Being Comfortable With Going Big
Getting a foundation can bring opportunities
It’s Christmas time and a lot of people are getting there to do Christmas shopping. Now there are various techniques of doing the shopping, of course. There’s the “rush around at the end to find whatever works”, the “don’t deviate from the list”, the “get it all done early and relax”, and then there’s the “stick to the list….mostly” technique.
My wife always wants a list for me and doesn’t usually go far afield from it. Which is great, of course, but it also means that I typically have a pretty good idea of what I’m getting before it gets unwrapped.
I’m a little more creative when it comes to these things, but I feel like I can gamble on a gift that they haven’t asked for if I have a couple of things that I know they love already on hand or in process. If I’m not sure if my wife will like a game, knowing that I’ve already gotten her bags of coffee and an expansion for a game she already likes takes a lot of the pressure off. If I miss here, there’s still a good Christmas going on. If I hit, it’s upgraded to great. (She doesn’t read anything I write so I think I’m safe here, BTW)
As a Cardinals fan, I’m pretty sure you can see where I’m going with this. The analogy isn’t complicated.
John Mozeliak had a shopping list for this holiday season. Make sure that three starting pitchers were placed under the tree and ready for the 2024 season. As has been his wont often in his career, he got the whole list done before people got all their Thanksgiving leftovers eaten. Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Sonny Gray are now St. Louis Cardinals and the rotation, while not overly exciting, is a significant step up from last year’s debacle, though that isn’t saying much.
The list is completed, at least in that regard. There still seems to be a need for a couple of bullpen arms but you can pick those up at the clearance rack a few days before Christmas as an impulse buy. The big stuff is already under the tree before the tree has gone up (depending on your approach to Christmas decorating).
You’ve got your foundation. Now you can go big.
“Can” being the operative word. While the Cardinals have been somewhat linked to Dylan Cease and there are reports that the club is engaged in the trade market, it’s also true that Mo said at the Gray press conference that he believed they were done with starting pitching and at the Lynn/Gibson presser mentioned they hadn’t really done much toward a trade.
Now, this is also the guy that named Matt Carpenter as the third baseman a day before finalizing the Nolan Arenado deal and a front office that is famous for keeping their mouths shut. So I do believe that they are still looking to get better, but it’s also not completely out of the realm of possibility that this is what they are going to be. Which would be completely Cardinals—following the letter of the law, getting good but not great.
You have your cushion. Now jump.
There are a lot of ways that the Cardinals could get better. Dealing for Cease very well may be the way they do it, though you wonder about the cost and how much that would take away from an offense that is quite good but could be damaged easily. Tyler Glasnow brings a ton of upside but the very real fact that if you get 100 innings out of him you would be considered lucky. Blake Snell may be the Cy Young but almost nobody thinks he’ll be worth whatever contract he’ll get (and, given that the buzz around him seems notably quiet, that contract may not be as large as everyone is thinking.) I’m completely biased and it’s obviously not my money, but if I have all this certainty in the rotation, I make the landscape-shaking play of signing Yoshinobu Yamamato.
Obviously, this is probably not going to happen. It might have been a slim chance even before the Cardinals got their checkbook open and bought some new hurlers. However, it’s still the smartest play left in the book.
25-year-old aces don’t come around every day. Even if Yamamoto is just “really good” rather than the best pitcher in baseball, having him through his prime years is an opportunity not to be missed. The Cardinals don’t have anyone in their organization that really is lined up to be that level of starter at that young of an age. It’s possible Tekoah Roby and Tink Hence might develop into something like that, but there’s no guarantee. And if they do, great! Then you can have those guys AND Yamamoto, which would reduce your need to look outside the organization for a few years.
There’s no long term continuity. It’s probably by design and may have to do with the uncertainty around the television rights contract, but if no options are exercised Lynn and Gibson are gone at the end of ‘24, Steven Matz and Miles Mikolas are gone at the end of ‘25, and Gray is out after ‘26. In three years this whole rotation might have gotten overhauled. Now, again, maybe you have a Hence or a Roby or a Gordon Graceffo established by then, but you are still going to have to supplement with an outside veteran presence. Why not get that presence you need now when you have the time to nurture it in the ways of the organization?
