Cardinals ****Official 2014 STL Cardinals thread **** - Page 10

**BigRedChief** · 02:36 PM

2011 WS Championship
2012 one win from another WS
2013 two wins from another WS title
2014?

This is a franchise that has made the postseason 10 times in the last 14 seasons.
Reached three World Series in the last decade, and won as many championships (two) the past eight seasons as it did from 1965 to 2005.
Our new Manager has more post season experience than any other manager in baseball, except the Giants manager.
Three million attendance? Take it to the bank.
60 post season wins since 2004. 20+ wins more than any other team.
Only one of the last 14 seasons has been a losing one.

ShowtimeSBMVP · 11-22-2013, 01:34 PM

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 45s
#Angels getting Salas along with Freese from #STLCards. Freese and Salas for Bourjos and Grichuk.

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 01:53 PM

Grichuk was drafted a pick before Trout, a former first rounder. The OF just turned 22 and hit 22 HR in AA ball last year so he has some pop. I like the trade.

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 02:00 PM

Here's something I found about Grichuk from last February:

http://www.monkeywithahalo.com/prosp...l-grichuk.html

'Hamas' Jenkins · 11-22-2013, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiefsandO'sfan

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 45s
#Angels getting Salas along with Freese from #STLCards. Freese and Salas for Bourjos and Grichuk.

Salas...

...what the ****?

It needed to happen, but trading Freese still makes a part of me sad.

'Hamas' Jenkins · 11-22-2013, 02:10 PM

Grichuk's numbers and that scouting report speak to his pop, but the report on his plate discipline and his average and BB% are troublesome. Hopefully, that is fixed with reps.

Interesting that we are stocking up on LD-hitting COF types.

Piscotty, Taveras, Holliday, Jay, Bourjos, and Robinson all look to see OF time in 2014.

Frazod · 11-22-2013, 02:16 PM

Anaheim is to the Cardinals as the Chiefs are to the 49ers - a big red ****ing garbage dump.

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 03:01 PM

Cardinals Continue Being Smart, Acquire Peter Bourjos

by Dave Cameron - November 22, 2013

In the World Series, broadcasts from both TBS and Fox kept telling us how good of a center fielder Jon Jay was. In between plaudits, Jon Jay would inevitably get a poor jump, take a bad route, or just drop an easily catchable ball, sometimes all in the same game. It became something of a running joke, as Jay appeared to be a defensive disaster in the postseason, even while the networks kept insisting that he was terrific with the glove.

Well, the Cardinals clearly weren’t swayed by the rhetoric, and today, they’ve acquired Peter Bourjos from the Angels to be their new center fielder. And now TBS and Fox can properly say that the Cardinals have one of the best defensive center fielders on the planet, because Peter Bourjos is what Jon Jay was supposed to be.

Since 2010, here are the top 5 center fielders in UZR/150 among players who have spent at least 2,000 innings in center field.

Peter Bourjos, +20.2
Carlos Gomez, +18.2
Jacoby Ellsbury, +13.7
Michael Bourn, +9.9
Denard Span, +9.5

Defensive numbers have larger error bars than offensive numbers, but those error bars simply mean we’re asking if Bourjos is the best defensive outfielder in baseball or if he’s merely just very good. With a sample of 2,600 innings, you absolutely have to regress those numbers when projecting future defensive contributions, but even at a 50% regression, Bourjos would still rate as one of the very best defensive center fielders in baseball.

And given what we know about Bourjos’ skills — his speed, his baserunning, and the fact that the Angels pushed Mike Trout to left field because they preferred Bourjos in center — we shouldn’t regress Bourjos back towards a league average mean. We know enough about Bourjos-like players to know that these types of athletes are usually good defenders, and we shouldn’t be surprised that one of the fastest players in the game also rates as one of the most valuable in the field. You don’t want to count on Bourjos maintaining a +20 pace in CF, but a +10 projection isn’t crazy at all.

And when you field like Bourjos does, you can be a pretty terrific player even if you aren’t an amazing hitter. But unlike some other defensive specialists, Bourjos is not a total zero at the plate. For his career, he’s a .251/.306/.398 hitter while playing in a pitcher friendly ballpark, so that grades out to a 96 wRC+. And that’s just what he does at the plate. He’s also one of the game’s best baserunners, so for his career, Bourjos has actually been an above average offensive player, grading out at +4 runs over 1,136 plate appearances. Put him in the #8 spot in an NL line-up where he’ll get walked a decent amount in front of the pitcher, and he could even be more deadly, especially if he regularly steals his way into scoring position.

