We don't have an OFer worth a shit to be honest

Edman in CF got Noot hurt trying to dodge him. Then Edman hurt. Then Donovan.

All of that comes from the belief that Paul DeJong should be playing SS. If you don't have DeJong, you aren't playing Edman in CF under any circumstances. And then you don't have that cascade of injuries that has hit us as a result of one of the most ill-considered decisions this organization has made in decades.

Yes, DeJong's presence on the roster has made us worse, WAR be damned.

This is so, so true, and goddamn, it is painful.

Your weird obsession of hating Nootbar is strange

Yeah, the log-jam in the OF is non-existent. It's basically due to having Arenado/Goldschmidt at the corners and Gorman either having to play 3B, 2B, or DH in order to allow Donovan or Edman to play.

Now, I wouldn't trade Goldschmidt or Arenado of them (yet), but Walker isn't an OFer long-term and needs to be brought back to 3B or switch to 1B long-term. I'd let Goldschmidt leave after next season or extend him exclusively to DH and put Walker as a full-time 1B in 2025.

I don't think Burleson can be a consistent player and if he's in the OF, he should be a 5th OFer who plays every once in a while.

I still hold out hope for Carlson, but they've ****ed his confidence and development so bad that I don't think he'll ever be anything more than he's been last year and now.

I'm fine with trading Edman for a SP, but that's about it with regards to anyone on the roster who I think can retrieve a SP that would not necessarily hurt the team in the future that could be expendable.

Now, because of the Montgomery, Hicks, and DeJong trades, the Cardinals have 4 additional pitchers (2 who profile as starters, 1 as a fringe starter or reliever, and a reliever), all under 25 and with multiple years of team control. There is definitely value in that and hopefully at least of them will turn into a positive asset in the rotation or bullpen.

It's more the GM, team, and lack of any production from the OF as a whole...including him yes

You can believe that TON and DC shouldn't be considered every day starting OFers currently and I wouldn't argue.

However, Nootbar would be a starting OF on almost any team right now. I do not get your hatred for him. It's insane.

TON was hurt before that, correct? Meaning your OF options were Noot, DC, Edman, Donovan, Burleson, Walker.

And I believe Carlson was hurt at some point as well, meaning if you don't play Edman or Donovan in the OF, you're playing both Burleson and Walker...

He has an OBP of .377 and plays good defense.

I literally don't know what more you could want him from aside from taking steroids and hitting piss missiles every AB.

O'Neill is probably the best defensive corner OFer in the game. He's insanely good out there. When healthy he's absolutely starting caliber.

And as for the OF mess - it just doesn't matter if you don't have PDJ at SS. Edman has to stay there. Hell, it might have forced them to do what they SHOULD have done and moved Gorman to LF and put Noot in CF with Carlson in RF.

Moving Edman to CF was asinine and done only to accommodate DeJong and his presence on the roster.

Yeah, there's a reason I don't engage him on this topic anymore. He'll almost certainly admit this disdain for Noot is irrational at this point.

It’s equivalent to bitching about clouds in the sky at this point.

You brought up the key thing with TON-being healthy. That’s something he hasn’t been a majority of his tenure in STL. If/when he is healthy, he is a starting OF. But he hasn’t been.

Regarding OF, even if you move Gorman there, you’re basically conceiting you have two below average defenders in the OF instead of Donovan or Edman. That injury doesn’t happen if they have someone better than Burleson or Mercado to play with Walker.

This is the same guy who hated Mike Schildt. Take it for what it's worth.

Oh ya Shildt did suck ass thanks for reminding me, BUT I've always said he got a raw deal by that weasel Mo. And was a bullshit for him to be the fall guy when at minimum they both should have gotten flushed, but for him to take the blame? No no no

Oh no question. Again, the myriad of ways Mozeliak has butt-****ed basic roster management here are endless. Like I said, it defies all belief that this guy still has a job when we have 2 GG winning infielders that have been injured playing OF and our only regular healthy OFer was hurt BY one of those infielders.

Or that we're in year 3 of wondering why our SP has no depth OR top end. And that the team is neither younger or better than 3 other teams in the division.

I mean I'm not trying to say Paul DeJong is the ONLY problem by any stretch. But he's A problem. And his existence, though not of his making, is what enabled Mozeliak and his sock puppet to do something catastrophically stupid like put Edman in CF.

