2018 STL Cardinals Thread

[BigRedChief]

Opening day lineup

Fowler RF
Pham CF
Carpenter 3B
Ozuna LF
Martinez 1B
Molina C
Dejong SS
Wong 2B
Pitcher

Edit:
Matheny fired 07/14/2018




Opening Day Roster

Spoiler!

St. Louis has opted to carry 12 position players and 13 pitchers to begin the new season, with a four-man bench and eight-man bullpen.

Outfielders:
Dexter Fowler
Tommy Pham
Marcell Ozuna

Infielders:
Matt Carpenter
Paul DeJong
Kolten Wong

Catchers:
Yadier Molina
Francisco Pena

Utility:
Jose Martinez
Greg Garcia
Yairo Munoz
Jedd Gyrko

Starters:
Carlos Martinez
Michael Wacha
Luke Weaver
Miles Mikolas
Jack Flaherty

Relievers:
Dominic Leone
Tyler Lyons
Bud Norris
Brett Cecil
Sam Tuivailala
Matt Bowman
Jordan Hicks
Mike Mayers

On the DL:
Adam Wainwright
Luke Gregerson

[BigRedChief]

The New York Yankees tonight announced that they have acquired right-handed hitting 1B Luke Voit and international signing bonus pool money from the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for LHP Chasen Shreve and RHP Giovanny Gallegos.

[Jewish Rabbi]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

The New York Yankees tonight announced that they have acquired right-handed hitting 1B Luke Voit and international signing bonus pool money from the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for LHP Chasen Shreve and RHP Giovanny Gallegos.

Very brief research shows they both suck.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

Very brief research shows they both suck.

So does Voit.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

It's just kind of a trade, I guess. A 'meh' lefty reliever and an oldish righty for AAA for a 'meh' first baseman.

[VAChief]

Originally Posted by BDj23

My fiance is pissed about the idea of trading Ozuna -- she bought me the Saturday jersey in his namesake for Christmas.

BRC might have a Tino Martinez jersey to swap with you or maybe even a vintage Bob Horner.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by VAChief

BRC might have a Tino Martinez jersey to swap with you or maybe even a vintage Bob Horner.

Actually I've only owned 1 Cardinals jersey in the last 25 years, a Bob Gibson. Too hot to wear to games. Always wear a T-Shirt.

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by BDj23

My fiance is pissed about the idea of trading Ozuna -- she bought me the Saturday jersey in his namesake for Christmas.

Never buy a jersey of a player unless they are retired or dead.

[BigRedChief]

O’Neil has a 1.100 OPS in AAA. Is there a #/% that is “usual” when a player transitions from AAA to the majors? What OPS can we expect?

[VAChief]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

O’Neil has a 1.100 OPS in AAA. Is there a #/% that is “usual” when a player transitions from AAA to the majors? What OPS can we expect?

Depends on whether his recent k/B.B. trends hold true at his next call up. If so, he could be a .750 to .850 OPS guy. The more he can walk the more he will get pitches to mash.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

O’Neil has a 1.100 OPS in AAA. Is there a #/% that is “usual” when a player transitions from AAA to the majors? What OPS can we expect?

I've recently come to a conclusion: baseball prospects are like NFL prospects times two. Here's what I mean:

Consider the bust rate of the draft and how often scouts are wrong in football. For football players, that happens twice, but we really only hear about it once (unless you follow a team's CFB recruiting closely).

I think it happens three times in baseball. Projections from the draft to A-ball, from A-ball to AA/AAA, and from AA/AAA to the bigs. Every time the projections get a little more accurate because there is more data to judge from (and the competition is better), but there is still huge variance. IMO, that's why you have such a difficult time projecting stars, not only from the draft, but even among those who transition to the bigs.

Consider the Cardinals:

When Oscar Taveras reached MLB, all of a sudden his swing looked a lot longer than it seemed in the minors. He was probably never going to be the threat he seemed like in the minors.

Matt Carpenter was a 12 homer guy through the system and his first several years in the bigs, and is now a 25-30 homer guy.

Carlos Martinez was supposed to have wipeout stuff, but as strikeout numbers have gone up, he's middle of the pack (and if you look at his minor league #s, you'd see someone who only struck out an average number of players).

