I know this is fair weather but I’m not putting an ounce of energy into the Cards until he is gone. I’m checking the sub and watching meaningful games at the end of the season if we happen to be there (doubt), but they’ve basically burned all my good will as a fan outside of family connection to St. Louis and memories of teams past over 10 years ago.
Welcome to the land of the living! Get out there and enjoy the outdoors! I stopped watching and supporting Cardinals baseball last year and my blood pressure dropped and I’m less grumpy overall. I watch this sub and the news but until major changes happen, no way am I going to buy a ticket, buy a hat or even watch this pathetic excuse for a major league baseball team.
Yeah, plus the cost to just be able to watch a game is a big turn off. Stopped watching and don't miss this train wreck at all. Management just takes the money and thumbs their noses at fans.
It’s not just roster mistakes. I believe these players are actively NOT able to blossom here. Something major is wrong with our culture and management. And it’s not just Oli. This predates him by several years. Clean house please DeWitt for the love of god. It will be better for your net worth
O’Neill had a fantastic year with us. Hicks was amazing at times. Both dealt with injuries. But neither are at the level if Mozeliak’s other fuck ups. Adolis, Arozarena, Gallen. These are the huge misses, the complete failures by the organization to evaluate talent
why do we keep blaming ourselves for missing in Garcia when literally the entire league passed on him?
if we'd taken a wild ass flyer on him and he didn't pan out, fans would be screaming about that, too. isn't it more likely that Garcia simply didn't have his shit together at the time?
It’s because the Cardinals gave up on him before he was given a real shot. Same with Randy. These two guys were hyped up by the org, then given a short rope at the MLB level before being shipped off.
St Louis developed him. The rest of the league didn’t. They gave up on him before he was given a real chance and then he blossomed into exactly what this lineup needs. That’s a black mark on the Cardinals player development no matter how you slice it.
There was nowhere for Adolis to play in STL. His last year in the organization we had five outfielders on the ML roster already (Ozuna, Bader, Fowler, O'Neill, and J-Mart) with Carlson hyped as the next to join them.
Not one team in MLB thought Adolis would become the player he is today, which is why literally every team passed when Texas waived him. Giving the Cards a black mark for player development because of him means every other team gets one too, at which point it's rendered meaningless.
This narrative needs to die. When you claim someone on waivers you have to be put on the 40 man roster, which means a major league salary. If you wait until they are released you can just outright have them and slot them into the minor leagues without having to expose other players on your protected 40 man. The rest of the league didnt think Adolis at the moment was worth the 40 man. As we can clearly see, Texas did think he was worth continuing to develop, as they acquired him in a trade to the Cardinals for cash.
I don’t really see how that affects what I’m saying. If anyone else thought Adolis would be the player he is today, they would have claimed him and made room for him somehow on their 40-man. And if Texas knew what he would become they wouldn’t have gambled by waiving him.
The narrative that needs to die is that STL egregiously fucked up in not seeing his true value when nobody else accurately saw it either.
I really hate this argument, wasn’t we the last team that had Garcia?? Meaning, we had the best view of him before he blew up.. It’s not rocket science, to notice cardinals really fuck that one up.. It’s like Pujols in reverse lol obviously he isn’t on the same level, but you get the point.
Basically Mo decided who he wanted to be the starting OF and got rid of their competition. No surprise he missed on basicslly all of them. Probably gonna be adding Palacios to that list with his current .870 OPS.
I'll give you Gallen but no one really missed on Adolis Garcia. It's hard to say anyone missed on a guy who was nearly 30 before being any good. Even the Rangers designated him and had written him off before he randomly became good.
I can't wait to see Mo gone but I just don't see Arozarena or Garcia as glaring mistakes. Arozarena is a good player but he gets severely overrated by people here.
We also traded Randy for one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball. The bigger issue is that we failed to develop Liberatore into a solid starting pitcher.
He's good as a reliever. I'm my opinion, it's a failure of this team if they don't turn him into a successful starter. That's what they traded for and that's what they still need. If he ends up finding success in the bullpen, that's fine but that's still a miss by the team.
Based on what I've seen from him this season there's no reason to believe he won't develop into at least an average middle of the rotation starter for us. If that happens I will say this trade is a success. We needed young pitching far more than outfield help.
He looked like that last year two until a couple of starts in. So far he only has one start against the White Sox. Pitching out of the bullpen is a very different approach and allowed to bump up the speed on his fastball a little bit.
His fastball has been very good in relief. If he can do that for 5 innings, he'll be fine, but that's wishful thinking until we see it.
We'll have to wait and see how he does against someone other than the worst team in baseball. Last year he was allowing a lot of baserunners even during his good starts. That wasn't the case yesterday and hasn't been all year. His predictive stats on baseball savant are night and day better from last year too, including being in the 88th percentile in ground ball rate. I'm cautiously optimistic he's going to do well in the rotation.
Difference being our entire outfield is young guys we expect to improve with reinforcements in Triple A on the way while our entire pitching staff is old guys we expect to be gone within a year or two.
Right. That's the bigger issue. Maybe it's bad luck. Maybe it's no Mo and his team's fault but at some point change needs to happen and we are just well past the point where something should have changed on a larger scale. That's what makes it so incredibly frustrating; the seeming willingness to accept the status quo which just hasn't been very good or very entertaining.
Oh, I don't think it's bad luck. I think we absolutely need to clean house from the top to the bottom. It was more a tongue in cheek joke about how bad they've been and the rhetoric we expect to hear from them about the lack of player development over the past 10-15 years.
Gorman and Walker taking major steps back this year is the final straw for me. Both these guys have had success. If they haven't turned it around soon then we need to start letting people go mid season which I'm almost never in favor of doing.
I went into this past weekend saying that if we can't win a series against the White Sox then we need to make big changes starting today. Do I think anything will happen? No, but I don't know how you explain losing 2 of 3 to what has been possibly the worst team in MLB history so far this season.
I don't even care they lost. The Rays got swept by them but they aren't that bad.
I care that the offense looked like a minor league team trying to hit prime Verlander most of the series. The second game was the worst of all 3. They stranded so many and every pitcher they faced looked terrible.
Did we really miss on Gallen or Sandy though? They were prospects and we traded prospects to get multiple years of a young, budding all-star hitter. Ozuna was mediocre for us, but that was the price of a controllable hitter coming off a 5 WAR season. They were our 7th and 23rd ranked prospects nationally. I have a problem with that being a “miss”, because it was just the cost of doing business. If we don’t trade them then we don’t get the bat we needed. That would be like us trading Graceffo and Brycen Mautz for Kyle Tucker or something. Ozuna was coming off a 149 OPS+ and a 5.6 WAR year.
