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

[hrubes20]

25 minutes ago, holt_bruce81 said:

But the Cards window could be shutting after 2 years unless some of these prospects step up in our system....Guys like Waino, Molina will likely be gone. And there's a crap ton of potential Free Agents  in 2-3 years. Ozuna ,Wacha, Carpenter, Gyorko....

 

24 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

That is what is being referenced. They feel they can still spend with them (because of our new TV deal) for this short window. I didnt say the Cubs would be bad, just that there is now this window that they are mostly locked into the roster that they already have. Next year they will bring in Harper, but it probably wont be till 2020 that they can bring in the Pitching to match the lineup they will have.

And I would bet after that window (actually more after the 2020 season) the cardinals will be mostly made up of prospects from their own farm system with a guy or two who they sign as Free Agents. As they have major contracts coming off the books every year from now till then.

Ah, gotcha.  

[kgarrett12486]

1 hour ago, StLunatic88 said:

I dont think it would be a platoon role. He would be the First Baseman. Right now we have a large hole at 3rd, and we have already heard Matt Carpenter is preparing to play multiple positions.

If we cant get Donaldson (or sign Moustakas, and some are now saying) I would not be surprised that we add another bat, especially one who is not a 3B so we could still pick up Donaldson later this season. And for the time being would be Carpenter/Wong/Gyorko as the platoon between 2nd and 3rd.

Derrick Gould has outlined this in multiple places now. The Cards identified this 2 year window on the Cubs, and they are lining up to take as much advantage of it as they can.

It would be a platoon, you're forgetting Jose Martinez who FO is high on after his 2nd half last year. They've said already they plan to get him as much playing time as they can at 1B/OF. He's going to get a significant amount of games at 1B...

[StLunatic88]

31 minutes ago, holt_bruce81 said:

I actually really liked what i saw from Wonger last year. I think he finally understands that he's not meant to be a 20-25 home run guy. And you can always count on him to at least give you above average defense. There's no one even close to his level currently in the system. Just can't see us trading him anytime soon. and I don't like Carpenter as a 2nd baseman. 

Wong is fine. But you are not picking up a $12m option for fine out of your 8-hole hitter who plays good defense. That is a bad allocation of resources. He needs to step it up to ear that option year.

He clearly isnt a guy you cant live without. Much like Piscotty, he has been on the tip of everyone's tongue when talking about what attractive assets we could package and would move for a Machado or Archer type deal.

[StLunatic88]

23 minutes ago, kgarrett12486 said:

It would be a platoon, you're forgetting Jose Martinez who FO is high on after his 2nd half last year. They've said already they plan to get him as much playing time as they can at 1B/OF. He's going to get a significant amount of games at 1B...

No, I am not forgetting him. He is a nice player, but he is not hindering a signing if that is what we want to do. If we feel like the Logan Morrison bat is needed for this lineup, then he will be signed to be the full time 1B, and Martinez will be a super sub.

Now even if we dont see Morrison as a need, Martinez may still not see many ABs with Jedd already on the roster, especially if we pick up a full time 3B.

[CWood21]

3 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

No, I am not forgetting him. He is a nice player, but he is not hindering a signing if that is what we want to do. If we feel like the Logan Morrison bat is needed for this lineup, then he will be signed to be the full time 1B, and Martinez will be a super sub.

Now even if we dont see Morrison as a need, Martinez may still not see many ABs with Jedd already on the roster, especially if we pick up a full time 3B.

Does Logan Morrison provide enough of an upgrade over Jose Martinez at ~$15M/year?  Not a chance.  If you're going to pay big money to a 1B, the Cardinals need to be getting an upgrade.  At this point, it's pretty clear the Cardinals have pretty much stocked their upgrade into Josh Donaldson.

[kgarrett12486]

16 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

No, I am not forgetting him. He is a nice player, but he is not hindering a signing if that is what we want to do. If we feel like the Logan Morrison bat is needed for this lineup, then he will be signed to be the full time 1B, and Martinez will be a super sub.

Now even if we dont see Morrison as a need, Martinez may still not see many ABs with Jedd already on the roster, especially if we pick up a full time 3B.

As @CWood21 eluded to in his response, Logan Morrison's bat is not the type of impact bat that would displace Jose Martinez from the lineup. The FO has been pretty transparent in their thoughts on what they believe Jose Martinez is capable of given a semi regular role/AB's. Unless we acquire another impact bat (i.e. Josh Donaldson), I think you're going to be seeing a good bit of Jose Martinez at 1B, a good bit of Jedd Gyorko at 3B and a good bit of Matt Carpenter at both spots and possibly some 2B as well...

[StLunatic88]

12 hours ago, CWood21 said:

Does Logan Morrison provide enough of an upgrade over Jose Martinez at ~$15M/year?  Not a chance.  If you're going to pay big money to a 1B, the Cardinals need to be getting an upgrade.  At this point, it's pretty clear the Cardinals have pretty much stocked their upgrade into Josh Donaldson.