Someday I'll figure out why 80% of the Cardinals fanbase insists on putting a C in his name. Is it a Busch Beer thing? A Goldschmidt thing? I truly don't get it.

But yes, Shildt is yet another area where I've said my piece - repeatedly - nothing has changed SINCE I've said my piece, and as such I am disinclined to continue litigating it with someone who isn't interested in the conversation.

I’d have been fine if they traded DeJong for an OF before the season, but don’t know if he’d have gotten much due to how bad he was in 2021 and 2022.

As for SP, that’s an entirely different matter and I agree with you there. FO said it’d be addressed for 3 years and it hasn’t been. It’s ridiculous.

Keep DeJong; you'd have never gotten him moved. The issue wasn't DeJong, it was an(other) extension gone awry that tied Mozeliak's hands.

The issue is that there are fungible depth OFers that sign in FA every single year. Guys like Robbie Grossman don't do anything but be perfectly adequate year in, year out - can have them for $2 million/season. When the Yankees cut Aaron Hicks, where were the Cardinals? Jake Marsinik, Jake Baurs, Brian Anderson, Kole Calhoun, - these are guys signing minor league deals who aren't much of anything to speak of but they're friggen outfielders at least. And we're out here crying 'LOGJAM!' because we keep insisting that guys who are, on a GOOD day, middle infielders and more accurately are simply DHs, are outfielders.

It was beneath Mozeliak - and admission of a slew of errors - to dumpster dive for replacement level outfielders. So he refused to do so and in fact did the OPPOSITE by trying to snow the fans (and many of them bought it) into believing that trash like Juan Yepez contributes to some overabundance of quality big league Outfielders. Or that Jordan Walker HAS to be on a big league roster right now learning how to play RF (poorly) on the fly.

This is ALL a product of John Mozeliak simply now know who is actually good at playing baseball. While an All-Star caliber trio of players is over in the AL and a guy who's been better than anyone we have sits in Washington after being traded for the corpse of Jon Lester.

He's mother****ing AWFUL at this job. As bad as you will ever see.

Paul DeJong isn't the disease - he's just the loose bowels that it causes.

Donovan now out for the year; having season-ending surgery. So that leaves Edman and... Winn for the rest of the year at SS? Edman and Gorman can split 2B as well, with Gorman, Walker, and Willson splitting DH?

also Contreras as DH sometimes too

This would piss me off beyond the capacity for rational thought were I Brendan Donovan.

****wit leadership puts me in the outfield because of their own failures, now I'm injured for half a season and likely compromised into my platform season heading into arbitration.

They did this guy so damn dirty.

One thing worth noting in re: Winn - if a player wins ROY, you get a nice pick immediately after the 1st round. If you call up Winn now, he'll burn his rookie eligibility prior to next season.

If you call him up in about 3 weeks, his rookie eligibility will still be intact and he can be eligible for that nice little pick prize for you.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Orioles close to acquiring Jack Flaherty from Cardinals, source tells <a href="https://twitter.com/TheAthletic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheAthletic</a>.</p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1686494605422841857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I couldn’t remember that timeline. Then we get Edman at SS with a fill in to give him relief then you bring up Winn on the first possible day.

that's the team I wanted to make a deal with for weeks.

I think we get my CFer from them...

I am probably doing something wrong with that Tweet but value-wise, looks like a winner. More pieces for more trades in the off-season.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Orioles?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Orioles</a> reportedly acquired RHP Jack Flaherty ($3.6M median trade value) from the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a>    in exchange for IF César Prieto ($2.4M) and LHP Drew Rom ($2.2M).<br><br>Deal is accepted by our model.</p>&mdash; Baseball Trade Values (@BaseballValues) <a href="https://twitter.com/BaseballValues/status/1686497694582439946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Thanks, stupid question. How do I post like that?

Outfielders are over rated. We really need a slap hitting infielder.

TORONTO — The Orioles hoped to use the trade deadline to upgrade their starting rotation. As the time ticked away for them to do so, they made their move.

Minutes before Tuesday’s MLB trade deadline, Baltimore reportedly acquired right-hander Jack Flaherty, a pending free agent, from the St. Louis Cardinals for Triple-A Norfolk infielder César Prieto and left-hander Drew Rom and Low-A Delmarva right-hander Zack Showalter, the organization’s Nos. 13, 15 and 16 prospects according to Baseball America.

