[Bob Reed]

I have Malcom Nunez 10th in the StL organization as of today, and in the top 120-140 among all prospects. He’ll move up on the Cardinal list once Tyler O’Neill’s eligibility is exhausted.

Per Ben Badler’s chat of two weeks ago: “Strong, physical player with plus raw power, huge arm at third base, and he always dominated in the Cuban junior leagues.”

So Badler tells us it’s a rocket arm, and the lack of errors would at least seem to imply an accurate one as well, in addition to sure hands. And then there’s the bat.

On the season he’s trying to be the first DSL guy to bat .400 since at least 2005 (records don’t go back further) and also the first to slug .650. But recently he’s been even better. Exactly one month ago today he fanned 4 times. Yup, Golden Sombrero. Since then he’s made 118 trips to the plate and batted .468/.543/.823. I’m not kidding.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks a million, Brian!
So, give or take a day, the cast won’t be removed until sometime between Sept. 14 and Sept. 21. Sounds like diplomacy is the only thing stopping the club from formally declaring him out for the season.

Wouldn’t putting him on the 60-day DL give the team more flexibility with the 40-man roster?

[Bob Reed]

Pads,
Could you please provide a link to the source who says Fowler won’t even get the boot off until two weeks before the season ends? This is the first concrete information I’ve heard about his timetable. I admit I don’t watch the games much anymore, but I do read the P-D pretty diligently, and I haven’t seen any Fowler info at all.

If he’s literally going to be in a boot for the next month, that is INCRDIBLE NEWS, the best I’ve heard since the day Fowler signed. (I didn’t pray for his bad health. I prayed and pray for his release or trade.)

Thanks a lot, Pads!

[Bob Reed]

Thanks for the kind words, Pugs!

Booyah: I actually do think they’ll get rid of Fowler by this time next year, via trade or outright release. He’s blocking waaay too many other viable outfield options, and it’s only going to get more so.

Agreed, Nyquis. To me the distraction factor — and it’s rather similar with Holland — is nearly as counterproductive as the godawful performances. Solely due to their contracts, Fowler and Holland have become priorities in an odd sense. The club must keep them, therefore the manager MUST use them, and so must mentally contort himself into a position where using them isn’t completely insane.

But look at the secondary price that’s paid, when you keep bad players/pitchers around. You wind up under-using better pinch-hitters for instance, and OVERusing better relief arms. The terribleness and forced 25-man rostering of Cecil, Holland, and Gregerson has indirectly contributed to the unacceptable 86-inning pace of Jordan Hicks. (But don’t worry, he’ll blow his 105-MPH arm out long before he gets to 86 innings.)

The Cards do have to be more prudent with their dough than the Red Sox, that’s true 100%. But at this point in time the grotesque choice is pretty straightforward: the Cards can pay Dexter Fowler to be awful in St. Louis, or pay him to be awful for someone else. (Same with the wretched relief trio of Holland, Gregerson, and Cecil.)

The most depressing thing of this whole discussion, the really serious underlying problem, is what I wrote at another website earlier this afternoon. I am definitely vain enough to plagiarize myself, so here goes:

Resolved: Previously borderline brilliant St. Louis front office broke their brains when the Cards lost to the Cubs in the 2015 playoffs.

Since then, one bad move after another. Some seemed to make good sense at the time, while others were questionable or plain stupid from the get-go.
Leake, Cecil, Fowler, Ozuna, Gregerson, Holland, the firing of Lilliquist, the refusal to reassign Mabry to less mentally taxing responsibilities, rushing an A-Ball pitcher to the majors and placing him in the most physically precarious spot possible — high leverage relief.
Yes, there’s also Mikolas and Bud Norris. Maybe one or two other very minor moves. But on balance, The Horror.

[Bob Reed]

What’s wrong is that he might be washed up. His defense has never been good, so if he can’t post an above-average batting line, he has no value to a playoff contender — particularly one with outfield depth in both the majors and Triple-A.

What should be done with 32-year-old Dexter Fowler, who has 3.5 years and roughly $60M left on his contract? Well, what did ace GM Dave Dombrowski do last year with 30-year-old Pablo Sandoval, with 2.5 years and $50M left on his contract, when he realized that Sandoval was now a replacement=level player?

Dombrowski wisely got rid of him, upgrading the team’s talent base and eliminating a major distraction.

All things considered (batting, baserunning, glovework) Harrison Bader is almost certainly a better current MLB outfielder than Dexter Fowler — and the same could also be true of Jose Martinez and Tyler O’Neill, and even Yairo Munoz and Oscar Mercado.

Granted, I say all this from a position of extreme bias, as I despised the Fowler signing from the start. In fact I hated it so much that I immediately gave up on both the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and said so, and haven’t posted at this site since. But how could I pass up this comment thread?

Get Fowler, Holland, and Mabry out of the organization, and only good things will follow.

[Author]

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