You need the insurance. This applies to pretty much any of the top targets, free agent or trade, but you might as well put it in here anyway. In a rotation full of 35 year olds, an injury is going to come up. You hope it’s not much and these guys have been durable. But what if someone is out two months? Are you sure Zack Thompson is ready? What if multiple someones are out? What if, and you hate to even say it, one of those guys is Sonny Gray? Are you ready for Mikolas to be your top guy for an extended period of time? Ben and Nate over at Talking About Birds this week made a great point that this rotation, as improved as it is, isn’t necessarily that far away from the disaster of last year. Here’s some of Ben talking about Yamamoto but be sure to download the whole episode!
What are you going to do when the playoffs roll around? As things currently stand, Mikolas would be your second starter in a playoff series, and that’s IF you get to set up your rotation the way you want. What if it comes down to Sonny Gray on the final day to get in? You could not even see him in the playoffs if things went south. As constructed, the Cardinals still probably wouldn’t be favorites to end the playoff series drought that they are currently in. You really need a 1-2 punch for deep October baseball.
You need the buzz. Sonny Gray is great and I’m sure seeing Lance Lynn again will spur some tickets. But do you want to excite a fan base that has turned on you a bit? Put Yamamoto in the home whites. People will be fired up. The Cardinals will be the talk of baseball not just here but across the globe (that point is next). Imagine the marketing potentials of Yamamoto and Lars Nootbaar. There are so many opportunities to improve the brand and improve the impression on the fans with him in the fold.
Market expansion is vital. Look, we know that Bally’s is about to go belly up. I think the Cardinals will get the money that is due them this coming year, but after 2024 it’s going to be different. Even if they sell monthly subscriptions without blackouts (which I sincerely hope they do), the revenue is going to be less than what Bally’s was contractually obligated for. So why don’t you mitigate that by significantly increasing your footprint in another baseball-mad market? Nootbaar’s already gotten your foot in the door. I remember hearing that Cardinals games were supposed to be aired over in Japan last year. Adding Yamamoto to this mix knocks that door down. You can probably hire a Japanese anchor and play-by-play man that would call the games from Japan and have a dedicated feed over there. You don’t think you could make some significant money that way? That would likely mitigate the dropoff to streaming subscriptions and then some.
There are more reasons but six is always a good place to stop. The luxury tax is an issue but if you sign Yamamoto you can deal Matz (and probably Tyler O’Neill as well) for prospects and save some cash. It’s doable, but it requires some creativity. Which, granted, is not exactly something this front office has always shown. They can be opportunistic, they can be cautious, they can be realistic, but creative? That’s going to require them to stretch a bit.
However, if you don’t stretch after a 71 win season, when are you going to? The need is there. The incentives are there. The connections are there—you can’t tell me that Nootbaar isn’t doing the hard sell and Nolan Arenado didn’t lend a hand on his trip to Japan. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Passing it up would be foolish.
Again, let’s be clear that I don’t really expect Yamamoto to happen, though I will continue to keep the torch burning until he goes somewhere else. However, many of the points above do apply to Cease or Logan Gilbert or others. There’s no reason to stop now that the list is checked off. Gamble on a bigger present.
The Exit Interview series is complete over at the blog, wrapping up with all players plus Oli Marmol and Mozeliak on Wednesday. You can read the entire series here and let me know if you liked the way I approached it this year.
Some of you wanted to see pictures of the house decorated. The cover picture is the whole front and here are some closer shots.
The podcasts are still going strong, which isn’t always possible this deep into the winter. Allen and I will be recording again tomorrow, talking Sonny Gray and probably some of the points in there. David and I will likely record Sunday on the eve of the winter meetings. As always, feedback of any sort (but especially rating and reviewing in your podcast app) is appreciated.
Also, if you aren’t reading Birdy Work you are missing out as I’ve noted before. However, Dayn’s latest piece on what the Gray deferrals mean is open to non-subscribers as well as subscribers, so check that out and if you like it, give him some of your money.
The Christmas devotionals are still going strong if you haven’t checked them out yet.
Great stuff!