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Forgive my piggybacking on your comment, Albert.
Leonardo Bernal since the 8th of May is batting .356/.415/.699 (7 homers) with 8 walks and just 8 strikeouts across 82 trips to the plate. Needless to say, that combo of imposing power and elite contact is exceedingly rare in a hitter young for his league, even over a relatively short stretch of games. I don’t know if it’s any rarer to be achieved by a switch-hitter, but it’s certainly nice that Leo bats from both sides. Anybody for a fat Ted Simmons?
Ixan Henderson now has 9 starts in Double-A.
Last year Quinn Mathews made 9 starts there.Let’s compare.
Henderson has allowed 38 hits in 48 innings, with a 56-to-16 K/BB ratio, 2 homers, and a 2.27 ERA.
Mathews permitted 35 knocks across 52 frames, with a 70-to-15 K/BB, and 3 homers, with a 2.41 ERA.Ixan has allowed a .276 slugging %. Mathews was .277.
Henderson has required 15.5 pitches per inning, and Mathews 16.0.Henderson is a few months younger now than Mathews was last year at Springfield. They both dominated in Low-A and High-A. They both throw with the wrong hand.
I couldn’t tell you how dazzling Henderson’s heater is, or what’s his best offspeed offering. And I don’t think for a moment that he’s truly equivalent to Mathews as a prospect. But I do think Ixan is a very real prospect, and among Redbird farmhands he should be considered a viable future rotation candidate more than anyone not named McGreevy, Mathews, or Hence.
Ha, good old FanHome. Back when you rubbed two sticks together to use the internet.
Note on the Player of the Day, Rainiel Rodriguez. First four innings: struck out twice, permitted a stolen base, and committed catcher’s interference. Next five innings: two doubles, a single, and a sac fly. And two runners gunned down. Now that’s a full day.
No reason to rush the 18-year-old, but I’m sure looking forward to his full-season A-Ball debut. Just wish the club would give him some playing time at another position once in a while, like the hot corner for example. As others have mentioned, this franchise has an overabundance of top backstop prospects and a shortage nearly everywhere else.
Gorman and Walker should be sent to AAA together, pronto. (Should’ve been weeks ago, in fact.) Removes a bit of the embarrassment from each by doing it in tandem. Call up Saggese and Siani, or perhaps a Memphis relief arm. Granillo has needed a season of adjustment at each level, so bring him up now, use him 15 or 20 times in Woodford Situations, i.e., zero leverage, and get him ready to be a good MLB reliever next year. Of course, since Marmol is incompetent, if you give him Granillo, he’d probably use him first time out in the 8th inning of a tied game….
Anyway, Jordan & Nolan are both still young enough to markedly improve their plate discipline — especially Walker. The way they’ve each hit since the start of 2024, they are wasted roster spots. And their long-term potential is being diminished every day they spend pointlessly struggling in the majors.
Does anyone in the organization honestly think Gorman can hit his way out of a two-season funk by starting 10 games a month? Does anyone honestly think Walker’s pitch recognition is any better than it was in the spring of 2023?
This leaves Bud Black as the only MLB manager I would NOT trade Ollie Marmol for. And how long can Black last?
I’m just glad Shelton was able to stick around long enough to gift us the Shugart debacle the other night. Refresher: Shelton brings in a reliever (Chase Shugart) with bases empty and a one-run Pirate lead in the 6th. Walk, homer, single, single, single. Five batters faced, five reached safely. And Shelton still left him in (to give up a double that put the Birds comfortably ahead). Then, with the game now largely out of reach, he finally removed the reliever.
I’m really gonna miss Derek Shelton. Don’t know how Ben Cherington keeps his job, but that’s another question.
“What the Cards really need is one of Walker, Gorman, or Burly to actually develop into a true #4 or #5 hitter.”
They’re all three still swinging at the exact same garbage pitches they’ve been swinging at for the past 3 years — no sign, not even a scrap of improvement in pitch selection by any of them, that I can see. Burly swung at a 3-2 pitch that was 8-10 inches above the strikezone. With two men on base and the pressure ALL on the opposing twirler, Gorman nevertheless offered at multiple terrible pitches when ahead in the count.
