Join columnist Jeff Gordon for his live St. Louis sports chat at 1 p.m. Friday
Bring your Cards, Blues, Mizzou, SLU and MLS questions and comments, and talk to columnist Jeff Gordon in his weekly live chat.
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Jeff, is it time to consider 3-on-3 OT hockey a mistake? It's turned into a game of keep-away with guys making U-turns in the neutral zone waiting for the opponent to fall down or make an untimely line change. It's made OT feel like a coin flip rather than a satisfying conclusion to 60 minutes of hockey. If the NHL wants games to end on breakaways or 2-on-1s, why not just skip OT and go straight to the shootout? -
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Hi, Gordo! Thanks for chatting.
The N.L. East is so top-heavy with the Braves, Mets, and Phightin' Phils, I see absolutely no way for the Marlins to finish ahead of any of those teams at any point during the next 3-4 years. So trading high on Alcantara makes good sense to me. It's all just silly speculating but I think Miami would have to consider an offer of Gorman + Walker+ Burleson + Graceffo or Hence + a couple of lower minors high-upside guys like Cho or Baez or Willis. That'd be a rough match at the Baseball Trade Values site, and the Cards would be improved in the immediate, the Marlins in a year or two. -
True, but if teams are saying the Pirates want a "Juan Soto package" for Bryan Reynolds, what would the Alcantara package have to look like? And a team looking to contend year after year after year is unlikely to agree to a Juan Soto package, moving four or five potential regulars. The Cardinals just backed away from such a trade.
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What's your thoughts on Connor Thomas, the surprise Cardinal pitching prospect who won the Arizona League pitcher-of-the-year award, or something like that? The results were fantastic, but does his height, weight, and velocity (91 ?) suggest a low ceiling? Or is there some great pinpoint control there?
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AAV's in 2023 estimated for Mikolas, Montgomery and Flaherty are $16,750,000, $11,667,368 and $5,428,686, respectively. Ages are 36.2, 31.9, and 29.1 oldest to youngest as listed. Seems like out of the three Mikolas is the likeliest to remain on beyond next season. Do you agree? And imagine if all three have solid seasons, the Cardinals stand a decent chance of losing all three with nothing back other than draft compensation if uno, dos, tres are extended qualifying offers and decline...
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If they lost all three guys, they would have to use their newfound payroll flexibility to replace them. But I expect this team to have more pitchers under contract beyond 2022 by the end of the season. This team is risk adverse and having that much uncertainty all at once is risky.
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Hey, Gordo!
So here's a pattern, of sorts. Cards sign CF Fowler for 5 years/80 million. One year later the Brewers sign CF Lorenzo Cain to the exact same contract, even though he is (per Fangraphs & B-Ref) more than twice as good as Dexter Fowler. Then the Cards trade for Marcell Ozuna. Right after, the Brewers get the superior Christian Yelich while giving up much less. And now the Cards acquire five years of Old Contreras for nearly $90MM and a high draft pick and Int'l signing money...and the Brewers immediately grab five years of Young Contreras for an obscure non-top 100 prospect with one good year on his resume. I like the StL front office, I do, I swear. But I think the Brewers are as smart/opportunistic as any organization in MLB, including the Dodgers -- notwithstanding the Team Morale Gaffe of trading Hader when they did. -
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Thanks for chatting, Gordo!
The entire Murphy Trade Saga makes almost zero sense. When dealing with the Cards, they appear to have wanted to get more competitive immediately, demanding multiple successful major leaguers. But what they accepted from the Braves included *zero* big leaguers. Umm, if the A's wanted prospects, Bobo, the Cards have a vastly superior farm system than Atlanta. For instance, Kyle Muller, the Braves former #1 prospect, wasn't even in the top 130 prospects at Fangraphs. And Muller was less-valued than *eight* Redbird prospects at Baseball Trade Values! The whole thing smacks of front office incompetence in Oakland. And shrewdness by Atlanta/Milwaukee, also.
Question: are the Cards completely done, this offseason? Or is there maybe a twirler from Japan or something still coming? (Not being snide, I loved the Final Boss, and Mikolas has been a near-treasure.) -
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I don't have any problem with the Cardinals not wanting to make an 11-year commitment. Outside of a spouse and a child, I'd be leery of an 11-year investment too. But then they need to be open to high AAV deals because the price of poker has gone up and with the financial fan support this team gets, sitting out because neither term nor AAV is pleasing is not an option.
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I do believe the general pattern of greater spending will challenge the Cardinals to do the same. But as I noted earlier, it will also drive an even greater focus on player development because the Cardinals can't compete for veteran talent with teams willing to pay more in luxury tax penalties than many teams spend on entire payrolls.
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As long as DeJong is on this team I will openly question this organization's level of seriousness about winning a world series. There is no argument for him to be part of this club in 2023, he brings nothing to the table that they don't already have. If you want a reserve glove, promote Winn and take the draft pick.
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Jeff, as always thanks for the chats. I can't believe how folks are ready to trade away Gorman, Carlson, and others. It is really the exception when young position players hit the majors putting up big numbers without any setbacks. Most take three or more years to fully develop. Many are upset about I like to think of players like stocks: you have the Growth Stocks those that are expensive but you know that you are going to probably get a good return, these would be like Goldy and Arenado. Signing Cantrarus, was like buying a Growth Stock. But you do pay for past performance. The young guys with lots of control years are like Value stocks. You buy low with the anticipation that they will eventually perform like a growth stock, Most teams have to have a mix and the Cardinals tend to have 6 or so Growth Stocks and the rest Value. Others have followed a model with a few really expensive Growth stocks and wound up selling them off at a discount.
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Yeah, you are either in or you are out when it comes to those high-priced guys. If you don't have several driving production at once, you might as well go with a lot of emerging guys and tag-team a bunch of veteran role players like the Giants did a couple years ago to win all those games with matchups. The Rays have used this model well. Don't be like the Rockies, who ditched Arenado only to throw money at Kris Bryant for some reason with no chance of winning.Can the Giants build a team around Carlos Correa? Can the Jacob deGrom contract make any sense at all for the Rangers? We'll see.
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Keeping Wainwright will be marketing gold. And keeping Wainwright also maintains culture -- and you can talk to Nolan Arenado about the value of culture and the role it played in him remaining.As noted earlier, Quintana is a year removed from having to accept small dollars from the Pirates just to stay in the majors.
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That interesting structure does create more flexibility for this season. It puts their projected Opening Day payroll at $172 million, which would only be a nominal increase from last year. Had the contract not been backloaded, that payroll would be at $180 million.So, yes, the Cardinals have too to make additions either before the season or during it. So their young DH-type hitters could all be play.
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I for one do NOT want "more big contracts." Not unless they are for Hall Of Fame quality players & pitchers...like Arenado & Goldy, obviously. Big contracts for good-not-great guys like Fowler & Contreras are in my opinion more a possible trap than a benefit. Same with most huge deals for pitchers; Redbird fans griped and groaned about the Nationals signing Scherzer. But the Nats also signed star pitchers Strasburg and Corbin to similar deals -- but those have backfired spectacularly, and that's led to their organizational collapse over the past three seasons.
My question, Bobo, is about Tommy Edman. He acquitted himself well at shortstop in 2022, but do you see him staying there indefinitely, or instead sliding over to the keystone in deference to Masyn Winn when the kid arrives? (Winn's defensive numbers in AA were tremendous.) And if the latter, what happens to Donovan, who should obviously play every single day if he hits like last year.? -
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