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“Bob, I think the reason Rajic’s appearance at Springfield doesn’t show up is that it was a playoff game.
On Tuesday, Sept. 19, Rajic threw three innings in relief of Roby at Springfield. He gave up two hits and a run.”Thanks for the info, Nigel. And good to know that Rajcic can match Roby when it comes to velocity, per your eyewitness report. Thanks again!
9. Bernal
10. RajcicThere’s a lot to like about Max Rajcic’s splits in 2023. With his innings divided equally across both levels of full season A-ball, Max allowed a paltry .574 OPS (.217/.273/.301). Some splits:
Home .553
Road .592Righty bats .576
Lefty bats .572Bases empty .584
Runners on .557Younger hitters .570
Older opponents .578So we see that although his 2023 home parks favored pitchers in general, Rajcic didn’t personally get much in the way of an advantage. And the way he handled rights and lefts equally well was extremely encouraging also.
Much as I love Tink Hence, it wouldn’t shock me if Max Rajcic were the club’s #1 pitching prospect a year from now. (I’m not sure it was Rajcic you saw pitch for Springfield, Nigel. Logan Gragg, maybe? He had a long outing in relief of Roby in late August where he was mighty effective.)
“Maybe they can find another 36-yr-old innings eater for the trifecta.”
Maybe Jake Arrieta is available. He’s only 37. This would satisfy the apparent twin goals of accumulating bad pitchers on the wrong side of 35 and also grabbing as many members of the 2016 cubs as possible. Sigh.
It’s one thing to finish last when you’re honestly trying to combine winning with profit maximization. That can happen, especially with a terrible manager. But to actively betray Cardinal fans with these two no-upside signings is a disgrace.
All those fans who bought tickets but simply didn’t bother to show up last year in June, July, and later? They ain’t buying those tickets in the first place this year. Because ownership/management is truly acting in bad faith now. You accrue 4th/5th starters and you’ll wind up in 4th/5th place.
To my eyes, for the first time since Whitey walked through the door more than 40 years ago, the front office is placing a MUCH higher priority on profit than winning. And in doing so, they are going to cost themselves tons of money. Pound foolish.
Hmph.
Another 36-year-old durable-but-not-good-anymore starting pitcher.And the front office stated repeatedly that they were going for two free agents and one trade. That means the Yamamoto pursuit is over on Day One.
With Gibson, Lynn, and Matz as 60% of the rotation, and Marmol/Blake running the pitching staff, I can’t see any way on Earth that the team finishes over .500 — even if they trade for a high upside pitcher like Dylan Cease.
Yesterday was a bad day for Redbird fans, but today is much worse. Worst in my memory, and I’ve got a very long memory.
I’ll stick with Leo Bernal at #7.
His slash line of .316/.409/.459 away from Roger Dean Stadium translates as roughly a 140 OPS+.
And though backstop prospects are second only to twirlers in their combustibility, Bernal is less risky than most thanks to burgeoning plate discipline — his stellar BB/K ratio of 0.89 was 92nd percentile among all Florida State League batters with 250+ plate appearances. (Moreover, Leo is younger than the handful of FSL guys with a better walk/strikeout tally.)
Lance Lynn fastball velocity and ERA, 2021-2023 (velocity from Fangraphs):
2021 94.0 MPH, 2.69 ERA
2022 93.0 and 3.99
2023 92.6 and 5.73Not a good trend. Not good at all. And he’s 35 with a physique slightly svelter than Bret Bielema.
It’s probably better than even money that Lance is simply washed up. (His fastball was also 94.2 – 94.7 in 2019/20, so the decline is part of an ongoing trend in his 30’s.)
This is the kind of move you make — for, say, 4 or 5 million bucks at most — to boost an 82-84 win team by a game or two. It’s not one of the “big offseason acquisitions” for a team trying to climb from worst to first.
It’s a largely pointless move, a lateral move, to me. And if the next signing is anyone other than Yoshi Yamamoto, 2024 is over before it starts.
There are good arguments for Roby and Scott here, and it wouldn’t be crazy to go with Graceffo, McGreevy, Max Rajcic, or even Jimmy Dale Crooks III.
But I’ll take Leonardo Bernal at #4. The switch-hitting teen catcher was a distinctly above average hitter in the Florida State League, just as he was in 2022 over a modest sample size. And when he wasn’t battling the notorious environment of Roger Dean Stadium he was quite a bit better than his overall line.
At Roger Dean Hitter’s Graveyard: .235/.365/.306
Everywhere Else: .316/.409/.459I don’t expect Bernal’s truly big breakout to come until his age 21 season, at either AA or AAA. But he’s already been very good, and I think that’ll continue in 2024. He gets my vote.