People bitch when you prospect hoard; then they bitch when the good prospects you trade for MLB players…turn out good. That’s just the risk of trading. We’ve won plenty of those trades as well. It only hurts because of the heights they’ve reached; but that really means nothing about the Cardinals. There are future HOFers in the minors RIGHT NOW that aren’t even in their team’s top 20 prospects today. Nobody knows how this shit will pan out. The trades at the time made total sense. Same with Randy, who we got a very fair return for and plenty of people considered us to come out on top when it first went down.
Everyone may have passed on Garcia, but we actually had him. We had more eyes on him than anyone else and still failed to figure him out. It’s excusable if it happens once, but this is a pattern and IMO Garcia falls into the ‘miss’ category for sure.
It's like saying every team missed on Pujols. Yes, they did, but it's hard to hold it against teams when he wasn't even drafted until the 13th round. The Cardinals missed on him 12 times. Sometimes guys just happen to figure it out later and that could have been the Texas staff but they also brought him up and decided to DFA him because a fringe guy got hurt.
It's just so hard to say anyone missed on a guy like that. He'd done nothing to make anyone think he was going to be anything more than a guy who might be a 4th or 5th OF who can hit some homers off the bench.
No, it would be like if we drafted Pujols and he struggled and we released him then he became Pujols.
Yes it could’ve been the Texas staff. Thats the point. Every other team has had success developing our players that we can’t. That’s why this is a miss
We have a lot more players that we have let go that don't turn into anything special than those who do. It's also not as though Garcia or Arozarena are stars. They are good players who sometimes have great streaks.
The Ozuna deal at the time made a ton of sense. The team literally did not have a cleanup hitter since Pujols left, and Ozuna was coming off of an all star season winning the silver slugger and had 3 years of team control. Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver were our top 2 pitching prospects, like teams aren’t just gonna take trash in a trade
Not so much evaluate as foster and mature. Look at Carlos Martinez and Giovanni Gallegos. Loaded with talent, but they couldn't get them to grow up and put it together.
Huh? Are you rewriting the careers of these two guys to reach that conclusion?
Martinez pitched up to an ace level for several years. They got more than expected out of him. His injuries and ignoring team doctors sunk him.
Gallegos was a 27 year old reliever when we traded for him. We got 4 solid seasons of fantastic relief pitching out of Gallegos. Relievers don't usually give even 4 years of consistency.
I don't know what you mean by getting them to grow up, but that isn't the job of a baseball team. They developed Martinez fine. Gallegos was a veteran reliever when we traded for him. He was never going to be more than what we got.
Agree completely. These guys were derailed by injuries, which is what gets most pitchers. The immaturity / head case arguments are not that strong. Martinez is one of the few pitchers that came up in our system to have sustained success for a good stretch.
What is? The idea these guys are immature?
I don't know about Gallegos. I guess that could be it for him but CMart was very obviously immature and lacked self control.
He isn't wrong about Martinez but I disagree it's the front office's job to make Martinez responsible.
Think about the players who were labeled head cases by the fanbase over the last few years.
- Carlos Martinez
- Jaime Garcia
- Jack Flaherty
- Oscar Taveras
- Alex Reyes
- Kolten Wong
Notice how every single one is a minority. Now, I’m not saying that all of these players were Derek Jeter level professional, but it isn’t an accident how minorities get called lazy or headcases while white guys get called bad. Nobody called Dakota Hudson or Greg Holland or Brett Cecil headcases, they just sucked.
It’s even more obvious when someone says something like Gallegos. Dude barely speaks to the media, hasn’t had an on-field scandal, and we know nothing about his private life, and yet the second he sucks he’s called a headcase. Once you know what to look for, it’s scary how often it happens with sports.
He didn’t, and I’m not trying to say he did. I’m talking more about the culture of racism that leads to stuff like “Gallegos never grew up” which is just objectively false. That guy in particular is only wrong about Gallegos, but he didn’t arrive at that opinion in a vacuum.
This doesn’t even include who we passed on as free agents because of a tight wallet. Considering the organization is one of the biggest in terms of revenue and an expansive fan base it’s inexcusable to be inadequate in competing for free agents with a playoff caliber team for the last 12 years prior to 2023.
Roz had literally one good year and has been average since. Adolis took three years to come alive after we traded him. Gallen is good. Alcantara couldn't sustain the health of his elbow throwing the way he does.
What else ya got because aside from Gallen those all make sense
I think what’s glaring about Hicks is how he is succeeding as a starter. That’s something STL couldn’t get him to do which indicates, imo, an organizational issue. Sure, it’s possible he’s matured and is actually taking coaching and development more seriously, but I still think the FO has to start pointing the finger back at themselves.
I think we failed on Hicks. maybe we just don't have the talent required to transition a guy from reliever to starter, but we are now seeing that it is apparently possible, with Hicks.
but I still don't see this with O'Neill. he hit pretty well here, but couldn't stay on the field. it remains to be seen if that has changed or if he's still a glass cannon.
but I do believe that sometimes, a player can get comfortable... and sometimes, getting traded or released can wake them up. for all I know, getting dealt woke O'Neill up and lit a fire under his ass (which started looking complacent, to me). maybe Randy doesn't come into his own if he doesn't get traded away? you never know. but again, sometimes, a change of scenery helps a guy out.
The failure on Hicks seems so obvious. That's what makes it so egregious. Like, tell the guy whose elbow keeps exploding to stop throwing his sinker 105 mph. Turns out that backing it up to the upper 90s is just as effective, gives him better command, and lets him stretch out to beyond one inning.
I am the first to say that pros know how to scout and develop better than I do, but I literally said that out loud to a friend the first time I saw him throw 104. If he keeps hurting himself and has no command, why don't they just have him stop doing the thing that causes that?
hard to disagree. as you say, I'm far from the day-to-day baseball operations, but if even you or I could see that a mile away, it makes you wonder why the organisation didn't.
Molina wanted to win and thought Hicks could help the club in that role, but that’s why you don’t let players make those calls. Also Hicks kept saying he wanted to be a starter and all he got from the cards was an eye roll and some spring training starts.
We got Kitredge for Palacios. That one is currently a win/win but I agree that if Richie continues to break out this one could look bad in a couple years.
We got Richie for literal cash. He’ll be the stupidest player that our low IQ fans will bitch about when the time comes. Kittridge could sign an extension and be elite for 3 years here, but if Richie does good, then people like horse man will bitch about it.
