4:25pm: Mikolas will receive a $5MM signing bonus and $15.75MM annual salaries, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. The deal also includes $2MM in escalators and full no-trade protection, Heyman reports (Twitter links).
12:55pm: The contract does not overwrite Mikolas’ 2019 salary but runs from 2020-23, per The Athetic’s Ken Rosenthal (on Twitter). That’ll give the Cardinals control of Mikolas through his age-34 season.
12:50pm: MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Mikolas will be guaranteed a hefty $68MM over a four-year term on his new contract. That deal lines up identically with the four-year pact inked by postseason hero Nathan Eovaldi with the Red Sox earlier this winter. The deal, Heyman adds, can reach a total of $70MM in value.
12:45pm: The Cardinals and right-hander Miles Mikolas have agreed to terms on a contract extension, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Twitter). The two sides had expressed mutual interest in completing such an arrangement back in January. Mikolas is represented by Octagon.
This time one year ago, Cardinals fans were unsure what to think of Mikolas, the team’s primary rotation addition last winter. At the time, Mikolas was a 29-year-old who’d never established himself in the Majors but put himself firmly on MLB radars with a brilliant three-year run for the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Adding Mikolas on a two-year contract worth a guaranteed $15.5MM was met with a fair bit of skepticism.
Mikolas, however, proved his doubters wrong in emphatic fashion. In 32 starts for St. Louis, he totaled 200 2/3 innings with a pristine 2.83 ERA, 6.5 K/9, 1.3 BB/9, 0.72 HR/9 and a 49.3 percent ground-ball rate. Among qualified MLB starters, only Patrick Corbin and Jacob deGrom induced swings on pitches out of the strike zone at a higher clip than Mikolas’ brilliant 36.6 percent mark. Statcast pegged Mikolas in the 92nd and 90th percentiles, respectively, in terms of opponents’ exit velocity and hard contact allowed on a league-wide basis. Furthermore, no pitcher in baseball posted a better BB/9 mark than Mikolas, whose 3.28 FIP and 3.67 xFIP largely supported the notion that he was a quality big league starter.
Mikolas doesn’t need to replicate last season’s showing to the decimal point in order to justify the organization’s considerable expenditure — the value he provided was worth far more than $17MM last season — but he’ll need to settle in as a viable mid-rotation piece for the next few years in order to make good on the commitment. There’s little reason to doubt his ability to do so, however; as noted previously, virtually any metric agreed that Mikolas was a legitimate big league starter, and he finished the year as strongly as he started — if not more so.
For the Cardinals, locking up Mikolas now gives them some long-term solidity in a rotation that had previously stood to lose not only Mikolas but also Michael Wacha and Adam Wainwright at season’s end. Between those impending departures, ongoing concerns surrounding Carlos Martinez’s shoulder and the perennial lack of durability from wunderkind Alex Reyes, the Cardinals had a deceptively uncertain long-term outlook in terms of starting pitching. Mikolas will now team with Jack Flaherty in comprising the St. Louis rotation for years to come, and the organization certainly has hopes that some combination of Martinez, Reyes and Dakota Hudson can work to round out the starting staff in the foreseeable future.
With this deal in place, the Cardinals now have more than $101MM committed to their 2020 roster (assuming even distribution of the salary) — though that number will drop substantially in 2021 when the contracts of Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter and Brett Cecil come off the books. The deal shouldn’t have any bearing on St. Louis’ 2019 payroll, which currently projects at just under $162MM — a slight increase over last year’s franchise-record Opening Day payroll of $159.7MM.
Idk why I thought they already did that
Overpay
As a Cards fan who doesn’t drink much Kool-Aid, no, not an overpay.
Too soon?
That’s a different story, and possibly yes.
There’s going to be regression, that’s almost certain. We just don’t know how much.
Not an overpay. Too soon to say that. It may be a bargain. His stats prove he has the fastball and other pitches along with his high ground ball rates and rarely walks anyone. Solid defense this year will only make him better.
He’s having a good month.
Haha seriously. Has one good year and they throw money at him. The Cardinal Way
It’s a pretty fair deal all around and he only needs to average about 2 WAR a season to make it even. Projections have him at 3 WAR and he was over 4 WAR last year and finished 6th in the Cy Young voting.
