Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the St. Louis Cardinals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

It’s a race that currently means nothing because it hasn’t actually begun, but at this writing, the Brewers have inched ahead of the Cardinals in our projected NL Central standings, albeit by a whopping 1.3 wins, 82.1 to 80.9. It’s the kind of thing that happens as we tweak the playing time inputs based upon spring training-related news and updated assumptions, but it’s a reminder that the gap between the two teams — or really, the Central’s top four, including the Cubs (projected for 79.5 wins) and Reds (78.1 wins) — is very small. Any edge could be the difference between snagging a division title or sitting at home in October, particularly given the unlikelihood of the division generating a Wild Card participant.

In that light, the Cardinals’ rotation rates as a moderate concern, at the very least. Last year, the unit entered the season projected as the majors’ 16th best in terms of WAR, but St. Louis soon took significant hits. Just before the pandemic-delayed season got underway, the team lost Miles Mikolas for the year due to a flexor tendon strain that required surgery and Carlos Martinez to a COVID-19 diagnosis after one turn amid a season-halting outbreak, then wound up losing Dakota Hudson to Tommy John surgery late in the year. The Cardinals made the expanded playoffs in spite of their rotation, which tied for 19th in the majors (and placed 11th in the NL) with 3.1 WAR and delivered a 3.86 ERA and 4.55 FIP, with Adam Wainwright as their only starter to deliver more than 0.6 WAR, and that in his age-38 season.

Like the vast majority of teams, the Cardinals appeared as though they would benefit from a dip into the free-agent market for some rotation fortification. Yet they sat on their hands for most of the winter before re-signing Wainwright to a one-year, $8 million deal, and otherwise eschewed any outside help. They kicked the tires on James Paxton, Taijuan Walker, and Jake Odorizzi, but despite saving money elsewhere — particularly by declining Kolten Wong‘s $12.5 million option, cutting Yadier Molina’s salary (from $20 million to $9 million via his new one-year deal), and flat-out stealing Nolan Arenado from the Rockies in exchange for five bodies of varying warmth while getting Colorado to pay the entirety of his $35 million 2021 salary ($20 million of it deferred) — they watched each of those starters sign elsewhere.

And so the Cardinals head into battle with basically the same rotation as before, minus Hudson. The unit is again projected to rank in the middle of the pack, 14th in our Depth Charts at 11.3 WAR. Yet already two starters are dealing with minor injury issues, and it’s tough to ignore all of the various question marks.

Read the rest of this entry »

I invite you to look at the image below. Please, go ahead.

That’s Jordan Hicks on the mound — you know, “strike one at 104” Jordan Hicks. At the plate is Mets utilityman Luis Guillorme. Hicks, on Sunday, was making his first appearance on the mound since undergoing Tommy John surgery in mid-2019. Guillorme played an extremely solid 30 games for the Mets in 2020 and is 5-for-15 this spring.

What is happening in this picture? Look at Guillorme’s feet — his right ankle rolled, his left heel lifting off the ground, his arms flinging the bat desperately through the air. Yadier Molina extends his arm, holding his glove in place. Look at the scorebug — the 1-2 count. This could very well have been a picture of Hicks striking out Guillorme.

Except it wasn’t. Guillorme got his bat on it, somehow — not the heat Hicks is best known for, but a slider at 86 — launching the ball somewhere into the leftward distance. It was the 10th pitch of the plate appearance, the eighth he’d seen with two strikes. Molina and the umpire watched it sail away. Hicks’ next pitch, at 99, nearly took Guillorme’s head off. The count was now even, and the plate appearance was still only halfway done. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Assistant Video Coordinator

Location: St. Louis, MO

Summary of Responsibilities:
The St. Louis Cardinals are seeking candidates for an Assistant Video Coordinator position in their Major League Clubhouse. The Assistant Video Coordinator will work with the rest of the video team to create, edit and deliver video playlists and written scouting reports to their Major League players and coaching staff. The role requires a robust knowledge of computer network management, experience troubleshooting PCs/iPads and experience with the BATS software system. The role requires availability outside of traditional work hours including night, weekends and all home games. This position is also non-exempt, overtime eligible. Applicants must be available prior to the start of the 2021 Championship Season.