Point being: all of these projection systems are flawed. Sometimes we assume growth in a player that never happens (Martinez), other times we don't see growth that occurs as they mature or make slight alterations to their swing (Carpenter), and there are yet other times where the equalization of talent levels reveals deeper flaws within a player's game (Taveras, Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Jurickson Profar, Delmon Young, Brandon Wood, Gregory Polanco, the list goes on forever).

This is a long way of saying that we don't really know with any great certainty. There are a few things that are obvious: O'Neill will strike out a ton in the majors, and he'll probably walk about 8-12 percent of the time. Defense usually projects pretty well, which is why you've seen some of us be more pessimistic on Munoz than you are. O'Neill could end up being a slightly better version of Grichuk. You could look at his minor league numbers, which have ratios similar to Aaron Judge with far better power totals (seriously, Judge hit 76 homers in 340 minor league games, O'Neill has 145 in 516 games) and think that maybe he'll hit with 45 HR power and be a 7 WAR player, but that's pretty damned unlikely (and the Yankees would have never guessed it would have happened with Judge). You'll see a lot of sabermetrically-inclined people use a Gaussian/normal distribution to say that they'll end up with this many WAR this percent of the time, but it's really just a cover for admitting ignorance.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I've recently come to a conclusion: baseball prospects are like NFL prospects times two. Here's what I mean:

You'll see a lot of sabermetrically-inclined people use a Gaussian/normal distribution to say that they'll end up with this many WAR this percent of the time, but it's really just a cover for admitting ignorance.

Thanks for the info. Informative.

To extrapolate a plan with this info, a GM should be trading top prospects for proven or semi-established MLB players. correct? That would be the safest route and keep whatever "value" your farm system has to benefit the MLB team?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Thanks for the info. Informative.

To extrapolate a plan with this info, a GM should be trading top prospects for proven or semi-established MLB players. correct? That would be the safest route and keep whatever "value" your farm system has to benefit the MLB team?

Depends on the team and really the era.

What you're talking about is the 'Walt Jocketty' model. Frankly, that model just might be dead. You'd be hard-pressed to find a team that has recently been built around acquisitions outside of the system with any success. I mean shit, even the Yankees are building from within. The Bosox are probably the closest you'll find and they only required a $230 million payroll, not to mention dealing a prospect they paid $50 million to acquire in order to get Sale. That model is simply cost prohibitive these days in most ways.

If you're sitting on a 90 win team with a chance to do damage in October - sure, the cost of rental players has never been lower. The fact that Arizona was able to get JD Martinez for a bucket of balls last year still astounds me. And Machado didn't yield a king's ransom either. Push some chips in when you're close, no question.

But if your operating premise is just shipping guys like Knizner out for #4 starters and 2 win infielders...you're gonna be a really mediocre team for a really long time. Your floor will come up but your ceiling will be for shit.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

What’s Norris’s trade value right now? We don’t need him for the next 6 weeks. No way are we signing him next year. Someone wants to give us a prospect, why would we not oblige them?

Rockies and Red Sox said to be asking around.

So to my eyes, someone like Jordan Patterson is about what we could expect from the Rockies. Way overaged in AAA but a lefty stick with some ability to play OF/1b. Hits for power but has a lot of swing/miss in his game. He's completely blocked in Colorado.

If you could move Norris for a lefthanded stick with power that could contribute off the bench right away and form part of a viable platoon with Bader (sorta) going forward, you'd have to consider that a win. The Rox have no real use for him (Ramos would slide right into his role at 1b in AAA) apart from trade capital and the Cardinals need a lefthanded bat in the worst way.

Makes sense from my chair.

[BigRedChief]

I like all these breathless posts of trade rumors on the internet. This is “water is wet” information.

The Cardinals are receiving trade inquiries into closer Bud Norris, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, with the Rockies and Red Sox among the teams that have shown interest to this point. In a second column, Goold adds that the club is “open to discussing offers” for both Norris and first baseman/outfielder Jose Martinez.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Thanks for the info. Informative.

To extrapolate a plan with this info, a GM should be trading top prospects for proven or semi-established MLB players. correct? That would be the safest route and keep whatever "value" your farm system has to benefit the MLB team?

You have to be able to scout your own players extremely well and develop the lottery tickets, but you're probably going to need to tank or get lucky at this point.

There aren't really stupid front offices anymore, so to further what DJ said, you can't fleece bad ones, which is how Jocketty operated.