2024-2025 Off-season Plan, Part 3 - The Offense
10/26/2024 07:00 AM
I am back with Part 3 of the 2024-2025 Off-season Analysis. These are links to Part 1 and Part 2.
What I'm going to do in this part is examine the position player side of the roster at an individual level and try and think like the Cardinals brain trust and determine the puzzle pieces – which ones they will want to keep and build around, and which ones they will want to leverage in trades to bring back what they need to improve.
The key questions are: Which contributors on the roster can be reasonably expected to improve on their performance in 2025, and which contributors can reasonably be expected to decline? And who is reliable enough to be able to reasonably expect the same level of performance? This is a challenge area for the Cardinals, because they have so much performance volatility at both the young and old ends of the spectrum and very little stability in the middle.
On the position player side, the needed changes over this off-season (and perhaps next):
1. Reduce the number of DH-only types getting too many defensive innings
2. Add RH pop
3. Improve OBP and OPS across the line-up
4. Improve speed and athleticism
Here is a thumbnail summary for each position player projected for the 2025 roster. They are in some logical (my logic) groupings.
Given the Cardinals parameters of what a "reset" might look like, anywhere from 0 to 4 of these guys could go this off-season. I would anticipate Contreras the most likely to be off-loaded, but not guaranteed. Arenado and Contreras would be salary dumps. Donovan and Nootbar could be trade chips to acquire talent for other more lacking areas of the roster. Winn isn't going anywhere. Winn, Nootbar and Donovan represent the core that would be expected to provide production next year on par with a WAR/150 projection.
This group are the guys that could take the biggest step forward in 2025 or fall flat on their faces. Talk about a seriously high-performance variance range, with this group. Burleson could fit, if he gets a full-time gig at first and can field it adequately. Gorman and Walker if they can reach anywhere near their offensive heights and play at least adequate defense. Herrera if he can find a spot or learn to control a running game. While I labelled this group "The prospects EXPECTED to ascend", I'm slightly worried that hope is the strategy here, more than expectation based on internal evaluation. My concern stems from the displacement of the prior leader of the group in charge of internal evaluation. He was not moved aside due to outstanding performance.
For the most part, I expect the Cardinals will try to clear playing time to let these guys essentially sink or swim. That would be a change in strategy for them, to actually give guys enough runway to establish themselves and make adjustments. What I hear and see suggests at least the possibility that they are ready for this. It would be quite a culture change, though. We will see.
This is the group of guys that will fill in role positions. I'd expect Fermin will be swapped out for a more accomplished SS defensively, so the Cardinals have a backup plan if Winn gets hurt. Scott really needs to establish himself and it may take a couple years to do so. Baker is dependent on what transactions happen around him. The major league guys will have pretty obvious roles. At least one new face will appear on the 25-man roster.
So, to fix this roster, here are Cards that might be dealt (pun intended):
The position players that have no position they play well (or even acceptably) – Walker, Gorman, Herrera, Burleson, Baker, Fermin. I listed these in order of their offensive upside (hi to low, if you had to ask). I think Cardinals will ultimately need to acknowledge they can't have this many of these types. They may not be ready to accept that by this off-season.
The position players that are somewhat redundant: Donovan/Gorman, Contreras/Herrera, Scott/Siani. Redundancy isn't bad. Others call it depth. It is where you can go to find talent to trade to fill other weaknesses.
Although not on the 40-man roster yet, one might view an up-and-coming Weatherholt as an emerging redundancy with Gorman/Donovan, since second seems to be his ultimate destination.
The position players that have the most trade value: Nootbar, Donovan, Winn (but he's not going anywhere). In a rebuild, this is whom you deal to get real prospects back. All of these guys project to the 2026 roster, so perhaps nothing doing here.
Who may go
When the dust settles and the off-season is done, I expect out of this group of positional players at least Contreras will be gone. A high $ contract in cost-cutting times and redundancy probably set his departure in motion. Arenado is more of a question, at least until he indicates his desires. None of the other position players are expensive, so their contracts fit on the roster, at least for one more year. In some cases the cost fits better than their production does. If the Cardinals were to be more aggressive about a rebuild, all but 2 of the DH-types could go. My estimation is they play another year of wait-and-see who can learn to catch the ball. Nootbar and/or Donovan will go only if the right deal comes along (say, those two for Logan Gilbert).
I wonder about the potential for an Arenado trade. Ignoring the NT clause. He is not a bad player but will anyone, even the Dodgers, want to take on the remaining $64m on his contract ($74m less $10m being picked up by the Rockies already) to get the low wattage power he now provides? If they are going to do this, this off-season is the time. Almost half the remaining money is due in 2025 ($32m - $5m by Rockies). They could send $10-$15m the other way and still have a good chunk of change to re-allocate to player development infrastructure. They could drop Gorman in at third (eliminating a redundancy) and have Donovan as the fall-back there. There are worse outcomes. But are the Cardinal's really changing their spots (feathers?) THIS much? This is the Show-Me state, after all.
Some overall roster construction considerations
If they are aggressive about moving contracts like Arenado and Contreras, they will have to consider the issue that there really is no one on the AAA roster that can be expected to be a replacement level player, much less a positive contributor. Plus, they won't get replacements coming back the other way in the salary dump trades, unless they throw in real cash, which defeats the purpose of moving the contract in the first place. So, they'd have to bring in replacements from outside in separate transaction(s). These would be the opportunities to re-shape the roster, eliminate redundancies and add features that solve some of the following puzzles:
1. In an OBP driven view, Donovan and Nootbar should probably be at the top of the order, not Winn or Burly. Except you don't want two LH hitters with those splits together in the line-up. Neither is a great baserunner, either. So, all the sudden you can't have your highest OBP guys at the top of the order.
2. Arenado and Burleson (and Pages) are tough to put in the line-up near each other, because they are slow and can clog things up on the bases, which is death for a singles heavy team. But they both profile to similar spots in the order. Probably 5th- 6th.
3. Typically, you want young, developing hitters down the line-up a bit – 6th or 7th. Unfortunately, more players profile at 6 or 7 than can actually fit in those two spots.
4. If they pass on re-upping Goldy and move the Arenado and Contreras contracts, some will ask who will hit 3-4-5? That question by itself might give them pause before moving Contreras. Are they ready for Nootbar, Walker and Gorman at 3-4-5? Talk about a wide variance in expected production.
That's my take on how they will view the position player side. Lots of puzzle pieces, lots of unknowns. Next, the pitching....
