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“Ottavino still pitching. He was another guy that I think we simply let go, and it was puzzling at the time.”
You’re right, BikeMike, they just released him more or less.
Someone please correct me if I’m mistaken but I think the way things unfolded, the Cards tried to convince Adam O. to switch from starting to relieving, following his extremely disappointing AAA season in 2011 (ERA around 5.00). The way I remember it is that Adam basically refused to listen, so the Bird braintrust got rid of him.Of course, Colorado scooped him up, told him he was in fact now a relief pitcher, and to his and Colorado’s credit he’s flourished in that role for more than a decade. (A sparkling 3.24 ERA while logging the third-most innings of any reliever from 2012-present, behind only Kenley Jansen and Bryan Shaw.)
Maybe Ottavino was intransigent — even insubordinate — but it still feels a bit like just one more example of front office mis-management over the past dozen years or so. It ain’t easy sometimes, but getting the most from your players frequently means convincing them to accept and eventually excel within a different role than they’d prefer. The Cards failed at that.
Anyway that’s how I remember it, Mike.
“Poor Jack F. Four teams in two years and sitting at 4.91 ERA, his lowest ERA so far of any non-Cardinals teams. While I don’t wish ill of him, I do hope we help raise his ERA above 5.00 today.”
I hope we clobber him; that ERA looks pretty shaky.
But to be fair, Jack has fanned 36 men while walking just 4 so far. So that mediocre ERA could be seriously misleading.Um, didn’t Drew bring us Adam Wainwright?
Didn’t the Rasmus trade go a looong way toward winning the 2011 World Series?I recall being ambivalent about the JD swap and against the Rasmus trade at the time — and I couldn’t agree more that Don Tony was himself something of a head case when it came to some of his players/pitchers.
But. It’s pretty hard to argue against the Drew and Rasmus trades, given the eventual outcomes.
I misspoke, sorry.
Last year Fermin hit .227 in AAA in 66 at-bats.
The 400+ plate appearances in AAA that I cited above combined his 2022 and 2023 AAA seasons.The point remains the same, obviously. He’s never hit anything like this in AAA before.
“Sure, new guy, but isn’t that a pretty small sample size?
Yes, but he did pretty much the same thing last year in AAA.
It’s repeatable.”Not accurate. Last year in AAA, at age 24, across 400+ trips to the plate, Fermin hit .220 with a .700 OPS. Nothing remotely like the domination he’s shown this season. (But I would agree that he’s a distinctly better hitter than he was a couple years back. He murdered winterball and then hit very well in Spring Training, albeit against weaker pitchers.)
But the math is bad. If the Cards didn’t already have a logjam of position players, maybe Fermin could get a couple weeks of regular playing time in the majors. But I can’t see the fit, even with Edman and Carlson and Carp on the shelf.
Even if Jordan Walker is sent down, and the outfield is Donovan-Noot-Burleson — which by the way might be the worst defensive flycatching group in MLB — Nolan Gorman still has to play pretty much every day. And you can’t put Gorman or Fermin at DH, because then Ivan Herrera isn’t playing. There’s no room at the inn. Or infield.
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Of course, if Jose keeps clobbering the ball for the next 10-12 games, you really owe it to him to give an MLB tryout if at all practicable.
“Ollie has no clue about the importance of roles. Tony L. was a genius there. Established roles are extremely important. When other players are used in what another feels is his role, that sends a lack of confidence message. Which leads to uncertainty, possible over-exertion, and injury. A good manager establishes roles for every player on the roster, gets the player to accept the role, and is flexible enough to be ready to change roles depending on performance.”
Yup. Well said.
You’ve summed up Marmol’s sub-mediocre tenure quite eloquently, Sooner. When it comes to the bullpen he doesn’t understand roles, or, just as importantly, the difference between rested & rusted — as you cited in detail.Thanks, Sooner, for articulating the frustrations of so many Redbird fans.