Add average offense to elite defense and baserunning and Bourjos grades out as a +3 to +4 WAR player over a full season, depending on how aggressive you are with his fielding projection. Steamer gives him a very conservative +5 defensive rating, and still sees him as a +3 WAR player, so it’s reasonable to call that something close to his floor. Well, his healthy floor anyway.

That’s the big rub with Bourjos: health. There’s a reason he’s only racked up 1,136 plate appearances over four seasons, despite being highly productive when on the field. He missed most of the 2013 season with a broken wrist, and it wasn’t the first time his wrists have given him problems. He’s also had some hamstring issues, and we’ve never seen his body hold up under the weight of a full season as a big league regular. To some degree, health is a skill, and it’s one Bourjos hasn’t yet shown, though at the same time, there’s not much reason to believe that Bourjos is fragile for having gotten beaned in the wrist by an errant fastball.

So the Cardinals will take a chance on Bourjos’ health for the chance to get a pretty terrific center fielder, and one that they control for the next three seasons. Bourjos is arbitration eligible for the first time this winter, and his lack of playing time should keep his price reasonable, so the Cardinals should have a productive player making basically peanuts for the next few seasons. This move also allows Jay to slide over to right field, replacing Carlos Beltran, until Oscar Taveras proves that he’s ready for regular action. While Jay is not a great center fielder, he should be a defensive asset in right field, and the Cardinals outfield defense will go from one of the worst in the game to one of the best.

To get Bourjos, the Cardinals sent Anaheim third baseman David Freese and reliever Fernando Salas. Salas is basically nothing, so this can be seen as essentially a Freese for Bourjos swap from the Cardinals perspective. And it’s hard not to love that exchange for St. Louis. Freese has value and is a decent buy-low candidate for the Angels, but his offensive performances have always been heavily driven by BABIP, and his defense went from okay to terrible last year. Even if you expect a nice rebound season, Freese still projects as an inferior player to Bourjos, he has one less year of team control, and will be more expensive in his final two seasons of arbitration. Oh, he’s also older, and not exactly the picture of durability himself.

It’s hard to see any area where Freese is better than Bourjos. This trade will be sold as speed-and-defense for power, but Bourjos actually has a higher career Isolated Slugging mark than Freese does. This is an average hitting elite defender for a slightly above average hitting meh defender, only the meh defender costs more and is closer to the end of his career.

Moves like this are why the Cardinals are one of the best run organizations in baseball. They get younger, cut costs, setup their team for the future, and get the better player in return. Oh, and they got the Angels to throw in a prospect, even if not a very good one, just for the fun. The Indians spent $48 million to buy this skillset in an aging Michael Bourn last winter, but the Cardinals figured out how to turn an aging third baseman coming off a bad year into a nearly free version of the same thing.

The Angels needed a third baseman, I guess, but they traded a good player for a worse player who costs more. Anaheim keeps spinning their wheels, while the Cardinals keep marching on towards sustained excellence. Some things really do stay the same.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/cardi...peter-bourjos/

veist · 11-22-2013, 03:04 PM

So Bourjos and a a decent prospect for Salas and Freese? Sounds pretty good to me.

Lot of reporting left to do, but was planning to put Grichuk No. 2 on Angels list. Initially looks like he'll move to No. 10 on Cards list.
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) November 22, 2013

DJ's left nut · 11-22-2013, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

Here's something I found about Grichuk from last February:

http://www.monkeywithahalo.com/prosp...l-grichuk.html

There's a fair amount of info out there on Grichuk.

http://www.scoutingbook.com/players/p2615

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...-update/page/5

http://www.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2013/

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...rticleid=17934

Looks like MLB has slotted him in at 11 for the Cards, right behind James Ramsey.

This is a great deal. It also makes you wonder if Grichuk wasn't included in the deal specifically to make a Taveras/Profar trade more doable.

I'm still terrified of making that trade, to be honest. But the Cards have been on Grichuk for awhile (scouted him in 2009 for the supplemental draft, even did a pre-draft workout at Busch with him) and maybe they see him as a legitimate option for 2015 and beyond in RF.

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 03:09 PM

I really don't want to trade Taveras. At all.

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 03:18 PM

Can Grichuk play LF? It seems we are getting a glut of RF but not a lot of CF or LF.

DJ's left nut · 11-22-2013, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

Can Grichuk play LF? It seems we are getting a glut of RF but not a lot of CF or LF.

Anybody that can play RF can play LF.

So yes. He played some everywhere last year and won a minor league gold glove for his efforts.

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp...vkey=news_milb

This is a no-bullshit, legitimate prospect, IMO.

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 03:44 PM

Good find, DJ

Marco Polo · 11-22-2013, 03:55 PM

This could also mean Taveras in RF, Craig at 1B, leaving Adams as a trade chip for SS such as Andrus or Hardy?

