FG on Fox: The Case for the Cardinals’ Big Move
Yesterday, Ken Rosenthal published a piece at Fox, suggesting that the St. Louis Cardinals don’t need to chase any more high-end free agents after finishing as runner-up in both the Jason Heyward and David Price sweepstakes. Their willingness to put something close to $200 million in guaranteed money on the table for each of those two players shows that the Cardinals had money to spend this winter, and so far, they’ve also reallocated $92.5 million of that money to three free agents: starter Mike Leake, reliever Jonathan Broxton, and catcher Brayan Pena. As Rosenthal notes, these depth pieces add to an already deep roster, and the team has internal options to replace Heyward.
But I’m going to disagree with my esteemed colleague’s conclusion anyway. In summation of his argument, he wrote the following.
The Cardinals never panic when constructing their roster; people within the industry routinely laud general manager John Mozeliak for staying disciplined. Mozeliak will jump on a remaining free agent only if he views the price as too good to ignore. And if the team stumbles, he can react before the July 31 non-waiver deadline, when he normally does some of his best work.
It is certainly true that the Cardinals can go into the 2016 season with their roster as it stands, and if it proves to be insufficient to keep up with the Cardinals and Pirates, they could go out and make second half improvements, as suggested. However, I’d suggest that taking advantage of a soft market for the remaining free agent outfielders is a better path forward.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Not to mention that the Cardinals should also do a deal before MLB hands down punishment for hacking in to the Astros computer system — they may lose their ability to do some things.
So, they should hurry up and make their 1st round pick today?
I’ve seen the Holliday deal cited many times in discussing the Cardinals. There is no reason at all to believe that the success of the Holliday deal will have any effect whatsoever on another $100 million-plus contract given to an outfielder. On the other hand, the massive number of failures in giving such deals should be taken into account.
“….to be insufficient to keep up with the Cardinals and Pirates”
Did you mean the Cubs?
Holliday has one more year under contract there. They’ll need a new left fielder then. If they think screwing with him this year is prudent, they’d have made a bigger push for Cespedes or Upton. I know the market is super weak next year, but the Cards will have the money and need then if one of these guys gets a 1-year deal (or opt-out clause).
Rosenthal is “esteemed” now?
It’s generally a good idea to at least be cordial with people who work in the same professional field as you do. I think this is common knowledge.
Not only do Rosenthal and Cameron work in the same field, Cameron contributes to Fox, like this piece and is therefore Rosenthal’s colleague.
Beyond that, Rosenthal is one of the better baseball reporters and has better access to the people making decisions than most of his industry peers.. so I would say “esteemed” is a fair characterization.
The way I see it, the cardinals are in the best, most secure position out of any team (they do have a knack for doing that, don’t they?.) This situation is a “no wrong choice” type of thing, and i feel they will come out with praise no matter which direction they go.
Move? You found out we’re going to LA too?
Who leaked that?!!?!
I couldn’t agree more with Dave’s piece here. If the Cards wait until July they will be in competition with many other teams, specifically the Mets, for the same OF piece they could just get right now. It seems odd that the money STL would have spent on FA would not be used to fill a much needed hole.
I was thinking about this idea that the market for hitters is “soft”, and why teams are seemingly spending a disproportionate amount of FA $ on pitching this winter. This was mentioned on the latest podcast, and I agree with Dave in that with a lower run scoring environment in baseball these days, it doesn’t make sense that teams are spending less on hitters instead of vice versa. A couple possible explanations
It’s too early to say: perhaps the O’s will end up giving Davis $150mm and Upton and Cespedes get large contracts and when the winter is over pitchers will end up getting much less than 75% of total FA spending. It just took longer for this group to sign for some reason.
Pitching depth vs positional player depth: with the high attrition rate of pitchers, teams always need pitching depth and will seek more pitching regardless of the run scoring environment. There’s never really a pitching logjam. Positional logjams on the other hand are a real thing, with Mozeliak directly citing the consequences of adding another hitter in reduced playing time for others.
Sample size: I’ve always wondered why in some instances we say that a year’s worth of data is not enough to make conclusions about something. Yet when the first FA pitcher signs each winter, it is noted that he has set or established the market. I understand that agents point to other players compensation in negotiations but at the end of the day there are only 30 teams, all with different financial constraints. The teams are not exactly price takers. Do a handful of signings represent any significant spending trends? Or is the sample size of FA simply too small to make any conclusions?
