***Official 2021 STL Cardinals Thread***

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Bill DeWitt says his goal is to win 87 games. Shildt has averaged a pro-rated 91/season in his time at manager.

They absolutely tolerate being slightly better than average so long as your a quiet little yes man when Mozeliak tells you that he's going to get get you Jon Lester and JA Happ to save your season.

Sounds like Shildt saw $60 million in completely unproductive roster chaff come off the payroll and was no longer willing to bite his tongue.

This is all about Mozeliak needing a puppet manager and DeWitt continuing to be snowed by this ****ing charlatan.

Schildt is a terrible manager who doesn't know when to say no.

Reyes coming in there with the game on the line and bullpen literally full of guys who didn't have a 7 ERA since the Allstar break are all you need to know he is bad at his job.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Schildt is a terrible manager who doesn't know when to say no.

Reyes coming in there with the game on the line and bullpen literally full of guys who didn't have a 7 ERA since the Allstar break are all you need to know he is bad at his job.

Shildt literally was given dog shit to work in the BP. Reyes hadn’t allowed an inherited runner to score since like April or May. I wouldn’t have wanted Flaherty or Hudson pitching in that situation.

Shildt is a good manager. The team exceeded its Pythagorean by a decent amount.

Mozeliak is now a slightly above average baseball executive who should be criticized for needing the team to go on a 17 game run in September to make the WC in the first place due to his construction of the bullpen and inaction for the rotation.

[Jewish Rabbi]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

Shildt literally was given dog shit to work in the BP. Reyes hadn’t allowed an inherited runner to score since like April or May. I wouldn’t have wanted Flaherty or Hudson pitching in that situation.

Shildt is a good manager. The team exceeded its Pythagorean by a decent amount.

Mozeliak is now a slightly above average baseball executive who should be criticized for needing the team to go on a 17 game run in September to make the WC in the first place due to his construction of the bullpen and inaction for the rotation.

Didn’t Reyes allow a grand slam to Vogelbach on his first pitch in the beginning of September?

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

Didn’t Reyes allow a grand slam to Vogelbach on his first pitch in the beginning of September?

You’re correct.

Don’t know where I read the thing about inherited runners.

[Jewish Rabbi]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

Didn’t Reyes allow a grand slam to Vogelbach on his first pitch in the beginning of September?

It was his second pitch. I don’t like the firing of Schildt overall but it is tough to defend Reyes going in that game.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

It was his second pitch. I don’t like the firing of Schildt overall but it is tough to defend Reyes going in that game.

I don’t think there would have been any alternative that would’ve been better than leaving McFarland in and pray they go to extras to let Hudson or Flaherty eat multiple innings.

I have to wonder if this was also done with DeWitt putting Mozeliak on the hot seat.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

Shildt literally was given dog shit to work in the BP. Reyes hadn’t allowed an inherited runner to score since like April or May. I wouldn’t have wanted Flaherty or Hudson pitching in that situation.

Shildt is a good manager. The team exceeded its Pythagorean by a decent amount.

Mozeliak is now a slightly above average baseball executive who should be criticized for needing the team to go on a 17 game run in September to make the WC in the first place due to his construction of the bullpen and inaction for the rotation.

No - he really isn't.

Here's his track record of late:

All contracts in excess of $5 million over the last 10 years:

2012

Ty Wigginton 2 years, 5 million
Randy Choate 3 years, 7.5 million
Jake Westbrook, 1 year, 9.75 million
Yadier Molina, 5 years 75 million

2013

Jason Motte, 2 years, 12 million
Allen Craig, 5 years 31 million
Adam Wainwright, 5 years 97.5 million
Jhonny Peralta, 4 years, 53 million

2014

Matt Carpenter, 6 years, 52 million
Jordan Walden, 2 years, 6.6 million

2015

Lance Lynn, 3 years, 23.5 million
Jon Jay, 2 years, 11 million
Mike Leake, 5 years, 80 million