It's embed Tweet. Have to be on a computer to do it though.

Embed

You can embed tweets from mobile. Just copy and paste the html code from the tweet into the reply box on the forum.

(Or at least you used to be able to)

First I’m seeing of the third prospect (Showalter). It was a fine haul before. Like it even more now.

Disappointed we didn’t trade any OF. It’s going to be an off-season to remember on how to sort this all out and get three starting pitchers (probably two and one internal rookie), more relievers, and clarity in OF and IF.

Going on record again that I don’t approve of Cardinals FO’s philosophy for the past 3 seasons, but it’s really hard to not think they did a decent job at the deadline. They moved everyone worth a shit that was up for FA or not worth keeping around and got guys in return who could make an impact in 1-2 years or be used as trade bait in the off-season.

Easier way….. Open it in Safari or Chrome. Then go to the ellipse of the tweet in the upper right. Embed is located near the bottom of the options. Copy embed. Paste.

I’m 95% on my phone when I post here.

can’t touch those Faberge eggs.

you seem to be the only regular poster in here that ever defends Mo. I think that’s insane but you have a right to your opinion and post it here without getting too much grief. :)

I'm not the only one in this thread defending Mozeliak's approach at the TDL.

As I said, the roster was terribly flawed going into 2023 and they did the bare minimum going into the season.

Mozeliak did what he needed to do before the end of today. Now he and DeWitt have to acquire at minimum 2, if not 3, starters in the off-season plus a platoon OF.

I was talking your opinion “historically” not about the trade deadline stuff.

That Bader trade ended up getting us way way better talent than Bader. Most pundits think Mo didn’t screw up the trades this time.

Some are trashing the trades but it seems to me that they are expecting to get a plug-in #3 starter with 3+ years of control for a 6 week rental.

Terrible hauls, but whatever. No confidence at all in Mos ability to identify talent

STL Today


RHP Tekoah Roby
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6-foot-1, 185 pounds

Age: 21

2023 season: 2-3, 5.05 ERA in 10 games (10 starts), 46 1/3 innings, 50 strikeouts, 1.32 WHIP for Texas’ Double-A affiliate

Scouting report: A third-round pick in the 2020 draft, Roby had his 2021 season limited by an elbow strain before pitching in 22 games — 21 of which were starts — last season while in Class High-A. Roby was the 28th-ranked Rangers prospect, per Baseball America. Roby throws a fastball that sits in the low-90s and has peaked at 96 mph. Command with the fastball in the bottom of the zone has been an issue, Baseball America’s scouting report says. He’s registered high spin rates on his curveball to go with a recently added slider and his changeup. He allowed 19 home runs a year ago and had a .781 OPS allowed in a hitter-friendly Texas League this season before injury sidelined him. Roby will enter the Cardinals rehabilitation program at their complex in Jupiter, Florida, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said on Sunday. The Cardinals believe they’ll learn more about Roby’s injuries once he reports, but the expectation and “hope” is for the righty to pitch in a competitive setting within the Cardinals’ system this year.


RHP Adam Kloffenstein
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6-foot-5, 243 pounds

Age: 22

2023 season: 3.24 ERA in 17 games (17 starts), 89 innings, 105 strikeouts, 1.27 WHIP for Toronto’s Double-A affiliate

Scouting report: Kloffenstein — a third-round draft choice by the Blue Jays in 2018 — made his Double-A debut a year ago and was ranked as the Blue Jays’ 18th-best prospect, per Baseball America. He throws a sinker, fastball, slider, curveball, cutter, and changeup. Baseball America rates his slider as his best pitch and his most used. Through 17 starts for Toronto’s Class AA club, Kloffenstein’s 105 strikeouts were the fifth-most in the Eastern League and 30th-most across all of MiLB entering Sunday. He’s made a jump in his strikeout rate from a 22.2% mark while in Double-A last year to a 27.6% rate this season while lowering his walk rate from 11.3% to 8.9%. He was assigned to Class AAA Memphis.
O
RHP Sem Robberse
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6-foot-1, 185 pounds

Age: 21

2023 season: 3-5, 4.06 ERA in 18 games (18 starts), 88 2/3 innings, 86 strikeouts, 1.17 WHIP for Toronto’s Double-A affiliate

