Join columnist Ben Frederickson for a live chat at 11 a.m. Tuesday
Ben Frederickson will answer all of your Cardinals, Blues, St. Louis City, Mizzou and SLU questions in Tuesday's 11 a.m. live chat.
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I would not disregard the money part of it entirely.Brebbia's salary was going to be set through arbitration, so by non-tendering him the Cardinals avoided paying whatever that was going to be for a pitcher who was not able to pitch at the start of the season.If the Cardinals were not actively looking to cut costs, I'm not sure they make this kind of move.Relievers are increasingly viewed as replaceable, and relievers coming off of injuries even more so.Fortunately, for Brebbia, the Giants saw value in signing him.The Giants also have less pitching depth than the Cards.Yes, the Cardinals should add a batFor sure.
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BenFred,
I feel like the Cardinals message as to what their ultimate goal is for the end of a season keeps changing. On Bernie's radio program, Dewitt stated he thought they would have a "competitive team" and "they need to see what their young players can do". I don't know about you, but that message is a long way off from a team that aspires to win a world championship. I think this is where the biggest disconnect is from what the fans have expected from this team. I understand the division will be weaker, so they can win the division with the team they have now. That wont help them in the playoffs when they have been outclassed recently by superior teams. They will never say it, but it sure seems like 2021 will be a punt, and I think a lot of fans will tune the Cardinals out with the team they put on the field. Sorry to be negative, just trying to be realistic with expectations. -
The Cardinals are not talking about building a championship caliber team in 2021.They're talking about scaling back payroll and have admitted 2022 is going to be an appealing time to change up the look of the team based on the combination of the contracts coming off the books and the prospects nearing the majors.To the Cardinals credit, they have been pretty clear about what 2021 looks like in that regard.It's a bridge to 2022.Where the argument will be, fairly, is what label should be applied on a season like that.A true punt would be letting Molina and Wainwright walk, not adding a bat and welcoming the losses that would come because it would lead to a better draft.I don't think the Cardinals are going to do that.I do think they are working to get those two guys back, and I do think they will try to do something -- albeit not as much as most fans hope -- to help the offense score more runs.That's not a punt, to me.But no, this offseason will not have a going-for-the-championship vibe, and the front office is not suggesting it will.
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Good morning I was thinking about a trade for do i dare say Carp to the Royals for Danny Duffy the money is close Matheny and Carp seem to get along and Duffy could be a 4th or 5th starter for us give carp a new start with someone who knows him .I do like what the royals have done so far. Thanks for the chat Hope you have a nice Holiday.
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I don't see the upside for the Royals in that deal.Duffy is slated to be one of their starters.Carpenter's production has been in a freefall since the final month of the 2018 season.The Cardinals had a DH available last season and Carpenter was not even the best option for a team that did not have a DH.That's a non-starter for me if I'm Royals GM Dayton Moore.The Cardinals should be fine on pitching.Reports on Mikolas have been good. Flaherty. Kim. Then a boatload of young, talented arms, from Gomber and Ponce to Reyes and Cabrera. And more.
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He's the co-winner of the SEC freshman of the year award, so he was doing something right.For me the biggest reason I was impressed is because we did not know very much about him entering the season.He was slotted as the backup behind Shawn Robinson through the first two games, and was known mostly for the conservative offense he ran in high school.Cleary, he made up a lot of ground in a short amount of time.Should he be cemented as the starter moving forward no matter what?Not if Tyler Macon has a say.The dual threat QB out of East St. Louis is not letting Bazelak's success deter him from coming in to challenge for that spot, just like Bazelak did not let Shawn Robinson's transfer from TCU stop him from coming for the spot after Kelly Bryant's one-and-done season in CoMo ended.Your QB room should be a place of competition.I think Bazelak has earned his No. 1 spot on the depth chart but it has to be re-earned every spring and fall, and Macon isn't coming to sit.
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They sure are not getting much pressure to get moving from their NL Central peers, that's for sure.I think more than anything the Cardinals are doing what most teams are doing -- slow-playing everything because of the pandemic and the uncertainty it has caused regarding what 2021 looks like.Baseball moves at a glacial pace these days, and that's when teams and players know what it is moving toward.Right now the 2021 scene is still entirely up in the air, and no pressing deadline looms, so there is nothing forcing teams into action.We have learned teams without deadlines in baseball don't act.
