Cardinals GM John Mozeliak spoke to fans and media at the team's 16th annual Winter Warm-Up today, touching on a wide range of topics. MLB.com's Matthew Leach was there, and provided us with a rundown of all the news. Let's recap…
- Mozeliak called the Albert Pujols negotiations "exhausting (and) frustrating," but said it is time to move on. "[It] just creates new opportunities for us," he added.
- "In terms of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, I really can’t get into those types of details," said Mozeliak when asked about a potential contract extension for Yadier Molina, who can become a free agent after the season. "But I assure we’re going to try to find a way to make it work. I know that he also wants to try to be here as well, so usually when you have that type of understanding and mutual agreement, you usually can get something resolved.”
- "I haven’t heard anything about it and I probably won’t until they see that I’m healthy and out there rolling," said Adam Wainwright when asked about a potential contract extension, according to Leach. "But of course I want to finish my career here, everybody knows that. Everybody that plays here wants to finish their career here."
- When asked about the possibility of signing Roy Oswalt, Mozeliak replied that he likes "the idea of an insurance policy" for the rotation. "There’s no doubt that he would be a nice addition, but I just don’t know how practical it is at this time," he added.
- Unsurprisingly, Mozeliak made it very clear that the Cardinals will not be signing Prince Fielder. He said any further additions would likely involve a pitcher and not a hitter.
- Mozeliak and manager Mike Matheny have spoken about bringing Jim Edmonds back to the organization in some non-playing capacity. “As far as what the role looks like or how we define it, we haven’t done that yet,” said the GM.
So pumped to see Wainwright take the mound again. Hopefully he has a strong year and they can hammer out an extension.
you shouldn’t expect him to be 100% so soon.
Oh I don’t expect him to be 100% this year. That’s why I would like to see them grab Oswalt for the rotation. I think they’ll limit his pitches early in the season and work his way back. That way he could still be pitching strong at the end of the year.
He has been throwing since August though. It’s not as if he is just recovering. Without any bad luck, he’ll be on the opening day roster.
I don’t think it’s too far fetched. Full rehabilitation only takes about a year now. Still, I think he pitches around 190-200 innings instead of 230-240
I’ll be cautious and say 180 innings with a 3.55 ERA. Not typical Wainwright but an upgrade on what we had. He’s probably gonna pitch like a number 2 or a number 3 pitcher this season, but with Carpenter fronting the pack, and Garcia likely progressing this season I’m not at all worried.
I’ll look in to some stats to back up my opinion, but from what I know the first year back from TJ historically hasn’t been good.
I fully expect Waino to be an Ace again, I just wouldn’t bet on it for 2012.
i’ll help you out. Notable pitchers year after surgery
Tim Hudson: 17-9 2.83 era
Jaime Garcia (jumping from AAA to majors): 13-8 2.7 era
John Smoltz: 3.36 era/1.068 WHIP (he was in pen for most of season)
Shaun Marcum: 13-8 3.64 era (better than his career numbers before surgery)
Josh Johnson: 13-8 3.23 era
AJ Burnett : 7-6 3.68 era (20 games, a lot better than career numbers at that point)
Chris Carpenter had TJ but also had a shoulder operation the year after, after those procedures, basically 2 years removed from baseball won the era title in 09′, 2nd in CY Young.
i picked these guys not as a means of “cherry picking” the success stories but the ones that are most like Wainwright. It would be pointless to show what Jake Westbrook or Chris Capuano did since their nothing like the above guys. Heck, they might have even improved, i just didn’t see a need to include them..
seems to me like the regression rate is pretty low, a few guys improved..not many did notably worse.
Waino is the man!! Hoping for a solid return!
Cardinals will sign Oswalt 1/$7million. Trade westbrook to the Padres for a bad prospect to get rid of his salary.
One of those bad prospects like David Freese? 🙂
hopefully
I don’t think Oswalt signs for 1/7 and I don’t think you can trade Westbrook without eating most of the contract.
Yesterday, mlbtr said oswalt lowered his asking price to $8 mil. And he (oswalt) wants to pitch here in STL. We might have to eat 2 or 3 million of the contract. But the cardinals have a little extra money to do that.
Since when does 8=7? I think that eight is the lowest he would go.
Oswalt has said he wants to pitch for the cardinals, so if he is willing to take 8 mil from other teams, he would probably give the cards a 1 mil discount
not to sound rude, but thats a pretty weak argument. its close enough to where if he wants to be here, he won’t care about 1mil.
Westbrook would have to approve. He has a full no trade clause IIRC and who would approve a deal to leave St. Louis for San Diego?
well maybe if we tell him he would have to pitch in the bullpen, he would rather start in SD so he can have some value when he becomes a free agent next year
The problem with that is he could accept the bullpen role, which leaves us with an overspent payroll that can’t be used for midseason additions.
Why would he accept a bullpen role when he is in his contract year? he wants to build value as a starter so he can get a good contract
You never know. If the alternative is being traded to a non-contender, he could value winning more than maximizing his value in his contract year.
A guy that is in a contract year? What better way to improve your value than pitching in PETCO for a year? If he knows he’s going to be moved to the bullpen, I would say he would be open to a trade. Unless he doesn’t care what kind of contract he gets next year.