One good year. They probably could have offered him an extension half way through this season. Cardinals are allows so premature this their contracts. Allen Craig, Picostty, Wong, Sheildt for f sake. You could have gone year to year with Sheildt for a while. Maddon is available at the end of the year.
Which of those contract extensions actually hurt the Cardinals?
RedFeather go buy a clue. If you cant even spell the managers name you’re not a real fan.
And it keeps the players extremely happy with the Cardinals system. They aren’t just paying for the players on the field, they are also paying for organizational health. And with a competent manager at the helm finally, the bad vibes that permeated Matheny’s team will finally be gone and the extensions will help heal that aspect of the team
Craig suffered an injury that basically ruined his career, but the Cardinals managed to trade away his contract, anyway, to the embarrassment of the Red Sox.
Piscotty had a down year in 2017, but he bounced back nicely last year. I don’t think the A’s regret trading for his contract.
Wong has been uneven but still pretty much worth his contract so far. If he continues to put it all together like he did in the second half last year, then the rest of his contract will be a bargain.
Wongs 2nd half BAbip isn’t sustainable for another 2 seasons guaranteed at nearly 2/18mil.
He’s a league avg bat with great D. Not a bargain going forward but not a burden contract either.
Lock up extensions now,sign harper tomorrow
Doesn’t seem likely. It’s down to the Phillies and 30 mystery teams.
Lol if we know the Phillies, who’s the 30th mystery team? Are the Yomiuri Giants in on him? Sugar Land Skeeters maybe?
The 30th mystery team is the Phillies! They are competing against themselves after all!
Portland, right after Vegas. Pirates are the only team not in contention.
HA! Just you wait and see! Pirates will sign him. Nutting will step up to the mic and proclaim, “See Yinzers, I will spend moneY!!” Haqrper will proceed to ;blow out his knee while running out a ground ball to 1st within a week of reporting. He will fall awkwardly and try to brace himself with his right hand and severely dislocate his right shoulder. Will never be the same. Hit .172 for one season with no power for the Bucs and never play again……Nutting will be seen sitting away from all others and heard muttering, “why???? why???
I hope he can continue from one year.
Good for Catfs, bad for Yanks Fans wanting home on the team
Destroys hopes of him being a Yankee
Numbers! so I can overreact to them!
I love your username
the worst episode ever
Cards extend a lot of players after one good year, not sure if this is a good idea but he was very good.
Just announced- 68M over 4 years.
I never understood why the Rangers let him go, who ever is gauging the talent level in Texas needs replaced.
You’ve seen the numbers he put up in Texas, right?
They did. They fired the pitching coach that said Mikolas had very good stuff and that he just needed to learn how to use it. Mikolas was one of the worst pitchers in baseball at this point.
FYI the dope’s name was Mike Maddux.
Well he wasn’t wrong. He learned how to use it in Japan
Players starting to see free agency as a bad thing, just like the owners wanted. How long until owners are floating the reserve clause again?
Just like the owners wanted? lol alright. Players are being paid an absurd amount of money to play a game. Players are finally being paid for what they are worth, rather than their past. Rather than cry about players being scared of free agency, why not cry to help the minor leaguers who are making the same amount of money as they would flipping a burger. Or cry for the dude making 500k almost winning a batting title. As soon as free agency becomes fair game, the players want to cry.
Hmm you mean low minors? Because double A players average 6k a month and AAA players average 10k a month. Not to mention quite a few get signing bonuses. They are certainly making a lot more than what a person earns flipping burgers.
I’d love to know where you got those numbers from because they are way too high, like 5 times too high.
Your argument makes no sense Andujar Judge Bueller Snell are all making $575,000 a year. If they make free agency they deserve the money that they earned when teams were allowed to paythem nothing . For two years Matt Harvey was one of the best pitchers in baseball. The Mets filled the stadium when he pitchedWhere was his payday. Oh thats right he never got it.Where was his absurd amount of money. Through merchandise and putting fannies in the seat how many tens of millions of dollars did he earn when he was the Dark Knight.If you don’t want players to be paid for there past pay them what they are worth the first six years of there career and stop allowing teams to hold a rookie out a month and making it 7 years
If you had a little bit better reading and comprehension skills, you’d understand that that is exactly my point. I’m arguing that MLB needs to pay the players like Judge, Snell, Juan Soto for what they are worth. Because by the time they reach free agency, they might be another Adam Jones.
