artie_fufkin wrote:

"The Cardinals seem to be of the mindset that they know better than anyone else how to determine a player's value. If the player goes elsewhere for more, the other team must have overpaid. Bullshit. You were too cheap to come up to the player's true worth."

I don't disagree, but they can point to their track record over the past 15 years and say the know what they're doing. 
The problem now is they have some actual competition in their division, especially the Cubs, who seem like they're going to be a good team for a long time. 
The other issue is their payroll. They're still pretending they're a mid-market team when they've been drawing more than 3 million every year since the new ballpark opened and their new TV deal is kicking in. 
Their arrogance is going to bite them in the ass. Despite what Billy Bean thinks, there's no trophy for the most wins per dollar.

There's another piece to the payroll that has quietly been forgotten (or at least not discussed much) and that was the team's decision to accelerate payment of the stadium.  The Cardinals made a big deal out of the fact that they received very little public help in building the stadium and that they were paying nearly $30M per season in stadium construction costs (by choice, not as a condition of the loan).

My recollection may be a bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall the team's investment in the stadium was around $300M.  If, in fact, they've paid $30M per year, then they've damn near paid off the stadium. Maybe another payment or two to cover interest.  Assuming that's the case, that's another $30M in payroll flexibility that's very close to kicking in.  There isn't any reason this team can't absorb a $150M payroll.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"The Cardinals seem to be of the mindset that they know better than anyone else how to determine a player's value. If the player goes elsewhere for more, the other team must have overpaid. Bullshit. You were too cheap to come up to the player's true worth."

I don't disagree, but they can point to their track record over the past 15 years and say the know what they're doing. 
The problem now is they have some actual competition in their division, especially the Cubs, who seem like they're going to be a good team for a long time. 
The other issue is their payroll. They're still pretending they're a mid-market team when they've been drawing more than 3 million every year since the new ballpark opened and their new TV deal is kicking in. 
Their arrogance is going to bite them in the ass. Despite what Billy Bean thinks, there's no trophy for the most wins per dollar.

One thing about this, and Moz seems to acknowledge it in the story in today's PD, is the landscape has changed.

10 years ago, you might get away with being close because the relative difference in the numbers probably wasn't that much. Maybe you could convince a player to stay for 5 years/$50M plus an option when someone else was offering 5/$55.  But you can't offer a guy $190M when someone else offers $217M and expect him to believe playing for (and living in) St. Louis is worth a $27M difference.  I live in St. Louis.  It isn't that nice.

In some ways it's like the changing landscape that Jocketty dealt with in the mid-2000's.  When teams stopped being willing to accept 3-4 crappy minor leaguers in exchange for a free-agent to be superstar, Jocketty's magic became exposed.  The money is too much now to try to sell players on "Baseball Heaven," and with the playoff landscape expanding to 10 teams, you don't even have the ability to sell players on the idea that we're regularly in the playoff hunt.  A lot of teams also fit that description.

Hopefully Moz's statements to the P-D are true and he's ready to adapt his game. 

"Hopefully Moz's statements to the P-D are true and he's ready to adapt his game."

Call me skeptical, but until it's proven otherwise, I'm going for a continuation of the "We made a substantial offer, but we can't compete with crazy ..." narrative.
I've already braced myself to believe the same fucking thing is going to happen with  Heyward. The Cardinals are going to submit an offer everyone knows is low, someone else is going to come over the top and he's going to end up in another city. Whether they're wrong or right, and admittedly they've largely been the latter, the pattern has gotten old.
Moz can keep whining they've not gotten enough credit for signing Holliday - who had every reason to stay - but the record in free agency is there for everyone to see. The last ultra-premium free agent they signed from another team was Jason Isringhausen. And that happened after the Cardinals got off the carousel that featured Dave Veres, Juan Acevedo and washed up versions of Ricky Bottalico, Dennis Eckersley and Jeff Brantley.

