Same as always. Big spenders going to spend. :hmmm:

Why wouldn't making a play for Arenado make sense?

Same problem.

It'll cost them a mint and Arenado has an opt-out in 2 seasons. Then you also combine that with the possibility of reduced production from Arenado away from Coors and you have a recipe for a real bad outcome.

Again - they had a chance to make a deal like that 2 or 3 years ago but at this point they've burned too much organizational capital and budget room to do it.

They're past the idea that they can 'fix' this team with any single move. The window closed on them, IMO. Now they need to actually build their way out of this. You can't do that if you keep trading away all your best prospects to get short terms guys on big money contracts.

Yeah, I get that.

But man, I dunno that they can develop what they need to develop. Who was the last legit bat that they developed that turned anything substantial? Craig?

Morosi saying Cards are in on Ryu

Then they'll lose.

A lot.

They have no choice - they aren't the Yankees and they can't buy their way out of this mess. Either they develop hitting or they'll fail. They don't have a path to being a winning team without being a smart organization that can develop young players.

They're not the Royals either - they don't have to be 100% homegrown and cost effective. They can go outside the organization to supplement their internal options. But like I said, they've used their rope there and in many cases used it very poorly.

Question are the Cards gonna play Tyler O'Neill or should they trade him?

Yeah, 6 years of Carlson may be worth more than 2 years of Arenado and that's just the start of what you would have to give up.

They should put him and Bader both on the block.

They're redundant. And the team needs a lefty with some thumb in the worst way.

I was told that Philly signed Harper to an asinine contract so they're clearly be looking to get out from under that, right? Surely they'd accept Bader or O'Neill for him...

really? Why would Philly just give him away in a salary dump after 1 year? They have plenty of money.

So did the Cardinals.

But I was told that pursuing Harper was reckless regardless of the fact that the Cardinals are among the most profitable teams in baseball and are sitting on billions in franchise equity.

I mean surely the Phillies recognize that and would allow us to remedy their egregious error for them.

They wouldn't...he is poking at those that thought it was a bad deal. It probably is going to look like a bargain after this year.

Harper Trendline

fWAR. fWAR MV. bWAR MV. Salary. (Surplus)

4.6. $37 million. $33.6 million. $27.5 million. ($9.5 million/6.1 million)

If he provides similar surplus through age 30, he’s $35-40 million ahead of the contract.

^ this all based on the $8 million/Win market valuation. Which has issues but is the best baseline we’ve got.

And holy shit, when you compare it to Paul Goldschmidt. Who is nearly as expensive as Harper at his peak. Who is older and looks to be declining. Who cost some controlled young pieces to acquire (Kelly and Weaver both put up 2 win seasons in 1/2 time last year).

Just in terms of Harper vs Goldy straight up, Harper wins everything except risk past 2024.

You throw in Kelly and Weaver and shit gets really rough.

Just basing surplus on last year and projections from this year, Harper’s surplus value on the market is around $30 million bucks. As are Weaver and Kelly (2-win players on pre-are salaries are worth around $15 million surplus value a year).

Goldschmidt’s surplus is a modest $10 million, and that’s with current models predicting a mild bounce back for him at age 32 to being a 3.5 win player.

If you project his value out over the course of the deal, unless he breaks the aging curve you’re likely looking at being $10 million in the hole or so on the value of his deal. Even projecting basically flat performance for Harper (around 4 wins a year) and Kelly and Weaver (basically 2 wins a year/player) the Cardinals are about a quarter of a billion dollars in the hole on overall from the decision to trade for Goldschmidt instead of just signing Harper and keeping Kelly and Weaver.

Please stop.

I had this conversation for weeks last year. I was told that we fleeced the diamondbacks and the Phillies were crazy.

Because, y'know, I have some concept of the idea of surplus value.

I have no idea how millions of dollars worth of front office executive does not.

Now it all just gives me a sad. Because the Cardinals will not be in a situation for years if not decades where a 26 year old FA who perfectly fits their needs and is likely heading to Cooperstown is ready to leave his team AND the biggest pockets in MLB are sitting it out.

I mean there is truly no justification at all for how the Cardinals approached last offseason and it really should've cost them all their jobs.

