Can we please fire mo

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JL21
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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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MrCrowesGarden wrote:I agree bullpens are volatile as all get out. That's why I think the idea of upgrading there and doing little to nothing else in 2018 is foolish.
I'm not advocating that, so... I guess we're in agreement? I'm not sure where that notion is coming from.
MrCrowesGarden wrote: I think it's fair to say there's some middle ground for luck vs. evaluation... the line may not be exactly in the middle, and I don't know exactly where it is, but it's there. Pham is the prime example for me. The organization could believe he's a good player, but i don't believe they knew he'd be All-Star quality. He wouldn't have started in AAA if that was the case.
This is slowly becoming a thing and it's starting to bug me.

Pham was terrible in spring training, and he was coming off of a really rough 2016. He still had the eye adjustment stuff that he was dealing with (and probably always will). Martinez was OPSing .900 for most of the first month- they had a reasonable 4th OFer that they could ride until he faltered. There's the Adams thing, which I (personally) believe was a terrible decision by Matheny and was never intended to happen by the FO. I'm definitely not going to defend Adams in the OF, but given some of the statements coming out of the FO at the time, I don't think they'd defend it, either. They seemed pretty clearly pissed.

It made some sense for Pham to start in AAA, even with his tools- he's always had exemplary skills but injuries and the eye thing have always been an issue. And because of his track record, he had something to prove, which he hadn't done in spring training.

Honestly, I don't think anyone on the face of the earth thought Pham would be All-Star quality, so I have a pretty hard time knocking the organization for that. And no, I don't think their evaluations told them he'd be a 5-WAR player or even close. I'm sure they saw that he could be useful and I'm sure they saw that he had loads of potential.

As for "all of this credit" for talent evaluation, that's not exactly my point. The credit is in the process- trusting your development people to get talent ready to play and contribute. Trusting that your scouts will provide the development people with players who can graduate to MLB. And most importantly, recognizing that youngsters are already a crapshoot so it's better to have more of them around if any of them fail. Or in other words, acknowledging that it's going to require some luck so it's best to have options. The results speak for themselves. Here's where the Cardinals have ranked in WAR from rookie players since 2010:

2010: 10th
2011: 11th
2012: 4th
2013: 2nd
2014: 21st
2015: 10th
2016: 3rd
2017: 3rd

Ranking for the full run (2010-2017): 1st

The organization has its flaws, but their awareness of their own talent that they have on hand- and a reasonably full range of outcomes for that talent- is not one of them. You can call it luck if you want except it routinely happens, year in and year out.

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TheoSqua
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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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The fact that the team held on to a 29-year-old Pham speaks to what they felt about his potential.

Most players that age are waived, retired, or with another team.

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MrCrowesGarden
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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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He's not costing them really anything either, so...

I'm also not dinging them for their success year in and year out, and frankly I don't know where that notion came from. I'm saying in 2017, they've been lucky, luckier than anyone would admit wrt roster construction. Why is that not fair?

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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TheoSqua wrote:The fact that the team held on to a 29-year-old Pham speaks to what they felt about his potential.

Most players that age are waived, retired, or with another team.
That's a really good point. Remember, they drafted Pham as a HS'er. He's been with the organization for 11 seasons. He didn't even even reach the majors until his 9th season. I wonder if we can find another player who has been with an organization for that long with fewer career MLB games played than Pham? I'm sure there are examples -- some catchers, likely. But, they've cleared loved his potential for a long time and have been more patient with Pham than any player I can remember.

And it's paying off! Unbelievable story.

*Edit: And no, that doesn't mean that they thought he would do this, but they saw something they liked and wanted to keep around, even when I think most of us were pretty justified in writing him off.

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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MrCrowesGarden wrote:He's not costing them really anything either, so...

I'm also not dinging them for their success year in and year out, and frankly I don't know where that notion came from. I'm saying in 2017, they've been lucky, luckier than anyone would admit wrt roster construction. Why is that not fair?
I don't like using the word "luck", which carries a negative connotation in sports. A sense that it was completely not earned.

I think the Cardinals have been very fortunate. They have placed themselves in a reasonably good position, and they've been able to take advantage when players do unexpectedly well. Meanwhile they have shown relatively good flexibility when it is clear that players are performing poorly.

