***Official 2024 STL Cardinals Thread ***

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Ocotillo

The Cardinals got Drew Rom, Cesar Prieto and Zack Showalter for Flaherty.

Rom didn't pitch in the majors in 2024 and has an 8.02 career ERA; Prieto put up a .763 OPS at age 25 at Memphis, and Showalter had a good year, but he didn't start a game. So, low upside reliever profile.

The Tigers got a starting SS (Trey Sweeney) to replace Javier Baez and a top 100-ish prospect for Flaherty.

Kinda weird what happens when you boost your players trade value by putting them in positions to succeed instead of just sabotaging them and dumping them when it comes time to pay them.

Wonder of wonders that Edman has played well in LA when they haven't stuck his ass in CF and hoped for the best. Dude was a GG shortstop who would've been a MASSIVE asset at 2b and we insisted on putting him in the OF where he would've been, at best, passable.

And in the process we destroyed all the offensive momentum and progress he'd built (unsurprisingly, under Shildt).

Everything this team has done for the better part of the last decade has simply been wrong.

[Ocotillo]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Kinda weird what happens when you boost your players trade value by putting them in positions to succeed instead of just sabotaging them and dumping them when it comes time to pay them.

Wonder of wonders that Edman has played well in LA when they haven't stuck his ass in CF and hoped for the best. Dude was a GG shortstop who would've been a MASSIVE asset at 2b and we insisted on putting him in the OF where he would've been, at best, passable.

And in the process we destroyed all the offensive momentum and progress he'd built (unsurprisingly, under Shildt).

Everything this team has done for the better part of the last decade has simply been wrong.

Edman was a five-win player in 2022.

The Cards basically took pennies on the dollar for Edman when they acquired a low-ceiling pitcher like Erick Fedde for him. Fedde is a watered down version of Miles Mikolas without the groundball lean. Tommy Pham lasted only a few weeks with them.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Ocotillo

Edman was a five-win player in 2022.

The Cards basically took pennies on the dollar for Edman when they acquired a low-ceiling pitcher like Erick Fedde for him. Fedde is a watered down version of Miles Mikolas without the groundball lean. Tommy Pham lasted only a few weeks with them.

Which is why I haven't been as irritated as everyone else by Mozeliak's relative inactivity the last 2 seasons.

Do nothing, Mozeliak.

Shit, even the Edman trade isn't the worst thing in the world. Tommy was here for 1 more season and we were gonna stick him in CF anyway where he'd continue to be a 1-2 WAR player. We weren't going to extend him long-term and play him at 2b where he and Winn could be a dynamic middle-infield for the next half-decade and create problems at the top of the order with their speed.

No, we weren't going to get anything out of him. And at least we didn't do anything like move Walker or Burleson (who may actually be here in 2-3 seasons) for the short-term job saving fix.

Now I feel like Mozeliak has been effectively neutered from doing anything like that. He's not going to be allowed to make a short-term move. We've sufficiently protected any worthwhile organizational assets that may be here in 3-5 years when this team could potentially be decent again.

So yeah - continue signing old guys to 1 and 2 year deals. Keep getting bullet catchers who don't create any long-term liabilities or remove any possible long-term assets. Seemed like about the time we started hearing rumblings about another Carpenter style "make him comfortable" extension for Goldschmidt, we put the bite-collar on Mozeliak.

Good. It was clearly needed.

Now if we could convince the guy to move someone like Helsley, that would be ideal. The Orioles need a closer and have a loaded system. They seemingly have no use for Kjerstad. Go get something like that figured out. If you need to include Fedde because they're looking for starting pitching - okay, do that. They need a lefty reliever? Hey, JoJo Romero is going to have value. He's reasonably effective and has 2 years of team control.

Move out short-term assets and figure out a genuine plan. Anybody born prior to 1997 needs to be considered as a guy you consider moving for assets.

[Marco Polo]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Which is why I haven't been as irritated as everyone else by Mozeliak's relative inactivity the last 2 seasons.

Do nothing, Mozeliak.

Shit, even the Edman trade isn't the worst thing in the world. Tommy was here for 1 more season and we were gonna stick him in CF anyway where he'd continue to be a 1-2 WAR player. We weren't going to extend him long-term and play him at 2b where he and Winn could be a dynamic middle-infield for the next half-decade and create problems at the top of the order with their speed.

No, we weren't going to get anything out of him. And at least we didn't do anything like move Walker or Burleson (who may actually be here in 2-3 seasons) for the short-term job saving fix.

Now I feel like Mozeliak has been effectively neutered from doing anything like that. He's not going to be allowed to make a short-term move. We've sufficiently protected any worthwhile organizational assets that may be here in 3-5 years when this team could potentially be decent again.

So yeah - continue signing old guys to 1 and 2 year deals. Keep getting bullet catchers who don't create any long-term liabilities or remove any possible long-term assets. Seemed like about the time we started hearing rumblings about another Carpenter style "make him comfortable" extension for Goldschmidt, we put the bite-collar on Mozeliak.

Good. It was clearly needed.

Now if we could convince the guy to move someone like Helsley, that would be ideal. The Orioles need a closer and have a loaded system. They seemingly have no use for Kjerstad. Go get something like that figured out. If you need to include Fedde because they're looking for starting pitching - okay, do that. They need a lefty reliever? Hey, JoJo Romero is going to have value. He's reasonably effective and has 2 years of team control.

Move out short-term assets and figure out a genuine plan. Anybody born prior to 1997 needs to be considered as a guy you consider moving for assets.

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