Page 58 of 140
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 10:32 am
by Jocephus
According to MLB.com's Jesse Sanchez, the Astros' pursuit of Pirates starter Gerrit Cole is "picking up steam."
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reported Monday that the Astros were engaged in talks with the Pirates about Cole and now it sounds like an agreement could be getting close. Sanchez says this momentum has built over "the past 24 hours." Cole struggled to a 4.26 ERA in 203 innings with the Bucs in 2017, but he had a 3.23 ERA in 579 1/3 innings between 2013-2016 and the 27-year-old right-hander is under contractual control through the 2019 season. He has also drawn trade interest this winter from the Yankees, Rangers, Twins, Brewers, and Orioles.
Related: Astros
Source: MLB.com
Jan 10 - 11:23 AM
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 10:45 am
by JL21
MrCrowesGarden wrote:I do think it did to a degree because Goold specifically said during that interview the Cardinals don’t want to give out deals longer than two years to relievers, and the most obvious example of going beyond that is Cecil (I think Choate may have got three years, but I’m not positive.) With closer being such an obvious need, and with this team being so close but not quite there, I don’t know that I want them to dig their heels in so much on that. Put another way, if the best reliever (or the only reliever) added this offseason is Gregerson, I think they messed up something.
But... they've never given those kinds of contracts, at least not for higher profile guys. They did 3 years for Choate but he was $2.5M/yr.
Broxton was 2 years.
Villanueva, Belisle, Neshek, and Batista were all one year guys. Everyone else on that list since 2011 was probably an NRI.
Cecil is the outlier at 4 years.
Given what's out there, I don't really blame them. Wade Davis got silly money. Holland will probably also want silly money and he looks like a ticking time bomb. I like Addison Reed just fine, but it's not like he's a difference making arm. After that, you're stepping down to guys like Matt Albers, Joe Blanton, Tony Watson (who's a LOOGY anyway)... or gambling on a big arm guy with poor results.
Those aren't guys worth 3 year deals.
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 10:49 am
by Big Amoco Sign
Would take Castro. He'd be a nice utility piece. Not the Cardinals style but why not? Improve all 25 spots.
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 10:53 am
by letsgocards89
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 10:56 am
by go birds
wonder if kyle tucker is involved
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 10:57 am
by MrCrowesGarden
JL21 wrote:MrCrowesGarden wrote:I do think it did to a degree because Goold specifically said during that interview the Cardinals don’t want to give out deals longer than two years to relievers, and the most obvious example of going beyond that is Cecil (I think Choate may have got three years, but I’m not positive.) With closer being such an obvious need, and with this team being so close but not quite there, I don’t know that I want them to dig their heels in so much on that. Put another way, if the best reliever (or the only reliever) added this offseason is Gregerson, I think they messed up something.
But... they've never given those kinds of contracts, at least not for higher profile guys. They did 3 years for Choate but he was $2.5M/yr.
Broxton was 2 years.
Villanueva, Belisle, Neshek, and Batista were all one year guys. Everyone else on that list since 2011 was probably an NRI.
Cecil is the outlier at 4 years.
Given what's out there, I don't really blame them. Wade Davis got silly money. Holland will probably also want silly money and he looks like a ticking time bomb. I like Addison Reed just fine, but it's not like he's a difference making arm. After that, you're stepping down to guys like Matt Albers, Joe Blanton, Tony Watson (who's a LOOGY anyway)... or gambling on a big arm guy with poor results.
Those aren't guys worth 3 year deals.
That’s kinda what I’m saying though. The one time they went and got a one year rental, that’s all they ended up getting and we’ve heard repeatedly from the FO about how you have to be careful about giving up years of control for only a year.
The one time they went big on a free agent reliever, it didn’t look great to start, and now we’re hearing about turtling back to one and two year deals, which probably rules out the top guys left. It’s okay if Holland or Reed ends up being a Peralta style contract where the value at the front offsets the negative at the back. I don’t even know who our closer is right now. If it’s someone presently on the roster, I don’t think it’s going to work out. I don’t know enough about the 2020 team that I want to hamper the 2018 team for it.