2016

Brandon Moss, 1 year, 8.25 million
Trevor Rosenthal, 1 year, 5.6 million
Brett Cecil, 4 years, 30.5 million
Dexter Fowler, 5 years, 82.5 million

2017

Carlos Martinez, 5 years, 51 million
Yadier Molina, 3 years, 60 million
Miles Mikolas, 2 years, 15.5 million
Luke Gregerson, 2 years, 11 million

2018

Macell Ozuna, 1 year, 9 million
Paul DeJong, 6 years, 26 million
Greg Holland, 1 year, 14 million
Andrew Miller, 2 years, 25 million, 12 million option

2019

Marcell Ozuna, 1 year, 12.25 million
Miles Mokolas, 4 years, 68 million
Paul Goldschmidt, 5 years, 130 million
Matt Carpenter, 2 years, 39 million with vesting option
Adam Wainwright, 1 year, 5 million
Kwang-hyun Kim, 2 years, 8 million
Adolis Garcia traded to Tex for cash considerations (Just throwing that in there)

2020

St Louis declined 12.5 million option for Kolten Wong
Andrew Miller vested 12 million dollar option



How many of those worked out? Carpenter's first deal (which was immediately immolated by the worst extension ever). A couple of the later Wainwright deals. Maybe Jon Jay for a year before we had to dump him?

Look at that array of shit. He's, what, $400 million underwater there in terms of the value the team got out of those guys over what they'd have been able to get internally? Or by not trading away guys that were cheaper/more effective?

He's a BAD general manager. He's done a bad job building this team. The only reason anyone has EVER thought he was worth a shit was the work that Luhnow did in re-stocking the 2010ish era Cardinals and now some of the key picks Flores has made.

Mike Shildt made chicken salad out of this roster for 162 games and Mozeliak axed him for it.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

No - he really isn't.

Here's his track record of late:

All contracts in excess of $5 million over the last 10 years:

2012

Ty Wigginton 2 years, 5 million
Randy Choate 3 years, 7.5 million
Jake Westbrook, 1 year, 9.75 million
Yadier Molina, 5 years 75 million

2013

Jason Motte, 2 years, 12 million
Allen Craig, 5 years 31 million
Adam Wainwright, 5 years 97.5 million
Jhonny Peralta, 4 years, 53 million

2014

Matt Carpenter, 6 years, 52 million
Jordan Walden, 2 years, 6.6 million

2015

Lance Lynn, 3 years, 23.5 million
Jon Jay, 2 years, 11 million
Mike Leake, 5 years, 80 million

2016

Brandon Moss, 1 year, 8.25 million
Trevor Rosenthal, 1 year, 5.6 million
Brett Cecil, 4 years, 30.5 million
Dexter Fowler, 5 years, 82.5 million

2017

Carlos Martinez, 5 years, 51 million
Yadier Molina, 3 years, 60 million
Miles Mikolas, 2 years, 15.5 million
Luke Gregerson, 2 years, 11 million

2018

Macell Ozuna, 1 year, 9 million
Paul DeJong, 6 years, 26 million
Greg Holland, 1 year, 14 million
Andrew Miller, 2 years, 25 million, 12 million option

2019

Marcell Ozuna, 1 year, 12.25 million
Miles Mokolas, 4 years, 68 million
Paul Goldschmidt, 5 years, 130 million
Matt Carpenter, 2 years, 39 million with vesting option
Adam Wainwright, 1 year, 5 million
Kwang-hyun Kim, 2 years, 8 million
Adolis Garcia traded to Tex for cash considerations (Just throwing that in there)

2020

St Louis declined 12.5 million option for Kolten Wong
Andrew Miller vested 12 million dollar option



How many of those worked out? Carpenter's first deal (which was immediately immolated by the worst extension ever). A couple of the later Wainwright deals. Maybe Jon Jay for a year before we had to dump him?

