No question - and yeah, you have to at least give him a legitimate shot.

But that's not really what Hamas was speaking to - he was speaking to Grichuk's BABIP and power isn't really related to BABIP. To whatever degree hitting a ball hard increases your BABIP, it's offset by the fact that power hitters hit more balls in the air where their BABIPs are pretty much crap. You can be a singles hitter and have a good BABIP that's fueled by infield singles and grounders with eyes.

If Grichuk can't improve his contact rate, we're going to be in a lot of trouble offensively. Even if he can, we're going to be no better than average unless Wong gets it figured out.

The offense is in fairly dire straights for the foreseeable future. In that sense, it may make more sense to pursue Upton than Heyward despite Heyward being a better overall player.

If that's the case, make a play for cespedes

Discuss Thrower remains an idiot.

As for Wong, the problem is that he's stalled. And remember, a team built of nothing but replacement level players would be about a 48 win ballclub. So if your everyday 8 is nothing but 2.5 WAR players, that just gets you to 68 wins. Lets say you have a good, deep starting staff and you get 15 WAR out of them, you're now looking about a .500 ballclub.

In other words, a 2.5 WAR player is treading water for a team that hopes to be a contender. He's not hurting you, but he's not helping you either. In order for me to see a guy as a legitimate contributor to a championship ballclub, rather than just a placeholder, I'd like to see 3 WAR (or approximately 1 WAR for every 200 ABs if you pro-rate for injury).

To get 600+ plate appearances and only be a 2.3 WAR player is pretty mediocre.

If you think Wong will develop then you obviously hold onto him and hope he hits that 3+ WAR mark. And yeah, only 3 Cards managed that this year...and their position players largely sucked. They absolutely must improve there.

I'm just past assuming he's going to be part of the long-term core of this team because I don't think we can count on that anymore. I don't think you trade Wong for Profar, but I think you try to get Profar as a way to move Peralta and if Wong doesn't show signs of improvement, then perhaps you put Carpenter over at 2b and Peralta at 3b, provided adequate health and development from Profar.

They need an infusion of young offensive talent. It's not going to come from the farm as their best prospects are still in rookie ball and might just suck anyway.

I'm not inclined to bid against the Mets and pay for a hot month. Going forward, Upton will be as good or better than Cespedes and I suspect he'll come much cheaper.

As I look at the landscape, it does appear that the large spenders are mostly set in the OF. The Yankees have too many long-term contracts out there and can't block Judge. The Red Sox are in a similar boat given their long-term commitments. The Cubs and both LA teams seems good in the OF, the White Sox are unlikely to have another spending spree.

The Mets are a thought but I think they'll move heaven and earth to retain Cespedes. The Phillies might think he's young enough to move on now and form the new core of their team, but would he really jet for Philly?

I think he stays at this point. There are 3 big ticket OFers going into the market and a bunch of pitchers that are probably going to be in higher demand than the OFers. Teams looking to spend will probably go after the SPs and in the meantime, the other 2 big time OFers have sexier offensive stats than Heyward.

I think he'll have a market, but it shouldn't be insane. I still think my original numbers are fair, but he may not even quite get to that 8/$80.

Heyward actually makes sense for San Diego. Fix that horrid OF defense

Is the owner going to give Preller another blank check?

Preller fisted that team last season. He emptied the farm, took on a shitload of salary (most of it long-term) and made the team worse on the field. If I'm the owner, I don't think I'm real excited about the prospect of just letting Preller continue to spend.

And Heyward's an excellent defensive RFer but he'd probably be just an above average CFer. He'd help the defense, but it wouldn't be a panacea. Moreover, with as badly as he gets in his own head offensively, I would be awfully nervous about bringing him to Petco. That park could really **** him up at the dish.

And a funny thing happened to BJ Upton in SD - he actually got way less shitty. He still couldn't hit (though he was actually tolerable at least), but he started playing a really good OF. He actually managed well beyond the 1 WAR per 200 PAs that I look for, managing a 1.6 in only 228 PAs. He may actually be a nice little piece for them in CF if he gets back to the skills he showed out there while in TB.

Either way ... I knew San Diego would blow this year. Dumb paper team. You can't just ignore defense like that. Myers in CF? Norris at catcher? But hey, at this point, they can only spend to fix unless they want to Astros themselves which is probably the best option

I just don't see that happening. The Cardinal way template was built with Holliday's contract for high priced FA's. Get them in here. See how they fit in the locker room. See if they perform. Then pay them in the off season. Now, if his agent or him wants to break the bank, thats not us and we will take the draft picks and move on.

Despite PGM's opinion he a a damn good complimentary player, No matter what he will provide good defense and speed on the bases. The money is ridiculous but the Cardinals have $150 million annual additional money coming in starting in 2017.Holliday Wainwright, Molina and Peralta's payroll obligations are gone in 2017-18.

We are going to be flush with cash. I'm not advocating throwing money around because these big money contract rarely work out but we know what we are getting. I don't see a real choice. Pay the man.

Put in the 2006 dvd, and think like a Tiger fan...it will make you feel better. How do you lose to Anthony Reyes and Jeff Weaver?

I was at game 5 when zito went all Sandy Koufax on us. Ugh

Or Washington fan being beat by Pete Kozma. Or Met fan being beat deep by a no hit catcher. This list could go on forever. Why? The playoffs are a crapshoot. The best team rarely wins.

True.

I've been thinking about the whole best team doesn't always win thing. It's true, but not as much as say in the nfl, nba generally the best team does imo.

But the teams that make the playoffs in baseball are always the 5 best teams of each league. It's such a long season of sample size, you get the outliers out of the way.

So no, the absolute best team doesn't always win, but the teams in the playoffs are generally pretty close in terms of how good they are. So it's not as crazy as a Valparaiso winning a championship (ncaa tourney is a crapshoot).

Lackey on his pitch to Baez:

Seems like a gracious loser. Baez was hitting .289 and increased his OBP by nearly 100 points from last season.

Grichuk had a better ISO than Cespedes this year.

The problem with Randal is that even if he has a .340 BABIP because he scorches the ball that's going to take him down into the .240 range unless he starts putting the ball in play more. That puts his OBP at the sub-.300 level.

With a .412 BABIP over 80 PA. Baez is who he is--an undisciplined hacker with a 30+% K-rate.

He's exactly right.