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The STL Cardinals Thread - New Season, Same Old Cardinals?


CWood21

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4 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

All the problems started WAY before the 9th inning, Ill even let him have the quick hook on Oviedo (which should be questioned) but that means you then have to cover 4 more innings with your bullpen. And you have a multi run lead, so why are all these relievers just pitching one inning? ESPECIALLY if you are claiming that you are trying to save Reyes & Gallagos (I.e. not "burn them for tomorrow" which is a completely different gripe I have).

So fine, Cabrerra gets through that 6th, but he walked 2 guys in it so he probably needs to come out (although it was only 20 pitches) as he wasnt sharp, but his spot came up so you PH and Rondon hit a bomb. So good outcome there.

But after that, Helsley mows them down in the 6th, only throws 13 pitches, and for some reason he gets pulled. WHY? What is the point there? Helsley, who can be a starter, is being pulled after one inning when you are supposedly worried about you bullpen? (right after the ASB?) Put him back out there, let him ATLEAST start the inning. A guy like Helsley should be able to give you 3 innings at any time, especially when he is sharp like he was last night. 

So what is his plan after pulling Helsley? Bring in 2 guys who have barely played in the majors this year. What? But fine we bring in Justin Miller, and what happens? THE SAME EXACT THING!!! 13 pitches... 3 outs... no base runners... and he gets pulled again without his spot in the order coming up. Did he dominate them? No, but he got outs, so why not let him start the next inning? At this point we are just burning arms for no reason

I would have NEVER brought in Garcia (making his 3rd appearance this entire year) in a winning situation, that should have been reserved for when we are losing by a handful of runs until he has proven himself at the Major League level, because he isnt the guy he used to be (who wasnt all that great to begin with). But Shildt has painted himself into a corner at this point with all the quick hooks and planning rest days a week back from the ASB.

So he does get that strike out on the first batter, but that pitch was so bad you had to know he wasnt on tonight. Guys should be getting ready, atleast up and moving, nope. Then a bad break for him with Pauly, and now we are snowballing. He is in trouble and still not even a flinch in the BP. It wasnt until the middle of the 4 pitch walk that the announce team called out that Reyes was finally throwing. Thats too late, he isnt in save mode. 

Which comes to my next problem that I called out, you dont ALWAYS have to use your closer. That is such a lazy move to go there just because youve technically entered a save situation. Use your best pitchers when they are needed AND when they are ready. I can guarantee you that if not the moment Cabrera got out of the bases loaded 6th, definitely after the 2 solo shots in the bottom of the inning, Reyes Never expected to be in that game last night. We can say "always be ready" or whatever, but its human nature to kick your feet up at that point. 

So fine you do bring him in (and double switch, Ill get to that also) and he is in a bad spot from the jump with the Bases loaded. He never has control, he cant hit his spots, walks the first hitter, gets Contreras to chase for a strike out where he missed his spot on almost every pitch he threw, and is struggling on every single pitch. I know he has to face 3 batters, but again, NO ONE IS GETTING READY. Reyes has been great, but this isnt Mariano out there, he isnt infallible, you can pull him. These arent toddlers out there, when they dont have it they arent going to break mentally if you pull them. Then ANOTHER Walk (that should have been a 4 pitch walk) and still nothing. Hes in such a bad spot that he is now 3-1 on Baez and has to grove one. He just left him hanging out there to die, and we dont get anyone one up throwing until Happ is already in the box for his at bat. Why isnt Miller up and ready for Happ, to turn him around, as he is worse against Lefties?

If Reyes just gets got on one night, fine, he isnt going to get them all. But Shildt put this whole team in a bad spot starting in the 7th inning, it was a parade of bade decisions, and he wants to boil it down to like one at bat. Its not, thats a whole string of failures. And he has done this with the Bullpen for years now. He is terrible at managing it.