Instead they got extensions. Because....reasons.

Oh, and the odds of Goldschmidt (a guy who didn't break out until later in his career and is demonstrating extremely troublesome chase trends while also having defensive limitations) breaking the aging curve are effectively zero.

And it's not as though there isn't a wealth of research on this topic for anyone willing to dig into it.

Goldschmidt w/ his contract ALONE is a bad bet. Goldschmidt with his contract AND the pieces they gave up to get him is an awful one. Goldschmidt with his contract, the pieces they gave up to get him AND in chosen in lieu of Harper is friggen organizational malpractice.

I just.....{sobs}

God Dammit!

Start at about mid-day on 12/4 and read through about 12/8 and tell me I'm not a friggen prophet.

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showt...chmidt&page=52

Man this team ****ed that up. So, so badly.

Nah..it was summed up with my two words

Fire Mo...

Nothing else needed said. We were doomed.

This is depressing.

You cant give out contracts like the Fowler, Cecil, Goldy and extend Carp for no reason and not have the payroll chickens come home to roost.

But................. That doesn't mean the Cardinals shouldn't spend money. Yeah, your GM ****ed up, you just extended his contract. Your going to back him? Okay, make good on his ****ups or at least try. You paid $75 million in cash for the franchise. It's worth $2 Billion now. Ballpark Village is making money hand over fist. 3 million through the turnstiles every year. You said you'd put the profits into the team. It's time to open up the checkbook Dewitt to cover your GM's mistakes or at least try to.

Yeah, you spent money. Badly. You need to make it right. They should knowingly throw some money down the tube at the end of Harper's contract to strengthen our line up for the next 3-4 years.

Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News reports that Kwang-Hyun Kim is currently in St. Louis for a physical and contract talks with the Cardinals.


It does not appear that Kim signing with the Cardinals is a done deal at this point, but clearly the two sides are deep in negotiations. The 31-year-old left-hander posted a 2.51 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and 180/38 K/BB ratio over 190 1/3 innings this past season for the SK Wyverns in the Korea Baseball Organization.

https://twitter.com/Jeeho_1/status/1206761197061623808

Get this St. Louis bullshit the **** out of here.

Shit town.

Moe struggling to close the deal w/ even the watered down minor league version of Hyun-Jin Ryu.

Corey Kluber gets traded for a dry tug-job and salary relief while our clown-ass GM is trying to convince a 31 yr old lefty swing-man that money isn't everything and that the Cardinals will offer him a REALLY nice parking space if he'll sign with us...

Dick.

I thought you guys would get Kluber.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Cardinals have reached an agreement with left-hander Kwang-Hyun Kim.


No word yet on the details of the agreement. Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News reported that Kim was in St. Louis for a physical, so things appeared to be leaning in this direction. The expectation is that the deal will be finalized Tuesday. Kim, a 31-year-old southpaw, posted a 2.51 ERA and 180/38 K/BB ratio over 190 1/3 innings this past season as a member of the SK Wyverns in the Korea Baseball Organization. He could slot into the fifth spot in the Cardinals' rotation, potentially leaving Carlos Martinez in the bullpen.

https://twitter.com/dgoold/status/1207018359214288896

https://theathletic.com/1468075/2019...wang-hyun-kim/

Everything you wanted to know about Cardinals pitching target Kwang-Hyun Kim

By Mark Saxon

Information doesn’t go through customs, and it doesn’t wait for a visa.

Thus, reporters working in South Korea, notably Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News, who writes and tweets in English, punctured the quiet of the St. Louis Cardinals’ winter to break news that the team was hosting left-handed pitcher Kwang-Hyun Kim in snowy St. Louis on Monday and that Kim was in town for a physical, a pretty good indication an agreement could be close.

The Cardinals were the last remaining major league team not to have added a player from outside the organization to their 40-man roster yet this winter, so the news gives us the first indication of the team’s offseason strategy.

