A two-year deal would be dicey for sure, unless it was structured with incentives. This is a hard negotiation because Molina has fierce pride. That has driven him to greatness, but it also makes him hard to sign.
They have gone back and forth on their scheme, switching from more zone-like coverage to more man-to-man coverage. To be honest, I do not know where they are at this season with the Pietrangelo/Krug swap changing their look appreciably. I imagine they would use more man-to-man principal to exploit Krug's quickness. It would seem his lack of reach would make him more of a liability in zone principles. I will try to follow up on this for next time.
Well, he will never excite fans with his spending on free agents. He does not consider spending big money on free agents to be a wise use of resources. He sees free agency as a method for filling in gaps that player development did not cover.
Their pitching strength is in numbers, not their top five starting pitchers. Also, they have Miles Mikolas coming back from surgery, Dakota Hudson sitting out after surgery and Carlos Martinez questionable after his illness, injury and unsteadiness of last season. With Jack Flaherty, Hudson, Martinez and Mikolas healthy and in peak form, I believe the Cardinals would contend for a Top 5 rotation. Instead, we're guessing which five will come out of the pile.
The NHL game day revenues are NBA like, so the league is not irrelevant. It's no coincidence that the NBA looked to put teams in so many non-NHL markets.
Yes, that would be fun to watch. The Mets are working all sorts of trade front as well as free agency, but I'm not sure that is one of them.
I mean, we would all play baseball for free . . . on a Saturday afternoon, at a picnic. It's a fun game. But it's a lot more fun when you can make a living at it.
Like I said earlier, the use of adhesives on baseballs has been widespread. It's always been an issue and it became a bigger issue in recent years. That's who's who list of pitchers in that lawsuit. Of course those are the sorts of guys you are going to name to get attention and push for a settlement.
I do think this team will score on the rush more. Adding Hoffman, getting more from Thomas and playing Kyrou more will also add to that. And having mobile defensemen also allows the team to pinch more aggressively along the walls to keep pucks in the zone to sustain offensive pressure.
I do see a crackdown on adhesives due to the spin rate issue. Baseball needs to do whatever it can to cut down on strikeouts. All the swining and missing is killing the product.
Trading Flaherty now could tank the season, given all the other uncertainty with the pitching. They may come a time to make such a trade to get value for him, but this is not it.
Players can wear the extra protection if they choose, but most find it uncomfortable and/or limiting. And from business standpoint, full cages would NOT be marketing gold for a sport needing to sell its stars.
That could definitely happen in football, which drives the NCAA bus. The amount of money the top programs generate is insane. Football would love to follow its own rules and disengage even more from the rest of the athletic department.
And Cardinals fans have received more consecutive winning seasons and more trips to postseason play than fans in similarly sized markets. So you have gotten a nice return on your support.
Taking personnel power Charley Armey was the beginning of the end. Mike Martz wanted more power and he misused it over and over and over again. The Rams started messing up drafts and they became woeful on the pro personnel side as well.
He would certainly have less sway at his next stop, with teammates, the field staff and management. That is worth considering.
If the Cardinals decided that they could not employ a pitcher who has used a sticky substance, then they have to reacquire Max Schrock to eat some innings. This is a widespread issue.
It will be interestng to see how teams adapt to the smaller farm systems. At the high end of the minors, I see more prospects playing in Triple-A and more veteran depth guys forced to stay in the game in the higher independent leagues or in the Far East. At the lower end, raw prospects will see more time in instructional league-like settings while preparing to make the leap to Class A. The loss of short season leagues will create less opportunity for the teenagers trying to make the jump from the Dominican Summer Leagues. The loss of those leagues will also force fringe prospects with lesser tools to prove themselves in the new evaluation league or lower independent leagues. Ultimately the top prospects will still enjoy proper development. We'll just see fewer longshots take the Jason Simontacchi route to the majors.
Schwartz would look at the Schenn contract (eight years, $52 million) as the comparable, assuming hockey gets it business back and the Blues can still spend to the cap. Hoffman might max out for three years after this with a jump up to $6 million a year or so, likely on another team. The flat cap will be in the NHL for a while, so as I mentioned earlier a lot of other things would have to happen for Hoffman to stay here.
I'll stick with baseball on that. but it will be a lot closer. Soccer still has a long way to go with casual fans in this country. Baseball has big problems that we discuss each week, but at least it's familiar.
The Cardinals have drafted and developed some pretty good hitters. Carpenter fit that bill for a bit. DeJong is more of a No. 6 hitter, but he has been on that cusp. Tommy Pham has had No. 5-type bat at his best. Allen Craig did, too, until he broke down. Maybe Randy Arozarena becomes a No. 4 or No. 5 hitter. Oscar Tavares had that potential. There was a time when Stephen Piscotty looked to have that potential, but he plateaued. Luke Voit finally rose to that level. Dylan Carlson has a chance to settle in the middle of the order, So they have developed some hitters. They need to develop more, of course, and also keep the right ones. The club has put more emphasis on drafting high-ceiling teen prospects (Carlson, Nolan Gorman) while putting less emphasis on drafting good college hitters (DeJong, Carpenter, Bader).
With the (virtual) Winter Warmup upon, we should be getting updates on most of the top players.
I have talked to him, yes, but not about that topic. Yes, that was a VERY talebted Mizzou team. Different era!
That's all for this time. Great to be back into chat mode. Stay safe out there folks. See you next time.
I saw the '68 Cardinals face my beloved Tigers. I believe I was in the third grade at the time, but that Cardnals teams was scary. I'd go with that team.The 2001 Rams should have won easily, but Mike Martz stayed fixated on his play script instead of watching the game in front of him. The Patriots were allowed to manhandle Rams receivers, so Mad Mike should have leaned harder on Marshall Faulk than he did.I don't believe either of those Blues teams had what it took to win it all, especially in goal.
Cardinal fans, get used to what you have with DeWitt’s Cardinals. Going forward I predict teams that try developing talent from within will not be able to given the shrinking of the minor league system, at least for the next 2-3 years. After that baseball teams may not elect to go back to their former farm system due to expenses.