In today's mailbag, we get into a potential offseason plan for the Cardinals, the impact of managers, third base in Seattle, whether the Yankees should sign Juan Soto, NL playoff rotations, and much more.
Sam asks:
Hi Tim, imagine your phone rings and it's Bill DeWitt Jr. he says, "Tim, I've always liked your work at MLBTR and I've decided that I want to focus all my attention on acquiring as many Arby's as possible. 63 just isn't enough. So I've decided to gift you the St. Louis Cardinals and enough money to maintain the team's current ranking in payroll among the other 29 teams for the next 3 years, effective immediately." How do *you* Tim Dierkes go about fixing the Cardinals?
I generally support efforts to put more Arby's into the world.
The Cardinals' current competitive balance tax payroll is about $216MM, so I'll just stick with that. That gives me about $92MM to work with. Key arbitration eligibles include Ryan Helsley, JoJo Romero, Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, and Andre Pallante. I'm pretty sure those guys will cost less than $20MM, so if I tender them contracts I'll have about $75MM with which to work.
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Loved the Cardinals breakdown. Pretty clever
Great content, thanks for the write-up
I think that Hoffman is staying in Philly, especially if they don’t sign Soto. . It’s far from stupid money.
Disagree regarding the Cardinals 1st base situation.
What they will probably do is resign or give qualifying offer to Goldy.
What they should do is platoon their perfectly good players they already have: — Luken Baker against LHP and Alec Burleson against RHP.
That combo is better, younger, and cheaper than Diaz or whomever else they might trade for.
You can’t have both Burleson (mediocre) and Walker (bad) in the same outfield.
I think a Burleson/Baker first base platoon might be fine, though the short side of a platoon is often not a great use of a roster spot.
I wouldn’t have Burleson or Walker in a starting role on next year’s team, but certainly I can see that happening.
Walker completely agree and agree it’s going to happen. He hasn’t earned a starting job even when he was hitting in 2023 his defense was terrible. Burleson I like for 120 starts sits against lefties. He’s a pretty solid defensive 1b he just hasn’t played there much because of Goldschmidt.
Tim:
First of all, why do like a 33 year old RH hitting Diaz at 8 mil per better that a 26 year old, LH hitting Burleson under team control? Diaz may be a better player, but not by enough to justify the salary gap. The Cardinals are cutting payroll.
Secondly, there is no need to use a roster spot on Baker as a RH platoon for Burleson. Contreras and Herrera are both athletic enough to learn 1B and hit enough to provide a platoon option at 1B. Arenado could also be used at 1B on occasion.
The Cardinals have some problems but it’s not hopeless. I don’t think the team is going to spend a bunch this offseason ticket sales are down.
A trade for Luis Robert could make some sense. Might need to send them some salary back and increase the prospect haul going to the White Sox. 3 way deal Robert goes to the Cardinals. Ivan Herrera goes to the Marlins or Rays. Scott, Graceffo and Kloffenstein to the White Sox as well as the return for Herrera to the White Sox whatever that might be.
Another trade I would like to see is the Cardinals swapping Alec Burleson for Willi Castro with some prospects going back to the Cardinals. Castro would be a similar player to Edman and help in center and 2b and also could be the backup shortstop.
If St. Louis is in the bidding for Soto, that means there are at least 6 teams waving around money….probably more. That being the case, 12 years and $540 million is light on both counts.
My guess (and it is just a guess) is that Soto will get $50 million per year for enough years to make it bigger than Ohtani’s $700 million.
FWIW….if Soto was a QB $50 million per year would not be top of the market. I know all the reasons that is not comparable….except perhaps the one that counts: who’s got the bigger xxxxx.
Bryce Harper is getting 25 million a year. Why the heck would Soto get double that?
12 years $540 seems like the absolute floor for Soto. And if that’s the case the Yankees wouldn’t let him walk for that.
That’s Ohtani money.
He isn’t Ohtani.
12/540 would be 3/180m more than they gave Judge just two years ago fresh off becoming the all time single season HR leader in the A.L. I don’t think it’s a given the Yankees would go that high to retain him.
It’s going to be hard to compare himself to Ohtani consider the vast differences in the player as well as Ohtani being a huge marketing revenue source.