“Winn has never played 162 games in a season. He’s incredibly young because he rose so fast through the ranks so he doesn’t even have much in the way of longer minor league seasons under his belt. That’s why the team signed Crawford. Crawford was an all-star not that long ago and still is a solid SS defender. He was signed to play about 1 day a week. It’s on Crawford that he can’t seem to hit. Not on Ollie. Ollie is trying to keep Winn fresh and ready for an entire season. That’s his job.”
Wow. I honestly didn’t expect anyone to defend Marmol on this point.
Brandon Crawford is an old terrible ballplayer who used to be really good, just like Matt Carpenter. I never saw any announcement that Brandon Crawford was specifically signed to start one day per week, but maybe I missed it. But even if you feel you DO have to start him weekly, it doesn’t have to come at the expense of Masyn Winn every time, when Winn is one of the few Birds hitting the ball with any authority.
At any rate, as Jim Edmonds pointed out on the air a week ago when Winn was receiving his second off day of the very young season, a guy like Masyn should be playing every day. He should play every day precisely because he IS young and durable, and needs the maximum amount of MLB experience in order to blossom.
Let’s check precedents, for context. Albert Pujols was younger than Winn when he played 161 of 162 games. But perhaps Marmol is smarter than LaRussa. Willie McGee played 123 of a possible 132 games after the Cards called him up as a rookie — but maybe Marmol is smarter than Whitey Herzog, too.
What Marmol is doing is simply contrary to all industry norms. Bobby Witt, Jr. played 158 games last year. Gunnar Henderson played 150. Giving Masyn Winn 25 or 30 additional days off, on top of all the scheduled off days of the season, is frankly insane. Nice, generous people may find a way to rationalize it, but it’s insane nonetheless.
“In his last 5 games Winn’s 7 for 17 which translates to a .412 avg. and the Cardinal manager decides to sit him.”
“Our manager makes a lot of odd decisions.”
“Winn is 22. He’s swinging a legit hot bat. Why keep him out? This move is inexplicable!”
And bear this in mind also: 22-year-old Masyn Winn, sporting a .349 average, easily the highest batting average on a team struggling to score runs, has now been given three days off, out of just 16 games played.
I’m beginning to understand now what’s going on. Ollie Marmol is a paid double agent employed by either the cubs or Brewers. Only thing that makes sense.
To take my mind off this fairly dismal but not unexpected start to the MLB season, I decided to compare the consensus very best minor league position player prospects to their Cards and cubs counterparts — using the objective ZiPS/Davenport points system (60 points max) introduced above, several posts ago.
As a reminder, here’s everyone from StL and our Arch enemies who scored 30 or better:
56 M. Winn
54 P. Crow-Armstrong
50 M. Busch
49 T. Saggese
41 J. Crooks III
39 V. Scott II
35 P. Pages
33 M. Ballesteros
31 M. Mervis
30 O. CaissieNow, below is the ZiPS/Davenport points score for every position player ranked among an overall top 25 prospect per either MLB.com, Keith Law, or Fangraphs. That’s overall, including pitching prospects. In short, this is the absolute creme de la creme, according to the professionals.
60 J. Holliday
57 W. Langford
57 E. Carter
56 C. Mayo
54 J. Quero
53 S. Basallo
52 J. Lawlar
52 C. Cowser
51 C. Keith
50 R. Anthony
50 J. Caminero
47 J. Chourio
45 Col. Montgomery
44 Car. Williams
44 J. Dominguez
43 J. Wood
42 Br. Lee
40 B. Rocchio
39 Wa. Jenkins*
36 D. Crews
35 Ter. Johnson
31 Mar. Mayer
28 A. Amador
25 H. Kjerstad
2 Sp. JonesI figured the very top prospects would have high scores, but I never thought the correlation between prospect rankings and ZiPS/Davenport scores would be this overwhelming. With just a handful of exceptions, the elite guys in the subjective national rankings are the same guys with elite Z/D point scores here. And since I strictly apply the same evaluation standards to all prospects regardless of organization, the above scores gives me even more faith in the highest-scoring Redbird position player prospects.
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Not everyone eligible is listed above; Josue DePaula, Ethan Salas, and Max Clark also received top 25 accolades, but are too young/inexperienced to have ZiPS projections. So I omitted them, of course.