Is it to lay back and pick off value targets from abroad? The team was among the last to jump enthusiastically into the east Asian talent market, but in recent seasons has gotten nice value out of Seung-Hwan Oh and Miles Mikolas, both of whom signed out of Japan. One of the Cardinals’ highest-ranking scouts, Matt Slater, has helped open the flow of that faucet after having helped the Los Angeles Dodgers do the same a generation before. If that is, indeed, the case, could they also be lying in the weeds to take a run at left-handed-hitting outfielder Shogo Takiyama, a free agent from Japan?

Considering two division rivals, the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds, have been linked to Takiyama, that might make some sense.

Even if it’s not their overarching strategy, what kind of pitcher are the Cardinals getting in Kim, presuming for the moment this deal gets finalized? Let’s take a look at some of the primary factors that will go into assessing whether this is a substantial addition or a long-distance mistake:
The Cost

The Cardinals have been clear that this winter’s maneuvers are complicated a bit by a roster that is calcified by the final, lower-value years of contracts to Dexter Fowler, Matt Carpenter and Brett Cecil. The hot stove did them a favor, perhaps, by moving quickly on starting pitching and giving them a good early indication of the price range for starters.

Nine of the top 11 free agent starting pitchers with at least 2.0 WAR in 2019 already have signed deals, and those pacts add up to $741.8 million. The Cardinals may have looked at Kim as a way to add pitching without paying sellers’ prices.

So how much will he cost them? That will depend, in part, on the size of the posting fee that will go to Kim’s Korean Baseball Organization team, SK Wyverns. The Cardinals and Kim have until Jan. 5 to cut a deal. If they do, SK Wyverns will receive a 20-percent posting fee, assuming the deal is for $25 million or less, which seems likely.

Hyun-Jin Ryu cost the Dodgers an additional $25.7 million in addition to his $36 million contract when they signed him in 2012, but Ryu was a legend in Korea by then, having dominated the league since arriving as a teenager in 2006.

Kim, 31, is also five years older than Ryu was when he made the leap across the Pacific. In 2014, the San Diego Padres won exclusive negotiating rights with him for $2 million in posting, but couldn’t come to an agreement. Perhaps Mikolas’ two-year, $15.5 million pact will be something of a comp? If so, we can assume that Kim’s posting fee will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million. So if the total package costs the Cardinals $19 million or so for two seasons, it could be a relative bargain considering Madison Bumgarner, who is a year younger than Kim, just signed for $85 million over five seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It’s way too early to say whether Kim will prove to be a bargain, but it’s not too early to surmise that he’s probably safely within the Cardinals’ price point for adding to their rotation.
The stuff

Back in 2016, when it appeared as if Kim might become available via free agency with no posting fee, Sung-Min Kim, an expert on Korean baseball and an excellent follow on Twitter, quoted an anonymous major league scout as saying of him, “He has big-league stuff. Definitely a big-league slider. But due to his control issues, I see his best fit as a major-league matchup guy against left-handed hitters.”

Why are we dwelling on just one of Kim’s pitches? Because that slider could be a major weapon if Kim does, indeed, end up pitching at least some of the time in relief for the Cardinals. The Cardinals already had five starters penciled into the rotation and 10 or 11 of them on their roster, after all. When I asked Cardinals general manager Michael Girsch what the team would do if Carlos Martínez’s shoulder holds up all spring and the team breaks camp with six starters, he said one of them would move to the bullpen. Obvious, right?

But who? Martínez, Adam Wainwright and Dakota Hudson all have experience pitching in relief. But it doesn’t hurt that Kim, too, has that skill in his bag. He has made 23 relief appearances in his career, including last season. With Cecil derailed by injuries, the Cardinals struggled to find a second suitable lefty to pair with Andrew Miller in the bullpen last season. Though the three-batter rule figures to eliminate the strictly situational lefty this season, Kim could provide valuable cover against teams with several dangerous left-handed hitters should the Cardinals elect to use him in relief. Versatility is a big factor here.
The results

When Ryu joined the Dodgers, he had pitched seven seasons in Korea and posted a 95-52 record, a 2.80 ERA, a 1.154 WHIP, an 8.8 SO/9 rate and a 3.23 SO/BB ratio.
In 12 seasons in Korea, Kim has gone 136-77 with a 3.27 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 7.8 SO/9 rate and 2.25 SO/BB ratio.