That AB encapsulated Nolan’s ongoing awful plate approach: when he should’ve been at his most selective (ahead in the count 2-0), he instead behaved like a batter in an 0-2 hole. Disgraceful display that reflects poorly on Gorman, Brant Brown, and the entire organization, really. You hear about “professional at-bats”? That was the opposite of one.
“Yeah, the force at HP was nonexistent from the time the baseball was put into play. Bad decision by the 2B’man.”
Yup. Brendan cost the team a run by his boner. A lot of braindead baseball tonight (birdbraindead?). Arenado’s inexcusable running blunder, the manager’s repeated ongoing timidity re the tactical use of the stolen base, and of course Donovan’s aforementioned bizarre fielding choice.
If Victor Scott steals third base with one out in the 2nd inning, Masyn Winn’s fly ball is a sac fly. (If you have an incredible basestealing weapon, what better time to use it than man-on-second-and-one-out?) If Siani runs for Walker in the 8th and steals second, then Victor’s bloop single plates the go-ahead run.
And one other one, that’s more a quibble. Removing Herrera after six innings felt weird at the time, with such a small lead in the game. And whaddayaknow, Pages came up with two on and two out in the 9th….
For an incompetent manager, Marmol’s actually done a fine job through four games with pitching changes and lineup construction. I’d give him a B+ or A- for both. But tonight, the granular in-game stuff? Wow, he was absolutely terrible. Wrecking ball terrible.
“I know there is apprehension about voting for lower level guys, but I try to ask myself who I would rather than in a trade for my prospect rankings. If you ask me if I want Ian Bedell or Yairo Padilla in a trade, I will chose Padilla. At this point, even the upper level pitchers don’t have more than a small chance to be a contributor, so I will choose the upside of a lower level young guy.”
Very well said.
Moreover, by choosing prospects at #15/16 in a roughly average farm system like the Cardinals, all that is implied is that these particular prospects rank approximately in the 450-500 range among all farmhands in the minors. In my opinion that’s not so bold at all, really, even at the Dominican Summer League level. I’ll take:#15 Rainiel Rodriguez
#16 Yairo Padilla“TCN just recently selected Padilla at #38 and those people have a better idea on how the rookie leagues rate their players. I’m thinking that although Padilla’s stats were terrific the 17-year-old still has a long road ahead of him.”
TCN ranked Padilla #38, and Baseball America ranked him #5. While I’m sure both evaluators had some sound reasons behind those insanely divergent rankings, I suspect that the shrewdest prediction for Padilla lies somewhere in between.
“I can’t vote for the DSL guys yet because none of us has any real clue about their skills. They are complete guesses based off untrustworthy data.”
This feels like a fairly severe overstatement. With the combination of scouting reports and player performance, we know at least as much about DSL players as anyone knows about American high schoolers when they’re drafted — and some of those kids are given an awful lot of do-re-mi, based on nothing more than scouting reports and low-level player performances.
Anyway, as I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, Baseball America’s Ben Badler established some 15 years ago that DSL hitting performances do indeed have a chunk of predictive value, once we account for both (1)age and (2)plate discipline markers, i.e., their BB/K ratios. That was Badler’s conclusion back in 2009 and I have no reason to think that anything has changed in the past 15 years.
#13 Rainiel Rodriguez
Rodriguez hit .345/.462/.683 this year. And that was after a sluggish start to his campaign.
From June 18 to season’s end (Aug. 20), the 17-year-old backstop batted .355/.490/.745 with 60% more walks than whiffs. And those latter numbers were supported by a reasonable, repeatable .337 BABIP in case you were wondering.#14 Yairo Padilla
Shortstop Padilla is Baseball America’s #5 Cardinal farmhand, and their overall #2 Dominican Summer League prospect, thanks to his speed (22 steals in just 36 games), defense (best infielder + best infield arm in the entire organization, per BA), and hitting potential, as Yairo slashed a solid .287/.391/.404 in an enormous 50-team league that overall hit a rather dismal .238 with a .701 OPS.
