Paul Goldschmidt’s Toughest Stretch As A Cardinal
The Cardinals are back at the bottom of the NL Central through six weeks. At 15-21, they're ahead of only the Marlins and Rockies in the National League. St. Louis viewed their 2023 last-place finish as an anomaly. They invested in their rotation to try for a quick turnaround, but their current 68-win pace is below where they ended last season.
Their problems aren't quite the same as they were in 2023. Last year, the biggest issues were a starting rotation that couldn't miss bats and a defense that was surprisingly the worst in MLB at turning batted balls into outs. The Cards haven't been great in either area thus far in 2024, but the slight improvements they've made in those facets have been negated by a lifeless offense. At the center of those struggles: Paul Goldschmidt, who is amidst what is by far the worst stretch of his time in St. Louis.
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MLB Mailbag: Go, Arraez, Mariners, Red Sox, Braves
Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers sent in their mailbag questions, and I answered a bunch of them! Let's get to it. For those surprised to see the paywall, please read the explanation here.
Chris asks:
It's my understanding that Woo-Suk Go was included in the Luis Arraez trade mostly for salary relief. What is going wrong for Go so far that caused the Padres to change their minds on him so soon after signing him?
The way things went down with the Padres and Go was a bad look for the team:
- Sign him to a two-year, $4.5MM free agent deal in January
- Watch him get hammered in six spring training outings; send him to Double-A
- Go pitches well in ten outings aside from an inflated BABIP
- Include him in the Arraez deal as an apparent salary dump, four months after the signing and without using him in the Majors
While the standard XX-B free agent has to consent to a trade if he's signed and then traded before June 15th, Go was signed internationally, so he had no say in the matter.
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The Royals’ Outfield Drought
The Royals’ 20-13 start to the season on the heels of an active offseason that saw Kansas City spend more than $100MM on nine free agents – to say nothing of trades acquiring relievers John Schreiber and Nick Anderson – has plenty of people buzzing.
The Royals are right in the thick of things in a largely improved AL Central that looks more like a four-horse race than the perennially weak division that’s been won in a romp in each of the past three seasons (Twins in 2023, Guardians in 2022, White Sox in 2021). Every team except the again-rebuilding White Sox has a legitimate chance at postseason play as of this writing.
A frequently maligned Royals pitching staff is at the heart of Kansas City’s early run. Lefty Cole Ragans hasn’t been quite as dominant as he was following the trade to acquire him from the Rangers last year but has nonetheless looked like a quality big league starter. Brady Singer looks more like the 2022 breakout version of himself than the 2023 version that struggled to a 5.52 ERA.
Free-agent signees Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha have been a needed boon. Lugo’s strikeout rate is down, and Wacha has been more steady than great, but they’ve provided needed, competitive veteran innings. Even fifth starter Alec Marsh has been sharp, though his K-BB profile is rather worrying and he’s on the shelf at the moment after being struck by a comeback liner.
The bullpen has been sound, though free-agent additions Chris Stratton and Will Smith have both struggled. Even still, K.C. relievers are eighth in the majors with a 3.28 ERA. Like some of the starters, their lowly 18.4% strikeout rate (second-lowest in MLB) and 10.2% walk rate call into question whether that ERA can be sustained. But the early results have still contributed to a nice start.
The Royals, to no one’s surprise, are getting strong offensive commitments from perennial slugger Salvador Perez, talented young first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino and emergent face-of-the-franchise shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.
Put more concisely: a lot is going right in Kansas City! It’s a good time to be a Royals fan – perhaps not relative to 2014-15 but certainly relative to the eight years since that consecutive pair of World Series appearances.
If there’s one area that has to remind Royals fans of that eight-year drought, however, it’s the team’s once-again middling outfield. Kansas City outfielders are hitting .190/.254/.323 on the season. The resulting 63 wRC+ indicates they’re 37% worse than league-average at the plate as a group. That ranks last in Major League Baseball. Let's get into the grisly details.