And also, thanks, JNevel for your gracious words from a few days back — and for doing these administrative duties. ‘Preciate it.
Tink Hence at #3 for me.
Similar health/durability concerns as Tekoah Roby, but Tink has a few small advantages. He holds runners much better than Tekoah — stealers are just 17-for-32 against Hence over the past two years, and a miserable 7-for-17 in 2023. Roby meantime has permitted a 28-for-34 across ’22/’23. And perhaps relatedly, opposing batters have hit Roby quite hard with men on base in both ’22 and ’23, slugging .507 or higher each year.
And lastly, Tink is coming off a career-high 96 innings while Tekoah missed a lot of time in 2023. (Tekoah’s AFL performance was truly a mixed bag, so that neither helps nor hurts him in my book.)
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But just as an aside, it’s probably worth noting that Tekoah & Tink are not at all atypical when it comes to current pitching prospects. Even the very, very elite ones have question marks surrounding their chances of ever throwing 150, 160 innings on a regular basis, nevermind 180 or more.
Lemme show you what I mean. Here’s a list of the top 10 pitching prospects in all the minors, per Fangraphs: Skenes, Painter, Harrison, Tiedemann, Abel, Lesko, Hence, Stone, Brown, and Madden.
Their average innings load for 2023 was just 86. Their average career high? Just 104. So Tekoah and Tink fit right in. (Industy-wide there’s simply too much emphasis on velocity & movement, and not enough on location & durability. That’s my opinion, but what do I know? I’m just an internet blowhard.)
Two players, both 21 in the Texas League. Very similar defensive/baserunning abilities.
Player A posted a 128 OPS+ with a .220 isolated slugging while walking 9% of the time and whiffing 27%.
This got him ranked as a consensus top 30-40 overall prospect. Highest was 28th (Baseball Prospectus).Player B had a 142 OPS+ this year with a .233 ISO Slg, also walking at 9%, but fanning 23% of the time.
Player A is Nolan Gorman and Player B is Thomas Saggese.
Nothing against Cardinal pitching prospects, but I’ll take Saggese for the #2 Redbird prospect.“Well, the other side of the coin is that Winn’s OPS over 500 plate appearances at Triple-A was .833.”
And moreover, that solid .833 OPS in AAA was achieved despite the fact that Masyn (1)just turned 21 during Spring Training, and (2)got off to an absolutely atrocious start in Memphis. Specifically, as of 4/23 he was batting .202/.260/.292 with a rickety 5/22 walk/strikeout tally.
But then, from April 25 to his MLB promotion, Winn fairly crushed the ball to the tune of .309/.385/.520 with a more than acceptable 39/61 BB/K ratio across 403 plate appearances. In other words, after a very brief period of adjustment he was an excellent Triple-A batter over a large sample size. At 21. He’s gonna hit, guys. Probably soon.
And I agree wholeheartedly with those who would like Tommy Edman, our Gold Glove middle infielder, to remain a middle infielder. He doesn’t have the arm for outfield play, and frankly lacks the bat as well — at least from the left side of the plate.
Winn & Edman could be a dynamite defensive middle infield for the next few years. I’d sure love to see it.
“Bob Reed, nothing says the other team wants/needs those guys. They would have a specific need they want to fill.”
As for the first point, I’ll grant you that. No guarantees. But the Sox and Rox were both terrible this year, Bling. I strongly suspect they are looking to add a fistful of talent at both the major and minor league levels any way they can. Rotten teams rarely have specific needs.
At any rate, look at the talent amalgam I’m talking about trading away. Pitching, catching, outfield, infield. Speed, power. Quality, quantity, and variety.
Anyway, I don’t know exactly who the Cards will give or get — but the broad point I was attempting to make was that our surplus of talent at both the MLB and minor league levels should be, mathematically, plenty enough to acquire a pair of good starting pitchers. Maybe Cease, maybe not. Maybe Freeland, or maybe not. But someone. Or some two, that is. Without surrendering Noot or Donovan or Edman or Walker or Winn, etc.
“gscottar:
I agree but if we trade for GOOD pitchers we’ll lose Nootbar, Gorman, Burleson, Donovan and Edman. Yuck.”While the definition of “good” pitcher is of course subjective, I would be satisfied if the Cards traded for Dylan Cease and Kyle Freeland, plus made one major free agent signing. And going by the Baseball Trade Values website, they can probably acquire Freeland & Cease for a combo of Gorman, Carlson, Burleson, Victor Scott II, Graceffo or Roby, Bernal or Crooks, and Contreras or Herrera. In other words, they could hold onto Noot, Donovan, and Edman, and the Opening Day lineup would be:
Nootbaar CF
Donovan DH
Goldy 1B
Arenado 3B
Walker RF
O’Neill LF
Catcher
Edman 2B
Winn SSBest infield defense in the sport, and a fairly potent lineup.
