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Okay, I do not get this one, at all.
The Cards already have first base locked up for half a decade. Now the same for 3rd base — with (perhaps) the system’s top 3 position players all 3rd-sackers.
Carp is off to a relatively poor start this year, and he can’t possibly move to the outfield in the future. He’ll be 36 years old for the 2022 season. I love the guy, but there’s an 80-90% chance that he will NOT be the best choice for 3rd base in 2022. And probably not 2021 either, in my unhumble opinion. (Yes the DH might be coming to the Senior Circuit, and then again it might not. But either way, do you want an old, $20M designated hitter? I don’t think I do.)
This continues a trend that began with Waino’s $97M extension several years ago. Since then there’s been Yadi, Fowler, Goldy, now Carp. You can kinda throw Cecil, Holland, and Miller in there, too. It’s a bad trend, paying big bucks for guys on the wrong side of 30. In fact I think it may be a terrible trend.
To put it most simply: when any given MLB team exceeds reasonable expectations, is it usually because young emerging players/pitchers provide a significant unanticipated boost to the organization? Or is it usually because some old players or pitchers have surprisingly big seasons? I would guess the former happens about ten times more often than the latter.
>>> Bob Reed… thanks for posting the info on Gorman’s glove yesterday. Its a little more concrete than what I’ve read.
You’re very welcome, Ny! I don’t know how helpful this will be, but here’s the “report” I filed on Gorman’s glovework last August when I saw him in Peoria:
“In the field, Gorman had one tough chance. He had to charge and throw on the run, and he showed fine footwork and a strong accurate arm. Not a howitzer, but he didn’t need one on that chance. In fact, he had three plays while I was in attendance (first 7 innings) and Gorman showed that ‘internal clock’ that people talk about, usually in regards to shortstops. Didn’t dawdle, didn’t rush, throws were spot on.
Looks like a player.”“Minuteman. Get one of your grandkids, or neighborhood kids to show you how to do Uber or Lyft. It’s a lot easier than you think, and Uber/Lyft will drop you off right in front of the stadium.”
Or there are cabs, I would think, in a city the size of Springfield. People who drive a taxi for a living, and have maybe done so for many years. You know, rather than scab cabs. Um, I mean “ride-sharing” apps.
Thanks very much, UConn! I hope to be a useful team member this season.
As for Gorman’s defense, GScott, I only saw him in person once last year, but he moved fine laterally, and charged well the only ball in front of him. So I would say that his “actions” were solid for the hot corner. It’s all about consistency. (I haven’t heard anyone say Tiny Thome was a “bad defender,” and given the extremely high number of double plays he turned last year, I don’t think such a characterization could reasonably be justified.)
Quoting from the prospect handbook, 18U National Team Director for USA Baseball Matt Blood says of Gorman: “Defensively, he can make all the plays there…solid-average to plus arm, solid-average to plus hands…in my opinion, I think he is going to be a solid-average to plus third baseman.”
I share Mr. Blood’s optimism, if that’s worth anything. Anyway his complete quote offers more detail, so get that handbook if you haven’t!
“Brian, you stated that Gorman leads the minor leagues in xbase hits. Is that the entire minor leagues or just our system?”
It was actually my aside, CC, about Gorman. And yes, he leads all of the minor leagues. Well, he’s tied with three Pacific Coast League guys who play in hitter’s parks.
No Midwest League hitter has more doubles than Gorman, no MWL hitter has more homers, and only one hitter has more triples. Here’s how well the kid is hitting so far: if you took each of Gorman’s singles and turned them all into groundouts, he’d still be batting .286/.375/.810.
“Goldy swung at ball 4 that was 2 feet off the plate.”
Given how nightmarishly poor the Cardinal front office has been lately at evaluating MLB talent — both their own and that of other teams, as well as free agents — I fully expect Redbird fans to regret the Goldschmidt extension before it even begins.
I realize this is well-trod ground but it really is an astonishing record of futility over the past couple of years. Fowler, Ozuna, Pham, Voit, Piscotty, Grichuk, Andrew Miller, Holland, Gregerson, Cecil, and Marco Gonzales. Each radically mis-evaluated.