Just give Mr. Miller a shot!!
if westbrook was going to the pen, of course he would like to be traded, its his walk year! he has to build value!
if westbrook was going to the pen, of course he would like to be traded, its his walk year! he has to build value!
Going to pitch in Petco in the last year of his contract would surely boost his status going into free agency. Sure, he won’t win like he would in Stl, but he’d make himself some extra cash next offseason.
I think one day the Cardinals will look back and realize they dodged a bullet by not re-signing Pujols. Yes, you may miss him for a couple of years but Lance Berkman is not a bad fallback option and the money not spent on Albert can be used to upgrade several positions. Then you won’t be on the hook later this decade when Albert’s talents begin to fade. Face it. The Cardinals are always going to be about pitching first. And they’ve been mighty successful with that formula.
I think the Cardinals already realize that they did the right thing for them and they always knew it would be this way. They just want to put the blame on Pujols and make him the bad guy which is stupid this was the best thing for the Cards and Pujols they need to own up to the fact they knew signing him would hamstring the team so they did not want to do it.
They didn’t “always know it would be that way.” If the Angels hadn’t jumped in at the last minute with their ridiculous offer that noone saw coming, he’d still be a Cardinal on a more reasonable contract.
I just can’t stand how they keep on making it out like Pujols is the bad guy when it was the best thing for the Card’s and Pujols but they don’t want the fan’s to be mad at them so it’s little dig’s at the big bad greedy guy who wanted to be paid the most amount of money he could get which is weird cause most people try to get the least amount at their job’s right?
Pujols leaving was good for both sides. End of discussion.
Saying how Oswalt may not be a fit is quite ridiculous in my opinion. 1st off, having a 6th starter to begin the season may not be the worse thing. He steps into a rotation with some serious injury concerns with Waino, Carp, Garcia specifically. Carp pitched a crazy number of innings last year, and Garcia had a massive increase as well. Wainwright should be good, but not quite back to ace form at the beginning of the season. The Cards should jump to sign him for 8 mil and let the injuries play themselves out for the first 1-2 months. Then start dealing Lohse and/or Westbrook (eating most of each contract) and consider Shelby Miller as a back end starter or relief pitcher for the rest of the season (ala Wainwright in ’06). Beltran, Oswalt and Wainwright back in the rotation would be a pretty nice replacement for losing Pujols:)
I agree… Mo said if he adds another player it will be pitching. Oswalt would be perfect.
I agree that some insurance in the starting rotation would be nice, but Oswalt is just too expensive, Lohse and Westbrook are practically untradable at this point, and Miller won’t be ready for the big club until September at the earliest.
We should be shooting for a back-end rotation type who will only cost a couple million or a bigger name coming back from injury on a minor league deal with some incentives.
Oswalt would be a terrific complimentary piece. And I do think the Cards could get him for $7M. I just question whether the team has enough payroll flexibility to add that money. It would be close or just over the $110M ceiling DeWitt imposed.
They have saved over 7 Million just in their coaching staff. They have the $$$$$. No doubt about it.
I just finished an article about the Cardinals and their television contract. It seems that, while the team definitely is not broke, they are hampered by a pretty bad television deal and their payments on the stadium, etc. This weekend Mozeliak said he expects the team payroll to be at or above $110M. I don’t think that number covers the coaching staff.
Besides, by my calculations, we’re already a little over $110M anyway (not counting the coaching staff but including Motte’s and McClellan’s expected arbitration raises and estimating the pre-arb salaries to be about the same as last year).
My guess is the 110 payroll number is accounting for the money they are now not spending on the coaching staff.
it was close to 110 last year with LaRussa. BTW people…they are still paying Duncan
They could defer some of the money in the contract to be under the $110M limit.
Trading Lohse and Westbrook could save anywhere from 5-8 mil. Got to believe teams would rather pay Lohse 3-5 mil for 1 year than 3/30 for Jackson. Westbrook on the cheap isn’t a bad options for some teams either on the cheap.
Even if Lohse or Westbrook were willing to waive their no-trade clause – and they’ve already publicly said they won’t – the Cards would (in your scenario) still have to pay Lohse $7M to go away (he makes $12M in 2012). DeWitt isn’t going to do that.
I disagree. Both are in their walk years, and if its stated that they will be relegated to long relief if they stay, both will go. Neither is in a position to play 1/2 a season from the pen and still command anything in free agency next year. And if your going to pay 110 mil for payroll, I don’t see the difference in doing it with Oswalt/Miller instead of Lohse/Westbrook.
Maybe its not the most realistic scenario based on Mo/Dewitt’s history, but I’m simply stating what I think would be best for the Cards.
Every day that someone else doesn’t sign Oswalt the better it looks for the Cardinals. I am kind of surprised the Cardinals haven’t already signed him, but after hearing he had lowered his price, it sounds like once again Mo is making good business decisions. Oswalt would be about the one player that I could see the Cardinals signing at this point. Every other position is about set for the Birds on the Bat, and it looks like second base is Tyler Greens to lose. If that doesn’t work out for the best, the Cardinals might have to make a late season trade if they were in a pennant race. What do I mean if they are in a pennant race! No doubt they should be, in fact, I believe they may grab the division lead right out of the starting blocks in Florida and never look back. Go Cards.
I’d rather see Schumaker still starting the majority of the time at 2nd rather than handing the job over to a AAAA washout like Greene.