Matt Harvey has made $17,000,000 in his career, I’d hardly feel sorry for him… If he had signed a nice long extension after those first three years, when he was “the dark knight”, he’d most likely have topped that sum by at least 50 million… He/Boras bet on himself and lost…. young pitchers should always take the early extension route, if offered… They’re always one pitch away from the end of their career.
Look, I know it’s unfair, but the service time based salary system is there for a reason. Building through prospects and cheap young players is the only way the small markets can compete for any reasonable length of time. If they did away with this system, the smaller market teams would almost never make the playoffs!
Players are making millions, owners are making billions thanks to these same players. So no, they’re not being paid to play a game, they’re being paid to make money for thier corporate bosses just like anyone else.
As to getting paid what they’re worth… Well, no, actually, they’re not. Compared to the money the generate, most aren’t getting paid enough
Revenues keeping going up, and the percentage of that going to the players is going down… So yeah, I’m not sure why anyone’s cheering over the fact that some anonymous suit is getting the Lions share of the dollars you pay to see the players. It’s not exactly a victory for the common man…
Listen buddy, my argument has little to do with the guys making 20 million or whatever. My issue is the guys making scraps playing in the minors, and the guys making 500k-1Mil their first 3 years. Your comment is debunked by simple economics, supply and demand. Some players just aren’t worth 30 mil. And you can’t possibly argue that. If you want to get more money out of the owners pockets, then fix the way we pay the cost controlled guys and minor leaguers
Some players actually truly are worth 30 million dollars a year in revenue today heir teams, so i’m not sure what you think is debunked here. People pay good money to see star players.
And I’m not entirety sure how you got think your standing up for the players getting hosed by applauding the stars making less. Nobody’s using the money ‘saved’ by not paying Harper to pay their minor leaguers more.
Seriously, think this through for 30 seconds. The only way the minor Leaguers you think your crusading for will get their fair share is if the next CBA enforces a more even split of money, either to free agents to make up for how badly they got hosed, or to the cost controlled labor currently getting hosed.
There is no way declining free agent salaries helps those at the bottom.. it’s really quite the opposite.
You are so right petrie.
The owners didn’t win though when players started becoming afraid of free agency, they won when the american people began accepting the reality of this age of the ultra wealthy, and began feeling that it is natural and right for one person to have so much money and for them to continue to accrue more while the one’s doing the legwork to earn it get less of a share. Things were not always this way but when a discussion about anything like this comes up, you will very quickly find people on the side of billionaires. No. one. needs. that. much. money. It is not good for humanity to have people hoard this much wealth and to have such a wage gap between the people up top and those beneath them. It is asinine to read this stuff
Andrew, your main point is right on target, and shouldn’t be lost in all of the static.
Most minor leaguers don’t make minimum wage. You cannot eke out a healthy existence making $20,000 a year.
Players are NOT being paid what they are worth. Older players may be getting paid what they are worth, but a lot of the younger players are getting paid minuscule amounts relative to their contributions on the field. If you are going to change the compensation system, you have to change the entire thing so players are still being treated fairly. If free agency stays this way then the arbitration system has to drastically change to make up for it.
I understand that’s the point you are trying to make after reading your clarifying comments, but it doesn’t seem that way based off of your original post.
Bad example, dude was playing in japan like 2 years ago. That’s a great deal for a 1 year track record.
Well, if they give the players better club house food, they might agree to it.
So he’s not going to be a A Yankee huh?
please get a life…
Overreaction time, that’s a lot of money for someone with little track record.
Other overreaction, what a steal for the Cardinals signing a legitimate cy young candidate to a bellow Market 4 year contract.
Seems a bit premature. Good for miles but would of liked to see how he does 2nd season before offering him this. Had a great 1st year back but 2nd season could be different.
Eovaldi got the same money based on a good month.
You could just as easily spin it the other way and say Miles is getting 4/68M and Severino is getting 5/55M. Not saying its a bad deal. One year just isn’t enough to know if he will live up to that contract. I am surprised the Cards offered up so much more than what Sevy just got extended for though.