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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
MLBTR writer Anthony Franco held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscriber
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Tim Dierkes’ MLB Mailbag: Mason Miller, Vlad Jr., Orioles, White Sox, Marlins, And More
As explained here, we have been writing Trade Rumors Front Office originals such as this one for the last four years or so, but moving forward they'll be available on the website and not just in subscribers' inboxes. In the near future, expect to see roughly six such paywalled posts per week here on MLBTR. This week's mailbag explores the logic behind a Mason Miller trade, the Giants' slow start, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s true talent level, potential rotation upgrades for the Orioles, musings about the White Sox and Angels, and a look at Kim Ng's tenure as Marlins GM.
Phillip asks:
Mason Miller and Lucas Erceg are amazing, and totally wasted on the A's right now, despite them playing better than expected. But any trade would best be for solid prospects-SEVERAL solid prospects- who are 2-3 seasons away instead of MLB-ready guys who would also be wasted on the current and near-future teams. Given that, what team has those far away prospects to pay for one of those splendid slingers? Not Baltimore, more's the pity.
This brings up a philosophical question: should bad teams have nice things? Mason Miller provides a reason to watch the A's, and his season has been insane so far. And while he's under team control through the 2029 season, we can't count on him to hold up or on this franchise to be willing to pay him those last few years if he does.
So the cold-hearted logical answer is for the A's to trade Miller as soon as possible, as he might be at peak value and could be a lot less valuable the next time this organization has a realistic shot at contending. (I am aware that the A's are not awful so far this year at 15-17, but I do not think they have a realistic chance at making the playoffs anytime soon).
It's worth considering that Miller was a starter in college and all through the minors. He came down with a "mild UCL sprain" in mid-May of last year, which involved a four-month recovery period and short appearances when he returned in September.
A's GM David Forst explained to MLB.com's Martin Gallegos last December that he'd like to see Miller stay healthy for a year as a reliever before the team considers moving him back into a starting role. When a pitcher excels as a closer to the degree Miller has thus far, it's often hard to get him out of that role, but if he can eventually transition back to starting, he could theoretically be even more valuable. But given last year's UCL sprain and the attrition rate of the game's hardest throwers, there's a pretty good case that Miller is indeed at peak value right now.
I don't know where the hell the A's are going to be (as an organization) in 2026, when Miller will receive his first arbitration salary. Given the extra uncertainty around the franchise these next few years, Phillip's case makes some sense: trade Miller (and/or Erceg) now for prospects who are several years away from the Majors.
The problem with this idea is that a prospect's uncertainty is higher the further away he is from the Majors. Trading Miller this summer might require threading the following needles:
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The NL Rookie Of The Year Field Is Loaded
In my subscriber chat last week, a questioner asked which players I'd take as respective Rookies of the Year. While the race in both leagues could be interesting, the picture in the National League seems particularly fascinating. There are 10-15 players who could be legitimate threats for that award, a reflection both of an intriguing level of prospect talent and NL teams' signing of a handful of players out of foreign professional leagues last offseason.
Let's run through what is shaping up to be a strong class.
Jared Jones, Pirates RHP
Jones would be my pick for the most impressive rookie of the season's first month. The Pirates right-hander has followed up an excellent spring with a dominant six MLB starts. He owns a 3.18 ERA over 34 innings while striking out nearly 32% of batters faced. Jones has walked fewer than 4% of his opponents, and while he'll probably have a tough time maintaining quite that level, he's getting opposing hitters to flail aimlessly at stuff off the plate.
Among all major league pitchers with 20+ innings, only Sonny Gray and Jack Flaherty have a better strikeout/walk rate differential. No one is inducing swinging strikes at a higher clip. Jones has surpassed 120 innings in the minors in each of the last two seasons, so he shouldn't be on too strict a workload limit. The only quibble with his performance is an elevated 1.85 HR/9 rate, but the longball wasn't much of an issue in the minors. This didn't come out of nowhere -- the former second-round draftee entered the year as a Top 100 prospect and trendy Rookie of the Year pick -- but it would've been tough to predict this level of immediate dominance.
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