And Ozuna is a singles machine.

you may have been right. He’d been better as a starter. But, not $1.4 million better. :rolleyes:

According to Ken Rosenthal, new Cards pitcher Tyson Ross has a clause in his contract for $200k bonuses for each start from start 20 to start 29. He's currently at start 22.

If he doesn't start the rest of the year, this trade could cost him $1.4 million.

Y'know, I'm not sure how bad a hitter Bader would need to be against righties to NOT be the starting CFer next season.....but it would be really ****ing bad.

Lord can that guy play defense.

Everyone wanted us to give up the farm for Kevin Kiermaier - folks, we may already have him...

I don’t know how defensive WAR is calculated. Doesn’t matter with Bader, I and everyone else can see that Bader can ball out in CF.

Bader got a great jump, used his speed and made the play. Pham doesn’t get to that ball in the 9th inning. Now it’s 1st and 3rd with one out with a 1 run lead on the road. Carp and Dejong may have got the HR but Bader saved the game.

He was considered to have plus speed coming out of college, but I thought it would be more in line with a Grichuk type of speed (good speed, not necessarily a burner). However he has been clocked in the top 10 this year and one of only a handful at 30 feet per second. It is interesting looking at the list below (by the way, ONeill checks in at over 29 feet per second). Pujols is dead last, with Molina not far behind, yet both are smart base runners.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sprint_speed_leaderboard

yeah Molina and Pujols prove that it’s not always speed. Pham was fast enough to steal bases but couldn’t do it worth a shit.

Did we have the MOTOB we have been wanting since Pujlos fall to us in this years draft?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Am told by a source that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a> are promoting Nolan Gorman, their top pick in this year&#39;s draft who has been on a tear at Johnson City, to the Peoria Chiefs today.</p>&mdash; Rob Rains (@RobRains) <a href="https://twitter.com/RobRains/status/1027175650694705152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The way you know that defensive WAR means next to nothing is just by watching how teams treat them in the market. Teams aren't paying for dWAR and the reason is that they have FAR better information than we do. More and more of it is making its way to the public through MLBAM; they just keep snapping up more and more advanced metrics and making them publicly available - it's a smart way to make the game more accessible for some (though more 'technical' in ways that bore others).

Most teams have an in-house unit that does little more than monitor defense. They don't necessarily attempt to create a 'catch-all' stat that tells them what guys are doing, they sit there and go through each game with things like Statcast to determine if a ball could've/should've been caught in a situation and how it actually impacted that play.

Defense is about the last thing to have made its way to the masses in a digestible format. BR and Fangraphs still don't have a system that works well in sample sizes under 2-3 seasons or specifically enough to give you more than general 'tiers' of players.

As for Bader's play specifically - nobody was on base. And there's no way to say Deitrich still gets a hit with a runner on and 1 out vs. nobody on and 2 outs. I agree - Pham doesn't catch that (I don't think Bader got a GREAT jump, though; his catchup speed and perfect route made up for it though), but it's just a flare single even if he doesn't. It wouldn't have been that damaging.

Still a fantastic play but not as critical as Carpenter's homer and definitely not as big as DeJong's. Hell, Yadi jumping on that bunt was just as important and a damn nice play in its own right.

Tom Boswell (longtime wapo sportswriter) said back in March that nobody will get 300+ anymore, the Stanton deal was it. A Nats player said it too. And that was before his 2018 faceplant.


Also, the Cards would have to give up what he claims is an extra 50-75M in draft picks and intl bonus pool based on the huge value they brought the Nats - who signed all their top prospects from the Dominican for like 400K combined.


Nats already have Easton-Soto-Robles so Harper is going somewhere. Half of MLB is tanking anyway, so who even bids?


1. Asstros
2. Phillies
3. Braves
4. Dodgers


Might as well make him an offer. He won't be getting many.

Really like seeing this- he was crushing rookie A. Let's get him tested a little more before the offseason to see what adjustments he needs to make.

With Manny, Harper and Kershaw set to hit FA, we shall see if $300 million is a bridge too far.

I hope that your info is true. If so, I love Manny way better, he is the best player in baseball not named Trout. He would be a great fit with us. In another era, it would be a slam dunk. We should offer Manny $300+ million or thrown in another $20-$25 million more than whatever another team is offering up to $350 million to get Manny.

I like Manny a lot. There's no way he's the best player in baseball who isn't Trout. Betts is better and that's not even arguable. Jose Ramirez at this point has to be in that conversation. Lindor's all-around ability and unexpected power puts him in that conversation and I love Bregman's future.

Machado being a shitty shortstop changes that entire conversation as well. I mean if he's just a 3b (and really, he's probably just a 3b) why is he any better than Arenado? If he's a 3b, Arenado is a better ballplayer. Hell, if he's a 3b is Machado obviously better than Eugenio Suarez? Now granted, that's an extreme example to make a point - even I don't believe he's not better than Suarez, but it's a lot closer than you think.

Now comes the dirty little secret - Machado MAY have been a product of Camden Yards to boot. He's always had severe home/rd splits and he's been a punch and judy hitter since he got to LA. Manny's offensive game is predicated on power and if leaving Camden makes him a 25 HR guy as opposed to a 35 HR guy and his glove keeps him at 3b - he ISN'T better than Suarez at that point.

Now I'll say this - the season I thought was going to be his leap forward into perennial MVP status was 2016 and he didn't demonstrate a massive power split that season. So there's a talent level he has that he's occasionally demonstrated an ability to tap on the road as well. But for the major ity of his career he's shown some pretty significant and alarming power splits that make sense given Camden's status as a frequent launching pad.

Maybe if he just gets to a neutral stadium things will sort themselves out but I think he knows better. I think he'll go to Philly where he can take aim at a plus HR park and get those numbers back up for a HoF surge. Dodgers Stadium is going to get in his head if it hasn't already.

Yes, like this move...slugging over .660 let's get another barometer test heading into the off season.

The cards are one of the few teams that can justify being in the FA market. They don't have tons of LT dead weight and they have plenty of $...and they're competitive. The 2-tier system we have now makes it pointless for either the shitty (KC, White Sux) or good (Indians) to ever sign anyone.


Dodgers-RedSox-Spanks-Giants-Texas-Ana-Mets literally have ZERO incentive to sign any of these guys. They're the big spenders aren't they? They're either runaway winners or rebuilding.


ASStros are guaranteed to get one. Harper or Machado. Verlander 28M comes off the books in 2020, Springer a FA in 2020, Reddick gone 2019. It's a virtual certainty.

They aren't going after Machado, not with Bregman, Correa and Altuve on the IF. None of those guys is moving to 1b/DH.

It's hard to wrap your head around just how much money Philly is going to have for the foreseeable future. It's not impossible that they could sign BOTH guys. Even with Arrieta and Santana, their financial commitments for the future are pretty minimal. Nola's a long way from free agency as well.

Their cable deal is enormous and is just starting to ramp up. They absolutely have $100 million/yr to spend for the next 3-5 years if they want to spend it.