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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The Blues are trying to win this season, so it would take a truly disappointing turn of events for them to move a key player (like they did with Paul Stastny) with an expiring contract in-season. Keeping a player with an expiring contract is just like renting a player from the outside for the stretch run.There won't be cap space for both Tarasenko and O'Reilly after this season and there is no indication that No. 91 wants to stick around for the rest of his career. So that will put the focus on trying to re-up O'Reilly if the season goes well.If the Blues go off the rails for whatever reason, then that will move up the timeline for a youth movement.
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Palmetto already knows the answer to his question after 25 games for all the prior coaches ... Matter and others have covered. That's irrelevant. Let's wait til the end of year 4, when he's 16-33. That makes a whole lot of sense, and every player of talent has fled the sinking ship via the portal. They're more likely to stay with a legitimate seasoned experienced winner power 5 coach, than this tier 2, inexperienced, failure of a head coach. Had been a season ticket holder since 1977 up until the players strike a few years back ... have seen it all. Just because you don't know the answers to the questions (who, what, how, next?) doesn't mean you stay with the loser. Apollo 13. Failure is not an option ... must find a way. AD is getting paid to find a way, so find a way to get the right coach.
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We'll know a lot more about Drinkwitz by the end of this season. If he can salvage a 6-6 split while getting improvement from key young players, then he should have better footing as he takes another crack at recruiting and the transfer portal. But if the Tigers buckle and lose eight or nine games this season, then the scenario becomes much more challenging for Eli. In the NIL world, coaches must keep boosters on board to pay the freight year to year. And in the portal world, every player operates on a year-to-year basis. Tradition, good or bad, means less than before for most programs. Where is the program RIGHT NOW? Boosters want to know and players want to know.
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Flaherty makes$5 million and Tyler ONeal makes 3.4 million. Both have had injury plagues 2022 seasons. Flaherty finally won his first game yesterday and Oneal has been in and out with injuries all season long. Neither will come close to their previous years numbers.. I assume management will want a big reduction from their 2022 salaries. How far can management cut their 2022salaries?
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Thanks for all your patience, Jeff.
Late joining, so forgive me if this has been asked -- is Bolduc old enough to play in the AHL, or is his only alternative (to being with the Blues) going back to junior? I'd love to see the Blues give Neighbors and Bolduc high volume minutes in Springfield while trying to create value in Brown and Kostin.
Also -- most talk seems to focus on Kyrou being on O'Reilly's line. Given that they will ideally be spending the next nine years together, wouldn't it make sense to pair Thomas and Kyrou from the beginning, optimally with Schenn on their LW? O'Reilly could center Brown and Buchnevich, with Tarasenko, Saad and Barbashev on the other line. Comments? -
Bolduc would go back to junior hockey if he doesn't stick with the Blues. And that seems to be the likely outcome, either after training camp or after a nine-game NHL trial.I like O'Reilly and Kyrou together. Ryan is great defensively and great along the walls, two areas where Jordan still needs work. Kyrou has explosive speed, which O'Reilly lacks, so that adds to the fit. Also, the productive Thomas/Tarasenko pairing seems to be something to stick with this season. Maybe Thomas and Kyrou will be the first-line combo in future seasons, but there is no need to rush to that.
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Ryan O'Reilly will be a free agent after this coming season. With the big contracts given Thomas and Kyrou will the Blues want to renew his contract or let him go like David Perron? I know he is not getting any younger, but he has contributed so much since he came here, it would be hard to let him go. Is there enough money for Tarasenko or do they let him go? I 'd move on and use money for him for a younger up and coming free agent.
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Gordo, I'm unpleasantly surprised that you are lending credence to the speculation that Mizzou might be at risk of being pushed out of the SEC. I have never seen any credible report that anyone with any official role in the SEC or a member school has even raised this issue, much less advocated for it. Sure, if Mizzou decided they wanted to imitate the Oakland A's by taking their cut of the conference's TV deal while also investing nothing in their teams, then this is something the SEC would consider and rightly so. The SEC wanted Mizzou because the STL and KC cable markets presented a lot of subscribers for the SEC Network. That's as important today as it was a decade ago even though the FB and BB programs have managed to hit ruts at the same time. One would also like to think that the likes of South Carolina, Vandy, Miss St, Arkansas and Mizzou would all stick together on something like this, knowing that any of them could be at risk if a precedent was set for kicking a school out for underperformance. There's simply no reason for this to cause Mizzou fans any anxiety at this point, so please be more responsible with your comments.