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Hi Ben. Merry Christmas! Still a lot to celebrate in an otherwise crappy year. My question is it OK to celebrate that the Blues may play into June so that I can mentally push the Cardinals to the back burner? I want to be excited about both teams but what is going on with the Cardinals? You would think they realize they need to win fans back, right? Your thoughts
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I don't know if the Cardinals realize there are fans who are losing interest. I think they should. I asked Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak on one of his recent Zooms about this topic. He was talking a lot about how the payroll is fluid because the team does not yet know how many fans will be in the stands for 2021. I asked how much emphasis is being put on building a team that draws fans to the stands -- when fans are allowed to come. He said it was a passive aggressive way of saying they should improve the offense. It wasn't mean to be passive aggressive, but it was meant to point out that it's asking a lot of fans to go support a third season of a below-average offense, especially if there are still some virus concerns looming. The Cardinals know not every fan is ticked about the team. They also know there will likely be a boom of sports energy when we get the all clear to get back to games. But I do think they are underestimating how uninspired some -- not just the vocal folks on Twitter -- are becoming toward the product. No World Series this season makes it a decade without one. That's not a small number for the team with the most rings in the National League.
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Yes, the word was out before the announcement that the Music City Bowl was the preferred choice of both Drinkwitz and the players. Gives a better chance to get families to games, something that has been limited this season. There's no real upside to a Florida bowl since the upsides to all of the bowl games are now out due to the pandemic. No team nights out, concerts, or beach days, or any of that stuff. It's just another game now. The profile argument for bowl games has faded. Prospects don't sit around and watch bowl games and make their decisions that way. They're watching YouTube and Instagram and SnapChat. A warm-weather trip for Mizzou fans was not as big of a plus, considering tickets will be limited. And so on. I don't want to sound like a Scrooge here, but I will be somewhat surprised if this game even happens. Iowa has paused its team activities due to COVID. With players going home for Christmas, there is a good chance positives spike after teams get back together after the holidays. I'll just say this. If you are planning on flying to Nashville for the bowl, I would buy a refundable ticket.
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If mickolas is pitching well can you see the cardinals trading him at the deadline to unblock a spot for a young pitcher because it's starting to get a little crowded with the starters that have to start even more so next year as the top prospects get more minor league work
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If the season is a lost cause by the trade deadline, perhaps.But if Mikolas is pitching well I think the Cardinals would be more likely to be happy that they have him for the long haul.It's hard for me to imagine the Cardinals being so far out of it that they trade away an effective starter at the deadline.Look around the NL Central.It's not shaping up to be a murder's row.
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Because how often do we ever see the Cardinals totally prioritize one season while completely scrapping another? It's just not how they work. They try to field the best team they can for each season, within their self-imposed limitations. The best team for 2021 has Molina on it, and on a short-term deal of one or two seasons. It went under the radar but it does not sound to me like the Cardinals view Knizner as ready to be an every-day catcher, at least not for them. Mozeliak answered a rare hypothetical the other day when he said if Molina is gone, the Cardinals would likely look to add a catcher instead of simply handing things over to Knizner.
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Illinois is down to No. 18 in today's AP Top-25. That seems about right to me after the loss to Rutgers, another ranked team. Illinois has some of the best pieces around in Ayo and Kofi, but they need someone to emerge on the wing to make things really click consistently. If they are one of the Big Ten's better teams, they're a ranked team. If the conference pushes them under, they're not. We will know soon enough.
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DG has explained that commissioner selig wanted baseball in the headlines 365 days a year which is why there aren’t any deadlines for free agent signings like in the NBA. It feels like that might be a little outdated now. Baseball isn’t exactly in the headlines right now and the last few years have seen incredibly slow and uneventful offseasons.
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Baseball has become hedge fund management. Teams have started to care more about "value" than winning. The growing rift between players and owners as the need for a new collective bargaining agreement has only made things worse as owners have started teaming up with owners instead of trying to beat owners. Compare this to the NBA, where a player signs a new five-year deal every time I turn on ESPN. Baseball seems to have forgotten it's in the entertainment business, and its owners seem to have lost some of their desire to compete against one another more than the players they employ.
