Join baseball writer Derrick Goold for his live Cardinals chat at 11 a.m. Monday
Bring your Cards questions and comments to Monday’s 11 a.m. live chat.
-
-
Thanks for the kind words. Ben Frederickson and I ... wait for it ... don't entirely agree on this. But we come at it from different angles. Frederickson, a sports columnist, is advocating for the move that he sees as a fit for the Cardinals and believe would change them as a lineup and a team and be the right move for him. He is basing that opinion on sound reasoning, reporting, and strong writing, and it is his opinion.I come at it from a beat writer's perspective. In this case, it's not really my role to offer my opinion on the subject of what the Cardinals should do, and rather explain what they will do -- or how they'll sort through the options. What I want to convey is how Contreras is viewed defensively (something the Cardinals have prioritized and are concerned about how it will look when Molina leaves given the Gold Glove consistency they've had for decades now; it's a trademark of their team and their "style" of play) and also that it's important to keep in mind that Contreras is well above average for a catcher. Is above average for a catcher the thunder you want as a team from the DH spot, or is it a complement to a bigger bat to change lineup.Contreras made 39 starts at DH this past season, 72 at catcher.Overall, he had a sturdy season. His slash line: .243/.349/.466 with an .815 OPS and a 128 OPS+.The average catcher was .226/.295/.367, .663 OPS.The average DH was .245/.319/.413,.732 OPS.As a DH, Contreras was .255/.339/.407, .749 OPS.That offers context for the viewpoint I've tried to share. -
-
-
-
-
-
A high-end pitching talent, and likely someone from the major-league roster who has more years of control remaining than Murphy does. That would allow the A's to take on a lower salary with more control in an area of need, get at least one high-end prospect for the move (and likely another high-ceiling talent, honestly) by trading a player about to make a higher salary and at an area of depth for them.
-
-
-
He's been slow, too at times. Think back to the 2020-21 offseason. Not much happened until everything did. I expect Mozeliak and Girsch to be very active at the GM meetings in Vegas -- either exploring moves in person so they get momentum for the weeks coming out of Vegas or finalizing deals that make sense. I do think they'll be motivated to be aggressive, but it takes two to pull off a deal, and what I don't yet know is how eager the market will be to respond to the Cardinals' interest. That will be clearer in the first week of November.
-
I really enjoyed your podcast on MLB rules. I particularly agree with you that I think the game would be more interesting if the DH were tied to starting pitchers, such that teams would have an incentive to keep their starter in longer to keep a good DH in the lineup longer. The idea is also just a really interesting compromise between AL and NL style ball. Two questions: first, is there any future chance of this happening? Second, under this hypothetical rule, would a team be able to double switch their starting DH into a fieldig position if they wanted to?
-
Thanks for listening to the podcast. I'll provide a link to it at the end of answering the questions.1) Jayson Stark, Hall of Fame writer and currently at The Athletic, was among the first writers I read on this idea of tethering the DH to the starting pitcher. I know that it had some support among pitchers, and that Max Scherzer was among the thought leaders who wanted to find a way to make starting pitchers more prominent in games and penalize the "opener" approach. So, yes, it's at least in the air and that makes it always a possibility. Unlikely at this point. Lost momentum at this point. But not ignored.2) That would be possible, yes. A clause that would, for example, might apply to Ohtani.The podcast:
How Major League Baseball's new rules avoid addressing same old issue - Best Podcast in Baseball
What begins as an analogy for how a new rule punishes a team and players who use data, savvy, and athleticism to find an edge jumps into a much larger discussion on how a game guided by huge sample sizes tries to entertain on the small scale. Kevin Wheeler, co-host of The Show midday on KMOX/1120 AM, joins the Best Podcast in Baseball and baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss the new rules that Major League Baseball will have for 2023. Which one is substantive? Which one is creative? Which one is cosmetic, at best? And what rule would make more of an impact. Also discussed is the beauty of baseball's "sustained tension" and how anecdotal style -- what a fan sees that one game they attend or 20 games they watch on TV -- maybe more valuable for selling the game than what two lifelong baseball think when focusing on the larger season. A new way to sell the game is also discussed, but is it snappy enough? The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. -
-
-
I know Contreras’ production looks attractive for a catcher but if you told fans that the 3rd bat the Cards will sign had 22 HRs and 55 RBIs I’m not sure how excited that would get fans. We have that already in O’Neill, Carlson, and even Edman. This team needs a better overall bat.
