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#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.
Hmm. Let’s consider the odds, with specifics.
Chance of a balk, or infield hit by Luken Baker — effectively non-existent.
Chance of wild pitch or passed ball? Well, Robert Suarez has faced 500 batters and thrown 3 wild pitches in his career. So that’s roughly 1 in 170. And I’m guessing the chance of a passed ball was equally remote. Thus the total chance of ANY of balk, infield hit, passed ball, or wild pitch…maybe 1.5 to 2%, maximum.So we have a profound difference of opinion, Andujar. The only real risk I can see in walking Arenado, is then you of course must not walk Baker. (Patience at the dish is Baker’s one ability that has actually carried over from the minors to majors so far.) But given that Suarez has issued just 9 (unintentional) free passes this year, across more than 200 plate appearances, that’s a mighty tiny risk.
Examining the question in detail, it ain’t even a gray area decision, I don’t think. The more I look at the odds, the crazier it was to face the future Hall Of Famer instead of the mountainous, sub-mediocre Baker.
If the second/third runners mattered at all, then you don’t do it. Or if there’s only one out in the inning, you obviously don’t do it since you’d be setting up a sac fly. But with two outs, walking Arenado to face Baker was absolutely the correct move. If the distinctly lesser hitter beats you, you tip your cap.
Thanks, Shildt, for not walking Arenado to get to Luken Baker. What a maroon.
Funny thing: It took five months, but at least Chip Carey is now offering something that resembles actual baseball analysis. First, he wondered aloud why not let Masyn Winn try to steal in the 9th inning of a tied game. Then, he wondered whether Shildt should walk Arenado intentionally to get to the “cleanup hitter” Baker.
Chip was right on both counts, obviously. (And I’m sure I wasn’t the only Redbird fan who winced when Victor Scott blooped his single with Masyn still glued to first base on the 4th pitch of Victor’s at-bat. Victor got cheated out of a game-winner.)
Of course, both managers flunked their tests. ‘Cause they got a combined baseball IQ you can count on your fingers & toes.
This thing with Luken Baker hitting 3rd last night, and cleanup today…is Marmol asking to be fired, or merely ridiculed? Maybe Ollie didn’t want Baker on the big club at all, and this asinine batting order placement is his way of sticking it to Mozeliak for sending Baker to the majors? What a dysfunctional mess of a lineup, however you cut it.
Bright side, the Birds have one of the 3 or 4 best groups of minor league pitching prospects — both in quality and quantity. If they get a real manager for 2026, I’m very optimistic about the future.
We have a misunderstanding, booyah. I guess I didn’t articulate my views of Jordan Walker very clearly.
I don’t want Walker playing in the majors every day. Not my first choice at all.
Personally, I would NOT have brought him back to MLB when the Cards did. In Triple-A, Jordan just had a two-week hot streak (average .340 and slugging .680) that may or may not mean anything. I would’ve left him in Memphis for at least another couple of weeks to see how real the hot streak was. (For that matter, I wouldn’t have brought Victor Scott back, either. He hit .208 in July; he’s not riding a hot streak.)
But when you DO bring a really young player up to the majors (Walker turned 22 a couple months ago), it is axiomatic to play him every day — or at the very least, make him the long end of a platoon, so he plays 5-6 days a week. It’s simply Player Development 101, that young hitters need to play every darn day, whether in the minors or majors, in order to have any chance to reach their potential. They ain’t like backup quarterbacks, who can study from the sidelines and get better mostly by observing.
And what you absolutely do not do, is make a young hitter the short end of a platoon when he hits lefties much worse than righties, just because you think it should be the other way around. That’s extremely stubborn, arrogant, and kinda insane.
“I see they pinch hit for Walker. His stock has gone off a cliff.”
They pinch-hit for Walker because Ollie Marmol has inexplicably made him a platoon player who only faces left-handed pitchers. I have nothing but contempt for Marmol, and yet even I didn’t expect Jordan Walker to immediately be the short end of a platoon upon his return to the majors.