Scouting report: A native of the Netherlands, Robberse was signed as an international free agent in 2019. Baseball America had him ranked as the Blue Jays’ seventh-best prospect. He relies mostly on the three-pitch mix of a four-seam fastball, a slider, and a changeup, per Baseball America. He was third among qualified Eastern League pitchers in WHIP and ranks 10th in all of Double-A in that category. Over his 18 starts, he’s produced a 23.1% strikeout rate and an 8.9% walk rate, per Fangraphs. Robberse’s strikeout rate is more than a 4% improvement from what he produced in 24 2/3 Class AA innings a year ago. Robberse has limited hitters to a .213 average. Among pitchers with a minimum of 80 innings, he ranks within the top 20 across the minors for that category. The 21-year-old pitched in this year’s Futures Game. He was assigned to Class AAA Memphis

SS Thomas Saggesse
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 5-foot-11, 175 pounds

Age: 21

2023 season: .314 average, .894 OPS, 15 home runs, 22 doubles, and 78 RBIs in 92 games played

Scouting report: Having spent the entire 2023 season with Double-A Frisco, Saggesse matched a career-high in home runs and set career-bests in RBIs, and walks (34) through 92 games while playing in Texas League ballparks. He’s approaching career-highs in hits and at-bats as well. He was a fifth-round pick as a preps player during the shortened 2020 MLB draft. He’s walked 8.2% of the time and struck out 22.8% in 417 plate appearances, per Fangraphs. Saggesse, the Rangers’ 23rd-best prospect according to Baseball America, is seen as an “aggressive” hitter who had a 56% swing rate a season ago despite showing the ability to be more patient later in the year. He’s displayed an average arm in the field and is a “fringe-average” runner, Baseball America’s scouting report says.


RHP John King
Bats/Throws: L/L

Height/Weight: 6-foot-2, 215 pounds

Age: 28

2023 season: 2-2, 3.32 ERA in 12 games (three starts), 21 2/3 innings, 13 strikeouts, 1.57 WHIP for Texas’ Triple-A affiliate. 1-1, 5.79 ERA in 15 games, 18 2/3 innings, 10 strikeouts, 1.61 WHIP in majors

Scouting report: King was a 10th-round pick by the Rangers in 2017 and has spent his entire career in the Rangers’ organization. He’s worked mostly as a reliever while in the minors and logged 143 innings since 2018. King made his MLB debut in 2020 and has pitched 126 1/3 innings across 87 relief appearances since. The right-hander owns a 4.27 ERA and has fanned 89 batters across his big league career. He will report to St. Louis where he will look to provide innings for the big league club once he is added to the 26-man active roster.

Bears beat the Bengals tonight at the Friendly Confines
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The confines were VERY friendly to the <a href="https://twitter.com/Cubs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Cubs</a> tonight! <br><br>They hit 7 home runs for the fourth time in franchise history. <a href="https://t.co/nZbeYS37FB">pic.twitter.com/nZbeYS37FB</a></p>&mdash; MLB (@MLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1686574378077581312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

God that Flaherty return is shit. Prieto is a Cuban Max Schrock, Rom's best case scenario is J.A. Happ.

The only guy worth a damn might be the 19 yr old who's 5 years off and is being treated as an afterthought; Showalter.

Mozeliak is so damn insecure in his ability to identify talent that he just took as many C level prospects as he could. Instead of taking a chance on 2-3 B+ level guys (I'm not expecting top 20 prospects here; but top a SINGLE top 100 guy would've been nice), he just went out there and got as many fringy bodies as he could in the hopes that 2-3 of them stick.

Because he has NO idea who's good and who isn't. He's absolute goddamn awful at his job.

This team has 2 starting pitchers under control for next season and neither of them are very good. Maybe you'll get 20 starts of Matz at/near the level he's showing right now - that would be MASSIVE for us. And Mikolas is going to be worse than he is this season because he'll be 36 friggen years old.

They cut their own nuts off regarding the upside of their prospects because they "want to compete next year". They refused to trade Goldschmidt because they're "going to compete next year" but they did NOTHING to suggest they might. They're not going to go out there and sign Nola and Urias because Mozeliak will give us some bullshit about not wanting to block the 27 C prospects he just acquired and in 2 years he's going to lose half of them to minor league FA or the Rule 5 because he shotgun blasted the roster and will need to put these guys on the 40 at some point soon.

