Cardinals chat: Derrick Goold takes your questions at 11 a.m. Monday
Bring your Cards questions and comments to a live chat with Derrick Goold at 11 a.m. Monday
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Thank you for checking them out. A new one with Ben Frederickson posted this past week, and we had a good conversation about four different topics re: Cardinals:-- Ben's column on Lane Thomas, and the revelation of lingering COVID-19 issues.-- Bill DeWitt Jr.'s comments on the finances.-- Fox Sports Midwest latest news-making with the Bally's deal.-- Molina, Wainwright updates.All available here:
Best Podcast in Baseball | STL Cardinals
STLtoday.comSt. Louis Cardinals baseball talk with Benjamin Hochman and Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch -
Regarding Mozaliak 's performance in your previous comments what you failed to mention regarding his evaluation is his biggest negative.....a consistent willingness to overpay and make long term commitments for aging talent . Matt Carpenter , Brent Cecil among many others are prime examples of this. Correct?
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We can include those, sure. And that's fair. The Brett Cecil one is an odd one to add in here because at the time that was a celebrated move -- the Cardinals jumped the line, beat the Cubs to make the offer, and signed the lefty they felt could be Andrew Miller. Injuries were part of that, for sure. Misread? Well, if so, then that was a deal that many teams were going to misjudge on because the Cardinals weren't the only team to have that evaluation and that interest in Cecil. Carpenter was interesting one because it was uncharacteristic: The Cardinals did that a year ahead of when they normally do, preferring to run out the control or get closer to its end before committing like that. Some credit should go to Carpenter for taking the conversation to them and getting that deal when he did.But, yes, you can include those in the conversation, absolutely. And should. I include Ozuna in the deal. And there are other examples of acquisitions that struggled after arrival.
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DG, I agree with you that it does tend to shine a green light on Shoeless Joe and by the same token, Pete Rose. And no doubt, Pete is going to bring this up with Manfred or at least shout it from his soap box. This deal with Fox sports regional markets is gonna SCREAM double standard. I am curious and awaiting how Manfred will handle this. I'm guessing 60% odds that he turns this into a debacle. Are you taking the over or the under at 60%?
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Derrick, going to make you play GM now. How would you go about upgrading this offense, not only to make it deeper, but also to give it some balance. Speed never goes into a slump and can put a lot of pressure on a defense. I would like to see more "Whiteyball" type players incorporated into the lineup as opposed to"All or Nothing" type players. Thanks so much for these chats. Look forward to them every week
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So, I get to play GM as long as you tell me the kind of player you want? If I'm your GM, I'm telling you I would prefer to go a different direction. Yes, speed never slumps, and speed also plays defense. But I'll prioritize athleticism over speed and try to find some people who can hit, just flat hit. Do damage. Slug. OPS. Something. I would not search for "Whiteyball" because I'm not sure how much nostalgia is going to win. It may bring some of the fans back to the ballpark, but baseball is a damage game now -- doubles, homers, hits where the defense can't catch them, no matter the speed or the shifts. I'm looking for a way to add thump to the lineup, and the direction I'd go as a GM is identifying the positions that could benefit from platoons (left/right, power/finesse, run prevention/run production) and toggling the roster to maximize performance from there.
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Super loaded question, but how do you think MLB reacts to COVID in 2021? Free agents waiting till Feb to sign contracts (ie: teams wait to spend money until more is known about the season and if fans can attend), less return in one year trades (since the season may get cut short or cancelled)?
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Not loaded at all. This is the question, and it's why things are so slow to move for the most part. Some teams are doing season ticket renewals. Some teams aren't. Why? Because there are teams like the Cardinals who candidly say they don't know how many games they're going to play in 2021 and they don't know how many fans they'll have at those games. So any tickets sold now may have to be refunded later. Cardinals may shift to do renewals, soon, but these are the questions teams and players are asking. Look at it from a player's perspective. Would you want to sign a one-year deal right now, without knowing what your salary is going to be because salaries are prorated and that salary could be different for a 120-game schedule than for a 162-gme schedule or a 100-game schedule? Lots of unknowns -- and all of them caused by the virus. Because as reporters and owners and officials and agents and everyone will continue to say: Baseball isn't in charge of the timetable for 2021. The virus still is. A vaccine changes things, but that too is part of the unknowns ...