*Walker Jenkins on the other hand also got no ZiPS forecast. But his Davenport numbers were so spectacular after his astonishing pro debut that he scored 39 on the Z/D points scale anyway!
Spencer Jones really did score only two points. He ranks as the 15th overall prospect by the
paid professionalsclowns at Fangraphs. But the fact that Spencer Jones is an enormous, athletic Yankee outfield prospect who vaguely resembles Aaron Judge apparently wasn’t enough to energize similar enthusiasm at MLB.com (#84), Baseball America (#46), or Baseball Prospectus (#33).Translating those rankings (15, 33, 46, 84) into approximate career WAR projections, basically Fangraphs expects a 40-45 WAR career for Jones The Behemoth, BPro anticipates roughly 18-20 WAR total, BA about a dozen or so WAR, and MLB.com maybe 6 or 7. I don’t know who is most right, but I can nearly guarantee you it isn’t Fangraphs — and I’m 99.99999% certain this guy ain’t Aaron Judge Redux.
“Bob, who would you want to see batting second right now?”
Depends, Bling.
Under ordinary circumstances, I’d have Donovan & Noot at the top, every day, every opposing starter.As is right now, it’d be more a matter of matchups. But the one thing I would never ever do, is have my team’s #1 RBI man batting in a non-RBI batting order slot. In Ollie’s World, Goldy will usually bat with the bases empty in the first inning — and never ever bat with multiple men on. That’s just dumb.
“I cannot get over how Marmol allowed Matt Carpenter to take that last ab bat when he had Contreras and Walker on the bench. Goodness its only 3 days into the season…”
If he believes Matt Carpenter should bat 5th in the order, then he clearly believes there’s no need to pinch-hit for him in a critical situation.
At this point I’m just pleasantly surprised by any game wherein Ollie Marmol does nothing insanely stupid. (Carp usage yesterday, insanely stupid. Goldschmidt hitting 2nd every day, Gallegos throwing 20 pitches on Friday, Herrera getting zero DH duty so far, all just regular stupid.)
“Why was the set-up man working in the 6th inning of a game in which his team trailed by 5 runs?”
I didn’t bother me, Marmol bringing Gallegos into the game. Chance to shake off the rust, get a game under his belt.
But the key of course — the only key, since the game was a blowout at the time — was to not throw so many pitches that Gio’s availability would be in any way compromised for Saturday.
So what did the manager do? He left Gallegos in for two innings and 20 pointless pitches. It’s taken two games and Marmol has already displayed his incompetence.
Not that Marmol has any idea what role Gallegos occupies within his bullpen anyway. Recall that last August, in a space of five appearances, Gallegos was used as closer, as Jake Woodford Mopup Eunuch, as seventh inning guy, and as the setup man. One of Ollie’s innumerable managerial weaknesses is that he does not understand (having never played above A-ball) that the vast, vast majority of major leaguers hit and pitch and field their best when they have defined roles.
It’d be pretty silly to draw any conclusions based on a couple of games against the Dodger juggernaut — their incredible winning percentage over the past five years is MLB’s best half-decade since the Billy Southworth Redbirds. But one thing we do know. The StL manager is still terrible.
“West coast games were great back in the day as with those starting later we could usually get good reception.”
Yeah those late games were fun. In grade school I used to sneak a transistor radio into bed with me and listen quietly to Left Coast Redbird games — I was top guy in a bunk bed so it had to be reeeal quiet. Don’t think I ever made it to the end of a game, though. Love the Scully story, Mike.
Masyn Winn leads the majors in triples with 13 and Victor Scott II leads MLB in steals with 74.
The Cards however have the 2nd-worst ERA in the National League (Rockies) and finish 67-95. Ollie Marmol blames the lack of veteran pitching leadership and is promptly given another 2-year contract extension.
little bears 93-69
Brewers 84-78
Redlegs 79-83
Cards 77-85
Bucs 76-86The division’s best manager (by far) is in Chicago, the best front office is in Wisconsin, and three awful managers are directing the other franchises. Maybe the worst three field bosses in the entire National League.