Jordan’s just 22 years old with a solid 2023 rookie season under his belt, and nevertheless he’s now relegated to platoon duty. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst thing is, Walker actually hits righties much better than southpaws. (Even Chip Carey couldn’t help mentioning that!)
Specifically, Walker at the MLB level before tonight:
.790 OPS against righties
.638 OPS versus leftiesAnd his OPS was higher against righties in the minors this year. And higher in the minors against righties last year.
Simply put, from day one, the Boy Wonder has arrogantly managed this club according to the smartguy theories clanging around inside his own head, rather than intelligently leveraging the manifest observable talents of his players & pitchers — and minimizing their weaknesses.
The oddball mis-usage of Walker is just another reflection of Marmolian incompetence.
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And in tonight’s big moment, with two on, two out, and a one-run lead, who does Ollie call on? A guy who hasn’t pitched in a week. (Even Jim Edmonds questioned that move.) Five minutes and four runs later, the game was effectively over.
I understand why frustrated fellow fans desire a complete house cleaning. But really guys, it’s Marmol. Far, far more than any other individual, it’s Marmol. As noted recently in another thread, the Birds were favored to win the N.L. Central last year and this year. They have the talent. But they need a real manager.
The Cardinals are an elite MLB franchise, an important franchise. They should have an elite manager. Not a Tryout Guy.
“At the end of the day, the Cardinals are probably what we thought they were at the beginning of the season. Most people thought the Cardinals would be around a .500 club, at best. That looks accurate.”
I can’t agree with this statement.
On Opening Day, the Cardinals were in fact co-favorites (with the Cubs) for the division title, per the professional betting lines. Those two franchises were 2-1, the Reds were 5-2, the Brewers were 7-1 (wish I’d bet more than 10 bucks), and the Pirates who cares?Also, the Cards’ over/under line was 86 wins. So they were not supposed to be “.500 at best.” They were supposed to contend for the division title. Just like they were supposed to contend for the division last year.
The Cards are underachieving relative to their talent. Not as horrifically as last year, but still significantly underachieving. And that falls to the manager, in my opinion.
As far as Goldy and next year’s first base job — why not Burleson?! He’s a poor defensive outfielder, and Marmol (and most other managers) does not believe in deploying a full-time DH, so that’s out. So a transition to first base is perfectly logical for Burly, isn’t it?
Welcome to the 1970’s.
Stuck in the muck of mediocrity throughout that forlorn decade, the Cards went 800 up, 813 down. But they didn’t bring in Whitey until after the club went 74-88 in 1980.
And I believe that’s what they need right now. No, not Whitey’s ghost wandering the clubhouse like Hamlet’s dad. But a manager with an elite MLB track record and strong personality — like Buck Showalter, for instance. Sure, he’s 68 now, but he just averaged 89 wins in two seasons with the Mets, including 101 victories in 2022. (The pond scum won just 77 the year prior to his arrival.) Heck, Buck’s younger than Brian Snitker, and Snit is one of the top 5 or 6 field bosses in the profession.
Or anybody else with a real history of conspicuous success at the major league level. Or just promote Stubby, for heaven’s sake. He’s earned it far more than Marmol ever did. More than Shildt or Matheny, for that matter. (But especially Marmol.)
“Please show me where we ‘Got it done’ for a very long stretch. We have one month that we had a playoff caliber record.”
I think the poster was likely referring to the two-month stretch of May 12 to July 8, during which the Birds were an outstanding 33-18. (Of course, prior to that they were one of the worst teams in MLB at 15-24, and unfortunately all games count equally.)
I want to single out Marmol for praise, as he used Liberatore correctly for one of the few times in the past two seasons. Matt was throwing well, Ollie left him in. (Sometimes managing is simple, ain’t it?) Certainly could’ve left him in for the 8th inning, but with 3 full innings at least he was deployed in something approximating an old-fashioned long man role — which is what you have to do if you’re going to regularly pull starters at 85-90 pitches, and not overtax the one-inning relievers….