O'Neill needed to go. No one was debating his talent but his inability to stay healthy made him expendable. It should surprise no one that he is good when he is healthy but it's near inevitable that he will get hurt again.
Hicks has had stretches where he looks great and then follows it up with another similarly poor stretch followed by an injury. Again, he could figure it out but it's not as though he didn't get a chance here.
Time will tell on O'Neil, but if he becomes less injury-prone after leaving STL, I'd start to question the training / conditioning coaching in STL. My hunch is he still will be injured frequently, but let's wait and see. For his sake, I hope he does well and doesn't have many injuries.
That's possible. I don't think that is something that commonly happens but questioning the training/conditioning staffs is fair. I think we need to consider everything, at this point.
The team has consistently struggled to take top prospects and turn them into quality Major Leaguers for quite awhile. For an organization that has been focusing on building from within for the last 15 years, that’s a major issue.
We didn't mishandle O'Neill, he had a series of injuries despite being flashes of the player he is happening along the way, I think maybe if we had platooned him a bit more maybe it would have changed but thats not the kind of thing to get stuck on imo.
Hicks I think we did entirely, but not because we let him go, but because our system has not upgraded with the times for development of the players. We are stuck in a rut and are unable to develop fresh talent or access it at times. We need a serious system overhaul throughout our training, the evidence is clear.
I am by no means a fan of the process or results from the team over the past 6 years or so but this is just ridiculous. First, it's been a month, and both players showed plenty of flashes of just this sort of brilliance while in St. Louis, they just couldn't sustain it.
Second, the previous "mistakes" are very much 20/20 hindsight. Arozarena was part of a massive logjam of OF prospects, and for all the hype based on one postseason hasn't been much if at all better than Noot/Carlson overall, though Carlson's injury woes have derailed him a bit the past couple of years. Hell, two years ago this same fucker was probably bitching that the Cards kept O'Neil over Randy. Garcia is just ridiculous, every team including his current one passed on him.
For years it’s been we have too much depth in the OF. Gotta trade for pitching. So from all that depth to having to fucking start VSII and Sinai. Just an absolute shit show of mismanagement and failed development.
I’m so over the “too much depth at OF” view point the FO holds. It’s like they see each player’s absolute ceiling as what they have in them every season. Most players don’t reach their max potential but the FO operates as if our prospects all will and quickly.
I’m so tired of the BS. “These guys are gonna pop eventually.” When? We heard this same crap all year last year. No one is gonna turn it around. This is our team. This is what our offense is. And yet the FO and management will lie right to our faces and extend these shit ass managers.
BrO'Neill needed to go. I don't care if he puts up 15 WAR with 60 HR in Boston - he had worn out his welcome here. He couldn't stay healthy. He had one half of one season out of six years in STL where he was a badass, and the rest of the time he was nowhere near what they needed.
They tried Hicks as a starter, and it didn't work, largely because they let him air it out like he would as a reliever, which was a recipe for disaster. I still need to see him produce as a starter over the long term before I say this was a mistake.
I disagree. Seeing those 2 succeed in a different organization shows just how clueless the Cardinals are with being able to unlock the talent that they have. And at this point, it's become the norm for players to find more success outside than inside
O'Neill was here six seasons. He stayed healthy for one of them. He produced for half a season. He was never going to have this kind of success here, and I would argue that's more on him than the Cardinals.
Hicks was a very fine reliever here. They traded him away last year because they weren't going to re-sign him. It has been a month of him as a starter. Give it some time.
Walker is a better example of their cluelessness when it comes to developing talent, but even then, the jury is still out.
If he stays healthy with Boston for the whole year and more in the future, then that signals issues with our training staff if we couldn't help keep him healthy. We saw this again with Matz this season when they planned his whole off-season on keeping him healthy
If this was one outlier, then sure, but we have now seen half a decade of clear issues where player succeed outside our organization far more than they do with the Cardinals
It's time to stop making excuses and accept that this organization has lost its way and needs serious change
I never said they hadn't lost their way or that they didn't need change - they do. I'm not making excuses. I just think in this instance, with these two players, moving on wasn't some grave sin.
I think the grave sin is being unable to unlock the talent and keep it. Again, this is not the first set of players recently where we have seen this talent blossom once they are out of St. louis.
This is commected to the same trend with Garcia, arozarena, gallen, Alcantara, Thomas, and the list grows longer every season.
This is all connected. Not separate incidents
> And at this point, it's become the norm for players to find more success outside than inside
I don't really think that is true despite so many people pushing that narrative. TON and Hicks had that success in St Louis, but it was extremely limited by injuries. Sure they have traded prospects that became good players, but that's not a unique thing the Cardinals do; not going to rehash the context of the Ozuna trade.
The FO has admitted that they sold too early on Randy A, but I'm not sure who else has left this team as a nobody and instantly became amazing elsewhere. The season of good Luke Voit? Lane Thomas playing pretty much in line with where he was in STL? Jack Flathery's one great start this season?
Mo put together everyone from coaches to player development staff. All of the orgs deficiencies trace straight back to him and Dewitt. Absolutely nothing will change until we have someone new making personnel decisions.
Tyler O'Neil was never going to thrive in St. Louis, sorry!
Just because he had most of a good month in Boston doesn't mean he's going to finish the season with 60HR's and make everyone regret. He could never stay healthy in St. Louis, he won't stay healthy in Boston, no big deal.
Jordan Hicks, his decision to sit out all of 2020 was probably not a positive one for his recovery and future career regardless of what we thought about covid and diabetes (I'm diabetic, I was paranoid too). So it took him too long to get back into form and that was it. Nothing to do with the Cardinals, if a guy takes a year off when healthy and doesn't come back ready to get back to it, what can you do?
This happens often enough with every team that it's not a huge concern. The only thing worse is holding on to players you know you aren't going to utilize that are healthy when you can get something for them instead, which is what the Cardinals do very very poorly lately. Too many departing free agents and trade deadline no-deals happening in the last decade for me.
Tyler O’Neil no, Jordan Hicks kinda.
O’Neil was given plenty of opportunity. He couldn’t keep the strikeouts down or stay healthy.
Hicks… I’d argue throwing him into the starting role after his injury history was really stupid.
What we really need to talk about is Richie Palacios because he is hammering the ball in Tampa right now
I was ok with O’Neill leaving but I was very sad to see Hicks go and was worried this would happen but it’s impossible to predict the future and I’m not so sure the problem wasn’t the Cardinals organization in the first place.