“I like those that don’t involve us giving up draft picks. If you want to spend big, sign Yosh Yamamoto. Young with all the peripherals. If the cost is comparable to Snell or Nola, that’s the way I go.”
This is the smartest thing anyone has written on any baseball website since the internet was invented. Thank you, KCB.
“Miklasz sure threads the needle on his assessment regarding the shabby treatment of Contreras by the Cardinal brass this past season.”
I don’t know whether I agree about shabby treatment, Andujar. Unless I’m mistaken, what happened was in early May the duo of Wainwright and Flaherty approached Marmol/the front office and let them know that there was something drastically in need of fixing, re Contreras’ work behind the plate. It was specifically in response to their two-man appeal that Willson was removed from behind the plate for the next 10-12 games or so.
Then as now, I assumed that Contreras was somehow tipping pitches, or at the very least he was showing extreme tendencies to call for certain pitches in certain situations, i.e. telegraphing probable pitch selections. Contreras was removed from behind the plate on May 6. The extraordinary team pitching splits at that point were:
Low Leverage .683 (MLB avg. .720)
High Leverage .925 (MLB avg. .758)Late & Close .990 (MLB avg. .682)
And one more set of splits:
Redbird pitchers with Contreras behind the plate, 5.16 ERA and .824 OPS allowed (200 IP).
Redbird pitchers with Knizner behind the plate, 3.53 and .690 OPS (80 IP).Something was dreadfully wrong, and Contreras certainly appeared to have a lot to do with it. Then as now, removing Contreras from behind the plate until the club could figure out how he was tipping and how to fix it, was the most responsible move by the manager/front office.
“Who thinks Luken plays everyday in the bigs?”
I’d say he has a 20-25% chance to be another Luke Voit. (In other words, if someone offered me 2-1 or 5-2 odds there’s NO WAY I’d take it. But at 6-1 or 7-1, then sure.) Maybe a 35-40% chance to be another Matt Adams. Most likely though, he never plays 100 games for anybody.
It’s just not that rare for guys in the minors to have a huge year when they’re three or four years old for their level of competition. Baker’s a good bat, but I don’t think he’s the rare kinda hitting talent who can be an above-average MLB batsman. And as everyone here knows, with his glove/baserunning limitations, he has to really really hit to have any value at all.
“Baker and Burleson both raked in AAA.”
True enough, but Burly was 23 and Baker 26. It’s almost impossible to overstate how important that difference is, when projecting future MLB careers. (And Winn was just 21 of course, so we just don’t know how good a hitter he can be. But he was very good in AAA after his first 50 or 60 ABs.)
I have no idea who Marmol’s so-called “selfish” players were, but maybe Tommy Edman doesn’t like being jerked from infield to outfield and back again, over and over. And maybe Nootbaar doesn’t enjoy being yanked in and out of the leadoff slot, depending on micro-mini-matchups. And maybe Arenado and Goldy don’t appreciate their Gold Glove defense sitting out the game while they play the DH role.
Pretty much every single position player, as well as some of the relievers (Gallegos especially), had an inconsistent role with this team in 2023, to one degree or another. And inconsistency is usually bad for both hitting and defense. Marmol has a messy mind, a bizarre indefensible arrogance, and a cheerful willingness to criticize his players publicly. He’s a bad baseball manager and a poor person in my book. He should spend a little more time looking around at how other much more successful managers work and less time mapping out his ornate platoon advantage stratagems.
“I would be happy if Victor Scott is the next Vince Coleman. Is that asking too much?”
I don’t think it’s all that unlikely that Victor could be a Vince Coleman type — but who plays an above average center field. I’d say that’s roughly his 75th percentile outcome. And that’s a 3-4 WAR ballplayer depending on durability.
For some context, when Vince Coleman was 22 years old he was already in Triple-A, but he hit just .257/.323/.334 with a 55/112 BB/K in 671 trips to the plate. (League average OPS was nearly 100 points higher than that.) He played 152(!) games and pilfered 101 bases in 137 tries.
So I’d say VS2 is slightly more advanced in general than Vince was back then. More polish on the basepaths, more pop at the plate. (But as Brian stated, Victor absolutely should NOT be rushed to MLB, as his patience needs a boost first.)
“I am tired of everybody seemingly worried about how many homeruns somebody might hit. It’s nothing but slug slug slug nowadays. We are missing a great game.”