Mozeliak and/or his scouts were among baseball’s best for 7 or 8 years. But they’ve been so horrible lately that I’m forced to concur with those calling for Mo’s head. The Andrew Miller fiasco is the final tipping point. (It doesn’t help that intellectual cipher Mike Shildt makes Mike Matheny look like a cross between Earl Weaver and Casey Stengel.) The front office is so terrible now that it wouldn’t shock me if they signed Craig Kimbrel tomorrow for 50-60 million bucks (and the lost draft pick of course), only to watch him post a 6+ ERA with the birds on the bat.
It’s a testament to the draft and development people that the personnel looks okay going forward. But the club probably does need a front office overhaul at this point, as Mo can apparently no longer be trusted to make any decision involving pitching or free agency or staffing (see Shildt/Maddux/Lilliqist/Mabry/Albert). The only one worth his salt among that quintet was Lilly, the guy Mo fired. Okay, it’s way too soon to tell with Jeff Albert — but like Andrew Miller the results are far from what was expected.
Tyler O’Neill with 4 hits today, and none of them homers? Must have the flu.
Star of the day was Dakota Hudson, though. Bailed out Bambino Mikolas with 6 shutout innings. The Nationals lineup that rocked Miles for 5 XBH’s in 3 innings couldn’t managed a single extra base hit versus Hudson.
I’ll say it again. If Hudson can learn to elevate a 4-seamer just 10-12 times a game, and upgrade his command a bit, he can be something like the 2014-17 version of Jake Arrieta. That is, plenty of groundouts but strikeouts too, and 190 innings per year, 2.67 ERA, 3.04 FIP, 3.25 x-FIP. That’s the plausible Cy ceiling. Dakota’s stuff is that hard to square up.
“Dexter was only three extra base hits away from the cycle!” gushed Redbird manager Mike Shildt.
In truth there were a couple of positives. Mayers was sharp, Reyes allowed one runner and whiffed two in his inning of work, and Drew Robinson had 2 of the 3 team knocks. So the marginal guys on talent who are more or less default roster locks did okay.
Did those minor league games get played, Brian?
Good guessing, gentlemen. The winner is indeed Moises Castillo, CC. Well done!
And you’re right to mention the difficulty factor, Pugs. I wanted the answer not easy to divine via cursory research.Anyway, Castillo played in the DSL at 16, the GCL at 17, and the Appy League at 18. (I expect he’ll return there in 2019.) So the organization has shown some confidence in his ability to compete against older players.
Moises was a slightly above average batter in both 2016 and 2017. He struggled for most of the 2018 season, but then flipped a switch at season’s end. Specifically, over his first 135 plate appearances he homered just once, while posting a crummy 7/31 BB/K ratio. Then over the final two weeks (58 PA’s) he homered three more times while drawing 11 walks and striking out on just 7 occasions — and posting that aforementioned OPS of nearly 1.000.
Could just be a blip, for sure. Probably was. But IF half of that radical improvement was real then Castillo becomes an interesting guy. And if 2/3 of it was real he’s a top 20 Cardinal prospect, assuming he can stick in the middle infield.
If Mike Trout enjoys just average health over the remainder of his career, this new contract will generate more surplus value for the Angels than any contract has generated for any team in MLB history.
In short they’re paying for a 4-5 win player, and getting someone twice that good. This is an astonishingly fantastic bargain for the Angels, almost impossible to overstate. Like Brian, I’m glad that the Millville Meteor will spend his entire career with one team. But I think I just heard Marvin Miller flipping over in his grave.
“And that makes an 8-12-3 record for St. Louis on the spring.”
Well, I said back in January that I’d be happy if the Cards just posted a better record than the Red Sox in 2019. So far, so good!
Seriously though, it was a whale of a nice rally, scoring all 5 ninth-inning runs after two were out. Great two-strike approach exhibited by both Max Schrock and Elehuris Montero to keep the line moving.
One thing. With Urias, Edman, Edmundo, and Schrock, something’s gotta give. Not nearly enough regular playing time in Triple-A for the entire middle infield quartet, especially once Drew Robinson is sent down, and moreover if/when Evan Mendoza arrives at Memphis to play 3rd base. (They can’t possibly take Robinson north over Munoz, right? Not when Munoz is the one with an actual MLB track record of batting success, and he’s outhitting Robinson by 200 OPS points this spring, and he’s years younger than the erstwhile Ranger.)
