If Dylan Carlson and Harrison Bader have good spring trainings, they're going to play and they might even play with mediocre spring trainings. As for the rest, Fowler has the upper hand because he is the regular right fielder until he's not. He's aware there are younger legs behind him but he will be given the shot, if healthy, to retain his job. It seemed we were in this same fix this past season and none of the names you mentioned had a good season. To have all five back again doesn't engender a lot of confidence. But management may feel that the shortened 2020 season wasn't a true test. I still think the outfield needs some help.
Thanks for your note. And I hope baseball where you are is more interesting. I fear we are stuck with "three outcome" baseball for at least a while longer--or until some manager, or management, decides that a running game might actually work and that putting more balls in play might work, too, because the defenders might miss a few of them or throw the ball away.
Thanks again. Wainwright and Molina can have a similar lasting impact although a Hall of Fame honor would change things and really only Molina has a shot at that. On the other hand, Wainwright is likely to be more visible here after he retires.
Yadi likely would continue to press for two years until he would find that one year and an option might be the best he could do. It may be that he would want to wait to see where the J.T. Realmuto negotiations wind up because that younger catcher will get more years and more per year.
Good luck in getting the players to agree to that after they were able to be paid for only 60 games this past season. But the slate might not be 162 games either. MLB is hoping to get as many fans into stadia for as many games as possible and, until there is some sort of determination forthcoming from health experts and governments, there will be a holdup in what next season--and spring training--look like.
The Cardinals do have a righthanded-hitting Joc Pedersen and his name is Tyler O'Neill. It doesn't really matter where the extra hitter comes from although preferably he is a lefthanded batter or switch-hitter. I am one who hopes DeJong stays at shortstop now, where he is quite competent, and somehow the Cardinals make do at third base until Nolan Gorman is ready. A comeback by Matt Carpenter would help ease the situation but how that likely is is debatable.
I would suspect teams will be looking for productive hitters every year but contracts coming off the books such as Carpenter's and Fowler's would free up some money for the Cardinals for 2022. There could be a raft of potential free-agent shortstops after next season, including Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez and Carlos Correa, among other prominent hitters.
I have voted for him, but some of his post-baseball rants and actions are concerning.
Hendrick is one of my personal favorites and he always will receive Red Coat consideration from me. If his production of the 1980s could be translated to this year's outfield, the problems would not be so acute.
It isn't as if the Cardinals have been floundering in the Mozeliak era. They won the division as recently as 2019. But the Arozarena miss by the organization was a big one and I want to see where that savings for not picking up the option on Wong will be applied.
You are dead on. What's wrong with trying to score at least one run every inning? That would be nine for a game and that ought to be enough.
Hall of Famer Bob Gibson gets credit for lowering the mound with his 1.12 ERA although there were several other dominant pitchers in 1968. Trevor Hoffman and, later, fellow Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera set the standard for one-inning relief jobs as closers. I don't know exactly how much he changed the game but Sandy Koufax was the best I saw. And Nolan Ryan displayed how one still could be a power pitcher into his 40s. And power pitching is where the game is now .
The teams I hear associated with Kim are San Diego and Toronto. I don't think the Cardinals are apt to invest into that sort of long-term deal this off-season. After George Springer, the "impact bat" market in free agency dwindles a little unless you're including DHs like Nelson Cruz and Marcell Ozuna.
It's a good thought, but the NBA and NHL all but finished their most recent seasons with fans in the seats and the NFL television contract dwarfs those of the rest. Some NFL teams are allowed a few fans. Baseball's attendance for regular-season games in 2020 was zero.
The Cardinals team that Whitey Herzog inherited in 1980 had some personality issues although team chemistry wasn't necessarily eroded. But that was a bad team.
Generally, the Rays' scouting system has been ranked at the top of the class even when Tampa Bay wasn't going to World Series. But good players, once they make some money, don't stay around there very long and it ultimately will be hard for the Rays to compete until they get a new stadium or a new city to call home because where they are isn't working.
I would be astonished if the Wainwright and Molina situations weren't resolved before the middle of January, when Winter Warm-Up, in whatever form it takes, occurs. Then, we can start making judgments.
I wouldn't necessarily consider this trade a "thaw" just yet, but the first couple of weeks of January promise to be interesting. The free-agent market still has been extremely slow to loosen.
If Dylan Carlson,Harrison Bader have good spring trainings or are already penciled in. What happens if Tyler O'Neill/Lane Thomas have good springs as well. It would be devastating for both of them to sit and one possibly getting traded. I think Tyler O'Neill has too much potential too not be given consistent at bats in season. Have the Cardinals talked to Dexter Fowler about being traded or sitting on bench if he doesn't do well in spring?