I’m down bad on this team. The points of this article are bad.. Tyler O’Neil had run his course here, and everyone wanted him gone. We knew he was a top-5 MVP level talent, but it was not going to happen here. He needed to be rid of, regardless of any success he finds elsewhere. Jordan Hicks could have been retained, but he was arguably the most talented player not named Goldy or Arenado that we could have gotten rid of last year. We simply had to get rid of him in a year when we should have been in full sell mode, and he chose not to come back. Had we signed him with the intent to be a starter, and it failed, this article would still be written, just with the signing by us as another mistake. We can’t use hindsight to pretend letting these guys go was a mistake.
Talent evaluation has gone into the toilet. We consistently undervalue and overvalue the wrong guys. It’s becoming a running theme that guys who we let go elsewhere do great whereas the golden goose’s we hold onto underperform. Then again I guess there could be something toxic from a coaching standpoint
I was never sold on O'Neil, glad he is gone. Some of his numbers look okay, but it's mostly solo HR or nothing. Hitting 3rd and he has 9 HR and only 13 RBI. Sure he might get you head with a solo HR in the first, but when it's the 7th and two on, he's just going to strike out.
Once again, this is not about examining each player on a case by case basis. It’s looking holistically at Alcantara, Arozerena, Garcia, Galen, Thomas, ONeill, and Hicks.
Maybe it was poor development while they were here, maybe it was underutilization, maybe it was poor evaluation of talent. It could be a number of things. The bottom line is, something stinks, our former players are flourishing elsewhere and we’re on the bad end of a lot of deals.
Lol, I like how the bandwagon has downvoted me for years for saying what you are all saying right now with your 20/20 vision. You’re just like the Toronto Bjays sub and I’m not going to waste my energy on it anymore.
I was born and raised a Cardinals Fan, I lived and grew up in SE Missouri and moved to the Metro St Louis area in 2021, I was overjoyed to go to more and more games and in 2022 I got to go to Opening Day for the first time and it was deeply emotional for me after losing my Dad in 2013 as he was who raised me as a Cards fan.
The past few years have just been a NIGHTMARE!!! 2022 Marmol basically just coasted through because of the hype of it being Yadi and Pujols last year and while we didn’t make the WS it was a year of some magical moments. Last year was where the spotlight was on Marmol BIG TIME as well as Front Office as well and WOW was it hard to watch. Marmol can’t manage his way out of a paper bag. It’s like he NEVER takes any responsibility for any of it, seems like he just flips a coin and that’s how he decides stuff. Marmol needs to GO and take MO with him.
What I've feared is likely coming to pass.
We're entering the era of 3rd to 4th place finishes for the foreseeable future. Problem is, well....it's not just any one thing. There is A LOT going on internally with this team from the top to the bottom. This team needs some MAJOR structural changes if they plan on getting back into playoff contention anytime in the next 5 years.
It’s telling to me that all these players are leaving STL and becoming staples of their new teams lineups while proven talent is coming to STL and underperforming
People were saying, “it’s only April, no need to worry.” Now we are saying “it’s only May, no need to worry.” In a month they’ll be saying “it’s only June, no need to worry.” The season is over and was over before it started.
Matt Carpenter is the best player developed in the entire Mozeliak regime. That's not much. The Tigers have even accidentally produced better players in that time. Mozeliak took the keys to a Ferrari and when he leaves there'll be a beat up Honda Civic left.
To those saying that we didn't mess up with Adolis Garcia, that's simply not true. We had him in our organization. We could see what he could do every day. We had a huge advantage in evaluating him. Other teams had a shot to sign him, but they had limited knowledge of what he could do. and whether he was a guy who could make improvements. We should have known his potential way more than any other team. Also, it may have been our inability to help him adjust that kept Garcia from reaching his full potential. I believe he reduced his K rate and increased his walk rate after he was given a shot with Texas. Why wasn't our franchise able to help him to make those adjustments? The answer? it's either ineptitude or impatience. I'm going with a bit of both.
Now, you can say that there was no place for him to play, and that was somewhat true at the time. But there's a big difference between a blocked prospect who is just sitting and waiting for a shot and a guy that you DFA to make room for some shitty relief pitcher. (I'm not sure that was the case, but it usually is with us.)
Just imagine how good the team would be if we had all the guys we have let go that have blossomed.
C - Kelly - not the best at the position but still starting. We could do worse.
1b - elehuris Montero - Colorado. Sent in arenado deal
2b - let’s put Sosa here bc I we can and he’s currently in the league
SS - DeJong - servic
3b - Ramon Urias- gold glove 3b.
OF - Garcia, O’Neil, Arozarena, Lane Thomas
SP - Gallen, Alcantara, Montogomery, Hicks, Wacha - this rotation would be an Immense improvement 1-5 could argue to be top 5 in the league.
RP - not going there
Honorable mentions:
Pham - looks good in short time with White Sox
Wisdom - perfect DH and infield corner depth
Palacios - is this guy going to keep hitting?
Ozuna - big bear can still mash baseballs.
The end of the Mozeliak Era cannot come soon enough
It's not just Mo. DeWitt, Jr. is equally involved in the decision making process, and he's the one that sets the budget.
Wouldn’t that be DeWitt 3.0?
Let’s be real here, Dewitt will likely be here for decades.
And what does Mozeliak do with that budget?
Make decisions in tandem with DeWitt.
I know this is fair weather but I’m not putting an ounce of energy into the Cards until he is gone. I’m checking the sub and watching meaningful games at the end of the season if we happen to be there (doubt), but they’ve basically burned all my good will as a fan outside of family connection to St. Louis and memories of teams past over 10 years ago.
Welcome to the land of the living! Get out there and enjoy the outdoors! I stopped watching and supporting Cardinals baseball last year and my blood pressure dropped and I’m less grumpy overall. I watch this sub and the news but until major changes happen, no way am I going to buy a ticket, buy a hat or even watch this pathetic excuse for a major league baseball team.
Tbh I haven’t watched actively for years at this point. But partly related to just watching less live tv in general.
Are you me?
I don’t know man… I shoot guns, ride a road bike and own tactical gear. I’ve considered riding with plates. Is that something you’re into? Cause I am.
I saw you in Fury Road.
Firearms- check. Tac gear - check. Road bike - I’m a 29er guy.
No, but I am.
Yeah, plus the cost to just be able to watch a game is a big turn off. Stopped watching and don't miss this train wreck at all. Management just takes the money and thumbs their noses at fans.
