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Popeye_Card wrote:

MinorLeagueGuy wrote:They don't have to beat the Dodgers. Someone else can eliminate them. All the Giants have to do is get in. Isn't that all that this Org wants out of their club? Getting in?

This FO isn't concerned with competing directly with Chicago. All they want to do is compete for a WC berth. Why should SF do any different, when the Dodgers have the obvious upper hand in the division?

If the Cardinals land Stanton, they will be right there with the Cubs. Easy to look at the dominant team from 2 years ago, but the current Cubs are not at that level going forward.

As they sit now, no. But their buying power has yet to really realized, imo. Yes, they spent big for Davis and Heyward. I keep thinking this other shoe is going to drop once we make a big move.

Fat Strat wrote:Two ways to look at this. The Giants have the inside track, so they get the first face-to-face. Which seems really bad for us. But if Stanton was a lock to accept a deal to SF, they wouldn't need to bother meeting with him face-to-face, would they? They would just finalize a deal and announce a press conference. I think the Giants feel like they have to try and sell Stanton's team on their ability to win. If they don't then Stanton becomes ours for the taking, unless another team swoops in, which seems highly unlikely at this point.

This might come down to whether Stanton wants to win or if he wants to live somewhere fun.

And I still think that if Stanton goes to SF, the Marlins will announce a Yelich to the Cards trade about a day later.

I still have my doubts. I shared the Clark Spencer post about the Cardinals getting one of the Marlins OFs, but I’ve also seen they’ll keep Yelich and Ozuna if they trade Stanton.

pioneer98 wrote:In all honesty, you could *almost* argue that the Giants would have about the same playoff odds as the Reds or Phillies. Yes, the Giants are better on paper right now but not by a ton. I couldn't find playoff odds yet but the opening 2018 World Series odds has the Giants with the same odds to win the World Series as the White Sox, Braves, and Angels.

That seems a little extreme, though I'm nitpicking. I think they're a much better shot than those teams, with the exception of the Angels. The White Sox, Phillies, and Braves have bright futures, to be sure, but it's still too early for them.

Anyway, I think you're right about the overall look of the franchise. They were a 64-win team with 67 Pythag wins and 66 wins by Base Runs, so it's not like there's a ton of hidden value in their baseline.

I think they're a good bet to get better production from some combination of Belt, Crawford, Pence (though he's less likely), Bumgarner is almost a lock, and Cueto. But even if they all improve by an average of 2.5 wins, and they add Stanton, you're still looking at a team a tick above .500 hoping for some good Pythag or Base Runs luck to get into the playoffs. And 2.5 wins per player is ambitious.

They DO have a lot of potentially useful young big leaguers on the fringe- Christian Arroyo, Andrew Suarez, Tyler Beede, Chris Shaw, Ryder Jones, Austin Slater, with Ty Blach and Chris Stratton already making the jump... nobody really a top-end type of player, but they could get an influx of depth. These are exactly the kinds of guys they've built on in the past (and frustrated the ever-living [expletive] out of us in 2012 and 2014). This crop feels worse than others and if it wasn't this specific organization, you'd write it off. But you can't ignore their history of turning chicken [expletive] into chicken salad.

Still... it's a long way to go to get to contention, Stanton or not. It has all the makings of a stars and scrubs team with him (hell, even without him) and that's a bad formula.

i think one of the funniest of all of this, is if he wants to play closer to his LA hometown?...SF doesn't really get you there.

It's nearly a 6 hour drive from SF to LA...so he's going to have to get on a plane to get to LA. He'd have to do that in StL as well.

MinorLeagueGuy wrote:

Popeye_Card wrote:

MinorLeagueGuy wrote:They don't have to beat the Dodgers. Someone else can eliminate them. All the Giants have to do is get in. Isn't that all that this Org wants out of their club? Getting in?

This FO isn't concerned with competing directly with Chicago. All they want to do is compete for a WC berth. Why should SF do any different, when the Dodgers have the obvious upper hand in the division?

If the Cardinals land Stanton, they will be right there with the Cubs. Easy to look at the dominant team from 2 years ago, but the current Cubs are not at that level going forward.

As they sit now, no. But their buying power has yet to really realized, imo. Yes, they spent big for Davis and Heyward. I keep thinking this other shoe is going to drop once we make a big move.

That wouldn't happen this year--there's not that big of difference maker available on the free agent market.

They could sign Harper next year, but they would still have some work to do on their rotation.

Harper will be a Cub next year. I feel more certain of it every day.

If Stanton doesn’t come here because he didn’t want to be a Cardinal, it’s disappointing but whatever. If he doesn’t come because ownership won’t take on enough money for the Marlins to make a deal, then there’s no point in expecting anything to change with Machado the following year.

cardsfantx wrote:i think one of the funniest of all of this, is if he wants to play closer to his LA hometown?...SF doesn't really get you there.

It's nearly a 6 hour drive from SF to LA...so he's going to have to get on a plane to get to LA. He'd have to do that in StL as well.

Wanting to play in LA and ending up in SF instead of StL because it's still on the west coast is the equivalent of someone wanting to play in StL because it's in the midwest and ending up on the Cubs.

national media wants SOOOO badly for stanton to end up in SF

MrCrowesGarden wrote:Harper will be a Cub next year. I feel more certain of it every day.

You may be right. And if that happens, the Nats will have a gob of money to spend themselves on some of the other FA's. There will be a ton of competition for that FA class and the Cardinals have not liked to do bidding wars in the past.