And the cherry on top is the Double switch of Sosa for DeJong, that Sosa doesnt even get his At Bat, that goes to Matt Carpenter? Who has another awful at bat. But even if he does get on, we dont have a pinch runner anymore for the slow Carpenter, because you just BURNED Sosa for absolutely no reason! I mean how do you even think about defending any of this?

You nailed it.

Taking Helsley out was stupid. As you mentioned, he can be a starter. There was no reason to take him out after one inning.
Putting in Reyes in a bases load situation was worse. He's been great in save situations, but he puts men on base. You don't bring him in with the bases loaded.
Not having anyone warming up was the worst. I don't understand how a manager ever does this. Better to get them loose and not have to use them then to put in a guy who hasn't even gotten loose in the first place. 

Everything else you mentioned was just icing on the cake. Shildt has made a lot of bad moves this year, but this loss is 100% on him. I honestly don't see us going anywhere deep in the playoffs with him as the manager. 

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1 hour ago, JonStark said:

I honestly don't see us going anywhere deep in the playoffs with him as the manager. 

I think he’s fine most of the time, but I don’t ever see him elevating the talent he has. Honestly there aren’t many guys out there who can anymore as analytical as the game has become, but the “manager of the year” thing from a few years ago looks worse and worse. It was more of an indictment on Matheny than anything positive about Shildt.

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4 hours ago, JonStark said:

You nailed it.

Taking Helsley out was stupid. As you mentioned, he can be a starter. There was no reason to take him out after one inning.
Putting in Reyes in a bases load situation was worse. He's been great in save situations, but he puts men on base. You don't bring him in with the bases loaded.
Not having anyone warming up was the worst. I don't understand how a manager ever does this. Better to get them loose and not have to use them then to put in a guy who hasn't even gotten loose in the first place. 

Everything else you mentioned was just icing on the cake. Shildt has made a lot of bad moves this year, but this loss is 100% on him. I honestly don't see us going anywhere deep in the playoffs with him as the manager. 

How can you say the loss is 100% on him? in the 9th inning there should of been 2 outs with no one on. But instead there were 2 on with no outs because of errors. Yeah, lets blame the Manager on how the disastrous 9th inning went....

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9 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

And to be clear, Im not expecting this to be some World Series contending team right now (with all the injuries to the rotation) But I think its fair to expect us to be Average+ with all the talent we still do have active. And that means being atleast competent against teams similar to us, especially ones like the Cubs who have clearly already waived the White Flag. 

We just took 4 of 6 from the NL Leading Giants, so we are decent atleast. But we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot against the teams we should be racking up wins against

The Cardinals were short on pitching going into this season, and it's only gotten worse.  We need at least one more SP to begin the season because you couldn't count on Carlos Martinez or Miles Mikolas given their injury concerns.  I'm not saying that guys like Jake Odorizzi or Taijuan Walker would magically fix our SP woes, but it's a lot better feeling going in with one of those guys than some plug 'n play pitcher we're hoping to get 4 solid innings out of.  It's impressive that our SP hasn't been bottom 5 with Jack Flaherty out.  If it weren't for Adam Wainwright and to a lesser extent Kwang-hyun Kim, we probably would be.  And our RP has 3 reliable arms in Alex Reyes, Giovanny Gallegos, and Genesis Cabrera.

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9 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

All the problems started WAY before the 9th inning, Ill even let him have the quick hook on Oviedo (which should be questioned) but that means you then have to cover 4 more innings with your bullpen. And you have a multi run lead, so why are all these relievers just pitching one inning? ESPECIALLY if you are claiming that you are trying to save Reyes & Gallagos (I.e. not "burn them for tomorrow" which is a completely different gripe I have).

So fine, Cabrerra gets through that 6th, but he walked 2 guys in it so he probably needs to come out (although it was only 20 pitches) as he wasnt sharp, but his spot came up so you PH and Rondon hit a bomb. So good outcome there.

