[VAChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

The problem w/ the Cardinals as 'contenders' is that they still don't have a top of the rotation starter and they are missing at least 1 genuine run producer in the lineup. Frankly, they need a 5 WAR offensive piece AND another 2 WAR (pro-rated) from Arenado.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that this is who Liberatore is; that he's a sustantable 3ish ERA pitcher. Okay - that's a 2. I guess you have a 3 with Fedde, a 4 with Gray and a 5 with Pallante. You're still missing the 1.

And Leahy/Maton/Helsley is a solid back end. Matz can give you some tolerable bulk work as well in the middle innings. Romero should be eventually okay. But it's not like it's the Royals 2014 bullpen that can anchor a pitching staff. It's...good. It's not great.

And ultimately they NEED to trade Helsley and Fedde at the deadline. Holding those 2 guys would just be asinine.

They have a team full of complementary players but are lacking anchor tenants because Gorman and Walker suck horribly. And there's nobody on the farm who's going to change that (Wetherholt is essentially the infield version of Nootbaar; which pretty much makes him similar to Donovan).

I mean let's say that Scott, Winn, Donovan and Noot stay at a simliar level. By EOY you end up with:

Donovan: 6 WAR (excellent)
Noot: 4.5
Scott: 4
Winn: 3.5

Let's even put Contreras at the 2024 version of himself (which is how he's played for the last month) -- that's another 4 WAR sort of player. Hell, Nolan gets you to 3.5 as well.

That's 6 guys who provide about 25 WAR -- 4 WAR each; that's damn good.

And the team is still gonna be less than the sum of its parts, IMO. Because they don't have a genuine 3 or 4 hitter in there, IMO. They have a ton of 1, 2, 5 and 6 hitters.

With a good, not great bullpen and a rotation that is...fine.

Could that be a 88-90 win team? Potentially. Is that a 'contender'? No. And does it seem at all likely that they're going to be better than this in the next 2 seasons? Not really -- Wetherholt isn't going to meaningfull alter that calculus. Mathews isn't an ace, he was terrible then he got hurt. Hence is dead. Saggese doesn't have a plus hit tool. The rest of the minors....exists. Chase Davis was supposed to be an advanced college pick who's just been fine at every level. He's never excelled in any way (never demonstrated plus power, approach or speed). And he's seemingly the best we have.

I mean does anyone think the Cardinals are going to be in on Kyle Tucker? of course not. Maybe they'd be interested in Ozuna but/for his previous collapse here. Mullins is what they already have. Likewise with Bichette. Pete Alonso is gonna opt out and he might be worth looking into...but they won't.

They just aren't going to commit to getting those extra 2-3 major pieces and they don't have a farm that's going to provide them. This is it. Nothing that's happened this season has changed that.

You didn’t mention Herrera, he has been a nice surprise offensively this year.