He has been similar to, though not as dominant, as Ryu. Of course, Ryu figures to sign a contract this winter that will pay him $20 million or more per season, so the performance is reflected in the price. Kim might not be quite as good as Ryu, but that’s like penalizing Bumgarner for not being quite as good as Clayton Kershaw in the NL West for all those seasons. He’s still a pitcher you’d really like to have on your team.

Korean baseball is widely considered a better power league than Japan, but it also comes with more strikeouts. Kim, like Ryu, figures to rely more on his off-speed pitches and will look to induce bad contact from hitters to get through games. Ryu’s strikeout rate dropped in the majors (to 8.1 SO/9), but he made up for it by walking practically nobody, so his SO/BB rate (4.05) actually has gotten better in the U.S. If we assume Kim will have a similar dip, he still would have a better K rate on the Cardinals than both Mikolas and Hudson last season.

All of which leads to the conclusion …
Is he worth it?

Hard to know until the final figures are in, but based on the hot pitching market, it appears to be an avenue worth exploring.

That's FAR more than I intend to read about a dude who is almost certainly nothing more than Rheal Cormier. And probably Post-Cardinal Cormier at that.

possible 5th starter not floating your boat?ROFL

Gotta have a lefty that can throw 2 innings now that the LOOGY is being eliminated, I guess.

But if this dude's our 5th starter throwing 90 mph w/ 2 pitches, we are ****ED.

I could see him being a good change of speed, stuff and angle coming in after Flaherty for a couple of innings. Maybe keep the hitters timing and rhythm off from centering the ball.

I think what this says is they still don’t trust Martinez as a starter. And they need arms to throw at innings.

I'm not going to lose sleep over not acquiring Kluber, even if the prospect cost was low. I followed every start of his in 2018--he was an absolute mirage, and downright bad against good offenses. He's probably a 2.5 win guy at this point, and I wouldn't be surprised if he blew a tire and pitched another 30-40 innings this year.

Bumgarner getting $1MM more in AAV four years later than Mike Leake shows you how bad the latter's contract was.

You have to approach this from the perspective of riding shotgun with a horrible driver. The fewer miles you have to ride with them, the safer off you are. In Mo's case, the fewer moves and longer term contracts he signs, the better off the team is in the long run. I would rather them do nothing and have Flores focus on building up the farm system than signing any big contract with high risk players past 30.

What is that i hear...

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20160304232916

I looked at this post 2011 and came to the conclusion we were no worse off if he makes no deals at all, and quite possibly you could argue we would be better off.

Where does St Louis fall on the money scale of being able to sign talent?

Middle of the pack?

I know where my Pirates stand.......BASEMENT!

we had the sixth highest payroll last year. Probably something close to that this year without adding anything due to bad contracts of aging and declining players.

Your owner made David Glass look like Jerry Jones.

KK gets $4 million a year. $14 milllion guaranteed. Could have been worse anyway. Like giving Carp $20 million a year for no damn good reason except to make him comfortable.

It means hes ****ing awful.

29 other teams got to see the guy and hes compiled nearly a decade worth of tape as a professional.

And nobody saw fit to offer him more than a bad relief pitcher. Dude just got offered Jake Diekman money.

If we're unbelievably lucky he'll amount to Tyler Lyons and it's far more likely that he's Chasen Shreve.

In terms of WAR. Over the last 12 years the Cards rank #3 in fewest IP and PA from negative war players. Who ranks ahead?

Some arenado to stl rumors floating around. If you could do it without giving up Carlson, would that be ok?

nope. I love him as a player but we don’t have the bench of players to pull off a trade like that. With a long term deal, sure.

But, we are going to have to give up Carlson and or Gorman plus a lot more pitching to get him for two years.

Carlson alone will give us more WAR in 6 years than Arenado in 2 years.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A Nolan Arenado trade is ‘starting to look inevitable,’ according to Ken Rosenthal. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a></p>&mdash; STLSportsCentral (@stlsportscntrl) <a href="https://twitter.com/stlsportscntrl/status/1215302288954314752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

ROFL He's not headed to STL

I think you're overestimating the value of Arenado given his contract.