Before the bizarre contract extension for Ollie, I gave the Cards a puncher’s chance to win the division — only because a truly terrible start (say, 10-24 like last year) might get Marmol canned. Then a new manager could lead the team where their talent warrants, i.e., 85-88 wins. But now that possibility is off the table. The club is pretty much doomed to mediocrity or worse for this season.
Sorry for the delay, but now we’ll take a look at the position players of the cub and Card minor league systems.
I used a slightly different methodology than I did with Cardinal and cub pitchers, when comparing these prospects. And I’m not breaking the hitters down into two posts, as with pitchers. All at once this time. For a balanced overview, I looked at three different categories: (1)the 2024 ZiPS forecast for each; (2)the 2024 Davenport projections; and finally (3)the Davenport Peak projections.
I examined all position prospects in each organization, then compiled a top 20 ranking in each of the three aforementioned categories, according to predicted WAR-per-600 plate appearances. Each of the three top 20’s combines the franchises’ prospects. So for example, the top 3 in 2024 ZiPS projections are Michael Busch, Masyn Winn, and Pete Crow-Armstrong, in that order. One Bird, two bad guys.
With a trio of top 20 lists, I then very simplistically assigned 20 points for the top of each list, down to 1 at the bottom, and tallied each prospect’s point total from the three lists. A player who didn’t make any of the top 20 lists obviously gats a zero –but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a cipher of a prospect. For instance, Redbird outfielder Won-Bin Cho and cub middle infielder Cristian Hernandez are both very legit players, but as teens in full season ball they didn’t distinguish themselves quite enough to project quite enough to currently make any combined top 20 list.
On a gut level I disagree strongly with some of the following — and my own methodology here is, again, simplistic in the extreme…but if nothing else this point system gives us an objectively generated range of reasonable expectations for these guys relative to one another. A total of 24 players made at least one of the top 20 lists (15 cubs and 9 Cards).
So, the rankings.
1) Masyn Winn 56 points
2) Pete Crow-Armstrong 54
3) Michael Busch 50
4) Thomas Saggese 49
5) Jimmy Dale Crooks III 41
6) Victor Scott 39
7) Pedro Pages 35
8) Moises Ballesteros 33
9) Matt Mervis 31
10) Owen Caissie 30
11) Cesar Prieto 26
12)T Leo Bernal 24
12)T BJ Murray Jr. 24
12)T Luis Vazquez 24
15) Kevin Alcantara 21
16)T Pedro Ramirez 20
16)T Sammy Hernandez 20
18) Alex Canario 18
19) Hadyn McGeary 12
20) James Triantos 10
21)T Noah Mendlinger 9
21)T Matt Shaw 9
23) Pablo Aliendo 6
24) Jefferson Rojas 1Add it all up and the tally is 343 points for the enemy, 299 for our team. What’s happening here, vis a vis Cards/cubs, is basically the reverse of the pitcher rankings. Certainly in terms of depth, as here it’s the Chicagoans who have a decided advantage — and that’s with just a single point for Rojas and none for fellow cub teen Fernando Cruz, both of whom I consider preferable to plenty of guys on the above list.
I think it’s fair to say that in the long run, the cubs are likely to get more from their position players than the Cards, just as the Cards have the advantage with pitching. So which farm system will be the most productive overall, during the next 8-10 years? As a gambler, I’d be comfortable taking either side if offered 5-3 odds. Maybe even 3-2 odds. Based on all publicly available objective information, the total talent is very, very close. And both franchises probably should rank in the 6-8 range among all organizations, though I’d need to examine other teams more forensically than I have.
“As hard as this may be to believe, I bet the majority of our board here will be in Oli’s corner by season’s end…….with Bobby Reed quite possibly being one of Oli’s greatest supporters.”
Pugs, I’ve always felt you have a great sense of humor. This confirms it, in spades.
“Folks on social media are overwhelmingly against the extension. When I checked, it was 89% against and 11% for.”
I suspect the 11% are all friends and relatives of Taylor Motter.
