Nolan Arenado projects to head up the 2019-20 free agent class, and Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post finds similarities with Matt Holliday’s departure from the franchise a decade ago. Holliday explained to Saunders why he found the Rockies’ final contract extension offer “disappointing,” while former GM Dan O’Dowd also provided his contrasting recollection of the situation.
- Holliday also took part in a fascinating lunch with members of the St. Louis Cardinals coaching crew recently. Manager Mike Shildt, bench coach Oliver Marmol and new hitting coach Jeff Albert shared a chance meal with Holliday at the Cardinals’ training facility in Jupiter, Florida where Holliday spends his offseason. Per the Athletic’s Bernie Miklasz, the foursome spent their lunch session talking hitting approaches, data usage and baseball philosophy. Specifically, Shildt hopes to improve the Cardinals contact rates this season, hence the hiring of Albert, who specializes in helping players refine their approach at the plate. One interesting exercise Albert used in his former post with the Astros involved making hitters verbally identify a pitch as a ball or a strike during batting practice. With repetition, Houston players improved in their ability to accurately differentiate balls from strikes. Shildt began shifting the Cardinals to a more contact-oriented approach when he replaced Mike Matheny last season, but this year he’ll have reinforcements in his efforts to further decrease the Cardinals’ strikeout rate.
- Pete Kerzel of MASNsports.com suggests the Nationals might not be finished in their search for a frontline catcher, despite the recent signing of Kurt Suzuki. The 35-year-old backstop may easily give the Nats 50 to 60 games behind the dish, but few teams employ a true workhouse catcher nowadays and Suzuki might be better suited as the lesser half of a catching tandem. Kerzel imagines the possible ways in which GM Mike Rizzo might pair Suzuki with Yasmani Grandal, J.T. Realmuto or Wilson Ramos, though he admits it is equally likely the Nationals head into next season with Suzuki atop the depth chart. Considering Suzuki was arguably the top option available this winter outside the big three listed above, it would be quite the coup for the Nats to come away with another top option at this juncture. Still, durability concerns for a 35-year-old backstop aren’t wholly unreasonable.
The Rockies were in the postseason last year too. They lost the wild card game to the dbacks
Yep! Thanks! Good catch.
Incorrect info in first paragraph.
As it happens, Gonzalez shared a dugout this past season with Holliday and Arenado as the Rockies reached the postseason for the first time since 2009 – the first year of the post-Holliday era.
The Rockies were in the playoffs last year, they lost in the wildcard game to the D-backs.
You’re right. Meant divisional round. Thanks for the catch!
So there’s a chance Grandal will sign with the Nats? That’s good because right now the only pick that I’ve gotten correct so far is the Harper to the Giants selection I made.
You’re living proof of alternate universes.
You’re living proof of why I still bother commenting.
Your posts humor me.
You and ey should hook up.
Neither of you know baseball.
And what makes you know baseball? Lol. Cause he’s making a prediction? You never do that? In fact all most everyone that predicts a move is always never right. Because no one really knows.
Your command of the language is atrocious, as is your comprehension skills.
It’s one thing to make a prediction. It’s another to claim it’s already happened. (Harper to Giants)
The word for that is called delusional.
Double Ouch!
This is why I read the comments!
r/woooosh
Balk is one of the most intelligent commenters I’ve seen on this website. Don’t let salty morons like Slevin or his wife MYRS stop you from commenting.
If you honestly couldn’t tell that was sarcasm, your comprehension skills might need help.
Balk & baseball1600 have the comprehension skills of a gutter frog.
They did hookup on the Harper San Francisco goodwill tour.
Im calling it. Harper gets signed by the Royals and the Yankees on a split contract. Yankees and Royals have a cage match. They both get tossed from the top of the cage from surprise team Greenbay Packers. Harper cant stand the bloodshed and decides to go into acting. Harper makes a new Mighty Ducks movie staring him and Pappelbon as the main villain.
Harper then makes that 500 + mil hes seaking and calls it a career. His hair gets inducted in Cooperstown in 2020.
Baseball1600, these goons that act like they know the sport better then anyone are the whole reason I get on this site. It makes me laugh. I personally don’t care who signs where. I love the game. I’ve played this sport till injury’s wouldn’t let me play anymore. The only people on this site who can say a prediction is delusional must be someone who is either a HATER or an idiot. They have no clue where anyone is going. It’s all a guessing game.
Oh here’s slevin, the meds kid. Let me guess, he’s the one who knows Harpers going to the Yankees to play first base! Lol
Who asked you???
Who asked who what 3rdstrikelooking? Clarify
I apologize to all gutter frogs worldwide.
