go birds wrote:Well...they may have to bite the bullet on money cause there will 2 marquis FA's (wheeler/rendon) that fit the cards needs.
trade marp for a PTBNL for salary relief. send jmart away for a BP arm. I also think you give serious consideration to bringing carlson up mid-year.
I honestly expect next year to be a transition year anyway.
i get its fantasy baseball, but it makes sense which means the cards wont do it.
sure they have a self-imposed salary cap, but they can afford it.
Flaherty
Mikolas
Wheeler
...is a pretty good 1-2-3 assuming this is the real flaherty.
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but if I try to be realistic, I could see them bringing Carlson up mid-year, but I don't know how they can plan for that to be their course of action. If so, they would have wanted to get him in AAA at mid-season in 19 and possibly give him a quick look this September. As it is, he's not going to touch AAA this year at all and they won't add him to the 40 for a call up. For him to be helpful in 2020, he's going to have to really impress in ST and then hit really well in Memphis, AND he's going to have to get a 40 man spot early in the season with a tight roster crunch... it's a tall order. Mostly likely, he gets added to the 40 man sometime mid season and gets some injury AB's before a Sept. call up next year. Hopefully he changes that plan with his play.
Regardless, in the OF, we need to reserve one spot and only one spot for our young three -- Bader, O'Neill and Carlson. We're stuck with Fowler. I would move Martinez or just commit to him as a bench bat. We need to sign someone, imo, if we are going to pretend to compete.
As far as gaining payroll space, Carpenter is the logical salary to dump, but I don't see them getting another team to pick up much cash. Then, after the issues we've had with age 30+ players -- Marp, Goldschmidt, Miller -- I don't see the Cards then committing elite money to Rendon at 3b. We'll easily end up with $35M tied up in goes over 30 in an attempt to fix 3b, all while Gorman sits in AA. They won't do that. Cards will just hope Carpenter gets better while they wait for Gorman to arrive.
Rotation... Wheeler is the best possibility of what you mention. But, you've got another guy who is going to demand a significant contract and will be age 30+ for most of the deal (he's 29 now). Cards won't do it. I don't know who they will go after, but it won't be Wheeler.
It's a mess. It just is. Part of me says we should just not sign anyone, play the kids, and see what happens. We can't really make a plan for the future until we know what we have in Carlson and Gorman and with the other young OF'ers and pitchers.