Teams prefer this years crop of pitchers to hitters: I suppose this is possible as Cespedes & company all have their flaws. But so do Cueto, Zimmerman, et al so I denno about this one.
The hitters demands are outrageous: Chris Davis’ camp seems pretty ambitious with their asking price so maybe this plays a part in it.
tl;dr
The Cardinals absolutely need to make a move to sign Upton or Cespedes here. It’s true that they have several players who might play in the OF or at 1B but not one of those players had more than 350 PA’s in the big leagues last year. It’s true that Grichuk and Piscotty played well, but Grichuk has fewer than 500 career PA’s in the big leagues and has been dogged by injuries for years. Piscotty played less than half a season in the big leagues and while he’s always been a good prospect, neither he nor Piscotty were ever thought of as elite prospects. Pham has also been dogged by injuries for years and the team has jettisoned Jay and Bourjos.
They’re counting on Moss — who was awful last year and is entering his age-33 season — and Adams — who just isn’t that good, and is awful against lefties — to man 1st base. Holliday is 36, played less than half the season last year, and hit only 4 HR last season. Add to that the fact that the team has no minor league outfielders that they can count on for much support during the season and it’s clear they need someone good to help them make the playoffs.
The bottom line is that the team has a lot of pieces who could be good but the team is basically counting on the best-case scenario for all of them and that simply isn’t realistic. I’m hoping that all of Mozeliak’s proclamations about going with what we have are just posturing to bring down Upton’s price tag but I’m starting to doubt it. Counting on being able to trade very little to the Jays or A’s at the All-Star break for Bautista or Reddick just doesn’t seem like a very sound strategy for a team trying to compete in the NL.
An excellent view of the Cardinals. They have no depth to trade from, at all (who’d give them anything for Adams? Or Moss?) and are relying on health and top-percentile performance from a lot of guys who could just as easily be replacement level.
They need to spend that money, is all. They’ve been ridiculously profitable for a long time, and now is the time to pump that money back into the ballclub, until the next batch of top level prospects comes along.
Okay … aren’t these the types of guys that StL has thrived on? With the success being termed “Cardinal magic” or some such crap?
The non-prospect prospects that have provided good value for low cost?
I’m thinking of Ludwick, Jay, Freese, Adams, etc (combined with great short-term contracts to Berkman, Beltran, Lackey, etc).
Given the successful history of giving these types of players more playing time, why would StL abondon something that has been very successful in terms of another action that carries financial risk?
Should they abandon Grichuk and Piscotty? Absolutely not. They could both turn into very good players. But maybe they’ll become Allen Craig, or just pretty good players who can’t stay healthy.
Or maybe they’ll be very good and Holliday, Adams, Moss, and Pham won’t be able to stay on the field. Whatever the answer, we’re talking about 4 positions on the field, half the position players, and none are to be manned by a player who had more than 350 PA’s last year in the big leagues.
Point taken.
But, my point is that the cardinals have gotten great value from giving more playing time to these types of “non prospects”.
The question is whether the cardinals should give a lot of money for Upton or Cespedes to play for them in 2016.
My opinion is that the cardinals need to know if these guys can play, and do so over a full season, because (1) we need to know for now and (2) we need to know for the future (i.e., after Holliday’s contract expires).
So, play them in 2016 and find out.
The big argument for signing Upton/Cespedes in 2016 isn’t so we can try to keep up with the cubs and their cost-controlled young talent (we can’t), but it’s because we might get a bargain in terms of Holliday replacement (for 2017). The caliber of player may cost quite a bit less in 2016 than 2017 (I think that’s what the article’s saying).
Given what we know about Upton and Cespedes … and we do know who/what they are, I say play the kids in StL and let’s find out who can play and who can’t. While the cardinals can afford to spend big money, they have shown that they do not want to, or at least don’tr make a habit of it … and finding players like jay, Freese, etc has been what has really provided some great value at low cost …. and Grich, Piscotty, Phamm, etc might be one of those guys. Piscotty certainly looks like a real MLB hitter and that the power stroke is long-term.