Then we'll be where he was about 5 years ago when he was bemoaning how little space they had on the roster and using THAT to make excuses for not making moves.

Nothing is about winning with this asshole. It's about covering his own ass. Its about having an out for his mistakes. It's about creative excuse-making.

**** this goddamn clown. What an absolute pussy.

Should have just taken the draft pick. Flores has a better chance of getting a return with a pick between the 2nd and 3rd round.

Mozeliak would rather have six dimes than a dollar.

He'd have to have an ounce worth of sand in his drawers to use any of these guys as trade bait. He's a ****ing coward. A worthless worm that's going to treat every last one of THESE guys as faberge eggs unless/until they're so obviously worthless that he ends up DFAing them and trading them for 19 yr old catchers who can't hit their mother****ing weight.

The best guy we got in that deal today MIGHT end up being as good as Genesis Cabrera. And we flat gave him away because our coach and front office can't communciate.

2 years ago he could've gotten anything he wanted for Carlson - now he couldn't give him away nor will the team actually PLAY him. They're going to do the same thing with Walker because they refused to move Goldschmidt so they're going to keep sending Walker out there to diminish HIS value. They send him to AAA to work on his swing plane, he says "No, I'm going to do it my way" and they call him up ANYWAY because the PR pressure was too much for them. In 2 years we'll wonder why we haven't traded him for some pile of ass.

Everything - EVERYTHING - this guy does is wrong. He's the single worst executive in sports. Nobody is worse. Oh there may be some people tied with him as completely ineffectual at every single aspect of their job. But NOBODY is actively worse than him because it's just multiplying by zero. He's alienated his players, angered them, traded them low to see them improve, bought high to see them fail. He hired a mother****ing felon to run his scouting department and somehow took zero chaff for it. He fired administrative staff over COVID because clearly the assistant to the traveling secretary needed to go to protect Bill's bottom line and lord knows that feckless ****ing **** wasn't going to stick his neck out to protect any of them.

He's a fraud and if he were hit by a ****ing bus TONIGHT the franchise would immediately be orders of magnitude better. I hope he goddamn dies and ideally in the same accident that takes the entire DeWitt clan with him so they can't pass it down to some other silver spoon one who sucks the penis who will hire a bagman to run it as an investment mechanism rather than a major league baseball team. Put the goddamn team into receivership and let a committee of tax accountants run it and it wouldn't be any WORSE than DeWitt, Mozeliak and Marmol are.

Shit this team pisses me off.

Solid to very solid rant

:clap:
Well done sir, well done!

It is the total lack of a coherent big picture plan that is unbelievably frustrating for me. I’ve expressed my disdain for MO’s inability to evaluate any of his own talent, but even that pales in comparison to the lack of a cohesive plan.

If you are selling at the deadline then you are reimagining by definition your future both near and longer term. You had huge assets at 3rd and 1b who would have undoubtedly brought nice long term returns to pair with your best prospects who can replace the vets you just dealt. If you think you are closer to winning next year and want to keep your vets then you deal Walker and Gorman while they still have value.

There is no plan that I can see.

To quote Jim Rome - rack em

All he did was trade our players that are off this team in 6 weeks anyway. That wasn't even the bare minimum.

You are not signing any of them after the next 6 weeks. No way are you having a miracle run and make the playoffs. They had to go. Where Mo ****s up is not giving up his precious Faberge eggs until they are cracked or missing pieces. And all he gets is a small part of what he could have received if he was good at his job.

I don’t get why some are mad at the Jack trade you got a kid now rank number 9 in prospect in your farm system. Seems like a fair trade to me

Our farm is shattered ass. The Rangers gave up their 13th ranked prospect and he slotted in as our 4th ranked.

That number 9 prospect isn't in the top 300 on any lists that go that far. He's a non-factor.

The draft pick and simply retaining Flaherty as a bullet shield to protect the rookie eligibility of our young SPs would have more value to us than trading Flaherty for a poo poo platter of AAAA guys.

Remember when your bitch ass ran away after the Royals swept your ass

Probably a combination of over valuing what Flaherty was worth and the Cardinals not packaging him with someone to get a better return.

They took quantity over quality and got back 3 players that project to have the ceiling of a 26th man.

Should have packaged him with one of those surplus OFers the Cardinals have and gotten a somewhat interesting prospect in return.

Ah shit, I forgot he was an Orioles fan.

