The FO can only work with what it's given. Last offseason, the ownership group gave them the task of improving the team while also telling them they had ZERO dollars to spend. Losing Wong hurts, but that was the price that the FO had to pay to stay within the boundaries set by the owners. The only real money they spent was on two long-time veterans, since the ownership group is conservative and values player longevity (which is why they trade for players and then sign them to stupidly long deals). Other than that, they acquired likely HOF 3B Nolan Arenado in an absolute heist, spending zero 2021 dollars on him. While the deal probably won't look great in a few years when Nolan hitting his decline phase, you cannot argue that it made the team quite a bit better for 2021 while staying within the ownership limits. Edman hasn't been great, but it was easy to see him being ~80% of what Wong is for a lot cheaper. He's also quite a bit younger, too. He's fast and a very good 2B; Shildt just needs to stop playing him every day since we have Sosa and needs to stop playing him out of position in RF. He should also really consider dropping switch hitting and solely batting as a righty.BellaVilla wrote: ↑Aug 25, 2021It was industry wide knowledge that the Cardinals pitching was thin, but they were too cheap to grab some available veterans. But Pitching injuries are not all that's hurt. You point out the failure to re-sign Kolten Wong which was based, in part, on the FO's poor assessment of Tommy Edman's abilities.
Was the pitching then? Yes, but you also have to bank on having normal injury luck. Literally no team in baseball can truly be prepared for long periods of injuries to 4/5 of their projected starting rotation, yet the Cards still remain solidly in playoff contention despite that. With normal injury luck, this is a 95 win team. Shildt is just completely inept at managing a bullpen - he manages based on set roles instead of situations and statistics. IDK what Maddux is telling the pitchers, but they really just need to tell them to throw strikes and pitch to contact - you have one of the best defensive teams in baseball. Let the ball find your fielders; that's what they're there for. You don't need to try and strike everyone out, especially considering no one on the team really has elite Whiff rates.
The FO evaluated Voit perfectly - a mediocre hitter who only shows power because he now plays in an absolute bandbox of a stadium. He cannot field, either. Gallegos has pitched well enough by himself in the bullpen of all places to make up most of Voit's WAR already. That's a pretty damn good evaluation of talent, IMO. The Goldschmidt trade really wasn't expensive at all and the return has been very good. Kelly was blocked - he was never going to get playing time here with Yadi, but it was always assumed he'd be as good as he's been with some regular playing time and improving with the bat. He's also come back to Earth this season. Weaver was never really that good and has been hurt a lot. Young is a AAAA player at best. The draft pick is more or less a non-factor. The Cardinals acquired Goldschmidt mainly to shore up their corner defense - Carp at 1B was horrible, as was anyone else the Cards really had at the position at the time. Goldy is a phenomenal defender, and his far improved defense over Carp at first boosted the defense of the entire infield. They can now throw without worrying about having to be perfect, since they know he'll pick it. Carp got stuck at 3B for a season and a half, yes, but it's a moot point. You can see in the defensive stats and just by watching just how much better the infield was once Goldy was here. He's still a fine hitter, too - not quite at All-Star levels, but still very good.The FO failed to evaluate Luke Voit resulting in the VERY expensive Goldschmidt acquisition that has yet to exceed mediocre returns. Then there's the obvious failure to build a decent bench.
The FO also failed to accurately evaluate Arozarena, Jose Adolis Garcia, Marco Gonzales, Aledmys Diaz, and Tommy Pham. Each failure to evaluate led to trades where the Cardinals left significant value on the table.
The FO also accurately evaluated every one of those other players you listed. Arozarena bulked up over the pandemic, was hot during a short season, and has now come back to Earth as well. He seems to be a perpetual 2-3 WAR outfielder, which the Cardinals have been good a churning out for many, many years now; he was expendable at the time. JAG isn't good. Gonzales was good for a little bit, but has been hurt and not as effective - he was also out of options and was super far back on the starting depth chart when he was traded, and was also never that great when he did pitch here. Diaz is meh - having a good season this year but more or less an average player. We have the same thing in PDJ. The Pham trade was also good - the Cardinals knew exactly what they had in him: an aging player with a degenerative eye condition. Not a great combo for a baseball player. He had one more very good year in him but has also been fairly average otherwise. The return was pretty good, too - a potential 2-3 starter in Liberatore and huge potential in Williams if he figured it out. Williams seems like a dud (but he's real close to figuring it all out) but Liberatore is definitely looking like he can be a solid ML starter.
Most trades get sh*t on by the casual fan because of recency bias, but take a step back with an objective view and it becomes a lot different picture. One also has to remember: you do NOT trade players in baseball - you trade contracts.