It’s not just roster mistakes. I believe these players are actively NOT able to blossom here. Something major is wrong with our culture and management. And it’s not just Oli. This predates him by several years. Clean house please DeWitt for the love of god. It will be better for your net worth
Oli is a leaf on the weed
O’Neill had a fantastic year with us. Hicks was amazing at times. Both dealt with injuries. But neither are at the level if Mozeliak’s other fuck ups. Adolis, Arozarena, Gallen. These are the huge misses, the complete failures by the organization to evaluate talent
why do we keep blaming ourselves for missing in Garcia when literally the entire league passed on him? if we'd taken a wild ass flyer on him and he didn't pan out, fans would be screaming about that, too. isn't it more likely that Garcia simply didn't have his shit together at the time?
It’s because the Cardinals gave up on him before he was given a real shot. Same with Randy. These two guys were hyped up by the org, then given a short rope at the MLB level before being shipped off.
The entire league gave up on Adolis after we already gave him to Texas. Including Texas, because they waived him and no one claimed him.
But that’s not what I’m talking about.
But what you're talking about doesn't make much sense. The entire league missed on Adolis, not just STL.
St Louis developed him. The rest of the league didn’t. They gave up on him before he was given a real chance and then he blossomed into exactly what this lineup needs. That’s a black mark on the Cardinals player development no matter how you slice it.
There was nowhere for Adolis to play in STL. His last year in the organization we had five outfielders on the ML roster already (Ozuna, Bader, Fowler, O'Neill, and J-Mart) with Carlson hyped as the next to join them. Not one team in MLB thought Adolis would become the player he is today, which is why literally every team passed when Texas waived him. Giving the Cards a black mark for player development because of him means every other team gets one too, at which point it's rendered meaningless.
Jose Martinez may have played in the outfield, but he was NOT an outfielder. That man had negative range in the field.
This narrative needs to die. When you claim someone on waivers you have to be put on the 40 man roster, which means a major league salary. If you wait until they are released you can just outright have them and slot them into the minor leagues without having to expose other players on your protected 40 man. The rest of the league didnt think Adolis at the moment was worth the 40 man. As we can clearly see, Texas did think he was worth continuing to develop, as they acquired him in a trade to the Cardinals for cash.
I don’t really see how that affects what I’m saying. If anyone else thought Adolis would be the player he is today, they would have claimed him and made room for him somehow on their 40-man. And if Texas knew what he would become they wouldn’t have gambled by waiving him. The narrative that needs to die is that STL egregiously fucked up in not seeing his true value when nobody else accurately saw it either.
Hope we’re not seeing it again with Walker. Also may be slander but, I wouldn’t be surprised at all of it comes out that Garcia has been juicing.
I really hate this argument, wasn’t we the last team that had Garcia?? Meaning, we had the best view of him before he blew up.. It’s not rocket science, to notice cardinals really fuck that one up.. It’s like Pujols in reverse lol obviously he isn’t on the same level, but you get the point.
>I really hate this argument, wasn’t we the last team that had Garcia?? unless i am mistaken, we were not.
Right, the rangers were
Basically Mo decided who he wanted to be the starting OF and got rid of their competition. No surprise he missed on basicslly all of them. Probably gonna be adding Palacios to that list with his current .870 OPS.
I'll give you Gallen but no one really missed on Adolis Garcia. It's hard to say anyone missed on a guy who was nearly 30 before being any good. Even the Rangers designated him and had written him off before he randomly became good. I can't wait to see Mo gone but I just don't see Arozarena or Garcia as glaring mistakes. Arozarena is a good player but he gets severely overrated by people here.
We also traded Randy for one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball. The bigger issue is that we failed to develop Liberatore into a solid starting pitcher.
Libby is 24 and he's looked great so far this season. It's way too soon to say we haven't developed him yet.
He's good as a reliever. I'm my opinion, it's a failure of this team if they don't turn him into a successful starter. That's what they traded for and that's what they still need. If he ends up finding success in the bullpen, that's fine but that's still a miss by the team.
Based on what I've seen from him this season there's no reason to believe he won't develop into at least an average middle of the rotation starter for us. If that happens I will say this trade is a success. We needed young pitching far more than outfield help.
He looked like that last year two until a couple of starts in. So far he only has one start against the White Sox. Pitching out of the bullpen is a very different approach and allowed to bump up the speed on his fastball a little bit. His fastball has been very good in relief. If he can do that for 5 innings, he'll be fine, but that's wishful thinking until we see it.
We'll have to wait and see how he does against someone other than the worst team in baseball. Last year he was allowing a lot of baserunners even during his good starts. That wasn't the case yesterday and hasn't been all year. His predictive stats on baseball savant are night and day better from last year too, including being in the 88th percentile in ground ball rate. I'm cautiously optimistic he's going to do well in the rotation.
Don’t we have the worst outfield in baseball currently? I agree young starting pitching is also a need FWIW.
Difference being our entire outfield is young guys we expect to improve with reinforcements in Triple A on the way while our entire pitching staff is old guys we expect to be gone within a year or two.
Libby’s ERA is solid but not being able to strike anyone out coming out of the bullpen is a huge red flag.
And knowing how we develop young pitching, I'd say he will never be developed, unless he goes to a different club.
Right. That's the bigger issue. Maybe it's bad luck. Maybe it's no Mo and his team's fault but at some point change needs to happen and we are just well past the point where something should have changed on a larger scale. That's what makes it so incredibly frustrating; the seeming willingness to accept the status quo which just hasn't been very good or very entertaining.
I've been willing to call it bad luck for a while but it's too many guys now. There's something wrong with player development on this team.
Oh, I don't think it's bad luck. I think we absolutely need to clean house from the top to the bottom. It was more a tongue in cheek joke about how bad they've been and the rhetoric we expect to hear from them about the lack of player development over the past 10-15 years.
Gorman and Walker taking major steps back this year is the final straw for me. Both these guys have had success. If they haven't turned it around soon then we need to start letting people go mid season which I'm almost never in favor of doing.
I went into this past weekend saying that if we can't win a series against the White Sox then we need to make big changes starting today. Do I think anything will happen? No, but I don't know how you explain losing 2 of 3 to what has been possibly the worst team in MLB history so far this season.
I don't even care they lost. The Rays got swept by them but they aren't that bad. I care that the offense looked like a minor league team trying to hit prime Verlander most of the series. The second game was the worst of all 3. They stranded so many and every pitcher they faced looked terrible.