This team needs relief pitching so badly, and it has upper minors middle infielders (and outfielders) coming out of its ears. There must be a trade to make, somehow, for an honest-to-goodness bullpen arm. Get it done, Mo!
“Suggestion for surprise bullpen stud this season – Mayers.”
I think he’ll be better than last year, cranny. But I’m not sure there’ll be any bullpen studs twirling in the shadow of the Arch this year.
Last year the Cards had zero relievers pitch 35+ innings with a sub-3.00 ERA. For context, every other team in the N.L. Central had between 3 and 5 such relievers. Heck, the lousy 2018 Reds, playing in a hitter’s park mind you, had 3 relievers with 65 innings and a sub 2.70 ERA. (I wouldn’t take 3-1 odds on even one Redbird reliever doing that this season.)
I don’t see anything changing this year. I mean, I’ve got a pretty good imagination and based on what we know right now I can’t envisage how anything changes re the StL bullpen. The three theoretical “shutdown arms” at the back of the bullpen all pitched last night, and the results were gruesome across the board.
Maybe I’ve just got a hangover from that debacle, but Miller especially was horribly disheartening. And his explanation didn’t help things. “Distracted” by the baserunners? A 13-year MLB vet, in a Spring Training game, was distracted by baserunners? C’mon, gimme a break. Either he’s (1)completely full of crap, or (2)the most easily distracted pitcher since Cueto dropped the ball because Pirate fans cheered too loudly. Anyway, when 60-70% of your pitches miss the strikezone by a foot or more, something is dreadfully wrong with you — whatever the reason.
I believe the Cards can win 90+ games and the N.L. Central even with a distinctly below average bullpen. But they can’t win it with a truly terrible one. They need to package a couple of prospects pronto, to trade for a very good reliever from a very bad team.
The 18-year-old Nolan Gorman — misidentified as 19 on multiple occasions by the Nationals broadcast team — is almost certainly the youngest Cardinal to homer in an official Spring Training game in a long, long, long time. Perhaps ever.
On the other hand, the fistful of strikeouts and errors show just how very far he is from MLB-ready. The day could not have summed him up better. A true gem is this kid, but with much cutting and polishing to come. I expect we’ll see him in the majors for keeps beginning sometime in 2021, when he himself is 21.
“…reading y’all’s thoughts and comments on this forum and various thumbsuckers from elsewhere, I’m just not finding much to make me feel optimistic.”
Speaking for myself, Parisian Redbird, there’s the usual Generic March Anxiety. But objectively, the Cards have about as good a chance as anyone to win the division. I’ll be specific.
If you take the average W-L predictions of the well known 538 website, the Fangraphs website (uses Steamer and ZiPS computer modeling), the PECOTA forecasts, Clay Davenport’s computer, and the Vegas over/under lines, and average all of that stuff together, here is how the N.L. Central would shake out in 2019:
Cards 87-75
Cubs 85-77
Brewers 85-77
Reds 80-82
Bucs 79-83Other than much of the bullpen, I really like the StL personnel. If the Birds were to release Cecil, Gregerson, and Fowler tomorrow, I’d bet on them straight-up to win the division. In 2018 the lineup went from a below average 4.4 runs per game with Mabry and Fowler, to an elite 5.2 runs per game once they were both out of the picture. So I have pretty much zero concerns about run scoring. And the rotation should be well above average.
It’s a very good roster, Frenchy. It just needs to be leveraged properly. If Fowler is one of baseball’s worst players again, he gets released at the end of April. If Shildt starts Yadi behind the plate more than 14 or 15 games in a row, he gets called into the GM’s office for a dressing down. If last year’s Fowler/Molina insanity isn’t repeated, the club has a good chance to win 90+ games, in spite of the below average bullpen.
Very good pitching today, and it was nice to see Bader on base three times — and three steals!
Fowler meanwhile went 0-3 with a groundout, strikeout, and popout. Although I understand that Mike Shildt enthusiastically described the popout as a “perpendicular line drive.”
