Willson Contreras, Designated Hitter

[Brock Beauchamp]

There are so many things I could say about that team, the situation, and the past two weeks. Instead, i'm just gonna do this.

[Samurai Bucky]

In a month, Goldschmidt will do what Goldschmidt does -- get hot and carry the team.  They are really digging themselves a hole, though.

[Brock Beauchamp]

20 minutes ago, Samurai Bucky said:

In a month, Goldschmidt will do what Goldschmidt does -- get hot and carry the team.  They are really digging themselves a hole, though.

But if he waits a few months to get hot, he might be carrying another team. 😎

[Jopal78]

Well, their Pythagorean has them better than their actual record AND they haven’t had a losing season in 15 years AND have 2 Division titles and four Playoff appearances since 2019. I’ll wait until September to mock them. 

[wiguy94]

43 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Well, their Pythagorean has them better than their actual record AND they haven’t had a losing season in 15 years AND have 2 Division titles and four Playoff appearances since 2019. I’ll wait until September to mock them. 

I think it's pretty fair game to make fun of an org for giving a near 31 year old catcher a 5/$87.5M contract and now moving him off the catcher position just 6 weeks into the season. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

9 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Well, their Pythagorean has them better than their actual record AND they haven’t had a losing season in 15 years AND have 2 Division titles and four Playoff appearances since 2019. I’ll wait until September to mock them. 

St Louis has to go 70-57 the rest of the way just to finish at 81-81. Can they do that? Sure. Will they do that? Incredibly unlikely.

[Zad Fnark]

I feel dorky now, now seeing this thread when I made my post.

[igor67]

Maybe a better way is that the Cards would need to play .600 ball the rest of the way to get to 87 wins  and have a shot at the title.

[Thurston Fluff]

They signed a average at best catcher on defense and seemed to be caught off guard that he was average at best defensively. It's got to be hard to adjust from one of the all time great (yes it hurts to say that, but it's true) overall catchers but how they're (over?) reacting this early is interesting to say the least.

[igor67]

We could trade them Yelich...

[jerichoholicninja]

Their pitching was pretty suspect going into the year. And now they're saying "we're not blaming our catcher" for their poor pitching while making a move that says they are actually blaming their catcher.

With this and their manager calling out a player earlier in this season, things don't seem to be so rosy for the redbirds.

[Ulice Payne]

Willson can just get a few neck tattoos and the Cardinals will like him just fine. 

[owbc]

1 hour ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Their pitching was pretty suspect going into the year. And now they're saying "we're not blaming our catcher" for their poor pitching while making a move that says they are actually blaming their catcher.

With this and their manager calling out a player earlier in this season, things don't seem to be so rosy for the redbirds.

Exactly.

Where did "Devil Magic" come from? Every mediocre pitcher seemed to miraculously turn things around in St. Louis over the course of two decades, four different managers, different suits in the front office, etc. etc. The one constant over that period was Yadi. 

Yet again in 2023 they rolled out a pitching staff that was possibly the worst in the division on paper and expected them to magically turn into all-stars again. 

Did Yadi ever make a single boneheaded play like this over the course of his entire career? 

If I'm the Cardinals, I'm calling up Yadi and offering him a blank check to come back and be on the coaching staff. 
 

[Jopal78]

8 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

St Louis has to go 70-57 the rest of the way just to finish at 81-81. Can they do that? Sure. Will they do that? Incredibly unlikely.

‘19 Nationals were 12 games under .500 and n May 23rd. Last year’s Phillies were 8 games under .500 at the end of May. 
 

It’s still early, the Cardinals have some really good players who have played poorly so far this year, they play in Comedy Central where they’ll never be buried in the Division race. They have the prospect capital to remake their team on the fly, and they’ve done it before. 
 

If they’re 14 games under .500 heading into July we can start writing the epitaph; until then it’s foolish. 