I can get behind this
So I take that means (by your earlier Id of Gutter frogs) that you are also apologizing to the peeps you insulted?
I would hope so… It is almost Christmas after all
Caufield:
Nope, you got me confused with someone else.. Also, I don’t use insults. When all one can add to a discussion is invectives, slurs and insults, one adds nothing.
Ouch!
Ouch!
You’re dumb man
Giants need to blow it up now and not add to payroll
That team is bad and they are playing a ton of money
Lowtalker1, so tell me how the Giants can blow it up? You think they’re a rebuild team? Show me what contracts they can blow up to kick start a rebuild? Panik? Belt? Were they bad cause of injuries? What if Longo adjust to the NL and Belt has a healthy season, and Bum returns to form after two fluke injuries.
Pray for all those if’s, and maybe they win 60-65 games.
Hey Slevin, are you that disgruntled that all that comes out of your mouth is garbage. For someone who speaks so much you sure the hell don’t have any knowledge of anything. You’re a little dumbass kid whose mom didn’t breastfeed you i guess. If I’m a gutter frog then you’re the little piece of toilet paper that sticks to the butthairs of everyone’s ass. Jump on someone else’s nuts for once, mine are sore from you hanging on them. Keep praying for Jeter and Rivera To come back along with Harper at first base lol!! Goon!
And if they spend a bunch of money, and all those ifs you just mentioned don’t all happen, they wind up a 70 win team with a bunch more albatross contracts making it even harder to rebuild
Trying to spend your way out of a hole you spent your way in to is a really bad approach to most everything in life
They don’t have many but they do have 3 guys they could try and maximize
Posey bum and Crawford
Btw
You’re a tool too dude
Petrrie000, I don’t think they will try and spend there way out of anything. They already have those contracts on the books. Posey, and Crawford are probably locks to retire as a Giant. Melancon, Shark, Queto, all have some type of clause in there contracts where it will be hard to move them. Every team has what ifs. What if Judge and Stanton get hurt next year? What if JDM and Betts get hurt? Easily can happen like it did to the Giants and before you know it you have old contracts.
And if some other team suddenly finds themselves old and bad like the Giants, it’s time to blow it up.
Anything they can get is better then deluding themselves into thinking they can revive the corpse of the 2014 team like they’ve been trying to do ever since…
Petrie000, you still can’t answer the question, or can you? Do you know the Giants at all? Do you now what there contracts look like? Lol, no, I don’t think you do. So what you’re saying is just kick everyone off the team and the farm system and go scout fresh players and put them in there and that’ll be better right lol. Explain how they should blow it up before you say that again or you’ll continue to make no sense.
Lowtalker1, are you saying to trade Bum, Posey and Crawford to try and maximize a return for them? You could probably try that with Bumgarner, but Crawford and Posey can’t go anywhere. Crawford has a no trade contract, and Posey has to hang behind the dish till Bart gets up to the show. Then he’ll move to first. Not a lot of return you’ll get for a guy like Bum so might as well hang on to him for 12 mill.
do you really need it explained to you how one blows up a baseball team?
You trade away anybody you can for whatever you can get, even if it’s just salary relief to get them off the books
If you can’t trade them away then you just ride it out without adding more foolish contracts that will just be future problems
it’s a fairly simply concept when you even pretend to be open minded about it. If the Giants don’t even try to dump some people they’ll continue to be a 70 win team because they’re old and bad, and not getting any younger.
Anything but blowing it up is frankly stupid because it won’t result in anything beyond having to blow it up at a later date.
and i know you’re going to ignore all of that because at this point you’ve staked a position and we all know one simply cannot survive abandoning such a thing on the internet.
Yeah, you answered my question, you really don’t know the structure of any of these Giants contracts. You have Shark, Queto, Belt, Bum and Panik that can be possibly moved. Now no one wants Shark(injuries) no one wants Queto(injures) Belt has a limited trade clause so good luck with that, Panik you might be able to move. Posey won’t get traded cause of no one behind him except Bart in maybe 2021, and you have a 12 mill dollar pitcher in Bum which is so cheap you might as well keep him for the year. So like I said, very tough to BLOW it up. You have to let things expire and while they expire you replace with young talent while the farm builds experience. The Dodgers did this a few years back with the now GM of the Giants. A blow up is not the way. Maybe for a lower market ball club, but San Fran is one of the biggest money teams in the league. The people you are saying to salary dump wouldn’t amount to the money they owe in injured contracts. Longo might be the biggest move if you can find someone who’ll take him.
The structure of the contracts doesn’t matter. That’s what you’re either accidentally or deliberately being too dense to see past.