How could you possibly say Not a Chance? How are you guys just so confident that a guy ho has only seen limited run will continue to give that on an expanded role? (who has already shown to dip once given that extended run) You cant, you're just being foolish to pretend there is no downside there. It is much more likely that he is another J-Rod situation than he is even a constant above average every day guy. We have been littered with these flash in the pan guys who dont continue that performance through the season, or carry it over through the offseason. We JUST saw this with Diaz.

if we were talking about giving Morrison an extended contract at $15m (like 4y $60m) then no way would I want to do that. But everything I have seen have been talking about a 2 year deal at that price, which is more than palatable (especially if he sits and ends up being 1yr at like ~$17m). And guess what, Jose Martinez will still be here when we would move on from a guy like Morrison.

[CWood21]

1 hour ago, StLunatic88 said:

How could you possibly say Not a Chance? How are you guys just so confident that a guy ho has only seen limited run will continue to give that on an expanded role? (who has already shown to dip once given that extended run) You cant, you're just being foolish to pretend there is no downside there. It is much more likely that he is another J-Rod situation than he is even a constant above average every day guy. We have been littered with these flash in the pan guys who dont continue that performance through the season, or carry it over through the offseason. We JUST saw this with Diaz.

if we were talking about giving Morrison an extended contract at $15m (like 4y $60m) then no way would I want to do that. But everything I have seen have been talking about a 2 year deal at that price, which is more than palatable (especially if he sits and ends up being 1yr at like ~$17m). And guess what, Jose Martinez will still be here when we would move on from a guy like Morrison.

Let's look at this objectively.  I think the last number we saw thrown out for LoMo was 2 years, $30M which is an AAV of $15M.  That means he needs to average ~2 WAR/year over the life of his contract to make it break even.  And he's only crossed that 2 WAR threshold once in his career, last year.  Even if you extrapolate to 600 PA per year, he doesn't have a second season when he'd hit 2 WAR per year.  So he's not breaking even on his contract, that's the opposite of surplus value.  IF given the same PA, Logan Morrison was slightly (0.2 WAR) better than Jose Martinez last year.  Only you're paying LoMo $15M/year as opposed to that minimum salary Martinez is making.  That's an easy no.

[StLunatic88]

1 minute ago, CWood21 said:

IF given the same PA, Logan Morrison was slightly (0.2 WAR) better than Jose Martinez last year.  Only you're paying LoMo $15M/year as opposed to that minimum salary Martinez is making.  That's an easy no.

Here is the problem right here. You are projecting that Jose will continue what he is doing in his limited exposure (mostly in the garbage time of last season) and we wont see any regression for him as he continues to get exposed to the league. You just cant confidently make that assessment. 

All at the same time backing the opposite argument, that last year for Morrison was a Fluke, that he will regress to what he was before. Huge double standard here.

And once again, having Morrison on a SHORT TERM deal does not hurt us at all. Mo (and everyone around here) already seems fine paying Jedd Gyorko $9m to be a super sub and a bat off the bench this year (and $26m for the following two years). $30m for the next two, for a good 1B and a Bat that actually has some pop, giving us a different look in our lineup, would be worth taking that risk.

I hope Jose is a darn good player, and he could be the Future 1B that we have never really had on this team (being a #4 or #5 hitter) but in this limited window we have to try an compete with the Cubs in the spending department, we should take this shot. Because I can already see the 2020 team full of pre-arb guys and a few old bad contracts holding us down. 

[CWood21]

1 minute ago, StLunatic88 said:

Here is the problem right here.

Even if you believe Martinez is not capable of repeating those numbers, you have to take into account the fact that you're taking ABs away from other players.  Are you willing to take AB away from Kolten Wong, Jedd Gyorko, or Matt Carpenter?  Honestly, I don't see enough of an upgrade from Wong or Gyorko to give to LoMo.  The problem is even in a most realistic scenario, you're not creating any surplus value with LoMo.  You're losing value.  It takes an absolute idealistic scenario for the Cardinals to create surplus value out of him.  In a pessimistic scenario with Martinez, you're still having surplus value.  Not much, but still surplus value.  I do expect regression for Martinez, but it hurts a LOT less when you're paying league minimum as opposed to $15M.  Let me ask you this, would you be advocating for LoMo if he hadn't been coming off a 3 WAR season?

[StLunatic88]

1 minute ago, CWood21 said:

Even if you believe Martinez is not capable of repeating those numbers, you have to take into account the fact that you're taking ABs away from other players.  Are you willing to take AB away from Kolten Wong, Jedd Gyorko, or Matt Carpenter?  Honestly, I don't see enough of an upgrade from Wong or Gyorko to give to LoMo.  The problem is even in a most realistic scenario, you're not creating any surplus value with LoMo.  You're losing value.  It takes an absolute idealistic scenario for the Cardinals to create surplus value out of him.  In a pessimistic scenario with Martinez, you're still having surplus value.  Not much, but still surplus value.  I do expect regression for Martinez, but it hurts a LOT less when you're paying league minimum as opposed to $15M.  Let me ask you this, would you be advocating for LoMo if he hadn't been coming off a 3 WAR season?

