Upton
- Thread starter vbsideout
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Kapler to Mgr. for Phillies and Martinez to Nats. Let the off season begin. Things got off to a quick start today and should be a fun winter. Not sure what I think about Upton, but he could have fill one our needs. 2 Mgrs don't excite me anymore than Matheny. So I don't think we've missed out on anything yet. I know MM is going to be our Mgr. until his contract runs out, but these 2 guys hired today don't make me wish we would have got rid of MM
Eh, it doesn't strike me as bad. Not an amazing deal, but not really an overpay.
The trade for Upton makes more sense now.
I'd take either of them over Matheny. Cubs bench coach should be pretty modern. Kapler has a very good rep as a smart guy and a long time manager in training who was well connected in a strong org in LA.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad deal. Just that I'm ok passing on him for that deal. Especially the 5 yr part.
In reality, they just gave him 1 extra year. He already had I think 4 at 84M. They just tossed him an extra year and 20 M to not decline his option. He can DH for them on the back 2 years
It's a pretty fair deal. I think he will do fine out there. Plus.....if he tanks, are they really hurt? The Pujols money already killed them
Pujols is still hitting HRs and driving in runs. He is not worth the money that he is getting and he is a DH, but he would still have led the Birds in RBIs since he left.
Problem is, for this season and all qualified players (144)
Pujols was 144th in WAR.
If you drop it from Qualified to a minimum of 200 PA, so now you're catching bench players. 349 players. Pujols was 349th in WAR.
He's dead money, no matter how many homeruns he hits at this point. It's sad honestly
Pujols had 101 RBIs. That was good enough for 9th in the AL and 19th overall. That isn't too shabby. His power is down and he can't run so doubles are too. But when they got runners on for him he still found a way to get them in better then most. Obviously the Cards need someone like him.
RBIs don't count anymore. If your launch angle + war + bzone +mpi doesn't = 219465832 then you are useless
All that means is he hit in the middle of the line up after Mike Trout with Trout on base all the time. RBIs are a stat of opportunity as much as a stat of success. If he hit 9th in that lineup, he'd have 60 RBIs and you'd be admitting he's horrible.
Pujols is the slowest player in the major leagues and he cannot play D any more. he would have to be a well above average hitter to be even a league average player.
Instead, he hit .241/.286/.386. That's outright horrible for a DH. For perspective, that's about the same line that Aledmys Diaz had for the Cardinals last year. Diaz is a SS, not a DH, and that hitting performance was so bad that it got him sent to AAA.
And he looks terrible by the eye test, too. He can't run. He rarely hits doubles anymore. His K rate is shooting up - he swings and misses much more often. ETc.
You can't really discuss RBI without looking at where someone hit in the batting order. Pujols generally hits cleanup behind a guy whose OBP was .442 last year.
Pujols ranking in all of MLB in 2017:
8th in opportunities batting with a guy on 3rd base
1st in opportunities batting with a guy on 2nd base
The real shocker would be if he didn't drive in 100 guys with those opportunities.
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And the Cardinals 3,4, and 5 hitters have come no where close to 100 RBIs. That is my point. Even Upton would be an upgrade getting between 90 and 100 RBIs a year. Pujols could not play in the NL because of his legs, but the Birds must find some middle order hitters and I think at least 2 or they will remain an 82 to 88 win team and I've been saying this for 3 years now. To me their #1 priority has to be 2 more middle of the order bats.
Eh, that's a bad example for the Cards. You could plug a number of our guys in to the #4 spot for 650 plate appearances and have them drive in 90-100 runs as long as you let them bat there every day. Yadi managed 82 in the five hole even though he played about 80% of our games. Pham didn't get 90-100 because he hit #2 a lot and because we didn't think he deserved to be in the majors for like 20% of the season.
Why didn't anyone do it for the Cards in 2017? Because we moved our lineup all over the place and we didn't have consistent health/playing time. The only hitter in our lineup who had even 550 plate appearances was Matt Carpenter. It's tough to drive in 100 guys when you only play 75% of the time.
The Cards could use a better slugger, to be sure, but the Cards could do something like play Piscotty in the 4 hole for all 162 games no matter how good or bad he is and end up with a 100 RBI guy. The focus should be on getting a very good hitter, not on an RBI guy.
No one had that many chances. Only 3 guys on the 2017 Cards had even 500 plate appearances and only 1 had 550 plate appearances - our leadoff hitter. Look at how many Cards hitters played 100-130 games. You gotta be in the lineup every day to drive in 100 guys. Pujols played basically every day.
And we didn't play people consistently in the #3 and #4 spots. we moved Gyorko, Piscotty, etc. around.
Your better than I am at looking up stats. (too lazy) If you take the stats that everybody had batting in the 3 or 4 hole did they add up to 100 RBIs?
#3
Carp 27
Yadi 2
Grich 1
Fowler 11
Dejong 34
Piscotty 15
Total: 90
#4
Yadi 5
Jedd 45
Grich 1
Fowler 15
Dejong 1
Piscotty 10
Martinez 27
Total: 104
About half of the starts in the 3 hole went to Piscotty (ugh) and Carp (who is somehow incapable of hitting in any spot other than leadoff.)
Thanks Carp has to go to the AL where I think he would thrive. I'm willing to give Piscotti a pass last year, but if they don't trade him he has to bat 6,7, or 8
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