***Official 2016 STL Cardinals Thread***

[BigRedChief]

• 2011 World Series Championship
• 2012 NLCS. One win from another WS appearance.
• 2013 World Series. Two wins from another World Series Championship
• 2014 NLCS. Three wins from another WS appearance
• 2015 Central Division title. Won 100 games. Lost in the NLDS.
• Made the postseason 11 times in the last 15 seasons.
• 67 post season wins since 2004. 24+ wins more than any other team.

SI article on our off season, Gives us a "A". ??:
http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/02/12/win...ouis-cardinals

2015 III thread:
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=295296
2015 II thread:
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=293412
2015 I thread:
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=289085

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by raybec 4

I don't think Peralta has any trade value. He's a below average player at this point with a history of injuries AND PED's. Good luck getting more than Lenny Dykstra's other kid.

SOLD!

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Fans would've understood it.

Mozeliak using the fans as a shield to protect DeWitt's profit margin is irritating as hell.

Yes, the team absolutely should have sold to buttress the next wave of talent. What they seem inclined to do is try to tread water until it gets here instead. That might work, but they have to go all in on that route.

They can't be done. They need a new core with someone like Turner to hold down the fort until Perez, Sierra and Sosa are ready to come up and prove themselves. They need to fill 4 years, essentially, and bridge the gap until Reyes, Martinez, Weaver, Piscotty, Grichuk, Bader, Perez, Sierra, Sosa, Kelly and Diaz are the new core (with a few of those guys perhaps traded to address 1b).

But Bader, Perez, Sierra, Sosa and Kelly are a long ways away and have enough rough edges that you can't just assume they'll get here at all. Grichuk's flaws are obvious and Piscotty ran headlong into the wall last year.

But it sure would've been nice to find another couple of big-time pieces to include in that group. Whatever happens, the Cardinals cannot have another 3-year stretch like they had in that 2013ish range where they are going to produce very very little. They need Flores to be a homerun hire because the gap in the high minors in this system (that I've been talking about for 2 years now) has hit us and hit us hard. Even if the Cards wanted to be in these trade wars, they simply don't have the advanced firepower to pull it off.

That cannot happen if they want to keep things rolling.

Thats what I'm saying.

If Carpenter could have brought the haul that Eaton did, well, that deal should have been made.

[jd1020]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

They won't nosedive as much as they'll just revert.

Dude's never been a good defensive player; I don't think he figured it out at age 30. Last season was a blip on the radar for a guy that's always been a bit underrated offensively but also a bit overrated defensively.

I think his "success" on defense in Chicago had more to do with how small Wrigley's CF is. If you cut the field in half and went straight across from foul pole to foul pole, it would be more of a triangle than a D shape. The left center and right center walls are 368 ft as opposed to the 385+ gaps in Minute Maid park, something shared at Busch, that made Fowler look absolutely horrible defensively.

His speed is also quite a bit overrated, IMO. He stole 30 bases in his 2 years in Chicago, just 10 more than Rizzo who actually stole more bases in 2015, yet he's talked about as if he's a threat on the base paths like Mike Trout or some shit.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by O.city

Thats what I'm saying.

If Carpenter could have brought the haul that Eaton did, well, that deal should have been made.

I agree. If we could have received something similiar to the Eaton trade, we should trade Carp.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by jd1020

I think his "success" on defense in Chicago had more to do with how small Wrigley's CF is. If you cut the field in half and went straight across from foul pole to foul pole, it would be more of a triangle than a D shape. The left center and right center walls are 368 ft as opposed to the 385+ gaps in Minute Maid park, something shared at Busch, that made Fowler look absolutely horrible defensively.

His speed is also quite a bit overrated, IMO. He stole 30 bases in his 2 years in Chicago, just 10 more than Rizzo who actually stole more bases in 2015, yet he's talked about as if he's a threat on the base paths like Mike Trout or some shit.