Yes I would have, because while I know you (and a whole lot of people now) look at these move and lineups as purely what adds up to the best WAR, I feel like our issued went much deeper than that with the past 3 seasons' lineups. We were running out 8 variations of the same hitters, which is why our offense was so stale (not bad, stale). Currently Jose Martinez offers just about the same type of hitter we are already running out there in Carp or Pham (or Piscotty before he was traded) with possibly a bit more power.

Its the exact reason we went out and got Ozuna. Yes he is a good hitter, but he is also a DIFFERENT hitter. I actually would have rather LoMo not had this great season, it would have cost us less to bring him in here. But he would be a weapon with power to slide into the 7-8 hole that most lineups dont have (that is usually where you Kolten Wong/Jose Martinez's are, hoping for some production out of those spots)

[CWood21]

12 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

Yes I would have, because while I know you (and a whole lot of people now) look at these move and lineups as purely what adds up to the best WAR, I feel like our issued went much deeper than that with the past 3 seasons' lineups. We were running out 8 variations of the same hitters, which is why our offense was so stale (not bad, stale). Currently Jose Martinez offers just about the same type of hitter we are already running out there in Carp or Pham (or Piscotty before he was traded) with possibly a bit more power.

Its the exact reason we went out and got Ozuna. Yes he is a good hitter, but he is also a DIFFERENT hitter. I actually would have rather LoMo not had this great season, it would have cost us less to bring him in here. But he would be a weapon with power to slide into the 7-8 hole that most lineups dont have (that is usually where you Kolten Wong/Jose Martinez's are, hoping for some production out of those spots)

What exactly does LoMo offer that we don't currently have on our roster?  He's not a different hitter, he's an average hitter.  And I'm not going to waste money simply because he might offer power out of that 7th or 8th spot.  You don't pay $15M to upgrade your 7th or 8th place hitters.  Right now, we need one more MOTO bat to pair with Ozuna.

[StLunatic88]

20 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

What exactly does LoMo offer that we don't currently have on our roster?  He's not a different hitter, he's an average hitter.  And I'm not going to waste money simply because he might offer power out of that 7th or 8th spot.  You don't pay $15M to upgrade your 7th or 8th place hitters.  Right now, we need one more MOTO bat to pair with Ozuna.

Power. He offers Power. Why do you think Matt Adams got chances 16-17-18 in this lineup? Because he was the only chance weve had at having a power bat. 

And to worry about where the money is allocated in your linup is just silly. Because I can make the argument that we are saving MILLIONS with our #3 and possibly #5 hitters (Pham & DeJong) so that can then be allocated elsewhere. 

And to compete with the Cubs (and other much fuller lineups around the league) we need to be upgrading the #7 & #8 hitters, just like we should be upgrading the #3 and #4 hitters.

[CWood21]

1 minute ago, StLunatic88 said:

Power. He offers Power. Why do you think Matt Adams got chances 16-17-18 in this lineup? Because he was the only chance weve had at having a power bat. 

And to worry about where the money is allocated in your linup is just silly. Because I can make the argument that we are saving MILLIONS with our #3 and possibly #5 hitters (Pham & DeJong) so that can then be allocated elsewhere. 

And to compete with the Cubs (and other much fuller lineups around the league) we need to be upgrading the #7 & #8 hitters, just like we should be upgrading the #3 and #4 hitters.

A career ISO of .188 says otherwise.  Let's look at some of the other players in the Cardinals's roster and their career ISO.

Jedd Gyorko: .184
Kolten Wong: .124
Matt Carpenter: .183 (last 3 years have sported .200+ ISO)
Dexter Fowler: .161

Hell, Matt Adams' career iSO is higher than LoMo's.  That's not good.

Why did Matt Adams get as many chances as he did?  Because they saw his numbers in the minors and hoped it would translate into the big leagues.  It didn't.  What exactly has LoMo done prior to last year?  He was a non-tender candidate just a few years ago.  He really doesn't offer that much power unless you're convinced that his 2017 season wasn't an aberration. =
 

[StLunatic88]

4 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

A career ISO of .188 says otherwise.

Just like you pointed out with Adams, it was the early career of Morrison that give that hope. And I was onboard with that as a flier earlier (prior to this season). and We would have been a lower level signing. But this season has proved that he still has that ability. Which is why the price tag is so much higher.

He may en up being overpaid, but thats how Free Agency works. He gets paid what the market dictates, not what his stats dictate. but as long as its on the short term, I am completely fine overpaying a little for a guy who could give you 40 HRs at the back end of your lineup.