“Of course Hudson should be in the rotation. It’s about options and contacts unfortunately.”
“With all due respect to the esteemed H.M. Petrakis, I have to side with MsPaid here.”
Help me out here, gents. I guess I’m dumb or something.
Someone, anyone, please, I’m begging you, explain to me why John Gant’s lack of options means he should have a leg up specifically as a Redbird STARTING pitcher, rather than reliever?Gant needs to be on the MLB roster, absolutely. And he’s earned it, based on his solid 2018 — and of course there’s the lack of remaining options. So have him pitch out of the bullpen. Gant is your multi-inning man. Problem solved. Hudson in the rotation, Gant in the pen. Best starter starts, and the journeyman relieves.
In the last week I’ve read — about 117 different times, all over the internet — that John Gant will likely be the 5th starter due to his lack of options. Please, will someone explain to this baseball ignoramus why John Gant needs to start rather than relieve?
Thank you in advance for giving sight to this poor blind man.
“Hudson walked three and needed 69 pitches in three innings.”
First walks of the spring. Allowed his first extra base hit, too. For the entirety of Spring Training, Hudson has now permitted an extraordinary slashline of .200/.273/.225.
To paraphrase the great Harry Mark Petrakis, anyone who thinks that John Gant should be in the rotation instead of Dakota Hudson is either drunk or they aren’t paying attention.
Unfortunately I overlooked the guy who was already the most overlooked in the organization, Dominican Summer League keystone/hot corner combo infielder Ramon Mendoza.
Mendoza’s NAPS number of .455 compares quite favorably with many of the better Redbird prospects, and his road OPS was 158 points above his home tally so he might actually be even more promising than he seems at a glance. (If you get a chance, check his batted ball heat map at MLB Farm. Highly unusual, in a good way I think.)
As a righty bat he absolutely mauled righty arms (.370/.470/.590), which I also like a lot. First half, batted .347 but with an isolated slugging of just .102. Second half, hit just .292 but slugged a robust .520.
Listed at a modest 5’11” and 174, Mendoza was a conservative 75th in the community rankings. But I have him solidly inside the team top 40, perhaps as high as the 28-32 range. Wish I knew more about the glovework, but you can’t have everything.
“Do you know if the model (the Davenport Translations) has any built in biases, such as weighing performances against higher levels of competition as more important, or if it gives more importance to guys who both perform well and are young for their league, like Carlson and Gorman?”
Good questions, dac. Through his website I have reached out to Davenport a few times over the past decade, but to no avail. So I’m afraid I’m not versed enough in his methodology to comment.
However, speaking strictly of Lane Thomas, it certainly seems that more weight was given to his 2018 season than to his distant past. Rightly so, of course. Players change.Since that answer was so useless, I should at least offer you a scrap of new information, dac. So here are some more NAPS numbers for Cardinal farmhands. Again, keep in mind that these are Peaks, not career averages. And they are based on a normalized on-base percentage of .320. Therefore, a NAPS of .500 is good enough to start for almost any team, at any position, in any season. And a .400 NAPS makes you roughly a league-average batter (in your very best seasons).
Ramon Urias .481
Ivan Herrera .462
Carlos Soto .458
Justin Williams .455
Andrew Knizner .452
Randy Arozarena .447
Evan Mendoza .415 (Yairo Munoz was also .415 before his 2018 breakthrough in the majors)
Victor Garcia .409
Tommy Edman .387
Edmundo Sosa .354For further context, Paul DeJong was .473 and Harry Bader was .477.
“Rob, I find your work very interesting and thought provoking. Looking back over your list, I was surprised not to see Lane Thomas. I was wondering what factor or factors led to him missing the cut? Age, obp, or something else I’m not thinking about?”
No track record of success before 2018. That’s pretty much it.
In 2014 he slugged .382 in the Gulf Coast League.
In 2015 he slugged .391 in the Northwest League.
In 2016 he slugged .348 in the Midwest League.