Essential Functions of the Job:

• Create video playlist using various from various platforms (handheld, Blackmagic H.264, Edgertronic, etc.) using various editing platforms (Movavi or similar)
• Write scouting reports combining scouting observations and data of individual players on opposing teams
• Collaborate on video projects with various members of the Major League Coaching staff
• Manage computer network used to capture, store, clip and disseminate video
• Manage MLB’s dugout iPad system
• Identify and troubleshoot technical issues with iPads and PCs

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about discordant college baseball uniform fonts, a piece by Blake Snell in The Players’ Tribune, and whether there’s a competitive advantage in making the bullpen less visible to the pitcher on the mound, then preview the 2021 Cardinals (15:13) with Will Leitch of MLB.com (and elsewhere) and the 2021 Cleveland baseball team (58:59) with Zack Meisel of The Athletic, plus a postscript about the underrated (and re-signed) Brett Gardner.

Audio intro: The Essex Green, "Uniform"
Audio interstitial 1: William Prince, "Reliever"
Audio interstitial 2: The Essex Green, "Cardinal Points"
Audio outro: Devin Davis, "Giant Spiders"

Link to Meg’s tweets about uniforms
Link to Snell’s column
Link to Will on the Arenado deal
Link to NL Central roundtable with Will
Link to preorder Will’s novel
Link to Will’s newsletter
Link to Zack on Francona
Link to The Athletic bracket of new team names
Link to Zack on Rosario
Link to Zack on McKenzie
Link to Zack on Cleveland’s new middle infield
Link to Zack on Cleveland’s pitcher development
Link to EW episode about Cleveland’s pitching powerhouse
Link to The Selby is Godcast
Link to Yankees position-player WAR leaderboard
Link to Yankees WAR Runs DP+Baserunning leaderboard
Link to 2010-20 MLB position-player WAR leaderboard

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This week may be Prospects Week here at FanGraphs, but for MLB, this has been Minor Signings Week. The long offseason dance is just about over, and everyone’s now at risk of going to homecoming alone. So rather than a long spiel that sees me reference a historical battle or obscure 18th-century literature, let’s get straight to the moves.

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In a move that had become a foregone conclusion, on Monday Yadier Molina and the Cardinals finalized a one-year deal that returns the iconic catcher to the only team he’s ever known. The agreement caps an eventful 11-day stretch that included the return of longtime Cardinals righty Adam Wainwright, who was also a free agent, as well as the blockbuster trade that landed Nolan Arenado. While Molina’s new deal doesn’t ensure that he’ll end his career in St. Louis, it’s clear that the 38-year-old backstop is eying the finish line.

Drafted out of a Puerto Rico high school by the Cardinals in the fourth round in 2000, Molina had never tested free agency before thanks to a trio of multiyear extensions, the latest of which was a three-year, $60 million deal signed in April 2017. His new contract thus represents a significant pay cut, as he’ll get $9 million for the 2021 season, with no additional incentives or options. Then again, with 1,989 games caught so far — a total that’s sixth on the all-time list — he’s not the player he once was.