Downvote it is...

The silver lining in all this is that the Cubs dog-walking us convinced them to add instead of trade Stroman or Bellinger who could've netted them a HELL of a return.

That said, when Morel is on one of his hot streaks, that lineup is suddenly pretty feisty from top to bottom. Madrigal getting significant PT is odd, but at least he doesn't take anything off the table (he's pretty much Prieto's best case scenario outcome and that's 'meh' on a good day).

Ya I'm not at all thrilled with what the Cubs did at the deadline.

I was having conversations about thinking outside the box and trading someone like Nico Hoerner to the Dodgers for a pretty serious return. That opens up Morel at 2B and injects a serious power bat into the lineup and giving him his best defensive position. That was never going to happen.

Instead we limp our way to the finish line by trading nothing much to cry about for Candelario and immediately diminish his value by moving him from 3rd to 1st so we can play Nick Madrigal at 3B.

Cubs fans are generally thrilled with this shit, but its nothing more than a continued half ass approach to everything Jed Hoyer has done since Theo Epstein took his umbrella and left. I think Hoyer is a ****ing terrible PoBO for a large market. His approach is more suitable for a team like the Pirates.

We didn't sell or really buy, but we are going for it in 2023 with this roster. What is the ****ing point? To cross your fingers and hope for another 2020 finish? Hey look we won a terrible division and got swept in the playoffs! Woohoo! Now we have to replace Bellinger, Stroman, Candelario, and probably Hendricks. Completely worth not trading Stroman in that market.

I am sure that deep down we all knew that this was how it would end up. Mo threw darts at a board and came away with trades that made all our trade partners better and made no discernable difference for the Cardinals.

the damage was limited. None of the players traded would be a part of the Cardinals org in 6 weeks.

Mo starts trading Walker/Winn/Gorman etc. He could have ****ed us worse. Anyone trust Mo on trades?

I don't, which is why I wanted him to keep the two biggest pieces we traded away and give them QOs instead. That way, Flores could potentially acquire someone of value.

I think we probably could have done more good with the draft picks honestly. However, with the group of middling pitchers they drafted this year I'm not so sure about that either. I'm not certain any of those guys make an impact on the big club in the next 4-5 seasons.

Yeah, some shine has worn off Flores as well, IMO.

I mean its obviously too soon to close any books on the 2021 draft (or even really start writing them), but we took another pitchability college righty who was supposed to move fast to the majors. Turns out that guy was Gavin Williams and we just missed. Or maybe it was Andrew Abbot. Bryce Miller or Tanner Bibee. It hasn't been Mike McGreevy, that much is known.

I mean, if you're gonna go floor over ceiling, shouldn't your guy get there with some level of haste? Instead he's been jumped by our 5th round pick that year, Gordon Graceffo.

But you may say "yeah, well we took McGreevy so we could afford Josh Baez..." which is an okay argument but James Wood went 5 picks after Baez and could likely be dealt straight across for Dylan Cease right now. Neither of those guys are holding pace with their peers even among prospect rankings.

Now the 2020 draft was a monster - Walker, Winn, Hence, Burleson have all been exceptional picks. So definite feather in his cap there.

19? Thopmson, Fletcher, Locey, Pallante, Thomas; 18 was Gorman and scraps and EVERYONE said Gorman was an easy pick there. He was a no-brainer. I'm not sure we even sent anyone to the 2017 draft - it's that bad. '16 was another solid one even with a miss in the first (Delvin Perez). Carlson, Hudson, Gallen, Edman, Knizner - that works. But we had 3 1st round picks that year so we had a TON of capital we were able to leverage and to have 3 firsts and from that pool net Carlson and Hudson is...iffy. Is Carlson a solid 1st rounder? Disappointing development or not, he's been better than most. But then again we passed on Pete Aloso, Bo Bichette and Bryan Reynolds for him. So....it wasn't THAT good. Sean Murphy evidently cost too much to trade for but we could've drafted him instead of Connor Thomas that year. Or Civale, Luzardo, Dustin May.

Now none of that is to say I think Flores is actively bad at his job. I just think he's ordinary. So I'm not gonna presume he's going to work miracles anymore because as often as not he just hasn't.

I was always torn on 'fire Mozeliak' because that'll take Flores down with him. I'm really not anymore. If you can't find a scouting director who will give you returns roughly on par with what Flores has done, you're doing it wrong. He's been...average.

