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Watering down isn’t limited to the Uni number retirements.
Are you saying it’s a feature, not a bug of current Cardinals baseball?
No disrespect to Sutter, but I have always disagreed with the decision to retire his number. I feel he lacked the longevity with the team for that honor. The DeWitts didn’t see it that way, and since it is their team…
My impression is the number retirement was derivative of his HOF induction. But for the for the latter, they probably wouldn’t have done the former.
1TD — I agree that “moment” of the final out from 1982 is indelibly etched in people’s minds and doesn’t hurt his cause. I also think it helped that he revolutionized a pitch that became a staple of the game, and his name will forever be associated with it. Made his story more unique.
All that said, I think his HOF case wasn’t very strong.
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but his best years were with the Cubs, and he wasn’t as good as nostalgia and the mists of time have made him seem to a lot of Cardinals fans. But his two best seasons with the Cubs were really good.
Now people can throw rotten vegetables at me . . .
Burleson got plenty of ABs last season. And my feeling is, he will continue to under Oli’s management. I’ve heard Oli talk very positively about Burleson. Even rave about him, if you please.
Please talk to us about the results of those “plenty of ABs.”
AdM, I feel you are underestimating the respect the Cardinals have for Burleson’s hitting ability. He got plenty of ABs even when most of the team was healthy.
And what has he done/produced in those “plenty of ABs?”
If “he got plenty of ABs,” why do you continue to studiously ignore (and avoid discussing) his actual results?
Shady wrote:
“Burleson dissenters. I’d be more concerned about the more highly acclaimed players’ struggles, right now. Arenado, Walker and Gorman.”Did you see Arenado had 3 hits and an RBI, and Gorman had a big double, a BB, and 2 RBI today? Oh, and Winn and Herrera had 2 hits apiece and 3 RBI. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss those performances by the “highly acclaimed players” that we’re all supposed to be “more concerned about” amidst all the fanfare over Burleson’s lone single.
Even when they are good, they are not, really. And so it goes…
It is only six games, but Baseball Reference has Walker at a 0.0 Defensive Wins Above Replacement. That compares to -2.1 last year.
Fangraphs has his defense at +0.1 versus -21.9 in 2023.
But predetermined notions are set…
Brian, I agree with you that Walker is showing improvement defensively, but I would just note as a technical matter that dWAR and some of the advanced defensive metrics like DRS, UZR, and OAA are cumulative measures, so they aren’t very useful metrics early in the year (unless someone is a huge outlier, good or bad).
But FWIW (not much), so far this year Walker has a -1 DRS and 0 OAA.
Some decent points. Frankly, I’m perplexed by Burleson’s overall hitting production right now. Especially, after the spring he had.
If only a bunch of posters had told you not to put too much stock in spring training numbers . . .
“Burleson dissenters.” You mean those who actually take it upon themselves to gather research, analysis, data, and evidence to help form and support their views in good faith?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Burleson is sent down. But I’m not convinced Nootbaar, Walker, Carlson and Carpenter will hit much better than Burleson.
Nootbaar: 117 wRC+
Walker: 114 wRC+
Carlson: 99 wRC+
Burleson: 82 wRC+Nootbaar and Walker are far superior hitters to Burleson. Always have been. Burleson isn’t even in the same zip code as those two. Even Carlson, with his pedestrian 99 wRC+, has outclassed Burleson by a healthy margin.
What do people think about pinch hitting for Walker in the clutch situation? And with a .230 career hitter. It’s not like Albert was waiting in the wings.
Marmol’s obsession with handedness and L/R match-ups over actual productivity continues. Clearly Walker is struggling, but so is Burleson. Based on what limited data we do have (basically 2023):
Walker vs RHP: 123 wRC+
Burleson vs RHP: 83 wRC+Jnevel wrote: “But here’s part of the problem. Fernandez wasn’t used at all when we were behind big in games one and two.”
They burned Gallegos AND Romero in game 2 when trailing 5-0 late, with Fernandez never leaving the bench the entire series. If Fernandez can’t be trusted in a 0-5 game late, when can he be trusted? So of course they wind up shorthanded in the highest leverage situation in game 4 with a guy who couldn’t make the team out of ST.
RBK, patience is a virtue. Give it a try. Sheesh !
Well, that has absolutely nothing to do with the point I made above and is completely inapposite, but I wholeheartedly agree. I wish some people would remember that quote when they constantly and repetitively lobby for premature promotions of every shiny new object in the Cardinals’ farm system.
I agree with bicyclemike’s point about SSS, of course–it should go without saying. But Shady, you’ve made multiple posts in this thread about the alleged significance of Burleson’s ST batting average, based on as few as 30 ABs. You can’t have it both ways.
RBK, Saggese’s stats as a 21 year old at AA were off the charts. Maybe you aren’t that intrigued. I am. Obviously, he’s blocked on the infield , right now. But he has a special bat. They need to find a spot for him like they did for Walker.
Being “intrigued” is one thing. Casually assuming that a 40+ grade, new-to-AAA prospect is a sure thing who is perfectly fungible with established or semi-established, productive MLB players like Donovan, Edman, and Nootbaar is quite another.
There is no “logjam” unless and until player performance creates one. The Cardinals don’t “need to find a spot for him” unless and until he earns/seizes said spot. If his bat is as “special” as you claim, he won’t be blocked–they will find a place for him, or trade him for value. All of these roster machinations you’re proposing or speculating about seem to be based on the premise that the entire Cardinals universe revolves around Thomas Saggese, but I can confidently assure you that is not the case.
Crazy idea: What if the Cardinals just let Saggese develop and earn/force his way onto a MLB roster through his performance, rather than inventing a bunch of Rube Goldberg mechanisms to prematurely promote him just because he’s the next bright, shiny object?
I have a hard time reconciling your claim that Burleson was “rushed.” One the one hand, you have repeatedly cited his 2022 AAA stats as evidence he is an outstanding hitter who had nothing left to prove at Memphis; then in the next breath, you say he was “rushed.”
From what I gather, many of you posters would like to see Burleson traded. Is that correct?
Wow, that’s quite a non sequitur.
Burleson has a 5.9% barrel rate, which is 26th percentile in MLB. That at least partially explains his low BABIP. Average EV plus bad launch angles generally result in outs.
And again, he sees 3.57 pitches per PA, which would have ranked him 6th from last in MLB among qualified players last year. It’s hard to strike out much when you swing early and often at bad pitches (35% O-swing%), have good contact skill, and therefore rarely get deep enough in the count to reach 2-strikes (and as a result rarely BB and rarely K). One has to bury one’s head pretty deep in the sand not to see the obvious interrelationships among these various metrics.
The $/WAR estimate is best thought of as a useful shorthand or rule-of-thumb number. In order to be a useful metric, it requires certain simplifying assumptions, one of which is the application of an average $/WAR across contracts when we know $/WAR is non-linear. The idea is that across many contracts and hundreds of players, things will roughly average out and the average $/WAR gets you close to an answer, beyond which one can always drill down into the details and specific assumptions teams may have used on individual contracts.
Fangraph’s $/WAR estimate is an average value based on FA market transactions. The models that drive it acknowledge that the actual value of a win is non-linear, both from a player perspective (concentration is more valuable) and from a team perspective (a marginal win at, say, 88 wins, is worth a lot more than a marginal win at 62 wins). The estimated $/WAR in Fangraphs represents an average value across the market, not an estimate of marginal value in particular situations. It’s basically telling you how much, on average, a player’s production (measured in wins) would have cost if you had acquired those wins on the FA market, abstracted from the individual players (and their WAR concentrations) who were actually available.