Molina hit a thin .262/.303/.359 with four homers in 156 PA in 2020, and walked a career low 3.8% of the time. His on-base percentage was his lowest mark since 2006, and both his slugging percentage and his 82 wRC+ were his lowest since 2015. His 84.7 mph average exit velocity was his lowest of the Statcast era; that figure placed him the fourth percentile overall, as did his 25.4% hard-hit rate. You’ll be shocked to learn — unless you’ve been following more than a decade’s worth of jokes on my Twitter account about the glacial movement of Molina and his older brothers José and Bengie — that his sprint speed finally reached the first percentile after years of… slow decline. Read the rest of this entry »

It was bound to happen once the odds shifted in favor of baseball starting on time, but the offseason has ramped up quickly over the last week. Some of the top free agents have come off the board, and a five-player trade, some smaller signings and all sorts of 40-man roster shuffling took place. Buried among it all was a quick move by the Cardinals on Thursday, as they sent outfielder Dexter Fowler to the Angels per Jon Heyman, with St. Louis picking up all but $1.75 million of his 2021 salary.

It’s not a transaction that really moves the needle for either team in terms of the standings. And it’s not a transaction that creates any kind of real financial flexibility for future moves. Instead, this is a deal that illustrates how one player may fall on different points on the insurance vs. opportunity spectrum depending on which uniform he’s suiting up in.

I’m not here to argue that Dexter Fowler is that good now. He wasn’t a star necessarily, but he spent a nice-sized chunk of the last decade firmly in the “very good” category. He got on base and had some sneaky pop, and from 2011-17 averaged a .370 OBP with an .800-plus OPS and a 116 wRC+. And while he was certainly athletic enough to be a good center fielder, but he’s never been a good defender. His jumps and routes have always been substandard, and his habit of catching the ball at his chest has driven fundamentals-focused coaches insane for 13 years now, though he at least does tend to catch it. I remember Fowler’s 2014 campaign with the Astros and how I’d wince every time the ball was hit his way. I’d hoped to find a video to illustrate this tendency, and it didn’t take long. I thought I might need to go through a few videos from MLB’s vault to uncover a good example, but it was right there in the first video provided, his last putout of the 2020 season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey everyone, and welcome to the convergence of two recurring segments. It’s the highly awaited crossover between “Can You Believe the Cardinals Got Nolan Arenado for That?” and “Let’s Value Gimmicky Contracts,” two columns I almost assuredly enjoy writing more than you enjoy reading.

Let’s get the deferred money part out of the way first, because while it’s obviously very important to the Rockies and Cardinals, it has nothing to do with Arenado’s decision-making. He’s getting his cash, and whether the check says Monfort or DeWitt, the cash still spends the same. It won’t affect his decision on whether to rip the whole contract up.

As Jeff Jones reported, Arenado agreed to modify his contract as part of the trade. In 2021, he was due $35 million. Now, he’ll receive $15 million this year, paid directly by the Rockies. He’ll also receive $20 million in deferred compensation, regardless of whether or not he opts out. If he’s still under this contract, that money will be sent to the Cardinals, who will then pay it to Arenado. If he opts out, the Rockies will pay him the $20 million directly.

Finally, if Arenado doesn’t opt out, the Rockies will be on the hook for the $16 million he’s due in 2027. That’s the new year that the Cardinals agreed to as part of the trade, and while it’s unclear exactly why the Rockies chose to pay that part rather than some pro-rated portion of earlier salaries, here we are.

For the Cardinals, this is a great fit. They’d been acting as though cash was a key constraint this year, and getting a year of Arenado at no cost (literally, no monetary cost!) does a good job of making the short-term books work. In the long run, they’re paying him nothing for one year (if he opts out after 2021), $35 million over two years (if he opts out after 2022), or $164 million over seven years.

With that covered, let’s talk about Arenado’s options. The structure is as straightforward as it gets for these kinds of things. After 2021, Arenado will have the option to walk away from the entire deal and become a free agent. If he opts to remain in St. Louis, he’ll get another chance to wash his hands of the deal after 2022. If he still wants to stay, then he’ll be under contract until after the 2027 season.

When Arenado signed his extension two years ago, I covered a probabilistic way of thinking about the value. In the interim, a few things have happened. First, Arenado had a down 2020. Second, Dan “Dr. ZiPS” Szymborski gave me a long-term forecast for Arenado that beats my generic aging expectations. Finally, I’ve added a few bells and whistles to the option model in the interim. For the most part, though, we’re just running it back.