Look at that array of shit. He's, what, $400 million underwater there in terms of the value the team got out of those guys over what they'd have been able to get internally? Or by not trading away guys that were cheaper/more effective?

He's a BAD general manager. He's done a bad job building this team. The only reason anyone has EVER thought he was worth a shit was the work that Luhnow did in re-stocking the 2010ish era Cardinals and now some of the key picks Flores has made.

Mike Shildt made chicken salad out of this roster for 162 games and Mozeliak axed him for it.

I want Mozeliak held accountable as much as the next guy, but he’s done some good things with regards to acquiring talent.

Mikolas’ first contract had insane value. Neshek was an all star on a minor league deal. Goldschmidt, Arenado, and Ozuna were acquired in below market trades. The corpse of Craig was dumped for Lackey making below a million.

If your argument is Mozeliak is bad at signing expensive FAs that he didn’t first acquire, I won’t disagree. But he’s done well trading wise(for the most part).

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

I want Mozeliak held accountable as much as the next guy, but he’s done some good things with regards to acquiring talent.

Mikolas’ first contract had insane value. Neshek was an all star on a minor league deal. Goldschmidt, Arenado, and Ozuna were acquired in below market trades. The corpse of Craig was dumped for Lackey making below a million.

If your argument is Mozeliak is bad at signing expensive FAs that he didn’t first acquire, I won’t disagree. But he’s done well trading wise(for the most part).

Mikolas first contract had excellent value that he immediately torched with an extension a year too early.

And I'll say the same thing about the Goldschmidt deal I said then - it WASN'T below market. It WAS the market. If anyone was offering more, Arizona takes it. And it wasn't until the last 4 months of this season that Goldschmidt played to his salary, let alone the prospect capital we traded to get him.

And the funny thing about the Arenado deal - when the rumors first started I crunched the numbers and here's what I said at the time (this was before it picked up steam, mind you - just seemed like more Mozeliak bloviating):

Spoiler!

Regarding his value...hmm....

Let's say he hit his peak season last year and try to scrub a bit for the shoulder injury. He's been such a steady player that a healthy Arenado is unlikely to be much different than the guy he was for the 5 years prior. So set his baseline at 6 wins to be fair and assuming his shoulder comes back.

Good rule of thumb is -.5 per year at 30 and beyond. I think you want to add another 1/2 win lost at 34 and 36 as those are typically pretty big dropoff seasons for most. WAR should also adjust for Coors factors fairly well because it is supposed to be ballpark adjusted.

So starting at 5.5 wins in 2021 and moving forward 6 years, that gives you 24.5 wins over the full deal by bWAR. But here's the problem - Arenado get a lot of WAR value from his defense and I've never thought bWAR does a very good job of weighing a defensive win share - it inflates them, IMO. I think fangraphs does a better job there. By fWAR his baseline for 2021 is really a 5 win player rather than 5.5. So that nets you an fWAR of 21.5 over the 6 years when re-scaled.

So assuming a return to health, no inordinately large 'non-coors' adjustment and a basic aging curve, you're looking at a 21-25 win player over the next 6 years. Placing him as being 'worth' $170-200 million if you accept $8 million/win. Bear in mind that I hate this figure, I think it's incredibly easy to dissect and if you're building a team around $8 million win shares, your team will suck.

A $6 million/win return is actually getting you on a path towards building a winning ballclub. That say's he'd be worth $125-150 million over those 6 years. He's due to make $199 million.

So here's the thing. The only way I can get to a point where Arenado is 'worth' what he'll be paid is to A) Accept full health in his injured shoulder B)Give roughly equal weight to a defensive win share as an offensive one and C) accept $8 million/WAR as a 'winning' move, which is to say that last year's Harrison Bader is actually a $24 million/season player if he plays at that level going forward.

Um....yeah....he ain't.

I'd go the low side of every single one of those choices and say that he's worth roughly $125 million over the rest of the deal which means the Rockies are upside down by $75 million.