“If they wanted to keep it inside the organization, the obvious choice was Stubby, who had led AAA Memphis to the highest level any Cardinals AAA team had ever achieved.”
Twice.
“Rating a manager is tough for fans because we probably don’t see 85-90% of what they do. They’re very likely to side with a Manager when the record shows good results and against the Manager when it doesn’t.”
Very true. It isn’t always easy to grade a manager. But that doesn’t always mean that it’s difficult.
I bet on sorts. All the time, with more success that failure. And have done so since the 1980’s. And here’s how I view managers.
Do they exceed reasonable expectations (Vegas over/under line), or do they fall short? And allowances have to be made for extenuating circumstances like significant injuries to prominent pitchers & position players, as well as meaningful trade deadline moves.
Well, Ollie’s first Cardinal team beat the Vegas number by 4 wins and his second team fell short by 13 wins. Neither team lost much to injuries, but the first squad gained 23 incredible starts from the combo of Monty and Quintana over the final two months — combined ERA just over 2.50. That’s a huge extenuating circumstance.
So despite only positive extenuating circumstances, Marmol overall won 9 games fewer than reasonable expectations across two seasons. That’s very poor. (And of course he thoroughly bungled one of two playoff games.)
That’s how I see his tenure.
So 71-91 and last place gets Marmol a contract extension.
I guess that means 65-97 would get him, say, 25% ownership share in the ballclub?
If he goes 59-103 this year, maybe the DeWitts will buy him the Arch.Agreed, Willie.
There’s a lot to be said for showing your players you’re truly trying to win — as opposed to signing multiple washed-up guys on the wrong side of 35, to buttress your “clubhouse leadership.”The Cease announcement, followed quickly by the bizarre Ollie Marmol extension, makes this the worst week to be a Cardinal fan since the late 1970’s. (And maybe much farther back than that.) The Mulder, Fowler, Ozuna, and Contreras transactions were awful, but at least there was always a capable adult in the manager’s office. Not no more.
I expect that the next several years will be exactly what Brian Walton foresaw as a possibility a couple months back. The team will be bad again this year, which will lead to lower attendance, which will of course mean less revenue, which predictably will in turn result in lower player payroll next year — which finally will likely mean an even worse product on the field going forward.
Ollie Marmol just managed the team to its second last-place finish of the past 100 years.
For the analytically inclined, he also led the club to its worst run differential since 1916 (outscored by 110 runs).
I wonder what sort of contract extension he’d have received if he hadn’t led the franchise to perhaps it’s worst season in more than a century.
“All those screaming for Cease would be ready to scalp MO if he gutted our system to pay the price.”
I have not been screaming for Cease. I’ve been whining. Big difference.
Anyway, the trade I advocated ad nauseum would only have included one member of the farm system — a 2nd-tier pitching prospect, someone never on any top 100 lists. The key pieces would’ve been Nolan Gorman and Willson Contreras — with the Cards of course eating roughly half of the backstop’s salary. A man can dream, can’t he?I’d still like to see the Birds trade for a plausible #2 starter. Like Bieber for example. Wouldn’t cost nearly as much as Cease in trade talent, and the Tribe needs exactly what the Cardinals have an excess of: good position players.
Before delving into more Cards and cubs pitching prospects, I want to thank everyone for their responses — and address a few.
“I’m enjoying this little series. It can maybe be a bit out of context since we don’t have ages.”
Good point. Of the 15 pitching prospects mentioned in the initial post, the Redbirds have 8 of the 9 youngest. When penning these types of posts, I know I sometimes give readers a bad case of “numbers fatigue,” which is why I simply calculated the average age of each team’s twirlers, rather than list everyone’s birthdates. When it comes to age it’s clearly advantage, St. Louis.
“Farm system rankings tend to focus more on the cream of the crop over depth. Top quality vs. quantity.”
Absolutely, as it should be. Quality is paramount. If all concerned are being evaluated accurately, a top 20-25 overall prospect is worth about as much as 4 or 5 guys in the 90-100 range. But see, here’s the thing about the cubs’ “quality pitching”: their Big Three of Horton, Wicks, and Brown are all accounted for on the above list (pitchers K, G, and B, respectively). And you can see what the ZiPS system thinks of them, relative to numerous Redbird farmhands.
