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.
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1) They encourage players seeking any and all ways to improve. Arenado and Goldschmidt went to Baton Rouge last season, left with new bat models, and finished first and third in the MVP voting. The Cardinals were big proponents of that.2) Getting similar. That's been the driving goal of the Cardinals to get there and then add more infrastructure to make their system offer support for whatever a hitter needs, but not limit that hitters ability to seek any way possible to improve.Honestly, I don't get the angst here. The newspaper doesn't mind if I get pointers on writing from writers at other papers. They mind if I go and write for other papers. Baseball teams want players to improve, to get better, and they benefit from that. This used to be celebrated -- the player putting in the extra work, the Justin Turner getting a swing guru to unlock his potential, Aaron Judge coming to St. Louis for advice from an instructor that unleashes his record-setting power. These are good things for teams and for players and for the game.3) Many players are. Donovan went to The Batting Lab shortly after the season ended. Nolan Gorman went there DURING THE ALL-STAR BREAK. Gorman has been to Driveline. And the paper has covered these things. Well, we haven't written about Arenado's visit this week. But I'm sure we will. -
I don't understand. The Cards wouldn't even listen to trade offers for Carlson , now I hear his name mentioned on a daily basis. Another prime example of the Cards relying on these young guys performance in AAA and find out later they can't hit major league pitching (See Bader, O'Neill and soon to be Nolan Gorman) and can't get much in return when they do trade them -
Huh? They listened to trade interest in Dylan Carlson. They just weren't keen to move their starting center fielder in a deal that also included a handful of their top prospects. That package of players was not appealing to the Cardinals, as you probably can imagine.Facts have to at some point catch up with the rumor and vaporize it, right? You do still want the facts right? Or only entertainment, whether it's true or not is secondary?
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I suppose it's too early to do much reporting on what DeJong is actually working on in Jupiter, but my inquiring mind wants to know if they are trying to resurrect the 2017-2019 version or are they trying to turn him into an on base machine with less but not non-existent pop? I see his ticket to a long career in drawing as many walks as strikeouts in the future, ie, a lot less strikeouts....
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Thanks for the kind words and for being a subscriber. Back from the holidays, I'm spending some time trying to sift through that and get a good sense of the names -- just like the Cardinals have been honestly. Bieber and Lopez are the ones that stand out at varying degrees of future availability and current availability. It's interesting because earlier I mentioned Rucinski, and there's the possibility that he's available for trade in the middle of the season with that appealing contract -- especially if he performs well for A's. Giolito is one that I'm trying to learn more about and what direction the Sox are going. He's not signed beyond the coming season, but ...
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It was the Phillies pitching that contributed to the Cardinals' lack of offense. They faced Nola and Wheeler in a short series, and that underscores -- no pun intended -- my point about maybe skipping that round so that there's a chance to go deeper into a series.
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You may have to help me a little here. This off-season has been kind of crazy with the mad money flying around. (Conceding that rich people usually get that way because they are quite clever.) Teams like the Padres and Mets are probably never going to run out of money to spend. What got me to thinking is the Cubs talking to Eric Hosmer, who has a big contract that runs until like '26? I guess you could even fit Albert into this scenario.
While it is great for THIS season, some of these teams will be paying mega penalty dollars for awhile. Given 10+ year contracts, I think in a few years there are going to be good players out there who are available for the league minimum or for a mid-level prospect. (Not sure Hosner is one of those, but he is an example of the Padres spending)
At the same time we see teams like the Dodgers maybe looking at resetting their payroll level to below the CBA "cap" limits. If you look beyond the Yankees signing their own guy, they have been a little quiet too. The Cards got their man and then went quiet.
My question is; Do you see evidence that some of the more established clubs are reacting to the new spending climates by reverting to the long game? -
Eric Hosmer is a free agent after being released by the Boston Red Sox, so there's no contract going to 2026 that tags along with him. He's just going to go to the highest bidder or to the best situation. You could argue that the Cubs are going for the bargain buy there, maybe?Teams are signing these long-term deals to adjust the math of the penalty, yes, spread the dollars over more years and meet the players total dollar demand. It's a little like it's always been with starting pitchers. Sign them for a seven year deal, but count on getting production from them for six years. Adjust the overall salary accordingly so that they may make $25 million on average, but those health years are going to be $30 million in production to cover the one year that isn't.That's a bit what teams are doing with the purpose being to set the average salary for CBT purposes, count on that number going up and up and then in the out years have that player's contract hit less against the CBT while that player hits less in general.
