"not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread

[Fat Strat]

I think part of what makes them smart is that they generally stick to their valuations on players, and if they extend too far out of their range, then they walk. Sure, it would be nice to win some of those prizes sometimes (we did on Fowler). But sometimes folding on a big pot in poker is the smart play if you don't think you can win. I'm sure Cub fans are more upset that they "won" on Heyward than we are upset that the Cardinals "lost".

Same thing on trades. Cardinals are willing to put (IMO) competitive packages out there in many cases. I'm not a fan of going too far outside of a reasonable comfort zone just to make something happen.

"Puke point" is a fun way to poke fun at it, but the Cardinals have generally demonstrated that not extending that point has been wise. I would argue the bigger mistakes over the years have been not even getting in on the bidding on some big-dollar players, like Scherzer.

Sure, all of this leaves us with a lot of unspent "dry powder", and broken promises if we want to consider them that way. I'd rather the Cardinals continue to keep the franchise in a good, competitive spot then to extend themselves too far and end up with years of re-build. Maybe if we haven't had so much (relatively) recent success I would think differently. 2011 is 7 years ago now, but it still seems like yesterday to me--and I get that others may not have that same patience.

Addressing several of your points altogether. I generally agree that the Cards are smart and I also think they tend to make very good player valuations. If they can't get their value out of a player, they don't chase the player. I don't tend to fault them for that.

At the same time, there is a difference in properly evaluating the market and legitimately trying to compete. This whole conversation needs to carry a giant IF in front of it... IF Bill DeWitt 3 is right and we're happy to stay where we are, then it's more than fair to say that we are letting our evaluation of the market take priority over our desire to compete. No one can look at this team and say that signing Mikolas and Gregorson was the right and best way to fix a problematic rotation and bullpen that just lost players of Lynn, Rosenthal and Oh's caliber. Ozuna is a nice add and he'll be a good player for us. But, we would basically be bypassing an absolutely critical component of our possible success, a legitimate, proven closer, because we don't think we can get perfect return on our investment. There's no doubt that there were multiple good options available to us to fix our pen or rotation and we've let them pass based upon valuation. (Some of them were signed to extremely reasonable contracts, after all.)

When you are this close as a team -- and my frustration comes from the fact that we are so very close -- to being a real contender, then you just have to choose to pay more, give more, do more to bridge the gap. We've seen the Cubs do this numerous times over the past few years and they've been absolutely killing us since Theo came in both player acquisition and now the standings.

So, give the Rays what they want for Colome or go get whatever closer is still out there and I'll hush and go back to guarded optimism about our ability to catch the Cubs. But, if we pack it in now and take this team into the regular season with the plan of adding at the deadline (same valuation concerns immediately come up), and I call that a failure.

[MinorLeagueGuy]

I think its also fair to say, that if they add to the team(off\def) it needs to be of a specific talent level, or higher. Incremental additions via NRI's, or DFA shouldn't indicate anything other than what already pisses us off about the FO. We deserve the "real deal". Not the next Broxton.

[Fat Strat]

I mean, you never want to read anything at all into these moves, but this guy is a long time minor league closer. Potential bullpen depth for us. He should probably be quite a bit better than he has been in the majors, but maybe his stuff just doesn't translate.

[Popeye_Card]

I think part of what makes them smart is that they generally stick to their valuations on players, and if they extend too far out of their range, then they walk. Sure, it would be nice to win some of those prizes sometimes (we did on Fowler). But sometimes folding on a big pot in poker is the smart play if you don't think you can win. I'm sure Cub fans are more upset that they "won" on Heyward than we are upset that the Cardinals "lost".

Same thing on trades. Cardinals are willing to put (IMO) competitive packages out there in many cases. I'm not a fan of going too far outside of a reasonable comfort zone just to make something happen.

"Puke point" is a fun way to poke fun at it, but the Cardinals have generally demonstrated that not extending that point has been wise. I would argue the bigger mistakes over the years have been not even getting in on the bidding on some big-dollar players, like Scherzer.

Sure, all of this leaves us with a lot of unspent "dry powder", and broken promises if we want to consider them that way. I'd rather the Cardinals continue to keep the franchise in a good, competitive spot then to extend themselves too far and end up with years of re-build. Maybe if we haven't had so much (relatively) recent success I would think differently. 2011 is 7 years ago now, but it still seems like yesterday to me--and I get that others may not have that same patience.

Addressing several of your points altogether. I generally agree that the Cards are smart and I also think they tend to make very good player valuations. If they can't get their value out of a player, they don't chase the player. I don't tend to fault them for that.