Agreed, sir. But if Victor can have average power without undermining his batting average — as he’s done so incredibly well over the past month — then all the better.
One idle observation.
With the Cards down just 2-1, the Phils had two men on for Kyle Schwarber. The count ran to 2-2, then Mikolas made a beautiful pitch that nestled snugly within the bottom portion of the strikezone. Schwarber took the pitch. The entire baseball was within the TV strikezone box.But Mr. Contreras received the ball while awkwardly swooping downward, finishing with his mitt actually scraping the dirt. The pitch had no chance to be called strike three. The inevitable followed.
The next pitch to Schwarber was hammered for the 3-run homer than effectively ended the game.
That’s the 2023 Cardinals.
That’s Willson Contreras.“DFAing Motter 3 times in one season should be grounds for immediately firing the responsible party.”
DFAingStarting Motter36 times inone seasonthe first three weeks of the season instead of Nolan Gorman/Brendan Donovan/Tommy Edman should be grounds for immediately firing the responsible party.“And speaking of AAA……I just checked the stats of the pitchers down at Memphis. Not very good.”
But numbers always need a context. The overall ERA in the International League this season is an ugly 5.23. In the Pacific Coast League it’s an even more objectionable 5.75. (Blame the automated strikezone.) So let’s look at the age-appropriate pitchers in the two AAA leagues who have been better than average this year.
Here’s a list of ALL the under-24 pitchers in the International League this campaign with a sub-5.00 ERA (min. 50 IP), or a sub-5.50 in the PCL:
Quinn Priester 4.13 (#17 pitching prospect per Fangraphs)
LIBERATORE 4.23
MCGREEVY 4.30
Joey Cantillo 4.39
GRACEFFO 4.40
Watson (PCL) 4.43
Arrigheti (PCL) 4.64
O’Laughlin 4.64
Kyle Harrison 4.66 (PCL, #3 pitching prospect in baseball)
DREW ROM 4.82
Ben Brown 4.85 (#9 overall pitching prospect)It would certainly appear that when it comes to Triple-A pitching prospects, nobody compares to the Birds in terms of quality depth. The numbers speak for themselves.
“It is the ratio that concerns me. If we are well above average in total bases, we should not be below average in runs scored, but we are. And it is not a case of lack of power.”
It has been a highly inefficient batting order pretty much all season. A couple months back when Contreras wasn’t even hitting his weight, the manager nevertheless persisted in batting him every single game in an RBI slot rather than our reigning MVP, who has of course batted almost exclusively 2nd in the order. Here’s another: absurdly, the team’s #7 hitters have a higher OPS this year than the #3 hitters. The #3 hitters have just the 7th-best batting average of the 9 lineup slots, and the 6th-best OPS — this will obviously make for an inefficient offense. Thanks, Ollie!
Also, as others have mentioned, the club has performed dismally in some “clutch” situations, exemplified by the, um, extraordinary .176 average with the bases loaded. An entire team hitting .176?!? If it holds up, this must challenge for the worst bases loaded performance by any squad since the deadball era. Can’t blame Ollie for that one. Maybe the club needs a 4th hitting coach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO4DPI1hegc
“Roby looked great tonight for Springfield. 6 Ks in 3 innings. Live arm. Has 4 plus pitches or better. Double plus on his curve.”
Thanks for the update, C-27. You motivated me to check Tekoah’s season numbers. (Having a Tekoah & Tink rotation in a couple of years sounds pretty cool, yes?)
Roby has pitched in 11 games now. In the first three he allowed 21 hits and 11 extra base knocks in just 14 innings. But in the eight games since, he’s logged 36 IP and permitted 29 hits — again, with 11 going for extra bases. Big improvement. Also, he’s walked only a single batter in each of his most recent eight appearances (with a nifty 39-to-8 K/BB ratio).
He feels like a dandy acquisition. I’ve seen the footage and have little doubt of Tekoah’s physical ability. But I had to wonder why with all this alleged talent his ERAs have been so underwhelming. Well, here it is.
This year with the bases empty, he’s given up a .692 OPS. Not great, but fine for a 21-yr-old in AA.
This year with men on base? He’s surrendered an unsightly .877 OPS. Yikes.And folks, it was the exact same thing last year. Empty, .678. Men on, .902. Maybe it’s a matter of composure, maybe a difference pitching from the windup versus stretch, I dunno. I suppose there’s an outside chance it’s just a meaningless double-fluke, but I wouldn’t bet on that one.
Whatever it is, if the Bird instructors can (mostly) fix it, and provided he stays generally healthy of course, he looks like a good starter or very good reliever going forward. We need all of those we can get. And then some.