To calculate the value of an opt out, we need a few things. First, a central projection for how good a player will be in the future. ZiPS is all over that. Here’s the next five years of Arenado’s projections:

I’ll assume a standard aging curve after that, which gets us a central tendency for how his career will go.

Next, we need to apply variance. I’ve found in previous studies that projections for players who fit Arenado’s mold — mid-career and projections above 2 WAR — vary with a standard deviation of roughly 1.4 WAR from year to year. We’ll start with projections as a baseline, but to figure out the value of an option — the right but not obligation to do something — we’ll have to simulate 10 million or so different futures, then work out what happens on average.

Finally, we need to figure out how to translate Arenado’s projections into a potential new contract. Converting WAR to dollars misses some team-building effects, and as Craig Edwards showed last year, it’s not as simple as applying a linear conversion. Still, it’s my model, and it’s just for Arenado, not for the dang league as a whole. Let’s start with $8 million per win.

While we’re varying projections, we also need to vary the cost of a win. I assumed that the cost of 1 WAR will increase by an average of $250,000 per year, but with a standard deviation of $800,000. In plenty of years, the cost of a win will go down, even if the overall cost increases over time. There might be, say, a global pandemic, or a shortened season with no fans… wild nonsense like that.

Finally, we get down to brass tacks. When the player reaches his opt out, there’s a simple calculation. Take his new median projection, age it down as appropriate, and come up with a WAR projection for the remaining years of the contract. Multiply that number by the cost per win that we simultaneously calculated, and you have the contract that Arenado would sign, in a perfectly efficient market, if he opted out. I added one quick sanity check: if it’s within $10 million dollars of breaking even, Arenado won’t leave. That represents the uncertainty of finding a new contract, as well as the benefits of familiarity.

If there were only one opt out, our calculation would be simple. After one year, we simply apply an aging penalty and a random change in projection. Then, we use that to price out a new contract. With only one year before an opt out, things are simple like that.

In Arenado’s case, the odds are stacked in favor of him declining the opt out. The average situation (no change in projection) sees him with a $101.5 million contract after this year. He’d need to raise his 2022 projection by roughly 1.5 WAR to merit a contract that would be worth opting out for. How often does that happen? Roughly 14% of the time.

Let’s look at it more thoroughly. Here’s how much he projects to make in each scenario, including the $35 million he’s making in 2021 regardless:

In that sense, the opt out already in Arenado’s contract is “worth” $6 million. It could be worth more, though. Replace our forecasts with the ZiPS forecasts that ignore 2020 (they used 2019’s rate stats again), and instead things get a little spicy:

Hey, look! If Arenado were projected to be a bit better — and again, injury has at least something to do with why he’s not — then his option would be worth more. Neat stuff!

That’s not why you’re here, though. Or, maybe it is, but that’s not what Arenado’s contract looks like anymore. In agreeing to head to St. Louis, Arenado gained an extra opt out after the 2022 season.

It’s slightly tricky to model nested opt outs like this, where the second one can only be exercised if the first isn’t. In practice, the decision won’t be overly complex. After 2021, Arenado and his agents will model something that looks a lot like the calculations I did above, valuing his existing contract based on his current projections and including a 2022 opt out. That number will come out to something higher than $180 million, because some amount of the time, he’ll opt out after 2022 and get a raise.

With that number in hand, they’ll approximate what he could get on the open market and compare the two. If he thinks he can get more now, on the open market, than the value of his existing contract inclusive of the opt out, he should leave. Otherwise, he should stay and wait the extra year to see what happens.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work well in my framework. In each of my 10 million simulations, computer Arenado would need to run 10 million simulations to work out the value of his option using this Monte Carlo method. That comes out to one hundred trillion simulations, and it doesn’t even add much precision for our trouble. Instead, I’m just setting the cutoff higher; Arenado will need $15 million in prospective gains to pull the trigger on opting out after year one.