Severino not a free agent and his extension still allows him to hit free agency exactly when he would have so not comparable situation. Severino probably would have been under 10 million for the next 2 years Mikolas would have been free agent next year when the contract begins
It’s not exactly just a one year track record. He was also brilliant in Japan, which was what got him $15.5M in the first place. Now that we know that success transferred back to MLB, those two track records combined were what gave the Cardinals the confidence for the extension.
Besides, if they had waited until after this upcoming season, they would’ve only had 4 days of exclusive negotiations before they had to compete with 29 other teams for his services.
Yes, this is a good extension. Can we extend Goldschmidt as well? By the way the Cards should add another starting pitcher. Pitching is never enough.
no you can’t
Probably, if you want to get into Arenado territory…
please retract this statement. paging themed and cards81.
Lol we do need to sign another pitcher – Gio makes the most sense . When cMart gets back, he will be in the bullpen
That’s normally true, but not when you already have 10 legitimate starting candidates! Even if C-Mart starts the season on the DL, that just gives someone like Gant or Gomber another chance to fill in for a little while.
There is no way he repeats last season. The AAV is too high imo as he got lucky last season. Too many hitters put the ball in play against him. His line drive percentage wasn’t good either. The Nola and severino extensions look even better than they already do
17 million AAV for this guy is crazy lol
Sour grapes.
From what ? Lmaoooo
About league average on the line drives, and better than average ground ball rate for a guy that doesn’t walk anyone is pretty solid.
He should be expected for a 3.40-3.70 ERA/FIP type of 2019.
A Yankee fan talking about a crazy overpaying contracts? Do we even need to make a list of contracts the yanks have given out that are way worse than this one?
I’m a Yankee fan and I have to say your comments make no sense. Mikolas is a free agent next year so they are stopping him from testing free agency. The deal for Severino doesn’t touch free agency years its only covering arbitration years so you are comparing apples and oranges
There is absolutely no track record to give miles almost 20 mill per year, it’s nuts. I will eat all 20 of my Yankee caps if he even comes close to last season
Just curious, what condiment do you use for chapeau dining?
Mikolas lives in Jupiter. It was a factor in his wanting to stay in St. Louis, so an extension was expected.
You are a Yankee fan just like me. Was the Happ deal a terrible deal. Its the same yearly amount and Happ is much older then Mikolas. Mikolas doesn’t need to repeat last year for this to be a good contract.Last year he was great just good will make this a good contract. Or do you believe that Happs contract is nuts After all last year Happs era was almost a point higher then Mikolas’s and his whip was higher and he is 6 years older
I actually thought happ was a little overpaid and I wanted him at one less year but unlike miles he at least has a good solid track record to go on. If miles performs very well again on 19 then I would be much more comfortable with the extension but until he does people would have every right to be concerned.
But there is the conundrum. If he pitches like he did last year or even close he would be a free agent next year and would then be looking at 4 years 100 mill plus. The Cards made the decision because they believe in him, to tie him down before he becomes too expensive for them to sign Hindsight sometimes costs you players.I think the Mets are kicking themselves now for not extending Degrom years ago
Omg don’t get me started on degroom lol. The Mets are probably going to lose him
Those cheap SOBs deserve to lose him.lol
He literally got the same deal as Nathan Eovaldi dude. One guy had TJ; one guy played overseas, but they’re very, very similar. And Miles is without a doubt more durable.
Louisiana hat sauce
He pitches to contact, as the Cards teach. He walks no one, eats innings, is developing a change which will help him against lefties. To suggest he was “lucky” is silly. The guy throws in the upper 90’s when needed has two nasty breaking pitches, and knows how to pitch. The Cards wouldn’t extend him if they didn’t know all this and plenty more.
As a Cubs fan, I was hoping he’d hit free agency and sign elsewhere 🙂 He dominated us last year.
Good for him / good signing for Cards.
He honestly reminds me of Kyle Lohse at his peak, if Lohse could’ve also thrown 98 mph
I figured 4/$55M-60M would get it done, but I’m not unhappy about it.
Athletic did a cool article breaking down how he tunnels his pitches and that makes it really hard for righties to pick up his slider vs fastball out of his hand.
Hits 98, has great command and control. No reason to not extend the Cards ace while he has some years left.