The Giants have essentially three choices, and only 2 results.
1) blow it up, get rid of everything they can move even in the return is effectively nothing just to reset the team and clean the slate
2) delude themselves into thinking that because their stuck with a lot of bad contracts they may as well spend and pray
3) do niether and basically go into next season with the same team that disappointed them so badly this season
Choices 2 and 3 both lead to having the same choice next year after likely achieving nothing. And doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is insanity
So, have we cleared up why the hill you’ve chosen to die on doesn’t matter? The structure of the contracts is irrelevant. If they don’t blow it up now, they blow it up next off season
The Rockies went to the post season in 2017 as well, so this past season wasn’t their first playoff game since 2009.
TC already noted that error twice above.
Cardinals trade/sign Arenado. Wish
Trade for***
Arenado makes since for the padres
Maybe as a free agent target next year but not trading for him this off season. Pass.
Keep the prospects rather than trade him and watch him sign elsewhere for more money cause the padres would be paying myers 20 mill and hosmer 22.5 mill already in 2020.
Yeah free agent
Since his first reference was free agent class. Preller hinted that he wouldn’t go after Harper and manny but was more interested in arenado
Myers will probably get traded. These owners are not afraid to spend and have spent a lot money
“Arenado makes since for the padres”
In 2020 the Padres will have over $42 mm a year committed to Myers and Hosmer. In spite of playing in one of the best – if not the best – pitchers park in MLB, they don’t have any legitimate TOR starters. They’ll either have to overpay in free agency, or take on some large contracts in return for prospects.
The Padres are a small market team. They are not about to have a $180 mm payroll anytime soon. Additionally, it’s difficult to envision a top-tier free agent hitter signing to play in that park for a team with so little pitching and no financial flexibility. Those players will have their choice of quality contenders to play for.
Jeff Albert must have done a great job with Springer who went from below average strike out rate to slightly above average. Would love to see that with O’Neill.
Mathis gets 6.25 MM for 2 yrs.?
Then I see how few Cs are available for all the contenders with a need at C,.
Yet so many commentators on this site continue to rip BOS for keeping Vazquez/Leon/Swihart.
The way I see it, if you can’t afford someone really good, you are better off keeping the C’s who are known & liked by the pitching staff.
Would absolutely love to see the Cardinals bring Holliday in as a hitting coach at some level. He was phenomenal player and well liked and respected in the clubhouse, he could be an asset in getting the kids to the point where they can produce at the major league level.
I think that’s a great idea.
Rockies should have waited for Manny and Bryce to get their deals, then worked the age and instant raise angle.
I sure wish the Giants had a young talent like Arenado.
There’s just no telling where these fellas go.
that’s the beauty of free agency.
Mike Hampton ruined it for everyone lol
Yankees Cardinals WS next year
lol. Yankees. cards are on the way down. bunch of old men and no farm left. talent went to Houston long ago and the new staff does not have it
We will see in about 11 months
Really don’t want to see the Nats sign Grandal or Ramos. Them taking Suzuki shot down a good plan B for the Braves. I see Grandal and Ramos as the best case scenario for the Braves.
I would think that of Realmuto but since they already said they would rather not trade in the division the Braves would have to pay something like Wright, Riley, Pache, Toussante or something similarly nasty as that and so I think of Realmuto as almost as unrealistic as Harper or Machado.
When the 2020 season begins, the Cardinals are going to have Goldie playing 1B and Arenado playing 3B. And if trade talks are successful, you just might see both of them in St. Louis this summer.
As for Harper and Machado, one of them (Harper is my guess.) is gonna wind up in Philly this year. Also, it would not surprise me if the Phillies convince the Angels to trade Mike Trout. Why?; Because the Angels stink big time and they are gonna stink for the foreseeable future with or without Trout. The Angels might be the worst run franchise in all of MLB.
I’m thinking Grandal could be a good fit with the Rockies. He would provide a power boost in the lineup and is a switch-hitter with a good eye in the batter’s box. He won’t beat out grounders or steal bases. But his ability to play 1st base or catcher is good for the Rox.
It would be nice to see Matt Holliday back in a Cardinals uniform as a hitting coach at any level when he finally retires officially as a player.
It was refreshing to hear that the Cardinal Owners are putting the heat on John Mozeliak and his front office to obtain at least one All Star quality bat this off season and maybe two. Without heat on Mozeliak, nothing will be accomplished.
I believe all cards fans know that there is no big bat coming our way this happens every year and if they do get some one it’s a bust they love to hold on to there kids on the farm that lately have not pan out to many names to say and we don’t need someone that at the old age of 37 who had a good year before and give him to much money.