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Well, if you say so. I have seen lots of cutthroat activity in college sports. I have seen conferences blown to bits by the greed of individual schools. I have watched the NCAA get pushed to brink of irrelevance in the industry. Maybe you believe that the back-stabbing will suddenly come to an end and all the university presidents will suddenly start playing nice . . . but I don't. The power schools will embrace pay-for-play to gain control over player compensation from the boosters. To pay for that, the power schools will do more than just give in on the expanded College Football Playoff to gain more revenue. The power schools will continue doing whatever it takes to keep their business humming. Many college sports experts envision a breakaway into NFL-style alignment of power football programs before the end of the decade. Would Mizzou fit into such a Big Ten/SEC breakaway? Maybe, or maybe not. We'll see. If college football stays on its current course, there will be all sorts of craziness.
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I know we should worry about the playoffs first, but I think BenFred mentioned this, what are your thoughts on moving Edman full time to CF? Then they could go after a ss in free agency namely Trea Turner or maybe a stopgap for a season while they wait for Wynn to be ready? 2nd could then be gormans or Donovan? Edman has shown the ability to be a gold glove player at 2nd and ss maybe he could be as good in center if given dedicated time?
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Tommy could certainly play center field and his bat profiles well there. That is a possibility, if Jordan Walker or Dylan Carlson can't nail down that job. Masyn Winn's offensive breakthrough this season would seem to make the Cardinals even more unlikely than usual to win the bidding for a top free agent at shortstop. But this team will have to add more offensive heft somewhere and thus far Carlson, Nolan Gorman, Lars Nootbaar, Juan Yepez and Alec Burleson haven't become offensive cornerstones. They have all shown promise, but that's it so far. Tyler O'Neill has put together one full season before doing the injury thing again, so he is just a candidate right now. Brendan Donovan has put together one almost-complete season, so he has only nailed down a utility role at this point.
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Thanks for the chat, Bobo.
Piggybacking on the Yelich/Ozuna trades observation, it's true the Cards got fleeced. But it's also true that when those trades were made, the clear industry consensus was that the Brewers had given up higher rated prospects than the Cardinals. The thing is, Milwaukee had done a vastly superior job of evaluating their own prospects than the Cardinals had. Just like Milwaukee got Cain to play center field, and the Cards got Fowler. Both teams paid the same (the exact same, in fact) but the Brewers got an established 4-5 WAR player and the Birds got half that.
Anyway my question is, do you see Quintana starting in the opening 3-game series? He's been magnificent this year when pitching with extra rest -- 2.26 ERA in 16 starts, as opposed to a thoroughly mediocre 4.41 ERA in 13 starts with regular rest -- and Marmol certainly can set that up if he so chooses. Ollie is after all supposed to be incredibly sophisticated and knowledgeable when it comes to splits, metrics, analytics, etc. -
Jose Quintana would seem to be the No. 5 option IF Adam Wainwright gets back on track and IF Jack Flaherty finishes well with his swing-and-miss stuff. But . . . Quintana would be attractive against a lefty-heavy lineup and I would not be shocked to see multiple starters used in the same game during the wild card round. The Cardinals lack dominant starting pitching, so they will need to use collective effort.Needless to say, every starter and every reliever will be under the microscope during the final stretch.
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It'd be nice to let Waino skip a start to get rested for October. But that might require giving another start to Jake Woodford in Adam's place and Marmol would very likely never do that, seeing as Woodford has been returned to Mopup Garbagetime Guy once again. (Jake ranks 392nd of 416 MLB relievers in leverage when entering the game this year.)
My query, Bobo: do you think the Cards platoon at 3 or 4 positions next year, playing only Goldy, Arenado, Edman, and maybe O'Neill every day? Thanks for your time, good scribe! -
Dakota Hudson is available to pick up a stretch run start as needed. As for platooning next year, we've noted that most of these younger guys have shown promise but none have locked down everyday roles. So I'm guessing this team will go into next year with a lot of interchangeable players and lots of lineup shuffling as Oliver Marmol plays the matchup game.
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We are several weeks away from the likely end of the Paul DeJong, Tyler O’Neil, and Dak Hudson era. DeJong will be hard to move due to his salary. O’Neil spends more time punching the time clock in the medical office. Hudson’s sinker ball doesn’t play in the modern era and his slow deliberation will succumb to the pitch clock. Simply put, do any of these players have much trade value?
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Thanks for the chat, Gordo!
Maybe I'm just scrutinizing Marmol more than other Redbird managers because he's so young and was objectively undeserving of the manager's office when he was hired, but of all Cardinal managers from the past 50 years he seems to give up on certain young hitters & pitchers much more quickly than any of his predecessors. I'm not saying whether he's right or wrong to do so, mind you.
Is it just my perception, or does it look the same to you, Bobo?