Glad to see they’re aligned with my thinking that this probably isnt the 100 loss team some people are pegging them as, but obviously still pretty uninspiring projections.
Lineup is fine. That rotation though… woof
So hitting will mostly hold its own while being not too exciting. Pitching will be a struggle.
Please move Pallante to the bullpen
Not a really inspiring group of players in the field or on the mound but there is no way that a team of mostly the same players just crashes and burns.
Maybe I’m overly negative, but I’m just not seeing the rosy future everyone else is. Walker, Gorman, and Carlson were all seen as solid players coming up and none of them panned out, so I’m not moved by prospect rankings and hopes of potential at this point.
I’ll take the over on the bullpen, but honestly the error bars for younger teams are wide so I could see them over performing.
“If you believe ZiPS, St. Louis could field about three major league rotations of starting pitchers with an ERA+ somewhere in the 90s.”
What a sentence.
Seems about right. They’ve consistently gone after mid-floor, low ceiling players in the last few drafts and trades. Now we’re getting the results.
I think it’s a strategy for “cost control” for the most part. If you don’t have exceptionally players, you don’t have to pay people exceptional money. Clearly wins and losses aren’t needed for the team to consider a season successful or poor, the profit margins are the thing right now for whatever reason.
I suspect the long term goal is to get the cheap mediocre players to fill roster spots so the few exceptional players get enough playing time to fully break out, and then possibly (but possibly not) augment the team with the right pieces either through trades or expiring FA deals to make a solid playoff run if/when folks develop. And if they end up in 3 years like the Nationals where not enough guys developed to spend money on pushing for it, they’ll just ship out Wetherholt and Winn for another round of prospects and use the mid-floor low ceiling guys in the minors right now to do it all over again with a full salary reset.
Rinse and repeat. Expect nothing.
Offseason isn’t even over… is Dan okay
Jordan Walker’s 80th percentile projection (AKA realistic best case scenario) has him at 0.9 WAR with a 105 OPS+
Zips has completely given up hope. Since we’re not competing this year, I guess we can give him a few hundred more ABs to see if he can figure it out but that is just depressing.
At some point, we need to give up and trade him off as a reclamation project. See what we have in other young outfielders.
Based purely on those projections, I would be satisfied running with Herrera as the primary DH, Crooks getting the bulk of starts at catcher, and Pages as the backup (something like a 60/40 split for catcher).
Assuming Donovan gets traded, I will say I’m very intrigued to see how Wetherholt at 2B and a Gorman/Saggese platoon at 3B work out.
The pitching is obviously *woof*, but one thing to note on those WAR totals is the innings totals seem a bit low. I’m not expecting the same injury luck we had for the rotation last year, but a 100+ inning drop from our top 5 last year (Gray, Pallante, Mikolas, Libby, and Fedde) to this year’s (McGreevy, Pallante, Libby, May, Fitts) seems a bit extreme.
Gray to May is a significant dropoff, but McGreevy over Mikolas should be an improvement as well as Fitts over Fedde. I’m not saying the rotation’s going to be great or anything, but I think we’ll see less of a dropoff from last year between 1-2 and 3-5. I think it’ll be less “Oh, crap, it’s Pallante/Mikolas/Fedde this series, we have no chance” and a little more “Oh, it’s Pallante/McGreevy/Fitts, we might have a chance to steal this series.”
60 wins sounds scary
I feel strangely the opposite, that the lineup is gonna suck and the rotation will surprise people
13 comments
Glad to see they’re aligned with my thinking that this probably isnt the 100 loss team some people are pegging them as, but obviously still pretty uninspiring projections.
Lineup is fine. That rotation though… woof
So hitting will mostly hold its own while being not too exciting. Pitching will be a struggle.
Please move Pallante to the bullpen
Not a really inspiring group of players in the field or on the mound but there is no way that a team of mostly the same players just crashes and burns.
Maybe I’m overly negative, but I’m just not seeing the rosy future everyone else is. Walker, Gorman, and Carlson were all seen as solid players coming up and none of them panned out, so I’m not moved by prospect rankings and hopes of potential at this point.
I’ll take the over on the bullpen, but honestly the error bars for younger teams are wide so I could see them over performing.
“If you believe ZiPS, St. Louis could field about three major league rotations of starting pitchers with an ERA+ somewhere in the 90s.”
What a sentence.
Seems about right. They’ve consistently gone after mid-floor, low ceiling players in the last few drafts and trades. Now we’re getting the results.
I think it’s a strategy for “cost control” for the most part. If you don’t have exceptionally players, you don’t have to pay people exceptional money. Clearly wins and losses aren’t needed for the team to consider a season successful or poor, the profit margins are the thing right now for whatever reason.
I suspect the long term goal is to get the cheap mediocre players to fill roster spots so the few exceptional players get enough playing time to fully break out, and then possibly (but possibly not) augment the team with the right pieces either through trades or expiring FA deals to make a solid playoff run if/when folks develop. And if they end up in 3 years like the Nationals where not enough guys developed to spend money on pushing for it, they’ll just ship out Wetherholt and Winn for another round of prospects and use the mid-floor low ceiling guys in the minors right now to do it all over again with a full salary reset.
Rinse and repeat. Expect nothing.
Offseason isn’t even over… is Dan okay
Jordan Walker’s 80th percentile projection (AKA realistic best case scenario) has him at 0.9 WAR with a 105 OPS+
Zips has completely given up hope. Since we’re not competing this year, I guess we can give him a few hundred more ABs to see if he can figure it out but that is just depressing.
At some point, we need to give up and trade him off as a reclamation project. See what we have in other young outfielders.
Based purely on those projections, I would be satisfied running with Herrera as the primary DH, Crooks getting the bulk of starts at catcher, and Pages as the backup (something like a 60/40 split for catcher).
Assuming Donovan gets traded, I will say I’m very intrigued to see how Wetherholt at 2B and a Gorman/Saggese platoon at 3B work out.
The pitching is obviously *woof*, but one thing to note on those WAR totals is the innings totals seem a bit low. I’m not expecting the same injury luck we had for the rotation last year, but a 100+ inning drop from our top 5 last year (Gray, Pallante, Mikolas, Libby, and Fedde) to this year’s (McGreevy, Pallante, Libby, May, Fitts) seems a bit extreme.
Gray to May is a significant dropoff, but McGreevy over Mikolas should be an improvement as well as Fitts over Fedde. I’m not saying the rotation’s going to be great or anything, but I think we’ll see less of a dropoff from last year between 1-2 and 3-5. I think it’ll be less “Oh, crap, it’s Pallante/Mikolas/Fedde this series, we have no chance” and a little more “Oh, it’s Pallante/McGreevy/Fitts, we might have a chance to steal this series.”
60 wins sounds scary
I feel strangely the opposite, that the lineup is gonna suck and the rotation will surprise people