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Not many really. San Diego is a great place, weather, ballpark, all of it. That's a team with a lot of buzz. That's a ballpark that can be hard on hitters, especially compared to Yankee Stadium. There wasn't interest in bringing Carpenter back, and that didn't make much mutual sense. He'll get his return with the Padres. And within the next decade fans will get a chance to vote him into the Cardinals Hall of Fame.
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Other way around. Oakland was willing to take less from Atlanta than they asked from the Cardinals. In trades, it's all about the ask -- not the offer. Ask. The Cardinals are asking for Sean Murphy. Oakland is asking for a return -- and that return is going to be different for each team because what they target is different. If a team doesn't have a Donovan-style, the A's cannot ask that team for a Donovan-style, so they ask for a different player.
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Mr. Goold: It's a good thing the Cardinals play in the weakest division in the NL, otherwise their business model of being competitive in the division so 3.4 mil tickets can be sold wouldn't work. Other than the odd year here and there where another team might give them a run for the money, the division is theirs to lose. Has anyone in the Cardinals organization ever acknowledged that fact? -
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My colleague Daniel Guerrero has written several of the best stories on Graceffo this past season, including an early one on the splash he made in spring training. Here was the most recent:
Cardinals pitching prospect Gordon Graceffo hopes to prove big-league potential in spring
STLtoday.comAfter being named the Cardinals' minor-league pitcher of the year, Gordon Graceffo is aiming to show he belongs with the big-league squad during spring training. -
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DG - Could you provide a list of the teams that won the off-season and failed to win the WS? Pretty long list, I know. I’d LOVE to win another WS, and another, and another, and …. But the media is all by ceding the Series to the Mets, just like they did the Dodgers last year. Get in. See what happens.
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Where is the next "edge" that mid to low-market teams can pursue to thwart big-market teams that spend not only in FA, but also in coaching, development, labs, etc.?
I had wondered if that edge would have been some form of what the University of Alabama did for a while with it's luxury living for it's athletes, except for minor leaguers. Maybe spend more on living situations, offer more quality food, insurance...HR things.
Now that there is going to be a minor league CBA I doubt that's an avenue. What say you? -
Let's be honest, if I knew what it would be I would be hired by a team, right, so that I didn't give out the answer in a chat ...It's going to be hitcraft. It's going to be advanced hitting tech, bat manufacturing, and swing-specific bats that counter what we've seen with the pitchcraft of spin rate and all of the advanced data that has some of its roots here in St. Louis with Rapsodo. Pitching has raged ahead of hitting when it comes to tech use, and what we're seeing is hitting try to close that gap. Goldschmidt is in the center of that.He is an early investor in the VR that hitters are using to prepare for specific pitches and pitchers -- which they can now do with a headset on in their hotel room.He is arguably the most famous of the counterbalance bat users, and that's only going to spread. For years, golfers have gone to have the personalized clubs made for their swing, their mechanics, and now doing that with bats -- here we are. That's the next edge, and we're at it right now.
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This may be a personal question, but I’m curious how your rate your frustration with the front office’s push back when you ask about covering innings over the last couple of off seasons, compared to your contempt for the former Rockies GM Bridich’s comments about beat writers? Mo seems to be dismissing your ability to analyze the situation - do you get that feeling? Or is that just Mo’s nature? Thanks.
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Interesting question. Way different situations. The criticism of my fixation on innings is one of opinion or viewpoint, and it's not an insult in any way. It's fodder for a difference of opinion and a good debate on the game, a good professional debate. Professional being the key word. There was no question of understanding or intellect or motive, just different views on the certainty of innings. That's all. The comments from the former Colorado Rockies general manager in a book co-written by my colleague Benjamin Hochman referred to baseball writers as "self-interested" and went on to say: "And most of them, probably 99% of them, they've never even led anything in their lives." Those comments questioned individuals on a personal level, not professional, and showed a deep lack of interest and knowledge of the baseball writers he deals with on a daily basis. That was what frustrated me. He clearly did not even know the people who covered his team and yet offered judgment. That didn't sit well with me because I'm a fan of other baseball writers. I'm not saying that that I haven't had similar things said to me while on the Cardinals beat -- I have, publicly, it was even written about -- but it wasn't a member of the front office and it wasn't about innings.Innings is a professional debate about baseball. Not a personal criticism, not at all.
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