But after that, Helsley mows them down in the 6th, only throws 13 pitches, and for some reason he gets pulled. WHY? What is the point there? Helsley, who can be a starter, is being pulled after one inning when you are supposedly worried about you bullpen? (right after the ASB?) Put him back out there, let him ATLEAST start the inning. A guy like Helsley should be able to give you 3 innings at any time, especially when he is sharp like he was last night. 

So what is his plan after pulling Helsley? Bring in 2 guys who have barely played in the majors this year. What? But fine we bring in Justin Miller, and what happens? THE SAME EXACT THING!!! 13 pitches... 3 outs... no base runners... and he gets pulled again without his spot in the order coming up. Did he dominate them? No, but he got outs, so why not let him start the next inning? At this point we are just burning arms for no reason

I would have NEVER brought in Garcia (making his 3rd appearance this entire year) in a winning situation, that should have been reserved for when we are losing by a handful of runs until he has proven himself at the Major League level, because he isnt the guy he used to be (who wasnt all that great to begin with). But Shildt has painted himself into a corner at this point with all the quick hooks and planning rest days a week back from the ASB.

So he does get that strike out on the first batter, but that pitch was so bad you had to know he wasnt on tonight. Guys should be getting ready, atleast up and moving, nope. Then a bad break for him with Pauly, and now we are snowballing. He is in trouble and still not even a flinch in the BP. It wasnt until the middle of the 4 pitch walk that the announce team called out that Reyes was finally throwing. Thats too late, he isnt in save mode. 

Which comes to my next problem that I called out, you dont ALWAYS have to use your closer. That is such a lazy move to go there just because youve technically entered a save situation. Use your best pitchers when they are needed AND when they are ready. I can guarantee you that if not the moment Cabrera got out of the bases loaded 6th, definitely after the 2 solo shots in the bottom of the inning, Reyes Never expected to be in that game last night. We can say "always be ready" or whatever, but its human nature to kick your feet up at that point. 

So fine you do bring him in (and double switch, Ill get to that also) and he is in a bad spot from the jump with the Bases loaded. He never has control, he cant hit his spots, walks the first hitter, gets Contreras to chase for a strike out where he missed his spot on almost every pitch he threw, and is struggling on every single pitch. I know he has to face 3 batters, but again, NO ONE IS GETTING READY. Reyes has been great, but this isnt Mariano out there, he isnt infallible, you can pull him. These arent toddlers out there, when they dont have it they arent going to break mentally if you pull them. Then ANOTHER Walk (that should have been a 4 pitch walk) and still nothing. Hes in such a bad spot that he is now 3-1 on Baez and has to grove one. He just left him hanging out there to die, and we dont get anyone one up throwing until Happ is already in the box for his at bat. Why isnt Miller up and ready for Happ, to turn him around, as he is worse against Lefties?

If Reyes just gets got on one night, fine, he isnt going to get them all. But Shildt put this whole team in a bad spot starting in the 7th inning, it was a parade of bade decisions, and he wants to boil it down to like one at bat. Its not, thats a whole string of failures. And he has done this with the Bullpen for years now. He is terrible at managing it.

And the cherry on top is the Double switch of Sosa for DeJong, that Sosa doesnt even get his At Bat, that goes to Matt Carpenter? Who has another awful at bat. But even if he does get on, we dont have a pinch runner anymore for the slow Carpenter, because you just BURNED Sosa for absolutely no reason! I mean how do you even think about defending any of this?

So you went back to back nights with Helsley over the weekend, he gets one night off and now you want to throw him 3 innings? Why because he used to Start in the Minors 4 years ago? 

Justin Miller is pretty trash, you're looking for games to throw him in, your up 6-1? I don't see anything wrong with Shildt wanting to get him out of there after a positive inning. 

I'll agree on Reyes' mindset. He probably had his sneakers on. 