-
-
-
Every team should. See where his market goes. Fascinating free agent really. Scherzer set the bar for a single-season salary, but how many years can deGrom command with injury history? So fascinating. He will either focus on a place he wants to go (Atlanta?) or there will be some team eager to overwhelm him with an offer (Giants? Texas?), and that will be fascinating.
-
-
-
-
-
I'll try to spell this out better, because I can see where I failed:Sean Murphy is entering arbitration with three more years of control. The A's have catcher prospects set to go and play in the majors. So, they would trade from that strength to save money and gain years of control.Tyler O'Neill is entering his second year of arbitration rights, will see a raise and will likely make more in 2023 than Murphy, or it will be close. And he has two more years of control remaining (2023 and 2024), So he would be an example of the A's getting a more expensive player for fewer years. Not the direction they are likely to go.
-
-
-
This is 20/20 hypothetical hindsight, but I think an interesting thought exercise. Let's assume that its fair to imagine that Dylan Carlson, Nolan Gorman, and Matthew Liberatore could have (with a few more prospects) anchored a trade package that the Nationals would have considered for Juan Soto. At the time, Carlson and Gorman had both been playing pretty well, and none of those players were involved in any other trades. In theory, the Cardinals could have done everything they had done reality - acquiring Quintana, Montgomery, etc. - and STILL traded for Soto. After the trade deadline, both Carlson and Gorman slumped. Donovan merited the most starting playing time at 2B and Nootbar emerged in CF. One can imagine Soto and Nootbar locking down two OF spots, with Burleson, O'Niell, Carlson, and Yepez covering remaining playing time. It's tantalizing to wonder how Soto's LH power bat could have changed the Cardinals lineup against the Phillies against the wildcard, against two RH pitchers he's very familiar with and has had success against. AND the Cardinals would have had him and Goldy locked down for two more seasons alongside Arenado. I guess my question is - should the Cardinals have puked and taken the risk?
-
Let me stop you early. That is not fair to imagine, not if you want to put any stock in any of the reporting done by writers like me or reporters at other outlets. Liberatore did not come up as part of the package, or part of the talks. And it was not those three and "a few more prospects," unless by a "few more prospects" you mean some of the best prospects in baseball. Period. Full stop. Walker. Hence. Winn. Winn again. Let me repeat that. Winn. Walker. Those are the "few prospects" that the Nationals had interest in. Graceffo was also at least discussed, though my own reporting could not pin down how much interest the Nationals had in him. That's on me.So, before the scenario goes any further let's agree that it's OK to imagine what it would take -- and that's fine -- but anything that follows should at least be rooted in the reporting that suggested/confirmed those players were not the package the Nationals sought for Soto, and thus not a package that the Cardinals could offer for Soto and pull of a deal.One more note: Sources outside of the Cardinals told me during the time that the Cardinals -- with their top prospects, Walker and buzz-building Winn -- were the perfect team for the Nationals to bring into the conversations and do so publicly so that they could get the best offer possible from the Padres, who were willing to overspend on talent to get Soto.You can bet San Diego saw what you saw on TV.But the Cardinals reluctance to part with their top prospects as part of a package that would also include major-league talent should also have been as well known.
-
-
-
I don't go by the gut, not when reporting and talking with him is far more reliable. Nolan Arenado has been consistent with the press and with his friends and with teammates that he loves playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, has found a kindred spirit in the fan base when it comes to a love and appreciation for baseball, and that he sought a team that would constantly contend and give him a chance to win a division title and a World Series championship, and he sees (based on his direct comments) with the Cardinals. The team expects him to be a longterm fixture for them at third base. He has given no indication of not agreeing with the team, and has said that they'll talk (if they haven't already) and he'll make a decision.Again, it could be that he sticks around and doesn't opt out. Or, he could use the opt-out to open up his contract, get that last year guaranteed, or rework something.Keep in mind all that he had to do to be a Cardinal and the effort he put in to making that deal happen. He's got a lot invested in remaining a Cardinal, too.
-
-
They could. They have been. The DH makes a lot of that possible. That is a direction the roster is headed (or really has already arrived). It's going to have at least two moving parts, maybe three, because then it gives Marmol the matchups that he wants to chase.
-
-
-
-
Against it. Did not really get much traction beyond the experimental phase. Saw no real difference, and there was some concern about the long-term injury potential. Granted, that was speculative. But why change if the experiment didn't show a substantive change to the game and the more baseballs in play. I wasn't a fan of that kind of change, honestly, because there were so many other alternatives that would not change the dimensions of the game's playing surface but could radically change the activity within that dimension. Let's do that.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-