In 2017 he slugged .383 in the Florida State League.That’s not enough pop for any outfielder, in any league, unless he runs like Vince Coleman. The batting averages weren’t much better either, ranging from .216 to .260. Basically Lane Thomas didn’t have diddly to recommend him until last year — when he was fully healthy for the first time, it must be said. And by the way, his NAPS number is .441, which isn’t bad at all. Functionally identical to fellow outfielder and consensus uber-prospect Taylor Trammell (.444).
He’s clearly a guy worth watching now. And we couldn’t even say that twelve months ago. (And please, call me Bob. And gracias for the kind words, dac.)
“Andy Young homered in DBacks game yesterday. He’s the one we should have kept.”
I like Andy Young okay, Ny, but not as much as some other utility types who were headed to Memphis this year. Talking Tommy Edman, Ramon Urias, Edmundo Sosa. Maybe Drew Robinson. (Probably not Robinson, though. Don’t care about him much. What’s the point of swinging left-handed when you can’t hit MLB pitching?)
You can even throw in Maximus Schrock, and eventually Evan Mendoza by summer I suppose, and Triple-A is going to be pretty crowded pretty quickly, from second base leftward.
Comparing Young to Urias for example, here’s an edited version of a comment from a Fangraphs thread:
“Andy Young is interesting, but…probably there’s more defensive versatility for Urias. And Urias also had fewer strikeouts than Andy Young, and double the walk rate for the same Springfield team at the same exact age. Urias posted a 170 wRC+ in the Texas League this year, after a hefty 164 in the Mexican League last season.”
The Clay Davenport projections like them both, but not equally. Per Davenport’s computer, Andy is a 2-2.5 win guy at his peak, and Ramon a bit above 3, mostly due to defense. And personally I would give Urias a small additional bump because he was stuck in Mexico for several years, when he might have been advancing & improving through the conventional minors; don’t know whether or not he would have received better coaching than he got south of the border, but I do know he would have been facing a higher level of competition at an earlier age. And that helps anyone improve — if they have it in them to improve in the first place.
“I saw on the Cardinals website that they are projecting Shreve, Mayers and Cecil to make the opening day roster.”
Yeah, I saw that too, Willie. The Redbird bullpen looks scary bad right now, especially with the bloom entirely off the Genesis Cabrera winterball rose. All thorns and no nice aroma right now. The Cards simply cannot go north with the current bullpen. It’s a recipe for heartache.
I say the club should trade for Detroit’s Joe Jimenez, even if it means taking 75-80% of Jordan Zimmermann’s contract ($50M total for the next two years). Heck, the way Z has thrown this spring, he’d be in the mix for the Cardinal rotation right now. Joe Jimenez looks like the next Edwin Diaz, to me.
The relief corps needed an offseason overhaul, and instead it was almost entirely overlooked. This needs to be remedied and real soon.
My name is Bob Reed and I endorse this publication.
Just got my copy in the mail and both the statistical insights and photography are first rate. Nothing wrong with the writing, either. Thanks for getting that to me so promptly, Brian.
Dexter Fowler with a double today, unfortunately ruining the lovely slot machine symmetry of .125/.125/.125.
Wacha was pretty good I suppose. Two homers is bad, but both with two outs and the bases empty. Nice to see Wieters gun a baserunner. Miller better, since his poor command first game.
“I want to say that back in 2014 Rowan Wick with his gaudy 1.290 OPS at State College was looking like the best hitting prospect in the game, a future star for sure. Then, in 2015 he went to Palm Beach and couldn’t hit a lick.”
Yeah muddy, Rowan Wick could be the poster boy for not falling in love with rookieball/short season guys who are old for their leagues. Wick was 19 in the GCL, 20 in the Appy, and 21 when, as you mentioned, he thrashed the NY-Penn League — but that’s a year too old for each level of competition. The projection models adored him after his thundering 2014 season, I’m sure. But age was a red flag all along. (Note that of the eight Redbirds on the list, two were age-appropriate in 2018, four were young, and two were very young for their leagues. There are some flags, but age isn’t one of them this time.)
Also, thanks for the kind words, muddy. And you as well, Nigel, for your generous remarks in another thread. It may seem like a fair bit of work is being done. But it’s not really work. It’s a time outlay, yes. But time spent scratching an itch that demands scratching anyway.