“We focus on elite pitching prospects because it gives us hope to have true top of the rotation starters at the major league level…. Hopefully this year’s draft brings an elite pitching prospect.”
Different fans will define “elite pitching prospect” differently, but we can all agree you can’t have too many. 😉 Do the Birds have any elite ones? Well, last August, Fangraphs — which for more than half a decade has consistently dismissed and denigrated Cardinal farmhands at every turn — rated Tink and Tekoah the #7 and #11 pitching prospects in the sport. (How they plummeted to #25 and #30 since then is a fairly fascinating question, given that the only thing that’s happened since last August is that (1)Tekoah got healthy; and (2)Tink struggled in Double-A at age 20.
“Sorry if I seemed snarky about our prospects. I just have post Liberatore stress syndrome.”
Snark is harmless. No blood, no foul.“In general I think the Cubs are the team to watch this year and over the next 3-4 years in the NL Central. I pick them to win it this year, and be competitive for a few more seasons.”
Much as I hate to concur, I don’t see any alternative. The Northsiders almost certainly have the best manager in the division by far (the Cardinals, Reds, and Pirates all have bottom-feeders in the managerial chair, and the Brewers guy is an unknown), and the baby bears have deeper pockets if and when they choose to use them. Like with Counsell.
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Anyway, more pitchers.
Again, this list is completely separate from the previous one. There may be a stray inning or two of AA action among these guys, but basically this is a list of the best A-Ball arms. Since I used a 4.60 ERA as a dividing line last time with the upper minors, I’ll do the same thing with these younger pitchers.With no ZiPS or Steamer forecasts available, I used the Clay Davenport numbers, specifically his Peak Projections. I believe that by “Peak,” Davenport is referring to a player or pitcher’s best 3-year stretch. His website includes both ERA and FIP projections, so I averaged the two.
With a 4.60 cutoff for each pitcher’s Peak stretch, there are 8 Cardinals and 6 cubs. So there would seem to be an advantage here for the Redbirds, albeit a narrow one.
Let’s check, though, what the specific projected ERAs look like, per Davenport.
Top Cardinal A-Ball pitcher, 3.38 ERA across Peak seasons
Top cub, 4.21#2 Cardinal, 3.43
#2 cub, 4.40#3 Card, 3.94
#3 cub, 4.41It keeps going like this. Just like with the upper minors and the ZiPS forecasting model, Clay Davenport’s projection system says the Cardinals have both more depth and better quality pitchers than the cubs. And it isn’t close. In either the upper minors or lower.
This isn’t my opinion. It isn’t anyone’s opinion. It’s math.
However. In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t think the Birds’ pitching prospects are far, far better than the cubs’. A couple cubs are underrated and a few Birds the opposite, especially Connors Lunn and Thomas.But if I had to choose the pitchers from one farm system or the other, and bet my half my savings which group eventually churns out more MLB value, I would take the Birds without blinking. I might even give odds.
To inject a bit of cold sobriety:
George Kirby’s trade value is listed as $91,000,000 at the BTV website.
The combined trade values of Graceffo, Roby, and Burly = $27,000,000.Just for the sake of discussion, to get to $91MM the Cards would need to also add Tink Hence and Victor Scott II and Thomas Saggese and Tommy Edman and Michael McGreevy and Won-Bin Cho. Silly, ain’t it?
As long as Seattle is trying to be competitive, Kirby is more or less un-gettable. Dylan Cease was the guy to get. The White Sox received a good return — maybe very good. But it still wasn’t as much as the Cards could have offered — and not nearly as much present MLB talent, assuming the Cards included Contreras & Gorman in the deal. Incredibly, it was a trade that could’ve improved both teams now, and both teams in the future, all while being payroll-neutral if the Birds ate half of Willson’s salary. And as far as I know, Mo never made the Sox a serious offer. Maybe not any offer.