How does this change things? Less than you’d think. I previously calculated that Arenado would opt out 14% of the time; he now opts out 12.4% of the time in year one. With more time to vary, and thus a higher percent chance of improving enough to opt out, he also has an 8.2% chance of opting out after 2022. All together, that looks like this:

In the scenarios where Arenado opts out after 2022, he is, on average, quite good. This makes sense, because he’s only opting out in the best 8% of scenarios. If he muddles along, he’s staying. If he has a late-career renaissance, it only stands to reason that he’ll be more valuable. All told, the two opt outs add a projected $13 million to the value of the deal — not bad!

Once more, let’s plug in a more optimistic view of Arenado and see what shakes out. This is Dan’s pre-2020 version, where he’s projected for 5 WAR in 2021:

Again, the better Arenado is now, the higher the chance he opts out, and the more the second opt out is worth to him. In the base case ZiPS projections, a second opt out added roughly $6 million to Arenado’s expected earnings. In this pre-injury case, a second opt out would add more than $17 million.

That’s the gory math of the way this complex contract works. In practice, however, Arenado seems likely to take the Clayton Kershaw route. Kershaw, too, had the choice of opting out of his contract early and becoming a free agent. He used that leverage to get the Dodgers to offer him a new contract, avoiding free agency but monetizing his ability to leave. Even if Arenado improves this year and next, that seems like the most likely eventuality.

What’s an opt out worth? In Arenado’s case, it’s real money in expectation. Add that to the extra contract year that he snagged as part of the deal, and it’s easy to see why the player’s union was okay with him taking deferrals in 2021. Remember, though: even in the scenario where he’s at his best, he still leaves less than half the time. It’s valuable despite being unlikely, and that’s the magic of options.

It was never going to be enough for one of the more electrifying players in the world, but allow me to sing one part of the harmony panning the Rockies’ return for Nolan Arenado. As I was on the phone working on prospects lists in the days before the trade’s prospect details were finalized, casual conversation with scouts and front office folks indicated that both Arenado’s public request for a trade as well as Rockies ownership’s supposedly mediocre financial situation made it so that teams pursuing the third baseman were really leveraging Colorado into taking an underwhelming prospect package, knowing that the front office (which is different than ownership) would have no choice but to trade him, and soon. While I can’t know what other offers the Rockies received or how those prospect packages compared to the one they got, which we’d really need to know to truly evaluate this or any trade, it certainly isn’t an exciting group. They’re 40 FV prospects who I think can be big league role players, but none are potential stars, and there may not even be a regular among them. I think you could argue this group does better to mitigate risk through quantity than, say, the prospects in the Joe Musgrove trade, but the best piece in the Musgrove trade (Hudson Head, a 45 FV) is two full FV grades better than anyone in this deal. And St. Louis got Nolan Arenado.

But let’s talk about these players — Austin Gomber, Elehuris Montero, Mateo Gil, Tony Locey, Jake Sommers — and then the future of this bizarre Rockies organization. The player in this deal with the most obvious physical talent is 22-year-old 3B/1B Elehuris Montero, who spent the year at the Cardinals’ alternate site. He peaked as a 40+ FV prospect after his 2018 performance (.322/.381/.529 at Low-A) but I backed off of him after spending an extended period watching him in the 2019 Arizona Fall League. His approach is a problem. During some of his Fall League starts, Montero saw five pitches over the course of an entire game. During the regular season, he averaged just shy of 2.5 pitches per plate appearance. For comparison’s sake, among big league hitters with at least 200 PAs in 2019, Willians Astudillo ranked last in pitches per PA with 2.9; no other big leaguer was under three. From a hitting talent perspective — the bat speed, primarily — Montero has everyday upside, but corner bats with approach issues are terrifying prospects. Read the rest of this entry »