scenarios that are really bad for St Louis. 1) Edman gets hurt. Ugh. We picked up a few guys that might be ok backups in a pinch and we still have Kramer Robertson, but this would be really bad both for our offense and defense. 2) Contreras gets hurt. Again with a big ugh. If it’s for a length of time, then I guess we bring up Herrera and he and Knizner do their best. But that is likely a hole in the lineup. Otherwise, we have so many backup combinations for everywhere else with good hitting backups. Like Bling said, quantity is not an issue. Many of the other teams listed above don’t have that at all. One injury could hurt some of those offenses and 2 injuries really de-rail them. We have 12 guys plus Walker and Gomez who likely will be average or above average MLB hitters. That’s crazy good depth. I can’t remember ever having anything close to that going into a season. Now if we could only have 5 above average starting pitchers. . .
I am honestly ecstatic about our odds in 2023. I think the Cards have built one of the best Cards teams that I’ve seen in my lifetime. The offense is great. The defense is great. The bullpen should be pretty great. The starters are fine. And there is good depth at every position in case of injury except catcher and shortstop. I think it’s great that fans are sitting around complaining about Knizner being our biggest issue. If backup catcher is the only real thing that scares you, then you have an awesome team. Sure, we don’t have elite starting pitching. But no team is elite at everything (ok, the Dodgers were pretty close last year). If pitching becomes an issue, then we will upgrade it mid-season. But either way, I really think we are running away with the division and there’s a very, very good possibility that we finish with a top 3 record in baseball. I’m typically kind of a pessimist. But it’s so hard to find fault with the team we have. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. And I’m thrilled that we have the owners and general manager that we do have. Other teams and fans admire the Cardinals organization so much and wish they had the leadership we have. And they would love to be in the position to complain that their backup catcher is likely a below average player.
No Graceffo, Burleson, or Herrera? A little surprising. I guess being the best hitter at AAA isn’t worth what one might think.
Jeremy Rivas seems like a bit of a surprise. But I guess they want some depth at shortstop and there aren’t many other choices. The only other name that jumps out to me as at least a little surprising is Hence. I’m not shocked because he has such great stuff. He just hasn’t gotten to use it much against upper level competition.
The Cubs will probably be better than last year. And, they likely closed the 19 game gap at least slightly. But they will not be good. They have a solid rotation that should be better than last year. And, they got a little better defensively. But I don’t think their hitting or bullpen is likely to be any better. They lost their best hitter and signed multiple bad hitters plus a perfectly average to slightly better than hitting shortstop. They are really just filling out a roster and hoping they will complete some Hail Mary passes. I doubt they will be a .500 team. I see them finishing in 4th a little ahead of the Reds and a couple games behind the Pirates.
Agree with BCCran. I appreciate all of the summarizing you did! It’s always interesting to hear what each of these players is working on or thinking.
51. Rancel Rincon
52. Osvaldo Tovalin
53. Nelfy Ynfante
54. Samil de la Rosa
55. Chris Rotondo10 Honorable Mentions in no particular order: Scott Hurst, LJ Jones, Nick Trogic-Iverson, Andrew Marrero, Wilfredo Pereira, Anyelo Encarnacion, Yordelin Peña, Alfredo Ruiz, Logan Sawyer, and Zuniga
Brian,
Since we’re on this line of thought, I’m really curious where Rancel Rincon ranks on the list. He’s definitely my favorite prospect that didn’t make the top 50 (safe to assume he’s not in the top 8 yet to be revealed!). He’s the one guy who didn’t make the list that I’m the most confident about making it in the future.
Thanks for any input you might be willing to share!
LJ Jones is very limited defensively so he has to hit well to be a valuable prospect and thus far he has been a good hitter, but not really a “very good” hitter. He is not young as he’s going into his age 24 season and hadn’t made AA yet. For perspective, he’s 6 months younger than Carlson who now has 2+ years of mlb service. He does have some serious power potential, but it’s pretty raw right now. He tends to strike out a lot. And, to my eye, he tends to be very streaky. So for me, he’s somewhere in the mid 50’s to maybe even low 60’s on the list. We’d all love for that entire 2020 draft class to be amazing (it still is either way) which I think artificially drives up LJ in our thoughts. Maybe he does make it as a 1b/DH some day. But if he does, I’m betting it won’t be with St Louis as there is just so much talent in front of him. He will be rule 5 eligible at the end of this season so we will know then what the Cardinals think of him long term.
I totally get the huge risk factor for Bernal and Mejia. Mejia is basically in the extreme risk category. But unless your team desperately needs a left-handed bullpen arm now, I’m thinking any team would still rather have Bernal or Mejia in a deal over Thompson. Wouldn’t you?There’s certainly some risk that Thompson isn’t very good either. But his floor is low leverage middle relief and I get that is still something vs a floor of nothing for Mejia and Bernal.
And I think our community definitely rated him high at 9. They liked him for his limited good results in the Cardinals bullpen. It seemed like some had him as high as #6 or 7.
I was just expecting to see him lower than top 10. Just my opinion. I accept that I may be wrong and hope Thompson proves me so.
I’m really surprised we haven’t seen Thompson yet on this list. I have him at 14 although basically he was a toss-up with Gomez at 13 on my list. I really have to think that if we offered another organization their choice of either taking Thompson from us in a trade or taking Bernal or Mejia, they’d choose Bernal or Mejia nearly every time. Therefore, those 2 guys are more valuable and likely are better prospects. Thompson is most likely bullpen only now and I’m not real confident that he’ll be better than average there. He may. He was in a small sample size last year with several low and high leverage inning mixed in together. Sure, he’s got the pedigree of a first rounder. But who would you rather have in your organization if you had to lose 2 of the following: Thompson, Bernal, or Mejia? I’d likely keep Bernal first and then Mejia next. And that would be a tough decision between those 2. But Thompson would definitely be out.
I’m happy to have him. We struggle with bullpen lefties and have for many years. And there’s still some time to develop. But is he really top 10? Call me surprised.