The double Switch wasn't bad. In that spot with the bases loaded your trying to keep the ball in the infield. Sosa has more range than DeJong. Shildt didn't put Sosa in there expecting there to be a bottom of the 9th, he put him in there because he thought with his range it might give the team a higher percentage to prevent a bottom of the 9th. Carp is a better hitter than Sosa and has actually had some quality At bats this month (.318 BA 7/22) before last nights AB. And no it wasn't an awful At bat. 1 pitch was a ball called a strike which changed the entire at bat, because it should have been 2-0 not 1-1.  And another pitch I'd have to look at the replay but it didn't look like he went around

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Time for all the Harrison Bader haters to start giving him some props. He's drastically changed his approach since his minors stent and it's paying off:

His swing/miss percentage since that time has almost been cut in half from his career norm prior to that.

He needs to be hitting higher in this line-up.

 

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2 hours ago, kgarrett12486 said:

Time for all the Harrison Bader haters to start giving him some props. He's drastically changed his approach since his minors stent and it's paying off:

His swing/miss percentage since that time has almost been cut in half from his career norm prior to that.

He needs to be hitting higher in this line-up.

 

He's cooking right now! I hope he keeps it up. 

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I know it's easy to be down on the team right now, but I absolutely believe we're on the cusp of being in WS contention in the fairly near future. This offense is loaded. We've got a good mix of vets and young guys. Bader, O'Neil, and Carlson look to be a great OF. Our corner IF is locked up with studs. We've got a couple good MIF guys, DeJong, Sosa, Gorman?, Delvin Perez. We've got a top 100 catcher that is 21 years old. We've got a really deep minor league that could produce some players or trade chips. We've got talented pitchers, but just not enough of them. This is clearly the weakness of the team, but not one that couldn't be remedied. We can trade some of our prospects, we can wait for Liberatore and Thompson(depending on what you think of him), or a combo of the two. 

I know I wouldn't be nearly as high on the team if I was watching as consistently as I used to, but I think looking at it in a broader scale is beneficial. We could definitely remain average if the right moves aren't made, but with a couple good moves we're right there. 

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17 hours ago, MOSteelers56 said:

I know it's easy to be down on the team right now, but I absolutely believe we're on the cusp of being in WS contention in the fairly near future. This offense is loaded. We've got a good mix of vets and young guys. Bader, O'Neil, and Carlson look to be a great OF. Our corner IF is locked up with studs. We've got a couple good MIF guys, DeJong, Sosa, Gorman?, Delvin Perez. We've got a top 100 catcher that is 21 years old. We've got a really deep minor league that could produce some players or trade chips. We've got talented pitchers, but just not enough of them. This is clearly the weakness of the team, but not one that couldn't be remedied. We can trade some of our prospects, we can wait for Liberatore and Thompson(depending on what you think of him), or a combo of the two. 

I know I wouldn't be nearly as high on the team if I was watching as consistently as I used to, but I think looking at it in a broader scale is beneficial. We could definitely remain average if the right moves aren't made, but with a couple good moves we're right there. 

It's going to be interesting to see what happens this off-season, as it's going to be pivotal IMO on the direction this club heads over the next few years. 

The FO has done a good job acquiring the star-power pieces we needed in the middle of this line-up (Arenado and Goldy). It's crazy that we haven't been able to get them both going at the same time at all this season, but that's not on the FO. 

We've drafted/developed the OF and the FO has been gung-ho about all 3 getting their opportunities and going through the growing pains. It's finally started to pay-off and I think we see that O'Neill, Bader and Carlson have at least all earned their opportunity to be the everyday OF trio next year (and hopefully beyond). The 4th OF spot continues to be an issue though, as the Justin Williams/Austin Dean/Lane Thomas/Lars Nootbar platoon behind them has been pretty much awful. We're probably going to have to look at adding another OF externally here in the off-season for this role.

Yadi is Yadi and he isn't going anywhere. You can live with the OPS because of the vital position he plays and he's still providing above average defense.  Looks like he may even get another extension (from reports I've seen recently). 