This is a very fair point as well. Like DJ said, the farm system wouldn't be as barren if Flores was tremendous at his job. He's better at his job than Mo is at his, but that's damning with faint praise.

This gonna trigger somebody.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Since 2022:<br><br>Lars Nootbaar:<br>682 PAs .253/.360/.447/.807 <br>127 wRC+, 5.4 fWAR, +1 OAA<br><br>Randy Arozarena:<br>1091 PAs .260/.341/.441/.782<br>127 wRC+, 5.2 fWAR, -2 OAA<br><br>Adolis Garcia:<br>1110 PAs .254/.314/.478/.792<br>120 wRC+, 7.5 fWAR, +1 OAA<br><br>Noot is a freaking stud �� <a href="https://t.co/eWlxm2Kd9H">pic.twitter.com/eWlxm2Kd9H</a></p>&mdash; Cardinals Stats And Facts (@STL_Stats_Facts) <a href="https://twitter.com/STL_Stats_Facts/status/1687172800467914752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yeah - Lars is legit. Brandon Nimmo made bank to be a lesser player than Lars. If Moe is gonna hand out one of those 6 year PR extensions next spring, Lars is the only guy on the squad worth giving one to.

Irony

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jack Flaherty strikes out Paul DeJong. Send tweet. <a href="https://t.co/PFLutHIwwM">pic.twitter.com/PFLutHIwwM</a></p>&mdash; Cardinals Talk (@theredbird_way) <a href="https://twitter.com/theredbird_way/status/1687205794050371584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

To be fair, i could probably strike out PDJ.

Only if you threw everything out of the zone.

Flaherty leaves and immediately gives up six innings of one run ball. He was absolutely cruising through five.

If he has a 1.6 ERA the rest of the way, I'm gonna laugh.

Mo is still counting on Liberatore to save the staff

He might have the worst Statcast page of any prospect I've seen.

When your comp is 2022 Chris Archer, you need to kill yourself.

Liberatore is going to be an organizational failure.

I've seen him throwing 97 mph heat that moves with plus plus depth on his curveball.

But he comes up here, gets jerked around, loses his confidence and suddenly he's guiding everything. He's throwing 93 with a roller and hoping to live in precision.

He can be a 3rd starter and I've SEEN it. I've seen the stuff. We've wrecked it.

I was in Chicago for Zach Thompson's breakout game. 97-98 with a HAMMER curve. He looked fantastic. But hey, a year later we're still jerking him around, velocity is down, he's lost the feel for the curve and he doesn't know how to approach an AB all the sudden.

Both of those guys have the talent to be mid-rotation starters and we are absolutely ruining them.

First that bank robber wolf dude, now him.

https://defector.com/rally-runner-has-fallen

What a moron. You thought there would be no consequences? He was in his red face outfit that makes him easily recognizable.

This sucks. Even if Mo got value back in a trade, they blow it mishandling players. It’s still all on Mo.

We have seen this mishandling all year at the MLB level. So frustrating. :mad:

I don’t want to shock anyone here with an update but Waino is pitching BP again tonight to the Rockies of all teams. Good grief this is rough.

It's embarassing. He really needs to stop. I honestly feel bad for the guy.

Yikes


Mozeliak’s failures in free agency have been mind-numbing. The repeatedly bad signings have slowly destroyed what the organization had built from the mid-nineties through 2011. He has been responsible for over 370 million dollars spent in free agency. That spending has produced a paltry 23.1 bWAR combined. Mozeliak has been completely inept in the free agent market.

Is this the worst Cards team in anyone's memory? I've only watched parts of maybe 4-5 games, and maybe I'm guilty of some bias, but I can't remember a single season where every game the pitching/defense was so unwatchable.

The '95 club was really bad.

It also led to the hiring of LaRussa and a restructuring of the front office.

Sadly, that was back when DeWitt gave a shit. This team is as bad or arguably worse than the '95 squad and nothing at all will be done about it. DeWitt won't fire Mozeliak and Mozeliak won't fire Marmol.

Seems like it may be a good time to check out on this ballclub for a couple years. They don't care about you so don't even pretend to care about them. You're a line-item on a budget at nothing else; a statistic.

He doesn't care about this franchise and he doesn't care about its fans. Bill DeWitt cares about the balance sheet - so hit him there.