The other component is, if they lose Heyward, they've given up Miller and Tyrell Jenkins, who the Braves promoted to Triple A at the end of last season, for a year of Heyward and, if his option is declined after this season, as few as 12 games and whatever they get out of Walden this year.
The success of that trade from the Cardinals' perspective largely hinges on whether they are able to retain Heyward. If he ends up being a 1-year rental, they're losers in the deal.
BTW, the Braves just flipped Miller to the D-backs for a package that included a former #1 overall pick and a Top 50 prospect. Again, if Heyward leaves, the Cardinals didn't get close to enough for Miller.

Mlb trade rumors is saying heywars doesnt want 10/200.  He wants 8 or 9 at 24mill a year.  Honestly id do that.  Holliday was given 17mill several years ago and I think his market value right now would be about that.  24 million for heyward in 2025 will be low.  I woukdnt hesitate to give him a 3 year opt out either.  I look at it this way.  If they would sign heyward to 3 years 72 they would jump for joy.  If heyward sucks he wont take the opt out and the cards will be stuck with him but they would if the opt out wasnt there as well.  If he plays well and takes the opt out they the cards lose him but also free up space to adjust their roster and lose the risk of an aging player.

I know there was a lot of hype about Jenkins, but I'm not convinced the Cardinals gave up much there.  In 138 innings last year, Jenkins struck out 88 and walked 61.  Those are Jeff Suppan strikeout numbers, but with bad control.

The Heyward trade was worth the gamble.  The fact the D-Backs decided to give Atlanta a stupid amount in exchange doesn't change that.

JV wrote:

mlbtraderumors says Heyward has a $200MM+ offer "in hand" from the Natinals.

Good god.  When ur talking that much money what is 210 million

JV wrote:

APIAD wrote:

JV wrote:

mlbtraderumors says Heyward has a $200MM+ offer "in hand" from the Natinals.

Good god. When ur talking that much money what is 210 million

Yep. And if the offer is for ten years maybe the Cards or Cubs will offer a higher AAV for a shorter term. In other news, the Orioles' offer to Davis is "off the table", so...

Actually, since any offer is likely to have an opt out, a higher AAV, shorter deal (say 8 years) might be more attractive.

Sounds like Heyward is going to the Cubs.

forsberg_us wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

Sounds like Heyward is going to the Cubs.

If the Cardinals respond by signing Upton or Gordon and a pitcher, this won't bother me.  I still just can't wrap my head around paying $200M+ for 13 HR and 60 RBI.  I know what the WAR says, but I think the Cardinals need a better offensive player.

Upton doesn't do it for me. A 28-year-old who has proven he can hit home runs in the worst hitters parks has generated just about zero buzz. There's something to that. Gordon has about two decent years left, but he's going to give away most of his offense by playing in right field.

None of the remaining pitchers give me the warm and fuzzies.

This offseason has been a huge, huge, huge letdown.

It sounds like Heyward took less money to play for the Cubs.

So the tally stands at Miller and Jenkins for a year of Heyward, a month (so far) of Walden, and the Cubs' 2016 1st round pick.

forsberg_us wrote:

I will be the first to admit, I don't fully understand what goes into the WAR calculation, but in discussing the issue with Chad, he hoped that the team wouldn't re-sign Heyward.  Now, understand Chad is more of a Larussa old-school sort of guy, but he felt that WAR, particularly defensive WAR, was easy to manipulate.

The example he gave (and TK, since you probably have the best understanding of the stat, maybe you can chime in) was that defensive WAR apparently gives significant consideration to cutting off/catching balls in the gap--turning doubles/triples into singles/outs. Chad said Heyward always played deeper than necessary and cheated into the gap because he knew it enhanced his WAR.  As a result (in Chad's opinion), Heyward didn't get to some balls that fell in front of him as singles, but which have less impact on his defensive WAR.

I'm not saying Heyward isn't a good defensive player, nor is Chad.  His point was simply that WAR could be manipulated, and the players (and more importantly the agents) are aware of it and are instructing players to do so.  As a result, certain players (Heyward included) have over-inflated WARs which they're using to drive up their cost relative to their actual value.

Gordon would only have to play right field for 1 year until Holliday's contract expires.  

Given what you said about Heyward's positioning, I guess Wrigley is ideal for him.