The middle infield has been the biggest issue this year. Edman and DeJong have both been fine defensively, but both have struggled mightily at the plate. DeJong has always been a streaky hitter, but it's been prolonged drought really going back to almost 2019. You can't have that in a guy you're projecting to hit 5th in your lineup ideally. He just recently started to swing the pendulum the other way since he returned from the IL, but is it going to be enough? I mean to  me, I need to see him put together one hell of a 2nd half (and not just for 2-3 weeks). Edman is showing what we all feared in the back of our head and makes Kolten Wong walking sting even more - He isn't an everyday player that can hit at the top of your line-up. Sosa is fine as that back-up that can play extraordinary defense at SS/2B or even 3B as needed, but his bat isn't anything that'll play consistently. Which is fine because his defense is valuable off the bench. we all know Carpenter isn't going to be back and rightfully so. 

So to me on the fielding/offense, this off-season I'm looking at:

1] Are we going to target and if so, can we add/acquire one of these rare SS pieces this off-season that are going to be available? Doing this would lengthen the line-up so much and solidify you from top/bottom IMO.

2] Is the FO ready to have Nolan Gorman step-in at some point in 2022 at 2B (even if it's Edman bridging the gap until he's deemed ready)? Or, is Edman going to continue to be given opportunity? Do they look externally?

3] They have to add some more firepower to this bench. Preferably, you'd like to see another LH hitting 4th OF tpo fill this. 

4] What is the plan for the DH?

 

The pitching is where things get really interesting. Waino has been the horse yet again and continues to defy father time. I think he's going to be back again in 2022, but you can't continue to count on him giving you the production he has last 2 years given his age. He's due to fall off. Your going to pencil in Mikolas into the rotation, but given his recurring injury issues, you can't assume anything beyond that. August/September is going to be key in evaluating him. KK was quality in 2020, wasn't good at all in the 1st half of this season and then has been stellar for the last 4-6 weeks. Martinez pitched himself out of his contract option even before the injury and your other guys that have filled in (mainly Oveido, Woodford and Leblanc) recently have been hit/miss. Oviedo and Woodford are obviously young and you would think would factor into either the BP or rotation as 6ht-7th starters. Leblanc is probably a guy who is gone given he's a career journeyman. I think the Ponce experiment is over. Alex Reyes from all accounts will be given the opportunity to train and prepare to be a starter in 2022. You're also going to be getting back a really good piece in Hudson. Hopefully he can resume where he left off.

So for the rotation, this off-season I'm looking at:

1] Is Waino brought back?

2] Do we look to add a high end veteran starter ala Max Scherzer type?

3] Do we look to give a 33 year old KK an extension?

4] The health of Mikolas and Hudson

5] Which of our young guys move into BP, or back to Memphis as that 6th/7th starter?

 

The BP is going to obviously pivot on some of the above, but it's safe to say that Gallegos and Cabrera will be penciled in as your 7th/8th inning stoppers. The health of Jordan Hicks is going to drive the closer spot. If he can get right and get in the full off-season, he's back to your closer which allows Reyes to move into the rotation. Helsley has done enough to stick around as one of those middle relief arms. That's about all you can really count on, so their should be a decent amount of turnover here.  

So for the BP, this off-season I'm looking at:

1] Who sticks around internally?

2] Do we give some of the young prospects (i.e Liberatore, Rondon, Thompson) a chance to pitch at the MLB level out of the pen, or continue to prepare as starter in minors?

3] External options via trade/FA?

 

Like you said @MOSteelers56, we have a pretty good nucleus in place if everyone is healthy. We finally should have some good cap flexibility this off-season if we want to  be aggressive and really add that piece to put us over the top either offensively, or in the rotation (or maybe both!). If we can do that, I think we vault right back up to the level we all expected this team to be in 2021 (a team that is probably right behind the Dodger and Padres on paper).  

 

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