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Yeah, as I mentioned in another thread, the farm system hasn’t produced a consistent all-star-caliber player (whom they’ve retained) in a while. The last homegrown Cardinal to have multiple all-star-level seasons (>= 4 WAR) with the team was Matt Carpenter, and the last pitcher to do so was Wainwright 10+ years ago. They have graduated some players who’ve had single seasons that were all-star-caliber since then (e.g., Edman), but no one with sustained all-star-level performance. Of course, this doesn’t include the homegrown players they traded away . . .
To be clear, I’m not saying it’s easy for a farm system to produce all-stars, but it’s really hard for a mid-market team to win consistently if its farm system doesn’t.
RBK, the point is, Saggese seems to be making progress as a 22 year old at AAA. You must have not read the, “Let’s see how this goes in a month” part.
How do you know it’s “progress,” and not just statistical noise (negative two weeks ago, positive this week) in tiny sample sizes? Just one week ago, he was hitting .212. Based on that alone, surely you must see these sample sizes are virtually meaningless.
So why would a piddling month matter to the analysis? Memphis has 24 games over the next month. If Saggese plays in every one of those games, he will accumulate maybe 100 additional PAs. Do you really believe that will make the difference? Do you really think that should make the difference?
As for comparing AAA and MLB stats, I’m sure you realize the International League tends to be hitter-friendly, and those stats you’re reading don’t translate anywhere near 1:1 to the MLB level. So while you’re unfavorably comparing Donovan’s and Gorman’s stats to Saggese’s AAA stats, perhaps you’ll keep the following context in mind:
Player (AAA stats)
Donovan: .296/.394/.473/.867
Gorman: .274/.324/.508/.832
Saggese: .251/.354/.407/.727
And for just a little extra context:
Burleson: .306/.356/.486/.842You’re basically looking at somewhere between a 100-200 pt OPS falloff between AAA and MLB for many of the Cardinals’ recent promotions who spent meaningful time at Memphis. So why not have a little bit of patience and let Saggese earn his way into the roster discussion with a full year of demonstrated performance at Memphis?
Saggese has 68 PAs this year, and a grand total of 131 at AAA.
Once again, professional baseball organizations don’t make decisions based on a handful of games, and they don’t (and can’t) operate as if every day is an open tryout.
No trade protection is real.
Yes, as is surplus/trade value, which is pretty close to (if not at) an all-time low for all of those names.
Perfect time to sell . . .Hold on a sec. I get being angry at the FO for any number of things but no one misrepresented Edman’s injury. He has had about 4 setbacks. I heard Edman directly say in mid January at WWU that he would be ready for opening day.
Agreed. The FO doesn’t have unlimited discretion to low-ball expectations on a player’s recovery from an injury whose timeline is hard to predict. They pretty much have to publicly disclose something close to their best-guess and roll with whatever happens, which in this case hasn’t been what I’m sure they hoped.
ZiPS is projecting .260/.349/.434/.783 with a 115 wRC+ for the remainder of the season, so I doubt the Cardinals’ internal models are projecting anything remotely close to Goldschmidt’s 2022 season going forward. It should be noted that the third-party models correctly projected significant regression for Goldy after 2022 as 1) he had a fair amount of good luck that season, and 2) the models incorporate aging curves into their projections. Of course, no model claims to predict or forecast what will happen in a single game or handful of games as that’s far too random for anyone (including the manager, FO, or fans) to know.
Just too many holes to plug in one off-season. And, to Mike’s point, they haven’t had a consistent all-star type (whom they’ve retained) come out of the farm system in quite some time. The last homegrown Cardinal to have multiple all-star caliber seasons (>4 WAR) with the team was prime Matt Carpenter, and the last pitcher to do so was prime Wainwright. They’ve had some farmhands in the last few years have single seasons that were all-star level (Edman), but no one who has achieved sustained excellence.
While I understand the reasons Scott was called up, premature promotions have become a feature, not a bug with this organization.
The variation in pitches and speeds from Gray must drive batters crazy. Looking at the pitch chart on statcast, his velocity and mix is all over the map every inning.
I assume that was an attempted bunt for hit, and not a true sacrifice? With 1 out and a runner on 1B? Yeesh.
RBK, that’s also a cop out. You have been very dimissive of Burleson’s abilities. Frankly, I’m surprised you wouldn’t advocate a DFA for Burly.