“I guess they should just say they are excluding all rookie players from consideration since that is what they do in practice.”
Couldn’t have said it better.
Rainiel Rodriguez had one of the most extraordinary months in memory (.404/.492/.962) and despite getting 30% fewer trips to the plate than Saggese, the 17-year-old backstop actually accrued more total bases in July. His slashline dwarfs Saggese’s in every category.And then to top it off, there’s the massive plate discipline gap in Rainiel’s favor. Saggese, 7 walks and 22 whiffs. Rodriguez, 11 walks and 5 strikeouts. (And 8 home runs.)
It’s not just July, either. Since mid-June, Rainiel Rodriguez has been mashing like a right-handed Ted Williams, at .363/.461/.813 with 19 walks, 10 strikeouts, and 10 taters across 115 plate appearances.
On Tuesday he struck out. This is noteworthy, since he hadn’t fanned in roughly three weeks. All in all, Rodriguez has struck out just twice in his last 60 trips to the dish, against 14 walks, 7 homers, 5 doubles, and a triple. The Cardinal brass should be throwing the young man a parade, rather than ignoring this amazing stretch of hitting.
“All we know is that he hadn’t run yet. We don’t know if he had a green light. We don’t know if he needed a green light or if he was cleared to run at will.”
But that’s not really all we know, is it? About Ollie Marmol’s views on base stealing, I mean.
We also know that the Cards are near the bottom of the majors in stolen base attempts, despite being successful well over 75% of the time.
And we know that Masyn Winn stole 92 bases in 104 tries over 322 minor league games — and has attempted just 17 steals in 142 MLB contests. (Hey, Ollie, how is Winn ever going to be a really good MLB base thief if he isn’t permitted to learn his craft via trial & error?)
Marmol sometimes sends his runners aggressively, even employing double-steals. BUT that’s only when there’s little or no positive effect on the outcome; like when the Birds are leading by 3 or 4 runs in the 7th or 8th innings. Marmol 99% of the time eschews both steals and hit ‘n runs because there’s risk involved. He timidly fixates on risk while ignoring the potential rewards.
“I long ago arrived at a point in time when I learned to never be surprised at anything the Cardinal manager does or doesn’t do.”
Seconded.
But I have to say, when Victor Scott was on first base with Sean Manaea on the mound (base stealers are 15-for-16 versus Manaea this year) I really, really honestly thought Marmol would give Victor the green light, turn the fast guy loose to do the one thing he’s great at. But Ollie didn’t. And then Pham singled. Which got Scott to second base only. Where he was of course then stranded.
Marmol is terrible in so many ways, I’ve simply lost count. The one thing he does well is deflect blame.
“Fedde has been good. But if he pushes Pallante out, then it might not be as big of a gain as we’d like.”
Exactly. Who does Fedde dislodge from the rotation? Pallante has been solid this year, with a sub-4 ERA. And he’s been very good of late, averaging 6 innings per start over his last 5 games, with a tidy 3.30 ERA.
The club’s worst starter has been Mikolas (4.99 ERA) and there’s no way he’ll be removed as long as he’s healthy and making 20 million bucks.
So how does Fedde help much? I’d say he doesn’t — unless the team goes with a strict 6-man rotation. Which might be precisely the objective.
Cardinal starters on normal rest this year: .799 OPS allowed
Redbird rotation with 5 days rest this year: .710 allowed“The problem wasn’t Ollie. It was Gibson not going 6, Roycroft not throwing strikes when he needed to, and the offense not making enough good contact. In this case, Ollie actually is the only good thing….”
Thanks for the response, Jnevel. So it would appear that you are arguing that Marmol simply had no real choice in the matter, given circumstances. That Liberatore HAD TO be used yesterday — again, despite throwing 69 pitches just three days earlier.
So my concrete question to you would then be: would you still endorse Marmol’s use of Liberatore yesterday if Matt had thrown 75-80 pitches on Wednesday? How about 85? Or 90? It seems to me that by your logic, what you said and what you did not say, Wednesday’s pitch count is entirely irrelevant. Is that correct? If not, then what is your number?