“Is it fair to assume there is substantially more projection inherent in career expectations for a current DSL player vs. one who has shown success at Triple-A, for example? Seems like there should be a greater swing of possible career outcomes the less experienced the player who is being projected is.
For example, we don’t know yet if Malcom Nunez can handle advanced breaking pitches, yet he is being labeled the third-best power threat in all of minor league baseball.”Absolutely, Brian. The Peak projections represent what I would describe as the “quite plausible upside” for each hitter. But further away almost surely means more variance — because guys get hurt of course, because defensive projections are so imprecise so far from the majors, and mostly because plate discipline can collapse at a moment’s notice. Which is why Malcom Nunez is borderline top 100 for me rather than a top 10 or 15 overall prospect.
Heck, for that matter it’s also why Nolan Gorman is a top 50-55 guy for me, rather than top 6 or 8. In each case we don’t know whether he’ll hit .210, .240, or .270. Or better. Or worse! The overarching revelation is that the Birds have a wealth of very high-upside hitting talent throughout the minors right now, and especially at the lower levels. Easily more than any other organization.
On the other hand Wander Franco is already a top 5 prospect for multiple highly respected prospect pundits despite his not playing a game above rookieball. That’s an aggressive placement. And I don’t necessarily disagree with them. Franco’s nearly impossible combination of high power/extremely low strikeouts is probably the best since Albert Pujols tormented Midwest League pitchers nearly 20 years back. And Wander might stick on the left side of the infield.
And speaking of low strikeouts, just for kicks I stitched together Malcom Nunez’ age-15 season back in 2016 against other young Cuban stars, and in international competition. In 188 total trips to the plate he drew 55 walks while fanning just 10 times. You read that right, 55 and 10. This was against most of the best of his peers. Kids against kids, yes. But pretty amazing anyway. (Funny thing is, he didn’t hit for much power at all, with an isolated slugging under .150. But he’s got power now, boy howdy.)
How much power does 17-year-old Malcom Nunez have? In the massive Dominican Summer league 3,946 batters have accrude at least 100 plate appearances since 2006. The top 3 slugging percentages are:
1) Malcom Nunez .774
2) Heriberto Hernandez .635
3) Miguel Rosario .605
No one else exceeded .600.But as far as power goes, I think I need to clarify something I’ve made more confusing that necessary. The “slugging percentages” on the list aren’t projected slugging percentages per se. Rather, they represent an overall hitting projection, but expressed as a slugging percentage once everyone’s OBP is normalized to .320.
And then there’s the minor birthdate adjustments when necessary. In other words the numbers represent a Normalized Adjusted Peak Slugging (NAPS).
Thus, a 15-homer hitter might well have a higher NAPS number than a 30-homer slugger because the 15-HR guy’s OBP is so high. The batter with the higher NAPS number may or may not hit for more power. He may or may not hit for higher average, or draw more walks, or strikeout less. But however the hitters’ specific batting talents are parsed, the one with the higher NAPS number is always the better batter.
1) Nolan Gorman .644
2) Vlad Guerrero Jr. .631
3) Malcom Nunez .603
4) Eloy Jimenez .600
5) Peter Alonso .597
6) Nick Senzel .572
7) Jhon Torres .571
8) Tyler O’Neill .565
9) Fernando Tatis Jr. .559
10) Austin Riley .557
11) Bobby Bradley .557
12) Kyle Tucker .544
13) Elehuris Montero .541
14) Wander Franco .539
15) Nate Lowe .539
16) Alex Kirillof .537
17) Bo Bichette .536
18) Leandro Cedeno .531
19) Christin Stewart .529
20) Mark Vientos .528
21) Yordan Alvarez .525
22) Isaac Paredes .523
23) Victor Robles .522
24) Nolan Jones .521
25) Brandon Lowe .519
26) Antonio Cabello .516
27) Jo Adell .515
28) Darick Hall .515
29) Royce Lewis .514
30) Carter Kieboom .511
31) Joerlin De Los Santos .511
32) Bryce Bush .508
33) Dylan Carlson .503
34) Danny Jansen .501
35) Carlos Rincon .501Too lazy to go back and incorporate the missing six guys. Just wanted to make the Redbird batters stand out better.