I have answered your questions directly, substantively, and in good faith. I cannot help that you only hear what you want to hear, and willfully ignore what you don’t.
OK RBK, do you just release him, like they did Garcia. How’d that work out?
1. Garcia was given a lot more time/opportunity to show something with the organization than Burleson has been given thus far.
2. For the umpteenth time, NO ONE (except perhaps you) is advocating for the Cardinals to release Burleson. NO ONE.
3. You are a Cardinals fan, yes? As a Cardinals fan, presumably you should want what is best for the team, and what is clearly best for the team is for Burleson to meaningfully improve in several well-defined areas in order to increase his sustainable productivity, and therefore his value. That’s what most posters on here seem to want (myself included).
If I’m Burleson and see the scenario unfolding, I’m requesting a trade. He needs the opportunity to start. It doesn’t look like that opportunity is there with the Cardinals. Let him get a chance to start someplace else. Try to get a decent pitching prospect for Burleson.
I regret to inform you that there isn’t a very big market for bat-only DH/1Bs with an 81 OPS+.
When most are healthy. Burleson seems blocked as a Cardinal. He needs fresh scenery like Arozarena, Garcia, Bader and O’Neill got. That should thrill you Burleson critics.
He needs to get better in several identifiable and defined ways, period, regardless of what team he plays for. It is in the Cardinals’ interest (and Burleson’s) for that to happen, whether he stays in St. Louis or is eventually traded for value.
Shady wrote: “When Edman and Carlson return. If the Cardinals want to send Burleson back down to AAA. What does he have to proove at AAA? Other than trying to hit with more power.”
The answer is actually pretty clear. He needs to demonstrate better process and peripherals that will translate into improved and more sustainable results: better plate discipline, a significantly lower chase-rate, a higher BB%, deeper counts, and NOT swinging at pitchers’ pitches early in the count (even when they’re strikes). All of these process improvements should result in higher sustainable OBP at any given level of BABIP, as well as better ISO/power as he looks for and gets better pitches to drive and spits on the marginal or outright bad pitches on which he so often gets himself out.
And, as I’ve noted to you previously, his 2022 season at AAA Memphis was aided by a .350 BABIP, a number he hasn’t come remotely close to at any other level. And his OPS falloff between AAA and MLB is consistent with the range of falloffs we’ve seen for other Cardinals prospects who had significant time in Memphis before being promoted to MLB.
“Put the ball in play and good things can happen”.
Yep, making out(s) over 70% of the time with an 81 OPS+. Lots of good things happening . . .
Strikeout Minimization /= Production.
I was interested, so I decided to look into the question of K% in 2-strike counts and how it correlates with production in that split:
2023 K% w/ 2-strikes (sOPS+)
Burleson: 29.2% (80)
Donovan: 29.8% (112)
Arenado: 33.6% (107)
Carlson: 35.8% (111)
Edman: 37.8% (87)
Nootbaar: 37.9% (136)
Goldy: 40.0% (125)
Contreras: 42.9% (122)
Walker: 46.4% (134)
Gorman: 54.2% (119)This is an admittedly small sample of just 10 players–far from comprehensive–but what I find interesting about this particular list is it seems to indicate that at least for the 2023 Cardinals, a low K% with 2-strikes was not very predictive of strong offensive production in that split. Some of the best OPS+ performances were by the players with relatively high K-rates, while the 5 players with the lowest K-rates ranked 10th, 6th, 8th, 7th, and 9th in sOPS+. This is a point we have covered with Burleson several times before: strikeout avoidance per se is not necessarily synonymous with production. Would be interesting to run this sort of analysis across multiple years for all of MLB and see what the results look like.
In Burleson’s case, I don’t really care what the numbers say. I just enjoy watching him compete at the plate. It wouldn’t make much difference who he played for.
Then why are you constantly fishing for other people to provide you with stats that you hope will buttress Burleson’s resume? I mean, if you “don’t really care what the numbers say,” then why did you just ask me to do research and provide data about his relative K%?
The reality is you “don’t really care what the numbers say” when they don’t support or, even worse, directly contradict what you want to believe. But if the numbers in any way tend to support your preferred narrative, you suddenly care a lot about what they say. Just like you told everyone to ignore Burleson’s prior 441 PAs because it was “too early” to draw any conclusions, but then were back on here last night drawing a bunch of conclusions based on a whopping 7 PAs. It’s the definition of bad faith.