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I very much would prefer the Cardinals being aggressive in some sort of acquisition to address a flailing offense - Arenado would look GREAT with the birds on the bat across his chest, and a year or two of financial pinch against decades of profitable outcomes (not my money, I know), doesn't seem like a ridiculous ask.
However.
I will say, in an abbreviated year in which there was a huge stoppage that had players literally sitting around in hotel rooms for a week, without any activity, I think it would be wrong to say the front office is stupid not to call last year somewhat of a wash, and enter this season with a similar outlook as last on the outfield and the young guys being evaluated there. I can get behind the idea of moving beyond Carp and Fowler. And I hate saying it, but man, even if they do flop, nobody can say those guys got real extended time to show what they can do.
Ugh, now I have to go shower after coming to this conclusion. -
There's really one decent/realistic way for the Cardinals to kick the can down the road on their outfield analysis of current options while also helping the offense in a significant manner.It's adding a real designated hitter -- if that rule is in play for 2021.Do that, and it buys time for the rolling tryout that is the outfield.The other options -- if more time for the outfield is the plan -- would be powering up at second or third base.Second base power is going to be pretty limited.Maybe the Cardinals are willing to make a move that puts Carpenter on the bench to start the season -- not after he gets a chance at spring training -- but I would need to see that before I believe it.The Cardinals could really use the DH to be in play this season, and they should get a real one if it is.
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I get trying to compare to basketball and how it entertains. NBA has blown MLB out of the water when it comes to offseason/off the court/field excitement; however, being a salary-capped league with the fraction of players having to be paid, as compared to MLB, I feel makes it way too different to truly compare. I will say, though, that if we're comparing stuff between leagues, I would take Adam Silver as commissioner of MLB instead of Manfred every time. Maybe even Silver's dog over Manfred.
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I read a lot in these PD chats on how we could be seeing Gorman,Herrera, Carlson and other young guys. It seems to be a pattern. Are they just praying for another Pujols? Because they're trading away their older prospect bats like Voit, Pham and Arozerana. Someone needs to tell MO that players typically don't become an impact bat until age 24. Someone also needs to tell him another Pujols is unlikely. Thanks for the chats.
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I think every team in baseball prays for a Pujols.The pattern is not Pujols-specific.It's the cornerstone of the Cardinals' philosophy.Draft and develop. Fill holes from within. Supplement from the outside only when you have to.It's how this ownership group has always operated, and it's not going to change.What has bit the Cardinals recently is misreading some of their own players.That's how they wound up prioritizing other outfielders over Arozarena and not working harder to find out what they had in Voit.To the Cardinals credit, part of the reason they let Pham go is because they thought he was going to have a hard time staying on the field.That's been true.
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That was a big win at Butler last night. I've got a good friend who has been telling me Bryan Mullins is going to be the next big thing. Maybe I should start listening. Pretty wild that their top four leading scorers are sophomores. Mullins is going to have to fight off some bigger-school poachers for his players. Hopefully he can. Congrats on a great start. Sounds like it's going to get sweeter, too.
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So tired of some of the whining I see here. Let's get a dose of reality. Arozarena wasn't a top 100 prospect on ANYONE's rankings. He failed at AAA twice before putting it together in 2019. They guy they got back IS in the top 100! Voit was playing poorly in AAA when he got traded. He doesn't hit outside of Yankee stadium. Pham has an eye issue. He was playing terrible when he got traded. I saw someone do a comparison and Bader has been nearly equal in WAR. People, on here, love to alter reality to make the Cards look bad instead of just being real.
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I'll push back on some of that.Arozarena had proven he could hit at every level, and most importantly he had hit well at the major league level in a very small sample size that deserved more opportunity because of that performance. The Cardinals admitted they made a mistake in how they ranked him. I'm not sure why some fans can't admit the same; the team misread the ceiling of Arozarena. It doesn't mean they didn't get a potentially great pitcher for him in Liberatore. We'll see.I don't know where you got the idea Voit only hits at Yankee Stadium. He's slugging .558 on the road as a Yankee since he was traded. He has a .946 road OPS with the Yankees.Yes, some find joy in overstretching the truth in describing where the Cardinals messed up.Pham can be used as one of those examples, at times, though his injury bug is not related to his eye issue.But Arozarena and Voit? They're tough to explain away, and your attempts don't hold up.