It’s basically $17M per year. I figure $15M would do it. So not too far off.
I like Mikolas; he’s a real old-school pitcher. Lots of wins, lots of innings, low K rate, big mustache. I saw him pitch against the Brewers and he held us to 1 run in 7 innings without being flashy.
So I’ll guess the years here
2019 – $7.75M with $4M signing bonus – age 30 season
2020 – $16M
2021 – $16M
2022 – $16M
2023 – $16M – age 34 season
$500K worth of incentives each year for All-Star and Cy Young votin
I was crazy close, lol.
$5M signing bonus, $15.75M each season.
Correction for MLBTR, but 2018 was his age 29 season, and 2023 is his age 34 season.
Gosh the Redbirds run a great ship. Reward and extend guys. Wish the cubs could lock up someone long-term internally… instead of paying market price for a hired mercenary.
The Cubs terrible strategy has had them end up better than the Cardinals the last 4 years…
Last 3 years*
But where are the cubs headed… that rotation is about to evaporate. Hamels and Lester each have well over 2k innings pitched and let’s be honest Quintana wasn’t worth that haul the cubs gave the Sox and he’s not exactly durable. Darvish will just have to prove he can be healthy, then he can try to prove he’s effective because he wasn’t when healthy last year and he wasn’t great in LA either. Finally we come to Hendricks who actually should be fine even with an 89 mph fastball and feels like the only great long term option. Not much rotation depth bc they start with chatwood there… that signing was disastrous to say the least. Couple this aging sketchy rotation with a downright horrible farm system and Chicago doesn’t have too much time left to compete. So I’m pretty happy about cards chances to once again pass the cubs and things can resume being normal as they were for the last twenty before 2016
I mean, the Cubs strategy kinda’ worked… And nobody’s left yet.
And the Cardinals eagerness to hand out extensions has been a little hit-and-miss in recent years anyway.
Seems like a win for both the player and Cardinals. While he possibly could have made more on the open market, especially with another year like last year, he gets guaranteed money and can just focus on pitching.
If miles was signed before nola and sevy both would have asked for more
Good signing now trade him and Ozuna, Wong (with rebound), Carpenter, and Wacha with good health add them to the other new players and prospects coming up while consolidating a few 40 man roster spots into prospects and buy low candidates. Goldschmidt could be added to that with Helsley Gyorko will play good this year but brings little back. They’ve got alot of young pitching and position players are easy enough to get in free agency and would save some money for a push at the world series and Trout, Mookie, etc.
You seem to have confused the Cardinals with a rebuilding team. They’re still in their competitive window they’ve been maintaining for nearly 20 years now. They have no reason to tear it all down.
Hmmm, I don’t know about this. Since we know he won’t repeat last season’s success, this will be TBD as to whether this was a good deal or not.
I really hope he does well and repeats last season (why wouldn’t I ? Lol) but I just don’t see it. Pitching to that much contact can lead to big potential trouble.
Guess you’ve never seen Mikolas pitch. The guy has tremendous stuff and should have won the Cubs Young award last year. He’s definitely in the top 3 starters in the NL. So glad they extended him.
Er uh Cy Young award. Darn auto correct
It works if the guy gets a lot of ground balls and soft contact while being stingy with the free passes, which is exactly Mikolas’s MO.
Very questionable signing by an organization that is usually much smarter than this. He benefitted from unfamiliarity last year and is due for significant regression this year, particularly with his underwhelming stuff.
Why do you think he has underwhelming stuff?
He throws hard but hitters put the ball in play a ton against him last season. As such it does require you to have a lot of luck to maintain that low of an era when hitters are doing that. I personally love pitchers who miss more bats as it makes getting out of jams more possible
Mikolas was awesome at getting out of jams, that is when he ramps up the heater. He pitches to contact, which the Cards’ preach. Plus their defense is now a real plus, particularly up the middle with DeJong, Wong, Bader, and Molina. Now add Goldschmidt to those 4. Plus Carpenter, Ozuna, and Fowler are all at least average. It is a recipe for success, which of course the Cards are accustomed to.
Can’t score without putting the ball in play my friend. Give me the swings and misses as those are consistent. The balls that were finding gloves last season can easily not find them in 2019 . I do hope I’m wrong though as he was quite the good story as who doesn’t love an old school stache ? Lol
They put the ball in play to the tune of ground balls.
