can’t touch those Faberge eggs.
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you seem to be the only regular poster in here that ever defends Mo. I think that’s insane but you have a right to your opinion and post it here without getting too much grief. :-)
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I'm not the only one in this thread defending Mozeliak's approach at the TDL.

As I said, the roster was terribly flawed going into 2023 and they did the bare minimum going into the season.

Mozeliak did what he needed to do before the end of today. Now he and DeWitt have to acquire at minimum 2, if not 3, starters in the off-season plus a platoon OF.
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I was talking your opinion “historically” not about the trade deadline stuff.

That Bader trade ended up getting us way way better talent than Bader. Most pundits think Mo didn’t screw up the trades this time.

Some are trashing the trades but it seems to me that they are expecting to get a plug-in #3 starter with 3+ years of control for a 6 week rental.
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Terrible hauls, but whatever. No confidence at all in Mos ability to identify talent
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STL Today


RHP Tekoah Roby
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6-foot-1, 185 pounds

Age: 21

2023 season: 2-3, 5.05 ERA in 10 games (10 starts), 46 1/3 innings, 50 strikeouts, 1.32 WHIP for Texas’ Double-A affiliate

Scouting report: A third-round pick in the 2020 draft, Roby had his 2021 season limited by an elbow strain before pitching in 22 games — 21 of which were starts — last season while in Class High-A. Roby was the 28th-ranked Rangers prospect, per Baseball America. Roby throws a fastball that sits in the low-90s and has peaked at 96 mph. Command with the fastball in the bottom of the zone has been an issue, Baseball America’s scouting report says. He’s registered high spin rates on his curveball to go with a recently added slider and his changeup. He allowed 19 home runs a year ago and had a .781 OPS allowed in a hitter-friendly Texas League this season before injury sidelined him. Roby will enter the Cardinals rehabilitation program at their complex in Jupiter, Florida, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said on Sunday. The Cardinals believe they’ll learn more about Roby’s injuries once he reports, but the expectation and “hope” is for the righty to pitch in a competitive setting within the Cardinals’ system this year.


RHP Adam Kloffenstein
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6-foot-5, 243 pounds

Age: 22

2023 season: 3.24 ERA in 17 games (17 starts), 89 innings, 105 strikeouts, 1.27 WHIP for Toronto’s Double-A affiliate

Scouting report: Kloffenstein — a third-round draft choice by the Blue Jays in 2018 — made his Double-A debut a year ago and was ranked as the Blue Jays’ 18th-best prospect, per Baseball America. He throws a sinker, fastball, slider, curveball, cutter, and changeup. Baseball America rates his slider as his best pitch and his most used. Through 17 starts for Toronto’s Class AA club, Kloffenstein’s 105 strikeouts were the fifth-most in the Eastern League and 30th-most across all of MiLB entering Sunday. He’s made a jump in his strikeout rate from a 22.2% mark while in Double-A last year to a 27.6% rate this season while lowering his walk rate from 11.3% to 8.9%. He was assigned to Class AAA Memphis.
O
RHP Sem Robberse
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6-foot-1, 185 pounds

Age: 21

2023 season: 3-5, 4.06 ERA in 18 games (18 starts), 88 2/3 innings, 86 strikeouts, 1.17 WHIP for Toronto’s Double-A affiliate

Scouting report: A native of the Netherlands, Robberse was signed as an international free agent in 2019. Baseball America had him ranked as the Blue Jays’ seventh-best prospect. He relies mostly on the three-pitch mix of a four-seam fastball, a slider, and a changeup, per Baseball America. He was third among qualified Eastern League pitchers in WHIP and ranks 10th in all of Double-A in that category. Over his 18 starts, he’s produced a 23.1% strikeout rate and an 8.9% walk rate, per Fangraphs. Robberse’s strikeout rate is more than a 4% improvement from what he produced in 24 2/3 Class AA innings a year ago. Robberse has limited hitters to a .213 average. Among pitchers with a minimum of 80 innings, he ranks within the top 20 across the minors for that category. The 21-year-old pitched in this year’s Futures Game. He was assigned to Class AAA Memphis

SS Thomas Saggesse
Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 5-foot-11, 175 pounds

Age: 21

2023 season: .314 average, .894 OPS, 15 home runs, 22 doubles, and 78 RBIs in 92 games played

Scouting report: Having spent the entire 2023 season with Double-A Frisco, Saggesse matched a career-high in home runs and set career-bests in RBIs, and walks (34) through 92 games while playing in Texas League ballparks. He’s approaching career-highs in hits and at-bats as well. He was a fifth-round pick as a preps player during the shortened 2020 MLB draft. He’s walked 8.2% of the time and struck out 22.8% in 417 plate appearances, per Fangraphs. Saggesse, the Rangers’ 23rd-best prospect according to Baseball America, is seen as an “aggressive” hitter who had a 56% swing rate a season ago despite showing the ability to be more patient later in the year. He’s displayed an average arm in the field and is a “fringe-average” runner, Baseball America’s scouting report says.