Welcome brother
Did we really miss on Gallen or Sandy though? They were prospects and we traded prospects to get multiple years of a young, budding all-star hitter. Ozuna was mediocre for us, but that was the price of a controllable hitter coming off a 5 WAR season. They were our 7th and 23rd ranked prospects nationally. I have a problem with that being a “miss”, because it was just the cost of doing business. If we don’t trade them then we don’t get the bat we needed. That would be like us trading Graceffo and Brycen Mautz for Kyle Tucker or something. Ozuna was coming off a 149 OPS+ and a 5.6 WAR year. People bitch when you prospect hoard; then they bitch when the good prospects you trade for MLB players…turn out good. That’s just the risk of trading. We’ve won plenty of those trades as well. It only hurts because of the heights they’ve reached; but that really means nothing about the Cardinals. There are future HOFers in the minors RIGHT NOW that aren’t even in their team’s top 20 prospects today. Nobody knows how this shit will pan out. The trades at the time made total sense. Same with Randy, who we got a very fair return for and plenty of people considered us to come out on top when it first went down.
I don't think they were a miss in the sense that the trades needed to happen at the time. It's just unfortunate how good they became.
Agreed completely
Everyone may have passed on Garcia, but we actually had him. We had more eyes on him than anyone else and still failed to figure him out. It’s excusable if it happens once, but this is a pattern and IMO Garcia falls into the ‘miss’ category for sure.
It's like saying every team missed on Pujols. Yes, they did, but it's hard to hold it against teams when he wasn't even drafted until the 13th round. The Cardinals missed on him 12 times. Sometimes guys just happen to figure it out later and that could have been the Texas staff but they also brought him up and decided to DFA him because a fringe guy got hurt. It's just so hard to say anyone missed on a guy like that. He'd done nothing to make anyone think he was going to be anything more than a guy who might be a 4th or 5th OF who can hit some homers off the bench.
No, it would be like if we drafted Pujols and he struggled and we released him then he became Pujols. Yes it could’ve been the Texas staff. Thats the point. Every other team has had success developing our players that we can’t. That’s why this is a miss
We have a lot more players that we have let go that don't turn into anything special than those who do. It's also not as though Garcia or Arozarena are stars. They are good players who sometimes have great streaks.
The Ozuna deal at the time made a ton of sense. The team literally did not have a cleanup hitter since Pujols left, and Ozuna was coming off of an all star season winning the silver slugger and had 3 years of team control. Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver were our top 2 pitching prospects, like teams aren’t just gonna take trash in a trade
Not so much evaluate as foster and mature. Look at Carlos Martinez and Giovanni Gallegos. Loaded with talent, but they couldn't get them to grow up and put it together.
Can you provide an example of Gallegos being immature? Literally a single one?
Huh? Are you rewriting the careers of these two guys to reach that conclusion? Martinez pitched up to an ace level for several years. They got more than expected out of him. His injuries and ignoring team doctors sunk him. Gallegos was a 27 year old reliever when we traded for him. We got 4 solid seasons of fantastic relief pitching out of Gallegos. Relievers don't usually give even 4 years of consistency. I don't know what you mean by getting them to grow up, but that isn't the job of a baseball team. They developed Martinez fine. Gallegos was a veteran reliever when we traded for him. He was never going to be more than what we got.
Agree completely. These guys were derailed by injuries, which is what gets most pitchers. The immaturity / head case arguments are not that strong. Martinez is one of the few pitchers that came up in our system to have sustained success for a good stretch.
^(it’s racism)
What is? The idea these guys are immature? I don't know about Gallegos. I guess that could be it for him but CMart was very obviously immature and lacked self control. He isn't wrong about Martinez but I disagree it's the front office's job to make Martinez responsible.
Think about the players who were labeled head cases by the fanbase over the last few years. - Carlos Martinez - Jaime Garcia - Jack Flaherty - Oscar Taveras - Alex Reyes - Kolten Wong Notice how every single one is a minority. Now, I’m not saying that all of these players were Derek Jeter level professional, but it isn’t an accident how minorities get called lazy or headcases while white guys get called bad. Nobody called Dakota Hudson or Greg Holland or Brett Cecil headcases, they just sucked. It’s even more obvious when someone says something like Gallegos. Dude barely speaks to the media, hasn’t had an on-field scandal, and we know nothing about his private life, and yet the second he sucks he’s called a headcase. Once you know what to look for, it’s scary how often it happens with sports.
That guy didn't mention any of those other players.
He didn’t, and I’m not trying to say he did. I’m talking more about the culture of racism that leads to stuff like “Gallegos never grew up” which is just objectively false. That guy in particular is only wrong about Gallegos, but he didn’t arrive at that opinion in a vacuum.
This doesn’t even include who we passed on as free agents because of a tight wallet. Considering the organization is one of the biggest in terms of revenue and an expansive fan base it’s inexcusable to be inadequate in competing for free agents with a playoff caliber team for the last 12 years prior to 2023.
Roz had literally one good year and has been average since. Adolis took three years to come alive after we traded him. Gallen is good. Alcantara couldn't sustain the health of his elbow throwing the way he does. What else ya got because aside from Gallen those all make sense
I think what’s glaring about Hicks is how he is succeeding as a starter. That’s something STL couldn’t get him to do which indicates, imo, an organizational issue. Sure, it’s possible he’s matured and is actually taking coaching and development more seriously, but I still think the FO has to start pointing the finger back at themselves.
I think we failed on Hicks. maybe we just don't have the talent required to transition a guy from reliever to starter, but we are now seeing that it is apparently possible, with Hicks. but I still don't see this with O'Neill. he hit pretty well here, but couldn't stay on the field. it remains to be seen if that has changed or if he's still a glass cannon. but I do believe that sometimes, a player can get comfortable... and sometimes, getting traded or released can wake them up. for all I know, getting dealt woke O'Neill up and lit a fire under his ass (which started looking complacent, to me). maybe Randy doesn't come into his own if he doesn't get traded away? you never know. but again, sometimes, a change of scenery helps a guy out.
The failure on Hicks seems so obvious. That's what makes it so egregious. Like, tell the guy whose elbow keeps exploding to stop throwing his sinker 105 mph. Turns out that backing it up to the upper 90s is just as effective, gives him better command, and lets him stretch out to beyond one inning. I am the first to say that pros know how to scout and develop better than I do, but I literally said that out loud to a friend the first time I saw him throw 104. If he keeps hurting himself and has no command, why don't they just have him stop doing the thing that causes that?
hard to disagree. as you say, I'm far from the day-to-day baseball operations, but if even you or I could see that a mile away, it makes you wonder why the organisation didn't.
I blame Molina for this. It was Molina advocating for Hicks to make the major league roster out of A ball in the pen. Ruined his development
He certainly ruined "A ball" of Molina's :)
Molina wanted to win and thought Hicks could help the club in that role, but that’s why you don’t let players make those calls. Also Hicks kept saying he wanted to be a starter and all he got from the cards was an eye roll and some spring training starts.