Everyone uses surplus value as the key component to team building these days. Arenado at market rates (virtually identical contract to Rendon) carries very little surplus value. Anybody that wanted to pay that kind of money to a premier 3b had their shot at Rendon.

So why would a team now give up Carlson (with LOADS of surplus value) to acquire him?

I'd like to think that Mozeliak learned an important lesson with the Goldschmidt deal. You can take on a big contract or you can give up significant prospect capital to acquire surplus value. But you cannot give up significant prospect capital to acquire a big contract.

And we won't. Honestly, the kind of deal I can see happening is something built around Arenado, Gorman, Bader, an arm and a dead weight contract like Fowler, Carpenter or both.

Unless the Phillies get involved with Alec Bohm and drive the bidding up, I think the Cardinals could get Arenado at a largely revenue neutral price point for the next 2 years at the cost of Gorman and some depth.

Look at it this way - the Cardinals are probably updside down on Carpenter and Fowler by, what, $45 million? They're on the hook for roughly $72 million on those 2 guys over the next 2 years. If both of them were FAs and were able to finagle 2 year deals, you think they'd get $30 million combined between them? Fowler's OBP and Carpenter's 2018 might get them in that neighborhood.

So if they're both included in the deal you need to get $45 million or so in Surplus value. Nolan Gorman slots in at somewhere around $30 million in discounted surplus value (there will be a little variance in there, but that's a fair landing spot). Obviously he could blow that out of the water or fall short of it, but that's the discounted nature of projections on prospects.

Bader probably carries about $20 million in surplus value because his variance is so much lower than Gormans. He WILL produce wins because his glove is steady and he's fast. He'll be worth about 3 wins/season over a full season because of his defense alone and with 4 seasons of control, that'll carry some value. Moreover, he's especially well suited for Colorado given their massive OF and the fact that breaking balls (his El Guapo) don't break as well there.

Then you give them a dude that throws hard with movement like Junior Fernandez who should play nicely there to provide some of the bullpen help their historically trash bullpen needs.

So you're at roughly $50 million in surplus value at that point. Probably $45-$55 depending on the value placed on Fernandez and Gorman or any premium placed on Bader's defense in a massive OF.

And Arenado's surplus value, especially with his opt-out potentially locking you into a bad deal if he struggles away from Colorado or costing you more money in 2 years if he doesn't, is something near zero given his market contract.

So if your $50 million in surplus value offsets the $45 million you're underwater on Fowler/Carpenter then you've now balanced the scales almost perfectly. In the process, the Rockies get the high ceiling young asset they'll need to get in an Arenado deal, they'll get a CFer that profiles extremely well for their park and an arm that fits them as well and they'll remove any long-term contractual risk should Arenado get hurt or decline in the later years of his deal if he doesn't opt out (not to mention the prospect capital they'd retain instead of him if he DOES opt out).

That deal on its face seems absurd, but when you dig into the actual value of these guys and their contracts, it really isn't.

I'm gonna give you guys the same warning I did when the Goldschmidt deal went down - you DO NOT ignore surplus value. When everyone was saying we 'fleeced' the D-Backs I was about the lone voice saying we overpaid and by a fair margin.

If the Cardinals can get Arenado for something along the lines of Gorman, Bader, Fernandez, Fowler and Carpenter - do it. If you have to give up much more than that, you're losing the deal and if you can't clear those 2 bad contracts in surrendering those assets, you're losing it BADLY.

So is Gorman not the cant' miss product he was somewhat billed as? Seems everyone has cooled on him.

Nobody with a hit tool below 70 should EVER be considered 'can't miss'.

Gorman probably has something near a 70 raw power grade, but a hit tool probably around 50. Guys with average or below hit tools tend to have tougher transitions through the mid-high minors and are more likely to be totally exposed in the majors.

So when you're looking at stuff like FV, a guy with a hit tool like Gorman's is going to struggle to get much higher than say a 55 FV unless he can demonstrate 35+ HR pop in AAA while underage. Because of his stumble in High A last year (especially the declining BB rate to go with the rise in K rate), I put a 50 FV on him.