“Great seeing Bobby Reed back in the Cardinal Nation dugout! Bobby’s absence is akin to The Bambino being MIA from the ’27 Yankees, Stan the Man nowhere to be found on the ’47 Cards squad….”
Thanks, Pugs. But I’m more like the shark from Jaws. You never know when I’ll show up, and I kinda ruin your day when I do.
“Thanks, Bob, for bringing these guys both up to the group. I wasn’t sure what to do with either. The DSL is so difficult to rank given the uneven level of competition and the fact we never get to see any of these guys play. I read all the same info from BA.”
You’re welcome, J.
If you have a BA subscription (I don’t, I’m a cheapskate) you may be able to access an old Ben Badler article from March of 2009 entitled “Mining for Prospects in the DSL.” In that analysis of DSL hitting performances, Badler found that Dominican batting numbers were much more predictive of eventual MLB success than expected — particularly for young hitters with sturdy BB/K markers. If I recall, his article did not address DSL pitchers.Heck, with this Twitter gizmo, or whatever the cool kids are calling it now, you might even be able to contact Badler directly and ask him for a copy. At any rate, if DSL guys are considered eligible by all of the public ranking services, I think we oughtta do the same.
#11 Rainiel Rodriguez
#12 Yairo PadillaI don’t really want to list a pair of Dominican Summer League guys here. But Rodriguez was the best-hitting backstop in all the minors this year, and Padilla just received an almost unprecedented amount of praise in last week’s new Baseball America prospect list. Now a few details.
Of all qualified minor league catchers, Rainiel led in OPS+ with a 186. Second was 161. For perspective, the 17th catcher was at 137. Thus, the gap between #1 and #2 was greater than the gap from #2 to #17.
Rodriguez led all catchers in batting average by 21 points, and in slugging by 80 points. And he fanned less than he walked. And finally, his errors (3), passed balls (4), and caught stealing percentage (32%) were all boringly fine.
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Padilla is very young, half a year younger than Rodriguez — who himself was young for the DSL. If Yairo were 5 days younger, then 2024 would’ve been his age-16 season in “baseball years.” And yet, he posted a solid 121 OPS+ while playing shortstop, where apparently he is confidently projected to stick. At least per BA. Here’s where they think Padilla stands among Redbird farmhands:
Best Defensive Infielder, Padilla.
Best Infield Arm, Padilla.
Fastest Baserunner, Padilla.
Best Athlete, Padilla.From last week’s BA chat:
Geoff Pontes
4 days ago
The feedback has been off the charts most scouts viewed him as the second-best DSL prospect behind Jesus Made in 2024. He ranked that way in the list Josh Norris put out back on October 7th. He’s a plus athlete, defender at short, plus-plus runner with excellent bat-to-ball (12.6% z-miss) and swing decisions (low chase, higher swing, high heart swing). All we need to see is power and the reports from the offseason camps all say he’s the standout player in camp.Baseball America has Yairo the #5 Cardinal prospect, and Rainiel #11. That’s too high for Padilla, but somewhere in the 10-15 range feels absolutely reasonable to me.
And don’t ask me what “high heart swing” means. Maybe that’s another new metric! Hurray!
#10 Chen-Wei Lin
Excellent season overall, but it’s the unusually strong finish that persuades me.
Over his last 8 starts: 45.1 IP, just 29 hits, and a sterling 57-to-9 strikeout-to-walk tally. One homer, an ERA of 1.19, and an opponents’ OPS under .500.Yeah he’s kinda old, and it’s a pitcher’s park in a pitcher’s league, but that’s a lot to like — not to mention he could actually lose significant velocity and still have the minimum daily required fastball for a mid-rotation MLB starter. I look forward to watching him in Peoria next year.
#9 Bernal
Very reasonable error/passed ball totals over the past two years, and he gunned 34% of basethieves in 2024, a career best. Lin is a fine choice here as well, but I’ll take the upside of a very young backstop who can hit some.
