@@St. Louis Cardinals

[Jamie Gatlin] The Athletic’s MLB Staff has released their offseason grades for all 30 teams. The Cardinals were given a C+.

  • February 2, 2023


[Jamie Gatlin] The Athletic’s MLB Staff has released their offseason grades for all 30 teams. The Cardinals were given a C+.

23 comments

  3. It’s all going to come down to how healthy our pitching is this year. If nobody misses significant time and all the starters have at least career-average seasons*, the FO comes out looking smart not throwing big $ at a top line starter. If we can string this group along for another year until Tink, Thompson, and Graceffo are ready we look pretty dangerous in the future.

    *subject to change when Glass Jack shows up to ST hurt again.

  6. Our best players are either home grown or come from trades, which is infinitely more cost effective than free agency. We approach acquiring talent differently than the big spenders and still maintain a longer winning tradition than 95% of the league. Also with the Bally bankruptcy, don’t expect us to sign a quarter of a billion dollar deal anytime soon. I feel like fans who cry foul about not splurging in free agency fail to see what a crap shoot that’s become when the biggest deals are all competing with each other. 10 years for $300m+ is insane especially for any players in the late 20s and early 30s. Most of these teams are paying a premium for these players declining years. It’s like we learned nothing from Pujols going to the Angels.

  7. Signing guys is hard ok? What if they signed a big deal and they can’t pay the bills especially with the Bally sports deal going in the trash. Can’t you guys be happy that they just handed out their largest FA contract ever? Jeez. /s

  9. Seems fair. We addressed two of the three major needs: catcher and another established bat. We took a top offense from ‘22 and made it even better. However the 3rd major need was left unaddressed – starting pitching. We’re banking on what we have in house which is 3 #3 guys, 1 #5, and a former #1 in waino. I get it since most of our recent free agent pitcher signings have been absolute trainwrecks (Leake, Holland, Cecil, Matz) with mikolas being the only success in recent memory.

  10. That’s about right. Cardinals had two giant holes this off-season and they addressed only one of them.

    Offense from the catcher position – they added Contreras. Knizner is fine defensively but we needed another bat, so adding one of the best offensive catchers in the MLB is a huge upgrade.

    The other is starting pitching – and they did absolutely nothing. The rotation is mostly made up of decent arms and hopeful bounce backs. Monty and Mikolas *should* be just as good as they were last year, but they’re not enough to put WS hopes on. Wainwright will be decent. Then you’re hoping Flaherty can finally bounce back, and Matz can go back to his 2021 form, aka the only season in his career he was above average.

    Should any of those guys get injured, you’re hoping a prospect like Libratore could break out, or someone like Hudson to not be awful. Pallante and Woodford have been decent in their few career starts, but you don’t want them in your rotation for very long

  11. Sounds about right. We didn’t get any worse, but it’s hard to say we got better. At the end of the day the team is still great and pretty much a playoff lock, which is nice. All we have to do is get in, and we have about the same shot of winning the WS as any other playoff team, so I’m not concerned.

  12. 3 Million through the gates-

    That is the only priority for this club.

    They DO NOT CARE about winning beyond that.

  15. It would be cool if we did something about our pitching. Those guys come in handy sometimes.

  17. Give Wacha a 2 year deal. They can afford it. Good teams win on pitching depth. I think that’s a key to the Dodgers success (and a lot of money); they are always stacked with pitching depth. I know, not a lot of WS to show for it, but pitching wins.

  19. No DH either. Face it Pujols carried the team 2nd half of 2022. No lefty relievers and the rotation is an injury disaster waiting to happen.

  21. Seems correct, if not high. Signing one person to fill one gap is not a productive offseason for a team that was allegedly going to have extra money to spend, which could have gone to any number of pitchers around the world.

  22. If we don’t make a big splash at the deadline, or at least by opening day next year, I’ll be worried.

    We are looking at a potential logjam with outfielders and will have a need for starting pitching by that time.

    There are guys we could sell high on and get some top talent back to balance the team out.

  23. I just don’t like how Mo said they were going to spend money, and the payroll is literally the same

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