Because he only walked 3.6% of the guys he faced and carried a 49.3% GB rate. Among pitchers who threw 100 innings last year, he was second in walk rate (Robbie Erlin) and 21st in GB rate.
His GB/FB rate was 18th best
That doesn’t take luck to get away with anything, those make him a fairly sustainable workhorse, and he throws 98 when he needs to get a strike out.
As the Athletic article stated. His success is largely due to him being able to tunnel his pitches and throw strikes.
He is a 3.40-3.70 ERA/FIP caliber pitcher. He had some decent luck overall last year in terms of ERA. But it wasn’t anything significant. His HR rate was sustainable, his xBABIP vs his BABIP was fairly close. Give it a bump of about 20 points, but it’s not going to wreck him or anything.
So you know, Mikolas allowed the ball in play last year as much as Greinke, and outside of Greinke’s homer prone issue last year, they were very similar in profiles.
MM – 200.2 IP in 32 starts (6.29 IP per start) – 18.1 K%, 3.6 BB%, 1.07 WHIP, .279 BABIP – 22.2 LD%, 49.3 GB%, 28.5 FB%, 9.8 IFFB%
ZG – 207.2 IP in 33 starts (6.29 IP per start) – 23.7 K%, 5.1 BB%, 1.08 WHIP, .272 BABIP – 23.0 LD%, 45.1 GB%, 31.9 FB%, 9.1 IFFB%
He doesn’t get the strike outs that Greinke gets, but he gives up weaker contact than Grienke.
Zach has a waaay better And a longer track record though. 2019 will tell the whole story for the red mustache
Obviously he has a longer track record. What I’m arguing is that what Mikolas did is solid work, and he wasn’t some one year random wonder who had random great luck at his back. He pitched like a TORP all year.
But there is nothing to indicate that he will do that again though. There is nothing else to go on but last season. I hope I’m wrong about him though
There is nothing to indicate that he can maintain his contact and K/BB rates?
“He throws hard but hitters put the ball in play a ton against him last season”
His WHIP was just over 1 last season, lol.
Zach also gets paid top dollar for similar results. This could fall flat and be a horrible signing, but his arm has less mileage than Greinke’s. This doesn’t hamper any other signings and the Cardinals have saved a ton of money if his 19 plays out anything like his 18 did.
Mikolas would have been the Yankee number 1 starter last year. Tell me who on the Yankees had a better year. I use to respect Yankee fans but having second thoughts. But I forget a lot of you AL fans don’t really know much about the game with that DH rule you missed a lot of strategy of the way was meant to be played in the first place.
Even as a cards fan, I know Fowler is not average. Not even close. But at least when he loses the job in April O’Neill will being his plus glove and his plus arm to an everyday role.
I wasn’t aware the Cardinals employed a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character. ;P This is why proper punctuation is important, people.
Anyway, Fowler may bounce back, and if he doesn’t, Jose Martinez is next in line for the job before O’Neill.
FIP isn’t everything, you know. It has been proven that pitchers do have some control over the quality of contact they give up. Besides, Mikolas’s FIP isn’t that bad in the first place due to how stingy he is with walks and homers.
MLB is going to look more and more like the NFL where the best players rarely reach free agency. Teams will want to lock up known players for their prime years and players won’t want to risk getting the Moustakas treatment.
Well, even if it does, at least with guaranteed contracts and only a soft salary cap, MLB still won’t have to deal with the nonsense of releasing still good players or pre-season holdouts.
MLB could use a hard salary floor, though.
My guess is they will probably lock up Goldschmidt soon, but probably not until June. Ozuna is a different story. My guess is they let him walk. O’Neill is impressing more and more, and they are stuck with Fowler for a couple of more years. Their issue is a lack of left-handed hitting, particularly in the outfield. But their roster is almost set for the next few years. Carpenter, DeJong, Wong, Bader, Martinez (both), Flaherty, Reyes, Miller, and Hicks. Molina and Wainwright won’t sign with any other organization, so if they show they can continue to play they will be extended on short deals, and I doubt if Carpenter would sign elsewhere either after 2020. So they are fairly set, outside of a lefty hitting outfielder with thump.