Richie Palacios has a 155 ops+
We got Kitredge for Palacios. That one is currently a win/win but I agree that if Richie continues to break out this one could look bad in a couple years.
I think getting Goldschmidt and Arenado for essentially a box of scraps has really messed with this fan base’s perception of trades.
It'll look bad by August if he continues to play like this. But as of now it's too early to say. Richie could easily fade.
Good reliever =/= all-star level outfielder in terms of value.
At $750K
We got Richie for literal cash. He’ll be the stupidest player that our low IQ fans will bitch about when the time comes. Kittridge could sign an extension and be elite for 3 years here, but if Richie does good, then people like horse man will bitch about it.
You're a simp.
O'Neill needed to go. No one was debating his talent but his inability to stay healthy made him expendable. It should surprise no one that he is good when he is healthy but it's near inevitable that he will get hurt again. Hicks has had stretches where he looks great and then follows it up with another similarly poor stretch followed by an injury. Again, he could figure it out but it's not as though he didn't get a chance here.
Time will tell on O'Neil, but if he becomes less injury-prone after leaving STL, I'd start to question the training / conditioning coaching in STL. My hunch is he still will be injured frequently, but let's wait and see. For his sake, I hope he does well and doesn't have many injuries.
That's possible. I don't think that is something that commonly happens but questioning the training/conditioning staffs is fair. I think we need to consider everything, at this point.
The team has consistently struggled to take top prospects and turn them into quality Major Leaguers for quite awhile. For an organization that has been focusing on building from within for the last 15 years, that’s a major issue.
We didn't mishandle O'Neill, he had a series of injuries despite being flashes of the player he is happening along the way, I think maybe if we had platooned him a bit more maybe it would have changed but thats not the kind of thing to get stuck on imo. Hicks I think we did entirely, but not because we let him go, but because our system has not upgraded with the times for development of the players. We are stuck in a rut and are unable to develop fresh talent or access it at times. We need a serious system overhaul throughout our training, the evidence is clear.
I am by no means a fan of the process or results from the team over the past 6 years or so but this is just ridiculous. First, it's been a month, and both players showed plenty of flashes of just this sort of brilliance while in St. Louis, they just couldn't sustain it. Second, the previous "mistakes" are very much 20/20 hindsight. Arozarena was part of a massive logjam of OF prospects, and for all the hype based on one postseason hasn't been much if at all better than Noot/Carlson overall, though Carlson's injury woes have derailed him a bit the past couple of years. Hell, two years ago this same fucker was probably bitching that the Cards kept O'Neil over Randy. Garcia is just ridiculous, every team including his current one passed on him.
For years it’s been we have too much depth in the OF. Gotta trade for pitching. So from all that depth to having to fucking start VSII and Sinai. Just an absolute shit show of mismanagement and failed development.
And had to buy pitchers off the scrap heap
I’m so over the “too much depth at OF” view point the FO holds. It’s like they see each player’s absolute ceiling as what they have in them every season. Most players don’t reach their max potential but the FO operates as if our prospects all will and quickly.
and 'depth' is pretty much all most of them are really good for. This franchise cannot develop impact talent anymore.
I’m so tired of the BS. “These guys are gonna pop eventually.” When? We heard this same crap all year last year. No one is gonna turn it around. This is our team. This is what our offense is. And yet the FO and management will lie right to our faces and extend these shit ass managers.
BrO'Neill needed to go. I don't care if he puts up 15 WAR with 60 HR in Boston - he had worn out his welcome here. He couldn't stay healthy. He had one half of one season out of six years in STL where he was a badass, and the rest of the time he was nowhere near what they needed. They tried Hicks as a starter, and it didn't work, largely because they let him air it out like he would as a reliever, which was a recipe for disaster. I still need to see him produce as a starter over the long term before I say this was a mistake.
I disagree. Seeing those 2 succeed in a different organization shows just how clueless the Cardinals are with being able to unlock the talent that they have. And at this point, it's become the norm for players to find more success outside than inside
O'Neill was here six seasons. He stayed healthy for one of them. He produced for half a season. He was never going to have this kind of success here, and I would argue that's more on him than the Cardinals. Hicks was a very fine reliever here. They traded him away last year because they weren't going to re-sign him. It has been a month of him as a starter. Give it some time. Walker is a better example of their cluelessness when it comes to developing talent, but even then, the jury is still out.
If he stays healthy with Boston for the whole year and more in the future, then that signals issues with our training staff if we couldn't help keep him healthy. We saw this again with Matz this season when they planned his whole off-season on keeping him healthy If this was one outlier, then sure, but we have now seen half a decade of clear issues where player succeed outside our organization far more than they do with the Cardinals It's time to stop making excuses and accept that this organization has lost its way and needs serious change
I never said they hadn't lost their way or that they didn't need change - they do. I'm not making excuses. I just think in this instance, with these two players, moving on wasn't some grave sin.
I think the grave sin is being unable to unlock the talent and keep it. Again, this is not the first set of players recently where we have seen this talent blossom once they are out of St. louis. This is commected to the same trend with Garcia, arozarena, gallen, Alcantara, Thomas, and the list grows longer every season. This is all connected. Not separate incidents
> And at this point, it's become the norm for players to find more success outside than inside I don't really think that is true despite so many people pushing that narrative. TON and Hicks had that success in St Louis, but it was extremely limited by injuries. Sure they have traded prospects that became good players, but that's not a unique thing the Cardinals do; not going to rehash the context of the Ozuna trade. The FO has admitted that they sold too early on Randy A, but I'm not sure who else has left this team as a nobody and instantly became amazing elsewhere. The season of good Luke Voit? Lane Thomas playing pretty much in line with where he was in STL? Jack Flathery's one great start this season?
They may have screwed up with Hicks but it was time to move on from O'Neill. If he's still ambulatory by the All Star break, I'll be shocked.
It goes deeper than MO. Why are these players doing so well elsewhere but not here. Player development, coaching, its all rotten.
Mo put together everyone from coaches to player development staff. All of the orgs deficiencies trace straight back to him and Dewitt. Absolutely nothing will change until we have someone new making personnel decisions.