That's a good prospect; probably deserving of something near a top 50 rank. But like I said, I have a real hard time putting 'can't miss' on a dude w/ a mediocre hit tool until he demonstrates the ability to succeed against advanced pitching. He hasn't seen ANY of that yet.

Thanks for the update. Is Carlson more of can't miss type?

As a Rockies fan let me just say that Jeff Bridich may be the single worst GM in MLB. The Cardinals would certainly fleece him blind in any potential Arenado deal. Ian Desmond, Wade Davis, Brian Shaw, Fat Daniel Murphy...the list of terrible f/a signings by this guy is as embarrassing as it is long. He should be forbidden to trade Arenado. Not because it's a terrible idea, but because there's no way Bridich wouldn't get his ass handed to him in a trade with an organization that knows what its doing like the Cardinals. We can't fire this dolt soon enough.

But he went to Harvard, sooo....

Classic ceiling v. floor.

Gorman has a little more potential to be a true superstar, IMO, because he has the kind of power that creates enough fear in pitchers to yield a .400 OBP if he'll just let guys walk him. But that's the rub - will he?

Carlson, OTOH, has less raw power but may have more game power because he has a far better hit tool. He's also faced advanced pitching and done quite well against it. I'd say he's probably a better OFer than Gorman is an IFer, but in the end their respective defensive contributions will be in the margins of each other either way.

I have a hard time being terribly objective on Carlson because he's a guy I was calling 2 years ago as a dude who was going to explode onto the scene. I REALLY liked his approach even when the numbers weren't there, especially for a guy playing up a level. I'm wrong often enough on these young guys that when I peg someone like Carlson or Flaherty, I tend to develop a bit of a crush.

Yes, Carlson carries significantly more value because his variance is WAY lower. Is that 'can't miss'? Depends on your definition. Is he a guaranteed All-Star in the Ronald Acuna mold? Nope. Is he going to play in the major leagues? Yup.

If you're asking if I would personally guarantee that he will one day start 150 games and put up an average or better wRC+ in that span, I'd tell you no, I won't bet my life on it. But I'd probably give you 2-1 odds if you wanted to make the bet with me. He's as safe a bet to be a solid major league regular as you'll find in the minor leagues right now. He's a prospect built on a near complete absence of flaws more than he is a slew of standout tools.

But if you get a minute, find a video of his swing from the left side. It sure is purty. Nice high release and great torque through the middle that just does it for me.

I have no idea on the surplus value stat. I'll trust you on your numbers. I love Arenado, always have. But, Carlson seems like a cant miss player. We need him badly, Gorman will hit for power but is he cant miss?


Why would Colorado take our shit contracts of aging players? And why would Carp or Fowler approve the trade?

It would have to mean that at least Carpenter is gone if they were to land Arenado. I would love to see this happen the way DJ laid it out.

They take on a bad contract because I can't see 2 years of Arenado at $70 million total getting them a top 50 prospect on it's own, especially when that 2 years comes with the downside/risk of him declining outside of Coors and locking you into another 5 years/$164 million through his age 31 through 35 seasons.

Like I said, unless Philly jumps in with a 'damn the torpedoes' approach and throws Bohm on the table while absorbing the contract, the other 'big money' teams in the league have either shot their wad or are at their budget limits. I don't see them doing much better than what the Cards can offer there.

As for the NTCs - Fowler waives his because he started in Colorado, has spoken highly of it, has a home in Vegas (much closer) and his wife appears to hate STL. Carpenter waives his because he has a 2022 vesting option that triggers at 1100 plate appearances and you tell him "Dude - you're a bench player if you stay. You can go to Colorado and use that thin air to bounce-back, get your ABs and vest that $18.5 million option or you can reject the deal, sit the bench behind Tommy Edman and watch your career/earnings potential whither away due to your ability to hawk Salsa at the local Dierburgs..."

They both have good reasons to waive their NTCs.

ONeill in left, Randy Arozarena in center, and Lane Thomas in right to start the year?

Trading good assets for a very expensive player after ignoring top positional FAs two years in a row would be a rough approach.