At the same time, there is a difference in properly evaluating the market and legitimately trying to compete. This whole conversation needs to carry a giant IF in front of it... IF Bill DeWitt 3 is right and we're happy to stay where we are, then it's more than fair to say that we are letting our evaluation of the market take priority over our desire to compete. No one can look at this team and say that signing Mikolas and Gregorson was the right and best way to fix a problematic rotation and bullpen that just lost players of Lynn, Rosenthal and Oh's caliber. Ozuna is a nice add and he'll be a good player for us. But, we would basically be bypassing an absolutely critical component of our possible success, a legitimate, proven closer, because we don't think we can get perfect return on our investment. There's no doubt that there were multiple good options available to us to fix our pen or rotation and we've let them pass based upon string valuation. (Some of them were signed to extremely reasonable contracts, after all.)

When you are this close as a team -- and my frustration comes from the fact that we are so very close -- to being a real contender, then you just have to choose to pay more, give more, do more to bridge the gap. We've seen the Cubs do this numerous times over the past few years and they've been absolutely killing us for since Theo came in both player acquisition and now the standings.

So, give the Rays what they want for Colome or go get whatever closer is still out there and I'll hush and go back to guarded optimism about our ability to catch the Cubs. But, if we pack it in now and take this team into the regular season with the plan of adding at the deadline (same valuation concerns immediately come up), and I call that a failure.

Going back to my earlier point, I wouldn’t take what the Cardinals’ brass says at this point to be the final word. I’m pretty confident they have a move or three left in store. Their public statements are posturing.

[Fat Strat]

Going back to my earlier point, I wouldn’t take what the Cardinals’ brass says at this point to be the final word. I’m pretty confident they have a move or three left in store. Their public statements are posturing.

I find it hard to believe that they'll head into the season without a closer, too, but you never know.



Adding more to this conversation, right now our payroll projects to be the roughly the same on Opening Day '18 as it was in Opening Day '17. ACTUAL payroll, however, would be a significant decline --$6M of that Opening Day payroll is going to Mike Leake.

[cardsfansince82]

When you are this close as a team -- and my frustration comes from the fact that we are so very close -- to being a real contender, then you just have to choose to pay more, give more, do more to bridge the gap. We've seen the Cubs do this numerous times over the past few years and they've been absolutely killing us since Theo came in both player acquisition and now the standings.

So, give the Rays what they want for Colome or go get whatever closer is still out there and I'll hush and go back to guarded optimism about our ability to catch the Cubs. But, if we pack it in now and take this team into the regular season with the plan of adding at the deadline (same valuation concerns immediately come up), and I call that a failure.

++

The Dodgers and Yankees have made a bunch of moves too, and it's not always about having more money. It's about a willingness to fill holes and address needs, even if you don't always "win" the value proposition.

[MrCrowesGarden]

When you are this close as a team -- and my frustration comes from the fact that we are so very close -- to being a real contender, then you just have to choose to pay more, give more, do more to bridge the gap. We've seen the Cubs do this numerous times over the past few years and they've been absolutely killing us since Theo came in both player acquisition and now the standings.

So, give the Rays what they want for Colome or go get whatever closer is still out there and I'll hush and go back to guarded optimism about our ability to catch the Cubs. But, if we pack it in now and take this team into the regular season with the plan of adding at the deadline (same valuation concerns immediately come up), and I call that a failure.

++

The Dodgers and Yankees have made a bunch of moves too, and it's not always about having more money. It's about a willingness to fill holes and address needs, even if you don't always "win" the value proposition.

And the value of wins added are more for the Cardinals than they are for a team like the Dodgers who appear set for a division title (or more than a team like the Padres who have no interest in winning.)

[Famous Mortimer]

It's fair, I think, to see that they've replaced Lynn and Piscotty with Mikolas and Ozuna, remember how exciting the early part of the off-season was, when the Cardinals looked like they were genuinely trying to move the needle, and wonder if this is it.

[Farewell Friends]

It's fair, I think, to see that they've replaced Lynn and Piscotty with Mikolas and Ozuna, remember how exciting the early part of the off-season was, when the Cardinals looked like they were genuinely trying to move the needle, and wonder if this is it.

It's interesting that adding a 27-year-old who hit .310/.380/.550 with 37 home runs isn't "moving the needle."

[MinorLeagueGuy]

It's fair, I think, to see that they've replaced Lynn and Piscotty with Mikolas and Ozuna, remember how exciting the early part of the off-season was, when the Cardinals looked like they were genuinely trying to move the needle, and wonder if this is it.

It's interesting that adding a 27-year-old who hit .310/.380/.550 with 37 home runs isn't "moving the needle."

I think its fair, that if you move the needle one direction(Ozuna) and got added value(Ozuna>Piscotty), but moved the the needle back the other way (Miles<Lynn; Miles might be great, but is virtually unknown and has pretty big shoes to fill) in another deal, then further moved the needle backwards losing experienced bullpen arms and not replacing them... Yet(?). Well, on the whole its not moving the needle much, or in the right direction. Moving the needle is the accumulation of all your moves. They've changed the team, not improved it as a whole.