Regardless of the metrics or different field, Fowler is an upgrade in CF over Grichuk. Grichuk is a defensive upgrade over Holliday/Moss in LF.

[jd1020]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Regardless of the metrics or different field, Fowler is an upgrade in CF over Grichuk. Grichuk is a defensive upgrade over Holliday/Moss in LF.

Grichuk had a higher range than Fowler last season in CF.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I agree. If we could have received something similiar to the Eaton trade, we should trade Carp.

Eaton is 3 years younger and has 2 more years of control at lower prices. In fact the same 37M or so.

[DJ's left nut]

So in looking into Dozier on my Cardinals board, I came upon an interesting set of facts/stats that I'll re-post here. Somebody try to convince me that I'm nuts because I'm certainly open to the possibility:

My thesis:

Dozier is an extreme fly ball hitter. He actually doesn't even hit a ton of liners; he's generally either striking out, walking or hitting a fly ball. It's not a bad set of skills to have but are we completely convinced that we don't already have a very VERY similar player on our roster in Jedd Gyorko? And I suspect you're going to have to pay true power hitter prices for the guy because he just hit 40+ homers but I don't think that's who he is going forward. He's probably more like Gyorko in that 25-30 HR range. And as an extreme flyball hitter, he'll always have a low BABIP and thus low batting average.

If you can get him for Wong, sure - knock yourself out. But you can't, I'd venture. I'd guess it would take something in the nature of Wong, Bader and Weaver because that's what the Twins will expect for a 40+ home run 2b and with the Dodgers being such an obvious fit, a bidding war shoudl be expected. So yeah, the Twins can ask that for a guy who just put up an historically powerful season for a second baseman; I just don't think that's what you'll be getting going forward.

You'll be getting a slightly better version of Jedd, IMO. That's a nice player with a nice contract at the right age (30-31 seasons are what you'd get) but I expect the asking price will be prohibitive.

[DJ's left nut]

My supporting argument:

I hadn't undertaken this exercise until that post but look at the respective seasons for Gyorko and Dozier last year. They're dang close.

K rates - 20% for Dozier - 21.9% for Gyorko
BB rates - 8.8% for Dozier - 8.4% for Gyorko
ISO - .278 for Dozier - .253 for Gyorko

LD Rate - 15.9% for Dozier - 19% for Gyorko
FB rate - 47.7% for Dozier - 40.3% for Gyorko

Hard hit rates - 34.7% for Dozier - 34.8% for Gyorko
Soft hit rates - 18.8% for Dozier - 16.7% for Gyorko

When trying to account for the difference in production, especially in the slash lines, a TON of it comes down to simple OBP differences driven entirely by a BABIP difference. Dozier's BABIP was .35 points higher than Gyorkos. But the interesting part is that it was pure awful luck at work that created that. That certainly bears out by looking at the similarity in their contact/batted ball rates. They were very similar ball strikers last year and yet:

Dozier's expected BABIP - .294 (vs his actual of .280)
Gyorko's expected BABIP - .339 (vs. his actual of .244)

If Gyorko had Dozier's batted ball luck (and when you adjust it for batted ball rates you can see that's really all it is - simple luck), Gyorko would've had an extremely similar triple slash line to boot. Give him the .307 BA that Gyroko's xBABIP says he should've had and his triple slash goes to roughly .307/.366/.560. Adjust Dozier's BA to his expected BABIP and you get a triple slash of .278/.350/.556.

When you adjust for expected BABIP, their respective triple slash numbers end up within the same margin for error that every other number they put up does.

There's really not a ton of distinction between what the two of them did last year apart from an obscene number of ABs from Dozier and some better batted ball luck (and neither guy projects to ever have GOOD batted ball luck so there's a good chance they both even out going forward).

Man, the more I look at this, the more convinced I am that they should see what Jedd can do with those ABs. I don't think he'll be anywhere near the .900 OPS range but there's a very VERY good chance that he gives you something extremely similar to what Dozier can give you over the same number of ABs.