They'd have to take Carpenter, Fowler AND Mikolas off our hands to start earning any prospect capital in return. They won't. So we should probably pivot.

My takeaway in there was that the Rockies would need to absorb almost $50 million to get to break even on a salary dump (I suggested they take on that much in bad contracts) and they would never do that so it wouldn't get done. Low and behold that's EXACTLY what they absorbed. They didn't take on bad contracts, they just paid cash. But I pegged the market for the guy. When everyone else was sucking off Mozeliak, it was because too many of these old talking heads still have no concept of surplus value.

The Cardinals didn't get Arenado for below market value either.

And in the end they didn't get Ozuna for below market value because evidently the rest of baseball knew what we, the fans, didn't know at the time - his shoulder was wrecked. Oh by the way, Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen, the guys we moved in that deal, might just have as much trade value as Jack Flaherty has right now. Alcantara almost certainly does at least (Gallen probably did but that elbow issue will scare teams off).

Man, if you're reaching for Neshek, you're really scraping bottom. Name a team that doesn't stumble-ass backwards into a reliever every year or two. That's the nature of reliever volatility and exactly why you shouldn't do dumb shit like pay retail at $36 million for Andrew Miller or give Brett Cecil 4 guaranteed years.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Mikolas first contract had excellent value that he immediately torched with an extension a year too early.

And I'll say the same thing about the Goldschmidt deal I said then - it WASN'T below market. It WAS the market. If anyone was offering more, Arizona takes it. And it wasn't until the last 4 months of this season that Goldschmidt played to his salary, let alone the prospect capital we traded to get him.

And the funny thing about the Arenado deal - when the rumors first started I crunched the numbers and here's what I said at the time (this was before it picked up steam, mind you - just seemed like more Mozeliak bloviating):

Spoiler!

Regarding his value...hmm....

Let's say he hit his peak season last year and try to scrub a bit for the shoulder injury. He's been such a steady player that a healthy Arenado is unlikely to be much different than the guy he was for the 5 years prior. So set his baseline at 6 wins to be fair and assuming his shoulder comes back.

Good rule of thumb is -.5 per year at 30 and beyond. I think you want to add another 1/2 win lost at 34 and 36 as those are typically pretty big dropoff seasons for most. WAR should also adjust for Coors factors fairly well because it is supposed to be ballpark adjusted.

So starting at 5.5 wins in 2021 and moving forward 6 years, that gives you 24.5 wins over the full deal by bWAR. But here's the problem - Arenado get a lot of WAR value from his defense and I've never thought bWAR does a very good job of weighing a defensive win share - it inflates them, IMO. I think fangraphs does a better job there. By fWAR his baseline for 2021 is really a 5 win player rather than 5.5. So that nets you an fWAR of 21.5 over the 6 years when re-scaled.

So assuming a return to health, no inordinately large 'non-coors' adjustment and a basic aging curve, you're looking at a 21-25 win player over the next 6 years. Placing him as being 'worth' $170-200 million if you accept $8 million/win. Bear in mind that I hate this figure, I think it's incredibly easy to dissect and if you're building a team around $8 million win shares, your team will suck.

A $6 million/win return is actually getting you on a path towards building a winning ballclub. That say's he'd be worth $125-150 million over those 6 years. He's due to make $199 million.

So here's the thing. The only way I can get to a point where Arenado is 'worth' what he'll be paid is to A) Accept full health in his injured shoulder B)Give roughly equal weight to a defensive win share as an offensive one and C) accept $8 million/WAR as a 'winning' move, which is to say that last year's Harrison Bader is actually a $24 million/season player if he plays at that level going forward.

Um....yeah....he ain't.

I'd go the low side of every single one of those choices and say that he's worth roughly $125 million over the rest of the deal which means the Rockies are upside down by $75 million.