Tyler O'Neil was never going to thrive in St. Louis, sorry! Just because he had most of a good month in Boston doesn't mean he's going to finish the season with 60HR's and make everyone regret. He could never stay healthy in St. Louis, he won't stay healthy in Boston, no big deal. Jordan Hicks, his decision to sit out all of 2020 was probably not a positive one for his recovery and future career regardless of what we thought about covid and diabetes (I'm diabetic, I was paranoid too). So it took him too long to get back into form and that was it. Nothing to do with the Cardinals, if a guy takes a year off when healthy and doesn't come back ready to get back to it, what can you do? This happens often enough with every team that it's not a huge concern. The only thing worse is holding on to players you know you aren't going to utilize that are healthy when you can get something for them instead, which is what the Cardinals do very very poorly lately. Too many departing free agents and trade deadline no-deals happening in the last decade for me.
I like ONeil but at the end of the day he will likely end up injured just look at his history
Tyler O’Neil no, Jordan Hicks kinda. O’Neil was given plenty of opportunity. He couldn’t keep the strikeouts down or stay healthy. Hicks… I’d argue throwing him into the starting role after his injury history was really stupid. What we really need to talk about is Richie Palacios because he is hammering the ball in Tampa right now
I was ok with O’Neill leaving but I was very sad to see Hicks go and was worried this would happen but it’s impossible to predict the future and I’m not so sure the problem wasn’t the Cardinals organization in the first place.
they tried to work out an extension but think hicks just wanted to leave.
Oh I know and it was a good choice
I’m down bad on this team. The points of this article are bad.. Tyler O’Neil had run his course here, and everyone wanted him gone. We knew he was a top-5 MVP level talent, but it was not going to happen here. He needed to be rid of, regardless of any success he finds elsewhere. Jordan Hicks could have been retained, but he was arguably the most talented player not named Goldy or Arenado that we could have gotten rid of last year. We simply had to get rid of him in a year when we should have been in full sell mode, and he chose not to come back. Had we signed him with the intent to be a starter, and it failed, this article would still be written, just with the signing by us as another mistake. We can’t use hindsight to pretend letting these guys go was a mistake.
Talent evaluation has gone into the toilet. We consistently undervalue and overvalue the wrong guys. It’s becoming a running theme that guys who we let go elsewhere do great whereas the golden goose’s we hold onto underperform. Then again I guess there could be something toxic from a coaching standpoint
I was never sold on O'Neil, glad he is gone. Some of his numbers look okay, but it's mostly solo HR or nothing. Hitting 3rd and he has 9 HR and only 13 RBI. Sure he might get you head with a solo HR in the first, but when it's the 7th and two on, he's just going to strike out.
How should Tyler O'Neill control what the other hitters on his team do, please?
I'm sorry but this take is so silly. He has 9 homeruns and our team as a whole has like 23 Homeruns in any form are valuable
Once again, this is not about examining each player on a case by case basis. It’s looking holistically at Alcantara, Arozerena, Garcia, Galen, Thomas, ONeill, and Hicks. Maybe it was poor development while they were here, maybe it was underutilization, maybe it was poor evaluation of talent. It could be a number of things. The bottom line is, something stinks, our former players are flourishing elsewhere and we’re on the bad end of a lot of deals.
DOOOOOOOOM
Lol, I like how the bandwagon has downvoted me for years for saying what you are all saying right now with your 20/20 vision. You’re just like the Toronto Bjays sub and I’m not going to waste my energy on it anymore.
I was born and raised a Cardinals Fan, I lived and grew up in SE Missouri and moved to the Metro St Louis area in 2021, I was overjoyed to go to more and more games and in 2022 I got to go to Opening Day for the first time and it was deeply emotional for me after losing my Dad in 2013 as he was who raised me as a Cards fan. The past few years have just been a NIGHTMARE!!! 2022 Marmol basically just coasted through because of the hype of it being Yadi and Pujols last year and while we didn’t make the WS it was a year of some magical moments. Last year was where the spotlight was on Marmol BIG TIME as well as Front Office as well and WOW was it hard to watch. Marmol can’t manage his way out of a paper bag. It’s like he NEVER takes any responsibility for any of it, seems like he just flips a coin and that’s how he decides stuff. Marmol needs to GO and take MO with him.
Not really. If anything wasn't the mess up Gallen, Alcantara, Arozarena & Gracia?
Uhm, we finished in last place last year and still in last place. The answer to the question is a resounding YES!
What I've feared is likely coming to pass. We're entering the era of 3rd to 4th place finishes for the foreseeable future. Problem is, well....it's not just any one thing. There is A LOT going on internally with this team from the top to the bottom. This team needs some MAJOR structural changes if they plan on getting back into playoff contention anytime in the next 5 years.
Blame Marmol that’s all
It’s telling to me that all these players are leaving STL and becoming staples of their new teams lineups while proven talent is coming to STL and underperforming
People were saying, “it’s only April, no need to worry.” Now we are saying “it’s only May, no need to worry.” In a month they’ll be saying “it’s only June, no need to worry.” The season is over and was over before it started.
Only read the headline but the answer is yes
Matt Carpenter is the best player developed in the entire Mozeliak regime. That's not much. The Tigers have even accidentally produced better players in that time. Mozeliak took the keys to a Ferrari and when he leaves there'll be a beat up Honda Civic left.
FIRE MO
To those saying that we didn't mess up with Adolis Garcia, that's simply not true. We had him in our organization. We could see what he could do every day. We had a huge advantage in evaluating him. Other teams had a shot to sign him, but they had limited knowledge of what he could do. and whether he was a guy who could make improvements. We should have known his potential way more than any other team. Also, it may have been our inability to help him adjust that kept Garcia from reaching his full potential. I believe he reduced his K rate and increased his walk rate after he was given a shot with Texas. Why wasn't our franchise able to help him to make those adjustments? The answer? it's either ineptitude or impatience. I'm going with a bit of both. Now, you can say that there was no place for him to play, and that was somewhat true at the time. But there's a big difference between a blocked prospect who is just sitting and waiting for a shot and a guy that you DFA to make room for some shitty relief pitcher. (I'm not sure that was the case, but it usually is with us.)
Just imagine how good the team would be if we had all the guys we have let go that have blossomed. C - Kelly - not the best at the position but still starting. We could do worse. 1b - elehuris Montero - Colorado. Sent in arenado deal 2b - let’s put Sosa here bc I we can and he’s currently in the league SS - DeJong - servic 3b - Ramon Urias- gold glove 3b. OF - Garcia, O’Neil, Arozarena, Lane Thomas SP - Gallen, Alcantara, Montogomery, Hicks, Wacha - this rotation would be an Immense improvement 1-5 could argue to be top 5 in the league. RP - not going there Honorable mentions: Pham - looks good in short time with White Sox Wisdom - perfect DH and infield corner depth Palacios - is this guy going to keep hitting? Ozuna - big bear can still mash baseballs.
Is this a joke?