forsberg_us wrote:

Jayson Tatum is a St. Louis kid.  His dad played at SLU when I was in law school.  

Jayson does commercials for Imo's Pizza

That should end you Celtics watching.

I've seen Tatum's commercials for Emo's on the Cardinals' broadcasts. I guess people have forgotten David Freese.
I don't think I've ever read a message from anyone on this board or the old Yahoo board about Imo's Pizza actually living up to the billing of being The Square Beyond Compare.
 

Im a thin crust fan but their cheese taste like melted plastic.

APIAD wrote:

Machado offered 220 for 7 or 8 years by the yankees. 

He has other offers in that range and one over.  Doesnt sound like collusion to me.  As a matter of fact i think the case can be made that player like machado and harper super slow playing the market is holding everyone else back.  With what has been reported that both player have been offered, thats just greed.

The offers that have been made have been more than reasonable. As I said above, these aren’t the 2 best players in baseball. They shouldn’t be the highest paid.

Moustakas re-signs with the Brewers, 1 year, $9M.

This is the main reason I never felt Patrick Wisdom had any value (as in trade value).  Over the last 2 seasons, Moustakas has hit .262 with 66 HR and 180 RBI, and 2 years in a row he's found basically no interest in the free agent market.  2 off-seasons ago he was hampered by the draft pick compensation, but this year there was no compensation attached and still apparently no interest for a guy who has averaged 33 HR and 90 RBI over the last 2 seasons and who's only 30 years old.

APIAD wrote:

Im not sure why moustakas was being so overlooked. While not a super star he seems to have value to me. Even to the cardinals. Wong certainly has upside and i dont find fault in sticking with him. However i think you could make a justified case that moving carp to second and moustakas playing third would give the cardinals a deeper lineup.

And I wouldn't fault you for thinking that, but that's where the advanced metrics would disagree.  According to Baseballreference.com, Moustakas' WAR last season was 2.5.  Wong's was 3.5.  So, if you believe in WAR, replacing Wong with Moustakas makes the Cardinals a worse team, and that doesn't take into account Carpenter moving to 2nd base.

I'm not arguing the point.  It's sort of like the DH in the NL.  I've just accepted that what I think doesn't really mean much. 

"My point really was, idk why he didnt recieve more attention from someone."

I'm kinda saying the same thing, with the assumption that the lack of interest is driven by advanced metrics and the fact that Moustakas, despite his 33 HR and 90 RBI doesn't score favorably according to those metrics.

The problem with advanced metrics is they're essentially made up calculations.  If you go to Baseball reference and clink on the link that explains WAR, it takes you to a page with a number of other links, but one of the first things you read is this 

"There is no one way to determine WAR. There are hundreds of steps to make this calculation, and dozens of places where reasonable people can disagree on the best way to implement a particular part of the framework. We have taken the utmost care and study at each step in the process, and believe all of our choices are well reasoned and defensible."

If you give me a calculator and a stat sheet, I can tell you who has the highest batting average.  It isn't hard to understand that 30 HRs is more than 20 or that 90 RBI is better than 60.  But how do you calculate dWAR?  How do you account for baserunning when calculating oWAR?

Last season, Matt Chapman (3B- Oak) hit .278 with 24 HR, 100 runs scored and 68 RBI.  He also won a Gold Glove

Nolan Arenado (3B- Col) hit .297 with 38 HR, 104 runs scored and 110 RBI. He also won a Gold Glove

Who had the better season?  

According to WAR, it was Chapman and it wasn't close.  Chapman had an 8.2 WAR and Arenado was 5.6  And that's why you and I no longer understand player value.  If I looked at Chapman's stats, I'd compare him much more closely to Moustakas than Arenado.

Machado to San Diego.  Rumor is 10/$300M with an opt out after 5 years

"And i dont put as much value in having a great defensive second baseman."

I didn't, until I started watching Roberto Alomar. And the 2006 Cardinals don't win the World Series unless they make a trade for Rafael Belliard. 

Last edited by artie_fufkin (2/19/2019 3:18 pm)

artie_fufkin wrote:

"And i dont put as much value in having a great defensive second baseman."

I didn't, until I started watching Roberto Alomar. And the 2006 Cardinals don't win the World Series unless they make a trade for Rafael Belliard. 