I live in Denver and absolutely love Arenado. We all talk about his hitting but his defense is top notch, too. He's my favorite MLB player and if there is some way we can get rid of Carpenter and/or Fowler, oh my. Sign me up!

Again - it's largely revenue neutral in the first 2 years.

At that point you bring back Ozuna on a 1-year deal. Offer him 1 year/$19 million so he saves face by getting more than the QO and slap him in RF (this obviously assumes that he's lingering FA is due to a tepid market and NOT because he's slow-playing and/or trying to sift through several long-term deals...).

You're damn lefty heavy at that point so I'd be working hard on a deal for Pederson or Nimmo if I could swing it. Eddie Rosario would also be a fantastic fit. Dakota Hudson is a bit too much to give up for Rosario but they could try to figure something out or expand the deal if need be. I don't think you could pry Taylor Rogers out of there with Rosario even for something like Hudson and O'Neill, but I'd make the ask and eventually look at someone like Lewis Thorpe as a guy who could benefit from a bullpen role and be a nice long-term LHRP here with the potential to start.

So if I made my proposed Rox deal and got Ozuna signed on a 1 year deal to man LF, I'm betting I could get that Hudson for Rosario/Thorpe deal done and then plug Rosario into LF while O'Neill/Thomas battle for CF. Carlson bides his time and either picks off a straggler in the CF derby or comes up in the event of injury.

Most assuredly not the approach I'd have taken. I cannot for the life of me understand why Mozeliak/Dewitt appear to prefer it.

Here Colorado take our scraps....suuuuure ROFL

Cards just acquired Liberatore from TB. Hearing for maybe O’Neill? That alone wouldn’t get it done tho, right?

Zack Gifford of Birdsontheblack with a similar analysis. His estimates don't quite match mine but where he giveth here and there, he taketh here and there as well. We're in the ballpark of each other.

https://www.birdsontheblack.com/post...-the-cardinals

I'll note that the dude takes virtually the EXACT same approach I do. His conclusion is even a little cleaner:

Matt Carpenter, Andrew Knizner and Elehuris Montero for Arenado.

Seriously folks, if you think Arenado is getting Carlson in a trade or even getting moved straight across for Gorman, you have a dimmer opinion of Mozeliak than even I do and at this point I'd consider letting my wife run the team ahead of Mozo. It isn't going to happen. The market for $35 million/season players will be 2-3 teams at most and I just cannot believe that our local clown will bid against himself that badly.

The Yankees got the Marlins to take their shit contract (Castro, IIRC) in the Stanton deal and they didn't include ANYTHING in the package with him; some scrub organizational depth pieces. You just cannot overstate the impact of mega-contracts on a players trade value.

If my memory serves, that dude is Flaherty's best friend. He has some really close relationship with someone on the Cardinals.

He's too far away to be a straight across Hudson replacement.

But if Carlos steps back into the rotation, that's a perfect timeline for him to replace the Korean guy in a couple of years.

If it's O'Neill I think I really like that trade and it's a sensible 'domino'. Even clears a 40 man spot (or at least it should).

Well to clarify, he's Gorman's best friend and has been since they were 4.

So that's...interesting.

If all they are giving up is one of their logjam of outfielders at the ML Level (O'Neill, Arozarena, Thomas, Bader), I have to say I will feel pretty good about the trade. As highly as Liberatore was drafted tho, I fear Mo may have overspent on the trade. Lib immediately becomes a Top 5 prospect for us.

My Rays friends down here that know I’m a Cardinals fan started texting me 30 minutes or so ago. They are pissed. One says you got nothing worth him besides Gorman or Carlson. And the Rays are too stupid to get either of those two.

On a housekeeping note........ should I start the 2020 Cardinals thread or wait until around spring training?

Wait until pitchers and catchers report.

I’d do the birdsontheblack guy deal yesterday.

So what if it's Edman?

Even if the deal doesn't work, I'll be pretty impressed by the balls it would take Mozeliak to try it.

Because 12 months ago, an Edman for Liberatore offer gets you laughed out of the room. And there's a LOT of noise in Edman's ratios (normalize his BABIP and HR/FB rates and his numbers would settle into a figure virtually identical to his AA season in '18).