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

Popeye_Card wrote:
MrCrowesGarden wrote:He's not costing them really anything either, so...

I'm also not dinging them for their success year in and year out, and frankly I don't know where that notion came from. I'm saying in 2017, they've been lucky, luckier than anyone would admit wrt roster construction. Why is that not fair?
I don't like using the word "luck", which carries a negative connotation in sports. A sense that it was completely not earned.

I think the Cardinals have been very fortunate. They have placed themselves in a reasonably good position, and they've been able to take advantage when players do unexpectedly well. Meanwhile they have shown relatively good flexibility when it is clear that players are performing poorly.
This is probably the better way to phrase it. They've done well to give themselves options.

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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MrCrowesGarden wrote:He's not costing them really anything either, so...

I'm also not dinging them for their success year in and year out, and frankly I don't know where that notion came from. I'm saying in 2017, they've been lucky, luckier than anyone would admit wrt roster construction. Why is that not fair?
I guess I'm just not seeing the "luck" other than, say, Pham. Even then, as I said, I'm pretty sure they knew he was a very talented guy but they also knew the health would always carry some risk. Still does.

Or perhaps some of what you're calling luck, I would say is part of the organizational design. Depth. Raising the floor. Giving yourself lots of options because there are a billion ranges of outcomes for players after you get outside of the top shelf of talent, so it's good to have as many backup options as you can. And the better the backup options, the higher your floor.

And that's where the history of it comes in to play- the notion that spurred me to trot out 2010-2017. It's something they've been doing forever.

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

Pham is the biggest example of luck or whatever you want to call it for this year, but I think DeJong also qualifies, and then Brebbia to a lesser extent.

I've never really questioned the floor of the organization. I know that when a 2 WAR player goes down, there's going to be a 2 WAR player ready to step up. It's the 1-5 I still question more than the 6-40 (yes, I know this isn't new, but I think it's fair to bring it up.) Probably goes better in your other thread, but... what if with this scrub avoidance model, this is as good as it gets? Yeah, 100 wins in 2015, but now more than ever it feels the commitment is to middle-upper 80 win totals and hope that's enough.

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

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Honestly, Brebbia's been fine, but the advanced stuff kind of shows him for what he really is- a very vanilla Bullpen Guy™. And there are loads of those guys out there ready for anyone to grab (goes back to what we were talking about earlier). He just seems more important because he's such an upgrade over Broxton.

I can go with DeJong, although it seems to be a repeated skill for the organization to find guys who can give these lightning in a bottle bursts. They're not really sustainable, but Grichuk in 2015... Diaz last year... hell, even Matt Adams was kind of that type of player, with some real jolts at various points and a huge year in the middle, but mostly unsustainable. That might also speak to an organizational philosophy but I'm honestly not sure. I've been meaning to dig a little bit more into DeJong's profile (and Bader and Grichuk and O'Neill) to see if the Cardinals are unique or if it's just a league-wide thing now.

RE: the scrub avoidance thing, I don't think the entire philosophy is just avoiding scrubs and then hope for the best. I don't think 85 wins was the goal. I'm sure they'd love to have gobs of 5 WAR guys because it makes the scrub avoidance thing that much more amplified (if you avoid [expletive] players, your stars can take you a heck of a lot farther). But when they couldn't get the 5 WAR guys (for a variety of reasons, and yes some are self-inflicted), they went with Plan B- the scrub avoidance/high floor thing.

I think the logic was "Let's get Heyward or Price". Then when they couldn't, they wanted the next best thing, which was depth. Then last year's FA market didn't really offer much to add to the star portion of the roster, and the price in talent for available stars on the trade market was nutty (like Eaton or Sale). So they went further in on the depth concept. Or at least, continued it by swapping out last year's depth with new depth.

At some point, obviously they're going to have to either develop that 5-win guy, or pony up the cash, or pony up the prospects. I don't think there's any of us that doubt that. I'm sure the organization doesn't either.

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Re: Can we please extend MO to forever?

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

I guess I'm at that point right now. I don't know that they are yet.

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