[nate82]

7 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

‘19 Nationals were 12 games under .500 and n May 23rd. Last year’s Phillies were 8 games under .500 at the end of May. 

Both of those teams had better starting pitchers than the '23 Cardinals do. 

[SomewhereInTime]

Maybe the Cardinal magic all these years was just Yadier Molina and really without him they're just a low level bottom of the division team.

[Jopal78]

4 hours ago, nate82 said:

Both of those teams had better starting pitchers than the '23 Cardinals do. 

Probably, but Montgomery, Mikolas and Wainwright aren’t bad. Then there really isn’t much difference between Matz/Flaherty and Lauer/Rea for example. With either duo, the offense is likely going to need to carry the team to win. 
 

40 or so games into a season is too early to write off a team with that talent no matter how good it feels. 

[nate82]

Just now, Jopal78 said:

Probably, but Montgomery, Mikolas and Wainwright aren’t bad.

There are not bad but they are not 2019 Scherzer and Strausburg or 2022 Wheeler and Nola. 

[Brewcrew82]

11 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Probably, but Montgomery, Mikolas and Wainwright aren’t bad. Then there really isn’t much difference between Matz/Flaherty and Lauer/Rea for example. With either duo, the offense is likely going to need to carry the team to win. 
 

40 or so games into a season is too early to write off a team with that talent no matter how good it feels. 

Montgomery is good, but below our aces (and those of Washington and Philly before them). Mikolas (6.11 xERA) and Wainwright aren't good. 

Also fwiw, Rea isn't in the rotation any more...

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Mikolas (6.11 xERA) and Wainwright aren't good. 

 

After all these years, I'd get sweet pleasure out of seeing Wainwright struggle w/o Molina. A great duo, but it would be infuriating seeing them control how the HP umpire called the game. It was like being stuck in a WWII movie & having to beat John Wayne.

[Zad Fnark]

LoL

Panicking Cardinals

[Jopal78]

9 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Montgomery is good, but below our aces (and those of Washington and Philly before them). Mikolas (6.11 xERA) and Wainwright aren't good. 

Also fwiw, Rea isn't in the rotation any more...

Mikolas and Wainwright both were 2.8 fWAR pitchers in ‘22.

It really comes down to whether you believe a bad 36 game stretch is indicative of an entire season or merely a small sample. I know where you stand, I guess we’ll see how things turn out.

[jay87shot]

I wouldn't count the Cards out there lineup of Contrares, Goldschmidt, Donovan, Edman, Arenando, and some combination of Gorman, Carlson, Burleson, Nootbar, Walker, O'Neil, and Yepez. In that lineup hust about everyone has 30 HR or .300 ba. There rotation has been trash but if there starters can even be around a era of 4 they have a shot of putting a 20-5 stretch together and being back in it in no time. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

7 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

It really comes down to whether you believe a bad 36 game stretch is indicative of an entire season or merely a small sample. I know where you stand, I guess we’ll see how things turn out.

The Cardinals are almost surely better than their record - and their pythag indicates that is the case - but in my opinion, they're probably not good enough to dig out of this hole, either. The team is old, their pitching is suspect, and they've put themselves at a huge disadvantage. To just scrape into the playoffs, they likely need to be ~18 games over .500 from today through the end of the season. It's unlikely a team projected to be an 85 win team going into the season, a team that vastly underperformed for six weeks, is going to be able to pull that off.

Especially given how dysfunctional the clubhouse seems to be right now.

[wiguy94]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Mikolas and Wainwright both were 2.8 fWAR pitchers in ‘22.

It really comes down to whether you believe a bad 36 game stretch is indicative of an entire season or merely a small sample. I know where you stand, I guess we’ll see how things turn out.

2.8 fWAR for guys going 200 and 190 innings really isn’t anything impressive. That’s solid starter level and certainly nothing front of the rotation worthy. 
 

They also both overperformed their xERA by about .6 runs and the Cardinals defense this year is not as good as last year to bail out their pitching.