Many years ago, there was an article I read somewhere that purported to do a study that concluded that Shortstops and Second baseman were the positions that required the rarest skill set of any position.  They reached that conclusion based almost entirely that the folks in those positions, along with Centerfield and Catcher a distant third and fourth, because the players there were able to get by with so much less in the way of offensive production.  I think I read that in Psychology Today, which I eventually concluded could be more full of unscientific bullshit than a Huey Long stump speech.

But when I first started learning about baseball, the conventional wisdom was that a team had to be strong up the middle (meaning short, second, center, and catcher) to win.  And my unscientific observation over the past 66 years has been consistent with that.wisdom.  It certainly proved true of the Cardinals.

My thought on Wong is that he is too much like Garry Templeton.  He can make lots of spectacular plays.  But then he can turn around a make a lackadaisical error, sometimes hot-dogging, that seems to destroy a team's morale in a tight game. Of course it just looks like any other error in the stats.
 

Last edited by Mags (2/19/2019 3:42 pm)

Mags wrote:

Up next?

https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/carlos-martinez-no-throwing-two-weeks/c-304149334

Gant, Gomber, Ponce de Leon, or Hudson?

Gant is out of options, he almost certainly makes the team, regardless of whether he's in the rotation or in the bullpen.  I can't imagine they'd give him away for nothing.

artie_fufkin wrote:

APIAD wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

Machado to San Diego.  Rumor is 10/$300M with an opt out after 5 years

Padres will still suck

You wonder what they're doing. They sign a perfectly ordinary player like Eric Hosmer to an 8-year, $144 million contract, and now they allegedly lock up Machado for 10 years, and their projected 2019 starting staff won 21 games last year … the same number Blake Snell won by himself.
I can't blame Machado or anyone else who wants to play in San Diego. It's a great city, he'll enjoy the culture and the fans won't put too much pressure on him. But the team isn't going to make the playoffs any time soon, the ballpark can be a tough place to hit, especially at night when the vaunted marine layer kicks in, and he's going to be playing in three other pitchers' parks in the division.

The Padres could have one of the best infields in baseball by the end of 2019/start of 2020.  Machado will almost certainly play 3rd and Hosmer at first.  Luis Urias will likely be their starting 2B this season.  He's 21, he's already considered an elite defender and his minor league OBP is almost .400.  Fernando Tatis, Jr. will probably start the season in AAA.  He just turned 20, and is already ESPN's #1 and Baseball America's #2 rated MLB prospect.  His slash line at AA was .286/.355/.507.  Barring something unexpected, he'll be SD's shortstop either by the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020.

SD isn't as bad as you think, but they're at least a couple of years away from thinking about contending for a wild card spot.  And that's if everything breaks right, and that rarely happens.

forsberg_us wrote:

Mags wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

Gant is out of options, he almost certainly makes the team, regardless of whether he's in the rotation or in the bullpen.  I can't imagine they'd give him away for nothing.

I would have picked him as their first choice even without taking that into account.  My first choice would be Hudson but I am pretty sure the team wants him in the pen.
 

Maybe, but I think some of that depends on Martinez.  Maddux seemed to already be pushing for Martinez in the bullpen before this hiccup.  If Martinez is in the bullpen, and assuming everyone is healthy, you'd already have Hicks, Miller, Martinez, Reyes and Leone.  Assume one more lefty.  Why waste Hudson as the 12th reliever, which is usually the white flag spot?  Plus, you've got guys like Mayers, Brebbia, Shreve and Gregerson who could fill that last spot.  It would make a lot more sense to have Hudson ready to start when one of Wacha or Wainwright inevitably break down.  Gomber and Ponce de Leon too.

I certainly don't won't Hudson as a 12 reliever but I'm not hopeful the team will see it that way.  My main point is that I'd rather that they would treat Hudson as a starter from day 1, either in Memphis or St. Louis.  He can always be called up after Wacha goes down or after they give up on Wainwright.

I'm overly pessimistic.  I'm not counting on anything from Leone or Gregerson or from Reyes for the first 2 months of the season  I'd rather see him in Memphis than Hudson at the start of the season.  But if most of the guys you listed are ready, I would certainly rather see Hudson starting in Memphis than in the pen in St. Louis.

I note you didn't mention Cecil.  I probably wouldnt't have either.

 

Cmart going down might be the best thing right now if he ends up in the pen.  This could be a very good bullpen.

I liked what i saw from gant