Goldy is around 31 and as such has one chance at a huge payday. Unless they throw a ton of money at him right away I would be stunned if he doesn’t test the market. Plenty of teams would go after him as good first basemen these days aren’t as plentiful as they used to be
I could very well see Carpenter leaving as a free agent after 2020, Otherwise, this is a pretty good analysis.
I don’t see that, because I don’t see how the Cardinals don’t pick up his $18.5 million club option.
His wife is *smokin*
That’s kind of surprising considering the mustache.
Former big leaguers excelling in the Japanese leagues are an inefficiency in the market that MLB gms should exploit. A lot of GMs would have been afraid to give Mikolas that contract (afraid of getting fired if he busted, given his prior MLB failures). In retrospect, we should have seen his as a relatively safe bet, given his success in a league that’s markedly better than Triple A.
Wow what has he done to deserve $17 mil a yr. jeez there’s so much $$ going around in baseball with all this $$ going around help the starving and sick people in this world.
An overreach of a signing. For 1 season of work. They should have waiting. Signing wasn’t urgent or necessary. Another questionable long term deal by the Cardinals. Add Fowler and Cecil, whom I was shocked to see what he received from St Louis.
The only way I see this extension going poorly is if he needs to call the doc. This is much safer bet than paying the money they spent on Andrew Miller. I was skeptical of both the Cecil signing and the Fowler signing. The Cecil signing because of the years, and the Fowler signing because it seemed like it was reactionary on missing out on Heyward.
I loved Cecil in Toronto, especially when he was moved to the bullpen. In 2016 he had a rough start and ended the season strong. However I couldn’t believe what he signed for. He and a couple others helped non-closers get big dollars.
Solid point on Miller.
I get that Mikolas is in a walk year. To me, I thought it was a bit much. And I just re-read my first post and realized I forgot to proofread….
Eh, the Fowler deal is at least still better than the Heyward deal.
As for Mikolas, it’s his combination of success both last season and in Japan that provides the track record to justify this extension.
You could look at it like the Card paid him 83 million over 6 years, because his original 2-year deal for for 15 million. That average out to 13.8 million per year.
He got Eovaldi’d! Exact same terms.
I trust the Cardinals front office’s decision making. If they think he’s worth it, then so do I. He was excellent last year and he seems like a guy that went to Japan a thrower and came back a pitcher. A near 50% groundball ratio isn’t a fluke. A lot of pitchers have made a living by simply keeping the ball on the ground. Even if he comes back to earth and pitches to, lets say, a 1.20 WHIP and wins 50 games from 2020 to2023, would anyone really complain…wait, yes, this is MLBtraderumors comment section, someone will.
He competes in the zone and doesn’t get blown up for it, exactly what you should want.
The stl FO was right on Mikolas first signing and it looks like their opinion hasn’t changed.
How was he set to be a free agent after 2020? Did his time in the Japanese league count as service time?
Terms of his contract. He was a free agent after 2019.
Yes! I love Miles!
As a Brewers fan, i hate this lol. Gave us fits all year. I think they should have waited to see his performance in 2019 and then talk extension with him. Much more detailed scouting reports will be done on him, and that may change his performance, along with the fact that hitters have seen him now. Time will tell. Seems like the Cards really like jumping into contract extensions.
They got to see him all last year. With today’s technology, I am pretty sure all was exhausted, and he continued to get hitters out.
DUMB!
Smart
Great signing
One good year. Here’s $68M.
DUMB!
Playing well for a full year is not a fluke. He’s shown consistent numbers throughout 2018 and all his time in Japan. There’s no reason to think he’s not going to be good again in 2019.
I like this signing. Quit the small sample size stuff because it was a full year. Preceded by three great years in a good league over in japan. These results are not flukes. He is one of the premier pitchers in the division and likely the national league. A great season last year should be followed by at least three to four more above average seasons and I see him settling into the role of a frontline or at least mid-rotation starter in St. Louis. Here’s to another 5 good years Miles!
I think the term they’re looking for is one year wonder, but even if he doesn’t pitch like he did in 2018 through the entirety of this extension, I don’t think he is one.
I also love this signing by the Cards
Back home again in East St. Louis.
Oh wait, … wrong Miles.