ShowtimeSBMVP · 11-22-2013, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

This could also mean Taveras in RF, Craig at 1B, leaving Adams as a trade chip for SS such as Andrus or Hardy?

The only way Hardy is traded is if someone overpays and that wont happen.

11-04-2013, 05:32 PM
BigRedChief Has a particular set of skills Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: On the water Casino cash: $3229627 VARSITY	**Official 2014 STL Cardinals thread ** 2011 WS Championship 2012 one win from another WS 2013 two wins from another WS title 2014? This is a franchise that has made the postseason 10 times in the last 14 seasons. Reached three World Series in the last decade, and won as many championships (two) the past eight seasons as it did from 1965 to 2005. Our new Manager has more post season experience than any other manager in baseball, except the Giants manager. Three million attendance? Take it to the bank. 60 post season wins since 2004. 20+ wins more than any other team. Only one of the last 14 seasons has been a losing one. Last edited by BigRedChief; 01-19-2014 at 02:36 PM..
Posts: 78,937

11-22-2013, 01:34 PM	#136
ShowtimeSBMVP Chiefs Join Date: Feb 2009 Casino cash: $3726009	Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 45s #Angels getting Salas along with Freese from #STLCards. Freese and Salas for Bourjos and Grichuk. Last edited by ShowtimeSBMVP; 11-22-2013 at 01:47 PM..
Posts: 23,752

11-22-2013, 01:53 PM	#137
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	Grichuk was drafted a pick before Trout, a former first rounder. The OF just turned 22 and hit 22 HR in AA ball last year so he has some pop. I like the trade.
Posts: 2,506

11-22-2013, 02:00 PM	#138
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	Here's something I found about Grichuk from last February: http://www.monkeywithahalo.com/prosp...l-grichuk.html
Posts: 2,506

11-22-2013, 02:10 PM	#140
'Hamas' Jenkins Now you've pissed me off! Join Date: Jan 2006 Casino cash: $8019572	Grichuk's numbers and that scouting report speak to his pop, but the report on his plate discipline and his average and BB% are troublesome. Hopefully, that is fixed with reps. Interesting that we are stocking up on LD-hitting COF types. Piscotty, Taveras, Holliday, Jay, Bourjos, and Robinson all look to see OF time in 2014. __________________ "When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln
Posts: 74,820

11-22-2013, 02:16 PM	#141
Frazod WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS Join Date: Aug 2000 Casino cash: $3215085	Anaheim is to the Cardinals as the Chiefs are to the 49ers - a big red ****ing garbage dump.
Posts: 119,482