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 11:37 am
by JL21
MrCrowesGarden wrote:
That’s kinda what I’m saying though. The one time they went and got a one year rental, that’s all they ended up getting and we’ve heard repeatedly from the FO about how you have to be careful about giving up years of control for only a year.
The one time they went big on a free agent reliever, it didn’t look great to start, and now we’re hearing about turtling back to one and two year deals, which probably rules out the top guys left. It’s okay if Holland or Reed ends up being a Peralta style contract where the value at the front offsets the negative at the back. I don’t even know who our closer is right now. If it’s someone presently on the roster, I don’t think it’s going to work out. I don’t know enough about the 2020 team that I want to hamper the 2018 team for it.
I guess it depends on how you view the Cecil deal. I see it as an outlier, a one time deal, where they gave an extra year for a guy that they normally might have done 3 on (for some reason, they seem comfortable with the bigger deals on LOOGYs). It sounds like you view it as a paradigm shift where you expected them to start doing things that way moving forward- giving extra years to relievers.
RE: the Peralta thing, I think that's the problem with Holland. It'd be great if you had the certainty that he could perform at a high or even average level for a few years. In that case, your first two years pay for the last two, as you say.
But you're talking about a guy who didn't pitch at all in 2016, faded badly down the stretch in 2015, had a dominant first two months of 2017 and then his stuff collapsed for a large chunk of time. He was very erratic. For a brief time, he got away with it, but then the bottom fell out in August. He rebounded a little at the end of the year. It's a risky profile. I guess the high end is Jhonny, but the low end is Ty Wigginton at more dollars and years. Relievers in general are volatile as hell, and Holland is doubly so.
Now, Reed may be a different story. I'm certainly not opposed to having him back there. But you're still not talking about some transformative arm like Chapman, Miller, Jansen, Betances, Kimbrel... He's a good guy to have around but you're talking about 3 and 4 years for a guy like that.
Let's take a quick look at the market. Which relievers this year have gotten even 3 years? (by the way, none have gotten 4)
Bryan Shaw
Wade Davis
Jake McGee
That's it. Those are the guys with more than 2 years. They were all signed by the Rockies. (technically there was Mike Minor but the Rangers are going to use him as a SP)
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 11:51 am
by MrCrowesGarden
I’d like to be clear that I prefer Reed over Holland, but for this season I also prefer Holland to anyone presently on the roster. I think with Davis getting his deal, the market should be pretty well set for relievers. So Reed at 3 years? 100% in. Holland for three years? I’m less sold on, but I’d bite the bullet. Again, it seems foolish to me to spite the present for what might be in the future. I don’t think the Cardinals will love any deal for any remaining reliever that’s worth a scratch, but I hope they like this present team enough to realize it’s good but still needs bolstering.
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 12:08 pm
by JL21
I'm all for another arm, and I'm all for Reed barring something ridiculous (4 year deals, outlandish money, whatever). I really don't want anything to do with Holland.
That said, I tend to think the bullpen is like the rotation- where there's a perceived shortage that's probably overblown. Again, using FG's Depth Charts, they project for the 11th best bullpen by fWAR in MLB, and the 8th best by FIP. Things happen, things fall apart, relievers are volatile and harder to project, etc... but I think that's a pretty decent snapshot of where they are. It can be better and I'd love another arm to firm things up. But it's not a dire situation with a burgeoning chasm. Lyons, Cecil, Gregorson, Brebbia, Bowman, and Tui make up the spine of a very solid/useful bullpen. Sherriff, Lucas, Gant, potentially Flaherty, and eventually Reyes is pretty good depth. Hellsley, too. Maybe they get lucky and Hicks comes along, because he has the kind of potential to rocket through a system the way Rosenthal did.
Re: "not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread
Posted: January 10 18, 12:54 pm
by MrCrowesGarden
It might be an okay bullpen, but I feel like "it might be okay" can be said about a lot of positions on this team (that is, hoping things go right.) The closest guy I'd trust to get outs in a close and late game is Lyons. I think he's a good pitcher, but that's uninspiring for me.