[DJ's left nut]

And in response to the idea that perhaps he was a product of situational deployment:

Looks like he faced fewer high leverage situations than any other but it appears to be a product of the team performance as his 1.01 leverage index is slightly higher than league average and behind only Carpenter's 1.02 on the entire team. He also faced fewer power pitchers than any other type though again, not that far afield of anybody else on the team (and yes, he struggled the most against them).

Since his usage rate against power pitcher was roughly similar to just about everyone else on the team's, it suggests that his increased usage would be on a similar clip.

{sigh}

So yeah, in typical Matheny fashion, he actually put Gyorko in a position to succeed LESS often than he should have. Last season Molina and Piscotty faced power pitching in 20.9% of their ABs. Piscotty was our PA leader and we know that there's no way Matheny would ever use matchup data to determine Molina's usage. So since they were both dead on at 20.9%, we can say that that's a pretty solid statement as to how much power pitching the Cards faced.

And of course Jedd Gyorko faced power pitchers in 25.7% of his ABs - more often than he would have if Matheny just 'set and forget' his name in the lineup. So hey, if used on a regular basis rather than situationally deployed (poorly) by Matheny, he'll actually face power pitchers LESS often than he did last season. And power pitchers were his biggest issue, facing them slightly less frequently as a regular might actually do him some good.

Seriously, that's just funny. How great is it that we all kind of operated under the assumption that "y'know, perhaps he was sitting against the guys that gave him trouble to boost his numbers" and of course it turns out that Matheny can't even do that right. A guy's biggest problem is facing power pitching and he faces them with far greater frequency than if Matheny has simply not even tried to 'protect' him.

That guy's really an idiot.

Could we have our own slightly lesser version of Brian Dozier already parked on the roster in Jedd Gyorko? There are a lot of similarities in approach and even in outcomes when adjusted for batted ball luck. Gyorko just put together an age 27 season better than anything Dozier did prior to his age 29 year. Could Gyorko be little more than opportunity removed from having a similar breakout? Or at the very least providing similar output to what Dozier will likely provide going forward?

[siberian khatru]

DJ, you forgot to factor in that if Dozier were traded to the Cards he also wouldn't be facing Royals pitching anymore.

EDIT: Well, not for 17 games.

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by siberian khatru

DJ, you forgot to factor in that if Dozier were traded to the Cards he also wouldn't be facing Royals pitching anymore.

EDIT: Well, not for 17 games.

Dozier is a pain ass in the ass. Respect the hell out of him as a player, wouldn't mind seeing him out of the AL Central.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

And in response to the idea that perhaps he was a product of situational deployment:





Could we have our own slightly lesser version of Brian Dozier already parked on the roster in Jedd Gyorko? There are a lot of similarities in approach and even in outcomes when adjusted for batted ball luck. Gyorko just put together an age 27 season better than anything Dozier did prior to his age 29 year. Could Gyorko be little more than opportunity removed from having a similar breakout? Or at the very least providing similar output to what Dozier will likely provide going forward?

DJ I'm confused. Why would we trade for a "Gyorko" type of player when we already have one? Especially when teams are getting way too much for players this off season? Especially if we have to give up Bader and Weaver? What am I missing here?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

DJ I'm confused. Why would we trade for a "Gyorko" type of player when we already have one? Especially when teams are getting way too much for players this off season? Especially if we have to give up Bader and Weaver? What am I missing here?

We shouldn't.

That was the point I was getting at. We might have a virtually identical player on the roster already.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We shouldn't.

That was the point I was getting at. We might have a virtually identical player on the roster already.

yeah the trade market makes no sense for any team but the ones who print money at will and those who are sacrificing the future for this years run.

If in two years we are going to be a "real" threat to the Cubs and make a World Series, we need Martinez and Reyes as 1/2 in the rotation. We are not getting a top flight player without giving up one of those crucial parts to our future core. And then they would just be the "starter" piece.