11-22-2013, 03:01 PM	#142
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	Cardinals Continue Being Smart, Acquire Peter Bourjos by Dave Cameron - November 22, 2013 In the World Series, broadcasts from both TBS and Fox kept telling us how good of a center fielder Jon Jay was. In between plaudits, Jon Jay would inevitably get a poor jump, take a bad route, or just drop an easily catchable ball, sometimes all in the same game. It became something of a running joke, as Jay appeared to be a defensive disaster in the postseason, even while the networks kept insisting that he was terrific with the glove. Well, the Cardinals clearly weren’t swayed by the rhetoric, and today, they’ve acquired Peter Bourjos from the Angels to be their new center fielder. And now TBS and Fox can properly say that the Cardinals have one of the best defensive center fielders on the planet, because Peter Bourjos is what Jon Jay was supposed to be. Since 2010, here are the top 5 center fielders in UZR/150 among players who have spent at least 2,000 innings in center field. Peter Bourjos, +20.2 Carlos Gomez, +18.2 Jacoby Ellsbury, +13.7 Michael Bourn, +9.9 Denard Span, +9.5 Defensive numbers have larger error bars than offensive numbers, but those error bars simply mean we’re asking if Bourjos is the best defensive outfielder in baseball or if he’s merely just very good. With a sample of 2,600 innings, you absolutely have to regress those numbers when projecting future defensive contributions, but even at a 50% regression, Bourjos would still rate as one of the very best defensive center fielders in baseball. And given what we know about Bourjos’ skills — his speed, his baserunning, and the fact that the Angels pushed Mike Trout to left field because they preferred Bourjos in center — we shouldn’t regress Bourjos back towards a league average mean. We know enough about Bourjos-like players to know that these types of athletes are usually good defenders, and we shouldn’t be surprised that one of the fastest players in the game also rates as one of the most valuable in the field. You don’t want to count on Bourjos maintaining a +20 pace in CF, but a +10 projection isn’t crazy at all. And when you field like Bourjos does, you can be a pretty terrific player even if you aren’t an amazing hitter. But unlike some other defensive specialists, Bourjos is not a total zero at the plate. For his career, he’s a .251/.306/.398 hitter while playing in a pitcher friendly ballpark, so that grades out to a 96 wRC+. And that’s just what he does at the plate. He’s also one of the game’s best baserunners, so for his career, Bourjos has actually been an above average offensive player, grading out at +4 runs over 1,136 plate appearances. Put him in the #8 spot in an NL line-up where he’ll get walked a decent amount in front of the pitcher, and he could even be more deadly, especially if he regularly steals his way into scoring position. Add average offense to elite defense and baserunning and Bourjos grades out as a +3 to +4 WAR player over a full season, depending on how aggressive you are with his fielding projection. Steamer gives him a very conservative +5 defensive rating, and still sees him as a +3 WAR player, so it’s reasonable to call that something close to his floor. Well, his healthy floor anyway. That’s the big rub with Bourjos: health. There’s a reason he’s only racked up 1,136 plate appearances over four seasons, despite being highly productive when on the field. He missed most of the 2013 season with a broken wrist, and it wasn’t the first time his wrists have given him problems. He’s also had some hamstring issues, and we’ve never seen his body hold up under the weight of a full season as a big league regular. To some degree, health is a skill, and it’s one Bourjos hasn’t yet shown, though at the same time, there’s not much reason to believe that Bourjos is fragile for having gotten beaned in the wrist by an errant fastball. So the Cardinals will take a chance on Bourjos’ health for the chance to get a pretty terrific center fielder, and one that they control for the next three seasons. Bourjos is arbitration eligible for the first time this winter, and his lack of playing time should keep his price reasonable, so the Cardinals should have a productive player making basically peanuts for the next few seasons. This move also allows Jay to slide over to right field, replacing Carlos Beltran, until Oscar Taveras proves that he’s ready for regular action. While Jay is not a great center fielder, he should be a defensive asset in right field, and the Cardinals outfield defense will go from one of the worst in the game to one of the best. To get Bourjos, the Cardinals sent Anaheim third baseman David Freese and reliever Fernando Salas. Salas is basically nothing, so this can be seen as essentially a Freese for Bourjos swap from the Cardinals perspective. And it’s hard not to love that exchange for St. Louis. Freese has value and is a decent buy-low candidate for the Angels, but his offensive performances have always been heavily driven by BABIP, and his defense went from okay to terrible last year. Even if you expect a nice rebound season, Freese still projects as an inferior player to Bourjos, he has one less year of team control, and will be more expensive in his final two seasons of arbitration. Oh, he’s also older, and not exactly the picture of durability himself. It’s hard to see any area where Freese is better than Bourjos. This trade will be sold as speed-and-defense for power, but Bourjos actually has a higher career Isolated Slugging mark than Freese does. This is an average hitting elite defender for a slightly above average hitting meh defender, only the meh defender costs more and is closer to the end of his career. Moves like this are why the Cardinals are one of the best run organizations in baseball. They get younger, cut costs, setup their team for the future, and get the better player in return. Oh, and they got the Angels to throw in a prospect, even if not a very good one, just for the fun. The Indians spent $48 million to buy this skillset in an aging Michael Bourn last winter, but the Cardinals figured out how to turn an aging third baseman coming off a bad year into a nearly free version of the same thing. The Angels needed a third baseman, I guess, but they traded a good player for a worse player who costs more. Anaheim keeps spinning their wheels, while the Cardinals keep marching on towards sustained excellence. Some things really do stay the same. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/cardi...peter-bourjos/
Posts: 2,506

11-22-2013, 03:04 PM	#143
veist Veteran Join Date: Oct 2006 Casino cash: $10004900	So Bourjos and a a decent prospect for Salas and Freese? Sounds pretty good to me. Lot of reporting left to do, but was planning to put Grichuk No. 2 on Angels list. Initially looks like he'll move to No. 10 on Cards list. — JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) November 22, 2013
Posts: 1,324

11-22-2013, 03:09 PM	#145
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	I really don't want to trade Taveras. At all.
Posts: 2,506

11-22-2013, 03:18 PM	#146
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	Can Grichuk play LF? It seems we are getting a glut of RF but not a lot of CF or LF.
Posts: 2,506

11-22-2013, 03:44 PM	#148
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	Good find, DJ
Posts: 2,506

11-22-2013, 03:55 PM	#149
Marco Polo Veteran Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 41°59.4′N 87°39.6'W Casino cash: $5838908	This could also mean Taveras in RF, Craig at 1B, leaving Adams as a trade chip for SS such as Andrus or Hardy?
Posts: 2,506