They'd have to take Carpenter, Fowler AND Mikolas off our hands to start earning any prospect capital in return. They won't. So we should probably pivot.

My takeaway in there was that the Rockies would need to absorb almost $50 million to get to break even on a salary dump (I suggested they take on that much in bad contracts) and they would never do that so it wouldn't get done. Low and behold that's EXACTLY what they absorbed. They didn't take on bad contracts, they just paid cash. But I pegged the market for the guy. When everyone else was sucking off Mozeliak, it was because too many of these old talking heads still have no concept of surplus value.

The Cardinals didn't get Arenado for below market value either.

And in the end they didn't get Ozuna for below market value because evidently the rest of baseball knew what we, the fans, didn't know at the time - his shoulder was wrecked. Oh by the way, Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen, the guys we moved in that deal, might just have as much trade value as Jack Flaherty has right now. Alcantara almost certainly does at least (Gallen probably did but that elbow issue will scare teams off).

Man, if you're reaching for Neshek, you're really scraping bottom. Name a team that doesn't stumble-ass backwards into a reliever every year or two. That's the nature of reliever volatility and exactly why you shouldn't do dumb shit like pay retail at $36 million for Andrew Miller or give Brett Cecil 4 guaranteed years.

Hasn’t Goldschmidt historically performed better as the season’s progressed?

You’re probably right that he gave up market value for Goldschmidt. Losing Kelly is going to stink.

Arenado-I don’t know man. They basically gave up nothing of significant value to take on Arenado’s contract. I think he’ll be fine long term.

Alcantara will be something nice, but I value a starting outfielder more than I do a pitcher.

Mozeliak’s best moves since 2008 have been the following:
Holliday trade/signing
Not signing Pujols
Signing Berkman
Trading Craig for Lackey
Signing Neshek
Signing Mikolas(first contract)
Signing Beltran
Trading for Arenado
Trading for Goldschmidt
Rasmus trade

Mozeliak isn’t a great executive, but he’s not terrible. He’s above average and is towing the company line. I don’t think he should be leading the Cardinals given his propensity to spend money poorly recently along with being the person behind the rotation and bullpen being a cluster ****.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

Shildt literally was given dog shit to work in the BP. Reyes hadn’t allowed an inherited runner to score since like April or May. I wouldn’t have wanted Flaherty or Hudson pitching in that situation.

Shildt is a good manager. The team exceeded its Pythagorean by a decent amount.

Mozeliak is now a slightly above average baseball executive who should be criticized for needing the team to go on a 17 game run in September to make the WC in the first place due to his construction of the bullpen and inaction for the rotation.

He had a bullpen full of starters he could have pulled from.

Reyes has been dog shit terrible since the all star break. Period. His last 2 leverage situation he gave up game losing HR before the playoffs.

Schildt batted Carpenter in the middle of the lineup countless times this season hitting under .200.

I don't want to hear it, he was terrible at managing. He may be a decent coach but that's not his job.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

He had a bullpen full of starters he could have pulled from.

Reyes has been dog shit terrible since the all star break. Period. His last 2 leverage situation he gave up game losing HR before the playoffs.

Schildt batted Carpenter in the middle of the lineup countless times this season hitting under .200.

I don't want to hear it, he was terrible at managing. He may be a decent coach but that's not his job.

He didn’t really, though. Flaherty and Hudson just got back after not pitching for months and would have been used in a high leverage situation that they’re not normally used for. It’d be us asinine as Matheny using Wacha in 2014 at SF.

Regarding Reyes, if he was so bad, then why didn’t Mozeliak do something about it and shun him to the IL with a bullshit injury or, hear me out, prepare him as a starter going into the season(like he’s pretty much been prepared to do his entire career) instead of forcing him on Shildt in a role that he’s not designed for?

Re: Carpenter- sure, he deserves criticism for batting him in the middle of the order. However, that liability is still on Mozeliak for not cutting ties with him and forcing Shildt to use him.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

He didn’t really, though. Flaherty and Hudson just got back after not pitching for months and would have been used in a high leverage situation that they’re not normally used for. It’d be us asinine as Matheny using Wacha in 2014 at SF.