There have to be limits in these matters. Personally, my limit would be in the 45-50 pitch range, since 42 was Matt’s previous career high in that 2-days-rest circumstance. Anything more than 50 was dangerously dumb, in my opinion. And very likely to fail in the short term, and risk Liberatore’s health in the long term.
Liberatore in my opinion should have been on the “do not use” list yesterday. Plain and simple. This is done with relievers all the time.
The bigger question is, how did the manager permit this ridiculous emergency situation to arise at all? The starter went 5 innings yesterday, not 2 or 3. And yet, just one week removed from the full reset of the All-Star break, and just two days after an off day, the manager still felt he had to use Liberatore inappropriately and a position player for 2 innings!
So again I ask: if in your mind 69 pitches on Wednesday did not preclude using Liberatore on Saturday, then what is your personal limit? Thanks.
“Meanwhile, Liberatore continues to be a young Steven Matz. He can’t get anyone out.”
Yup. It seems like pitching Liberatore on just 2 days rest after a tough 69-pitch effort on Wednesday was a really, really bad idea.
For context, the most arduous outing he’d ever had before in his MLB career which was immediately followed by an appearance on only 2 days rest, was 42 pitches. (Not to mention, the 69-pitch game was quite high-stress for Matt, as he got clobbered for 5 runs in 3 innings.)
Competent managers don’t do things like this.
“I’ve read the SEC being compared to AA by some as far as the competition.”
This SEC mythmaking deserves de-bunking, I think.
Keith Law, who’s been analyzing/ranking minor leaguers at national platforms (ESPN, The Athletic) for roughly 20 years now, gets asked about this very subject two or three times a year in his chats. The answer never changes: short-season ball is equivalent to Division 1 college baseball — yes, even the very best college conferences. Same answer when Longenhagen at Fangraphs is asked, I’m pretty sure.
I was surprised the first time I saw that response, many moons ago — because some college superstars enjoy immediate dominance in the minors at the A-Ball level. But as time has passed and I’ve tracked LARGE sample sizes of collegiate stars, I’ve noticed how many struggle at even the Low-A level when first exposed to that type of competition.
Some conferences are considerably tougher than others, of course. And within the SEC, for instance, if you took the conference All-Star team in recent years, that might be a limited group who are at the Low A-Ball level talent-wise. But the thing of it is, even in the very best NCAA conferences, once you get to the 3rd and 4th starting pitchers — or even the Saturday starter for most teams — the depth just isn’t there. Not like in the pros. So the college stars can pad their batting numbers pretty easily.
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Take JJ Bleday for some recent supporting evidence. Huuuge college superstar, home run king at a glamourpuss SEC school, drafted #4 overall in 2019 and immediately a consensus top 30-40 overall prospect in all the minors before he’d ever played a professional ballgame.
His slashline for his final college season? .347/.465/.701
His slashline in High-A right after college? .257/.311/.379Now, to be fair that was in the Florida State League. But still a difference of nearly 500 OPS points sums things up rather neatly. And furthermore, two years after that he still couldn’t manage a .700 OPS in Double-A. (Now, finally, at age 26, he’s having some MLB success at the plate.)
Again, it’s the lack of quality depth that drags down the overall talent level in college ball. Think of it like the Negro Leagues, in a way. The best Negro Leaguers were every bit as great as the best Blanco Leaguers…but the Negro Leagues on the whole weren’t as strong as their honky peers because of the profound difference in depth. (White leagues were drawing from ten times the population base as the Negro Leagues, to field just twice as many pro teams.)
Similarly, pro baseball draws from all of the best available scholastic & collegiate talent. So of course there is no way possible that the SEC has ever been at any point equivalent to a professional Double-A league, nor anything close to it.
Simply put, if the SEC = AA, that would mean that the SEC annually features dozens of 19- and 20-year-olds playing well at the Double-A level. And that’s complete nonsense.