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I would caution you to wait for more details to come out, and here are some of them, as reported by Post-Dispatch:
Martinez could face penalties in Dominican for COVID-19 violations; Winter Warmup goes virtual
STLtoday.comMartinez participated in a boardwalk event that allegedly did not meet social-distancing policies in his hometown, according to reports. Agent says he was not taken into custody. -
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Because when it comes to NBA teams they have signing windows and signing deadlines and free-agent periods and a SALARY CAP and the other sports operate differently than MLB. A big part of this traces back to Selig, I believe. Baseball is an everyday sport, and he wanted baseball to be in the headlines for as many days as possible -- and that included the winter. One way to do that is to avoid the signing frenzies in other sports.When I covered the NBA and the NHL, there were times of the year where the sport would go "quiet," and you knew as a beat writer there would be a good time to take vacation, to get some days off, to reset, whatever. Nothing was going to happen -- because nothing was allowed to happen.Baseball doesn't haven't.There are no free-agent deadlines for baseball. There is no rush to sign players to be under the cap, and no rush from players to sign before the cap is spent. The salary cap hasn't had much traction in baseball, and the idea of keeping the hot stove simmering all winter long to fuel conversation like we'll have all winter is the idea that baseball has for keeping it in the headlines, for constantly keeping baseball's conversation going.It is, by design, not like the other sports.
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Indeed. It is standard business practice. I know of a few local businesses that have such things for when they don't meet sales goals, or say when the local comic shop doesn't get the shipment of new comics for the week, or when there's a computer that needs replacing, and so on and so on. Heck, we have a rainy day fund at the house for when there's the sudden need in the cold of winter for a new furnace.We don't have a rainy day fund for a pandemic.Replace the furnace, sure. Replace the house, nope.I get what you're saying, I do. But look around the country, look to other businesses, and as much money as baseball takes in, consider that 30 teams did not sell a single ticket for the 2020 season, not until the shared bounty of the postseason and even then it was limited in scope as far as revenue goes. Baseball had $10.7 billion in revenue during a recent season. That's revenue, not profit. If they had a massive profit -- what would that be? Would it be more than $3 billion in losses this season that MLB claims? Would it be enough to cover consecutive seasons of $3 billion in losses.I've mentioned before in the chat, and wrote about this recently for the Post-Dispatch: Atlanta, as one of the few teams that we can see inside, offers a glimpse of what's happened. Let's do the math:The Braves had "Baseball Revenue" through three quarters of 2019 of $415 million. In the same nine-month period of 2020, they had "baseball revenue" of $119 million.Operating expenses dropped, too.But not as much.They went from $305 million in 2019 to $143 million in 2020 for the same period. Notice anything about that? So, those three periods also don't include the final three months of the season. The operating income for the Braves in 2019 was $77 million for three periods before the final period -- which there are no games in -- and for the same stretch in 2020 it was negative-$45 million. Are you starting to see how the profits for a season are big, for sure, and they can cover losses the next season -- but not when the plug is pulled on a revenue stream that teams are build around, like ticket sales.I've outlined in previous chats how profits from one season vanish quickly when applied to the pothole caused by a pandemic. I urge you to look at the numbers yourself. The Braves numbers are public, via Liberty Media. And you can find that information and come back to me with your view, grounded in numbers.There have been no indication of individual pay cuts in baseball operations, other than the jobs that have been eliminated, downsized, or won't be filled. Some salaries were reduced if they were seasonal or tied to games, as you know.
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Hi,
Your response to Bruce about Chris Correa came off as a bit odd to me, and somewhat non-responsive. The answer to his question seems more simple to me, as he's really comparing apples to oranges. Lunhow was essentially suspended for not having control of his organization. Correa was suspended from baseball for not cooperating with the investigation, which is not something the Cardinals/Moe could be expected to have control over. -
OK. I stand by my answer that we're wrong in comparing the two situations, and that we should not downplay a federal investigation by comparing to a violation in baseball. That's it. I tried to keep that in mind as I covered it. I was covering a federal crime, not a trade rumor.
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So why pay attention to rumors? Focus on reports. There's not much brewing there, still. Not at this point. Not where things stand today. And because of all the things mentioned over and over again here in the chat. Not sure how many more ways or times it must be said.
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It's a conversation they should have. And it won't be much because he has the makings of a one-year, bounce-back get playing time deal -- what they call a "pillow" deal. So, sure, he'll be looking for a salary that is competitive, but playing time is also appealing, especially as he didn't get that much, relatively, this past season. He made $3.3 million this past season. Wouldn't be a surprise if it's around that number again, or something just above it.
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