I’ll take Masyn Blaze Winn. At Baseball-Reference he was 60% more valuable than anyone else on the team (4.9 WAR versus Helsley at 3.0). But let’s average the Fangraphs & B-Ref numbers.
1) Winn 4.25 WAR
2) Donovan 2.9
3T) Gray 2.8
3T) Arenado 2.8
5) Contreras 2.75
6) Helsley 2.65It should also be noted that Ivan Herrera averaged 1.9 WAR across the two websites, in a mere 229 at-bats. It’s too bad his manager thinks he’s a worse ballplayer than Pedro Pages, otherwise he’d have a very bright future.
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Here’s a fun oddity — apologies if this has been mentioned already.
Brendan Donovan .342 on-base % this year.
Lars Nootbaar, also .342.Brendan Donovan .417 slugging.
Lars Nootbaar, also .417.“Sorry when the whole league has embraced gambling in the pursuit of greed, its hypocrisy to keep dancing on Pete’s grave.”
I understand why some people feel this way, certainly.
But for me, the fact that professional sports leagues like MLB have shamelessly crawled into the sewer with the human scum who run DraftKings and FanDuel, has no effect on my view of what Pete Rose did some four decades ago. He knew the Cardinal rule. He broke it. Innumerable times.As for the other stuff, I agree 100% with these words of BikeMike’s:
“But he is still represented in the Hall with memorabilia, and the records are official in the books. His legacy will have to be satisfied with that. I am firmly on the side of him not being formally enshrined, but am good with his accomplishments being recognized in other ways. And personally, I still like the guy as a player. I loved getting his cards as a kid and he was entertaining to watch.”
“Pete Rose was not given a ‘lifetime suspension.’ He was placed on the ‘permanently ineligible’ list. Like Joe Jackson. People have been misstating this for over 30 years but they will REALLY start doing so now. Please don’t be one of those people.”
Pete Rose is indeed on MLB’s “permanently ineligible” list. But that fact by itself, without context, is profoundly incomplete.
What happened was, after several years as Cincy manager, Rose was called in to Commissioner Bart Giamatti’s office and shown the evidence of his gambling on dozens if not hundreds of major league games while managing the Reds. And a negotiated settlement was reached, between Giamatti and Rose.
The evidence against Rose was so overwhelming and humiliating that Rose agreed to the “permanently ineligible” ban on the condition that Giamatti not release the details of MLB’s investigation to the general public.
Think about that. Rose agreed to the ban. Didn’t fight for something less — and anything would have been less. Why on earth would Pete Rose willingly agree to the most severe punishment possible?
Why? Because if it had become public knowledge, the shame of betting AGAINST his own team was unbearable. Which is effectively what Rose did every single time that he didn’t bet ON his own team. Rose bet through a mafia middleman, so the mafia knew when Rose did and much more importantly didn’t bet on the Reds. And when he didn’t bet on them, that was Rose’s way of signalling the mob that he wasn’t trying 100% to win that day.
A major league manager gambling on the outcome of any game he’s involved in simply contaminates his entire thought process — especially when he’s not trying to win.
It gets cold in Cincy in the winter. But it never gets cold where Pete is now.
“FWIW, Francona is 65 and retired due to poor health.
Maddon is 70.
Showalter is 68.”At the risk of being overly argumentative, the last three World Series-winning managers were 68, 73, and 65 years young — in reverse chronological order, that is. It wouldn’t be my first choice to pick someone with quite so much life experience behind him…but it beats the heck out of another Marmolian catastrophe. (By “catastrophe,” I mean the entirety of Ollie’s tenure, not 2024, which was a disappointing underachievement but far from a fiasco.)
As for Francona specifically, managers un-retire nearly as often as George Foreman, so there’s still a chance (I’ll put it at 20-25%) we see Tito’s son in a baseball uniform again.
“So trading Arenado, Contreras, and Gray is not tanking but add Hesley to the list and it becomes tanking?”
Yes, exactly.