Regarding Reyes, if he was so bad, then why didn’t Mozeliak do something about it and shun him to the IL with a bullshit injury or, hear me out, prepare him as a starter going into the season(like he’s pretty much been prepared to do his entire career) instead of forcing him on Shildt in a role that he’s not designed for?

Re: Carpenter- sure, he deserves criticism for batting him in the middle of the order. However, that liability is still on Mozeliak for not cutting ties with him and forcing Shildt to use him.

The unbelievably sad truth is that for most of the season, until Nootbaar came up, Carpenter was probably our best option off the bench against RHP. Yeah - the bench was THAT bad.

And the bullpen was populated by cast-offs and kids that can't throw strikes. The starting staff was a 40 yr old and a bunch of guys who might give you 3 innings before they get chased until it was just populated by four 40 yr olds, only one of whom could hit 91 on his best days. And a wide variety of slop-tossing lefties at that...

And Shild took that team to 90+ wins. And he's 'terrible' because he picked Reyes over Whitley in a game we lost because we went 0-11 w/ RISP despite getting at least a dozen balls to drive in those situations.

Shildt is nothing resembling a problem.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

The unbelievably sad truth is that for most of the season, until Nootbaar came up, Carpenter was probably our best option off the bench against RHP. Yeah - the bench was THAT bad.

And the bullpen was populated by cast-offs and kids that can't throw strikes. The starting staff was a 40 yr old and a bunch of guys who might give you 3 innings before they get chased until it was just populated by four 40 yr olds, only one of whom could hit 91 on his best days. And a wide variety of slop-tossing lefties at that...

And Shild took that team to 90+ wins. And he's 'terrible' because he picked Reyes over Whitley in a game we lost because we went 0-11 w/ RISP despite getting at least a dozen balls to drive in those situations.

Shildt is nothing resembling a problem.

Exactly.

Shildt was given a shitty ass selection of starters and relievers to deal with and somehow won 90 games with that.

Starting lineup didn’t click until late in the season.

Mozeliak deserves credit for assembling the good parts of the roster as well as the bad. He deserves all the blame for putting Shildt in a shit situation to begin with.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Schildt is a terrible manager who doesn't know when to say no.

Reyes coming in there with the game on the line and bullpen literally full of guys who didn't have a 7 ERA since the Allstar break are all you need to know he is bad at his job.

You can't run Flaherty or Hudson out there - they're starting pitchers and the Gallegos fingernail thing popped up on him. You can't ask guys used to starting to get hot that quickly - they're just not used to it.

Cabrera has been just as erratic as Reyes of late.

I'd have gone with Whitley, personally. And tried to get through the 9th while giving Flaherty time to get warm. But in the end, it probably didn't matter. They weren't hitting.

I don't see how anyone can say Shildt is a terrible manager after seeing how the defense turned around literally overnight when he took over and initiated new shifting, etc... The guy took the team to 90+ wins with a bunch of shit that nobody else wanted throwing the ball for him.

Mike Shildt is no worse than a very good manager. Cash is better, Kapler is probably better (though Kapler had his issues in Philly). Cora also seems to be quite good.

Who the **** else? Snitker? The guy Shildt ran circles around in 2019? Baker? A guy who's done less with more than any manager in MLB history? Sweet Jesus please don't say Maddon - that guys an overrated kook. Boone? Who can't manage a $225 million payroll?

There are a few guys who I'd put in the same tier with him. Probably Bob Melvin and maybe Scott Servais. Mike Shildt will have won a MOTY award and rec'd votes in all 4 seasons he led this team. Calling him a terribly manager just screams of ignorance of what goes on outside of this organization.

There aren't a half dozen guys in baseball I'd take over him.

This decision was stupid and petty.