There's a chance that Edman's found a new normal. There's also a chance that he turns into Adam Frazier going forward and settles into a nice little 2-3 win player for the next several years. If that's who he is, you make that deal.

If he's 80% of what he was last season, he's a 4.5 win player and that's probably too much. If he IS who he was last season that's a 5.5 win player and one of the most valuable young properties in baseball.

So IF that's the deal (and again, I've heard nothing at all to that effect), it takes MAJOR balls by Mozeliak to make it. But you'd almost have to applaud the effort because it's a damn sight better than his usual 'sell low' M.O.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Couple of additions to this story:<br><br>-- Tyler O&#39;Neill has been mentioned trade discussions with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cardinals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cardinals</a> and teams, including <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rays?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Rays</a>. <br><br>-- Also, John Gant, Cardinals nearing deadline and if no agreement by Friday team does plan to go to arb hearing.<a href="https://t.co/YoYVOXnPr4">https://t.co/YoYVOXnPr4</a></p>&mdash; Derrick S. Goold (@dgoold) <a href="https://twitter.com/dgoold/status/1215403829593812995?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yeah, I think you'd have to.

It leaves us with NOTHING at Catcher in 2 years, but you just have to cross that bridge when you get there, I guess. The other guys in the system look to be solid catch/throw guys but are almost certainly more backup caliber guys than true possible starters. There's a latin kid who's developing a bit of a stick who's name escapes me but he's pretty raw and has a ways to go.

But yeah, if that's the damage, I think you have to do it. It would preclude the Ozuna contract because you're still lugging around Fowler's $16 million, but you still have Bader on hand to maybe peddle to the Mets (who were said to be after him in the Wheeler deal) and maybe get that lefty stick I'd like to get in here.

EDIT: the Catcher I was thinking of was Ivan Herrera. Nice performance in A; stumbled a bit as a 19 yr old in High A but that's not unexpected and he recovered nicely in the AFL. Might be something there, especially if the Cardinals are going to extend Molina for a year or two.

Twitter people are saying they heard Passan on the radio say it sounds like O'Neill, Bader and Woodford.

That's a fair amount to give up but also not bad. If it were 2 of those 3 nobody bats an eye. And when you're sitting at the negotiating table and there's a 4 pitch lefty available who is 6'5'' with a frame to mature into a guy who works in the mid-90s with a wipeout curveball...well, you can't blink over another valuable if flawed player. You kinda have to just swallow hard and pull the trigger.

My complaint with the Cardinals is they always wait too long on moving a guy. Bader's a season away from having marginal trade value if he can't get the breaking ball shit dialed back. O'neill is in the same boat if he can't stay on the field. Woodford's stuff is 5th starter or swingman.

It's the 3 dimes for a quarter deal I say we should be making all the time. The system churns out LOADS of major leaguers who don't move the needle much. If you can swap several of those for a guy with the potential to slot into the 2 spot behind Flaherty for the next 10 years and give you the sort of L/R combo at the top of your rotation that GMs salivate over, you make the deal.

The plot thickens...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The trade between the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rays?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Rays</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a> is a big one, involving six pieces, three on each side, sources tell The Athletic. At least two of those pieces are draft picks. LHP Matthew Liberatore, heading to STL, still only known name.</p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1215416010439888896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Okay - this might be a REAL big deal, gents. Suddenly I'm getting a little worried that Carlson might actually be in play.

Please don't be in play, Dylan.

Yeah, this is what worries me.

I can see it now: Pham back to St. Louis for Carlson. My head explodes

What makes the most sense Lib, Kiermeier, and swapping comp balance picks to St Louis.

Obviously send an outfielder to TB but will need more than that to get it done. Who is the last piece?

Pham’s in San Diego

Passan: The St. Louis Cardinals are trading OF Jose Martinez, OF Randy Arozarena and a Compensation A pick (after 1st round) to the Tampa Bay Rays for LHP prospect Matt Liberatore, a low-level catching prospect and Compensation B pick (post-2nd), sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN.

Seems like a really light return for the Rays, honestly.

Thank Christ that’s all it was. Honestly could be the best move Mo has made.