Because Arenado’s 2.5 WAR in 2024 is not hard to duplicate, or very nearly duplicate, via internal options. Same with the 2024 versions of Contreras and Sonny Gray. But Helsley on the other hand was terrific in 2024 and moreover has been the National League’s best relief pitcher over the past three years — and it’s not real close. From 2022-24, per Fangraphs WAR:1. Helsley 5.8 WAR
2. Tanner Scott 5.0
3. Devin Williams 4.9
4. Evan Phillips 4.3
5. Edwin Diaz 4.0Nobody can come close to replacing Helsley.
“The 2025 St Louis Cardinals are not likely to be a winning ball club under any circumstances that are realistic. Helsley won’t be playing for us in 2026 and then longer we keep him in 2025, the more likely his value goes down.”
I’m afraid I disagree on both counts. Second point first: I think most high-quality pitchers can get more in trade at the deadline than they can over the winter. Or at least as much. (A bidding war is a beautiful thing.)
And as to the other point, I believe that Vegas knows better than anybody else how much talent MLB teams really have. They have to know. It’s their job. And in both 2023 and 2024 the Cardinals were favored or co-favored to win the N.L. Central. So there is plenty of talent on the MLB roster — and more in the upper minors, albeit mainly Double-A.
I will concede however that the team can’t win with Marmol managing unless they revamp the coaching staff and/or get incredibly lucky, as in 2022, when lots of stuff happened that very likely will never happen again. For any team.
You trade Helsley, you’re tanking. And I’m 100% against tanking. Or rebuilding, or whatever euphemism is employed.
There are enough redundancies to trade from already, without dealing away perhaps the club’s best pitcher, including starters. The man will make a pittance in 2025, after making a sub-pittance in 2024. So you keep him, then IF the club is out of the playoff race in late July, you can trade him and probably get a mint.
Dump Arenado, Contreras, and Gray for whatever you can get, eating however much salary is necessary to procure something of some value. And obviously do NOT bring back Goldy or Lynn or Gibson.
Opening Day rotation becomes Pallante, McGreevy, Matz, Fedde, and Mikolas. Herrera starts 6 days a week (4 at catcher against weaker base stealing teams), Pages backs him up, Burly & Walker share 1B and the other DH at-bats, Donovan, Victor Scott, and Nootbaar are your outfield, and Winn + either Gorman or Saggese is the middle infield. Third base can be either Saggese or Gorman or someone acquired in the myriad trades.
“Having said that, we’ve read yet another detailed post extolling the virtues of hiring a future Hall of Fame manager. That sounds really good, but they always stop short. When pressed to get real and actually name names, the only guy they throw out is Bruce Bochy, who turns 70 early next season.”
Fair point.
If we ever-so-slightly expand “future HOF manager” to “plausible future HOF manager,” I would say the following would all qualify (some will be available, some won’t, some are kinda long in the tooth, but you only need to hire one of them, so humor me for pete’s sake):Aaron Boone
Kevin Cash
Terry Francona
Joe Maddon
Mike Matheny
Buck Showalter
Rob ThomsonApologies to anyone I’m forgetting. In any case, the broader point is that the St. Louis Cardinals should stop being a Frankensteinian managerial lab, and get back to being a prestige franchise that values proven excellence in its manager, rather than youth or obedience or whatever else they’ve been (over)valuing lately.
The club finished last for the second time in a century, in 2023. And that was in spite of being favored to win their division.
This year they finished 10 games out in the division after being pre-season division co-favorites, and they also missed the last wildcard slot by a half dozen games.
Maybe some folks are already numb to this Era Of Failure, but for me 2023/24 constitutes a completely unacceptable two-season disaster. So it’s time to make a profound managerial change. And that means doing what they did when they hired Whitey Herzog and again when they hired Tony LaRussa.
In short, they must hire a manager who is already on a clear Hall Of Fame career path — but also not real old. They do this, and make a couple of shrewd trades from their conspicuous roster redundancies, and this could be an 88-90 win team in 2025, despite a significantly lower payroll.