RHP John King
Bats/Throws: L/L

Height/Weight: 6-foot-2, 215 pounds

Age: 28

2023 season: 2-2, 3.32 ERA in 12 games (three starts), 21 2/3 innings, 13 strikeouts, 1.57 WHIP for Texas’ Triple-A affiliate. 1-1, 5.79 ERA in 15 games, 18 2/3 innings, 10 strikeouts, 1.61 WHIP in majors

Scouting report: King was a 10th-round pick by the Rangers in 2017 and has spent his entire career in the Rangers’ organization. He’s worked mostly as a reliever while in the minors and logged 143 innings since 2018. King made his MLB debut in 2020 and has pitched 126 1/3 innings across 87 relief appearances since. The right-hander owns a 4.27 ERA and has fanned 89 batters across his big league career. He will report to St. Louis where he will look to provide innings for the big league club once he is added to the 26-man active roster.
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Bears beat the Bengals tonight at the Friendly Confines

The confines were VERY friendly to the @Cubs tonight!

They hit 7 home runs for the fourth time in franchise history. pic.twitter.com/nZbeYS37FB

— MLB (@MLB) August 2, 2023

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God that Flaherty return is shit. Prieto is a Cuban Max Schrock, Rom's best case scenario is J.A. Happ.

The only guy worth a damn might be the 19 yr old who's 5 years off and is being treated as an afterthought; Showalter.

Mozeliak is so damn insecure in his ability to identify talent that he just took as many C level prospects as he could. Instead of taking a chance on 2-3 B+ level guys (I'm not expecting top 20 prospects here; but top a SINGLE top 100 guy would've been nice), he just went out there and got as many fringy bodies as he could in the hopes that 2-3 of them stick.

Because he has NO idea who's good and who isn't. He's absolute goddamn awful at his job.

This team has 2 starting pitchers under control for next season and neither of them are very good. Maybe you'll get 20 starts of Matz at/near the level he's showing right now - that would be MASSIVE for us. And Mikolas is going to be worse than he is this season because he'll be 36 friggen years old.

They cut their own nuts off regarding the upside of their prospects because they "want to compete next year". They refused to trade Goldschmidt because they're "going to compete next year" but they did NOTHING to suggest they might. They're not going to go out there and sign Nola and Urias because Mozeliak will give us some bullshit about not wanting to block the 27 C prospects he just acquired and in 2 years he's going to lose half of them to minor league FA or the Rule 5 because he shotgun blasted the roster and will need to put these guys on the 40 at some point soon.

Then we'll be where he was about 5 years ago when he was bemoaning how little space they had on the roster and using THAT to make excuses for not making moves.

Nothing is about winning with this asshole. It's about covering his own ass. Its about having an out for his mistakes. It's about creative excuse-making.

Fuck this goddamn clown. What an absolute pussy.
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Should have just taken the draft pick. Flores has a better chance of getting a return with a pick between the 2nd and 3rd round.

Mozeliak would rather have six dimes than a dollar.
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He'd have to have an ounce worth of sand in his drawers to use any of these guys as trade bait. He's a fucking coward. A worthless worm that's going to treat every last one of THESE guys as faberge eggs unless/until they're so obviously worthless that he ends up DFAing them and trading them for 19 yr old catchers who can't hit their motherfucking weight.

The best guy we got in that deal today MIGHT end up being as good as Genesis Cabrera. And we flat gave him away because our coach and front office can't communciate.

2 years ago he could've gotten anything he wanted for Carlson - now he couldn't give him away nor will the team actually PLAY him. They're going to do the same thing with Walker because they refused to move Goldschmidt so they're going to keep sending Walker out there to diminish HIS value. They send him to AAA to work on his swing plane, he says "No, I'm going to do it my way" and they call him up ANYWAY because the PR pressure was too much for them. In 2 years we'll wonder why we haven't traded him for some pile of ass.

Everything - EVERYTHING - this guy does is wrong. He's the single worst executive in sports. Nobody is worse. Oh there may be some people tied with him as completely ineffectual at every single aspect of their job. But NOBODY is actively worse than him because it's just multiplying by zero. He's alienated his players, angered them, traded them low to see them improve, bought high to see them fail. He hired a motherfucking felon to run his scouting department and somehow took zero chaff for it. He fired administrative staff over COVID because clearly the assistant to the traveling secretary needed to go to protect Bill's bottom line and lord knows that feckless fucking cunt wasn't going to stick his neck out to protect any of them.

He's a fraud and if he were hit by a fucking bus TONIGHT the franchise would immediately be orders of magnitude better. I hope he goddamn dies and ideally in the same accident that takes the entire DeWitt clan with him so they can't pass it down to some other silver spoon cocksucker who will hire a bagman to run it as an investment mechanism rather than a major league baseball team. Put the goddamn team into receivership and let a committee of tax accountants run it and it wouldn't be any WORSE than DeWitt, Mozeliak and Marmol are.

Shit this team pisses me off.
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Solid to very solid rant
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:-)
Well done sir, well done!
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It is the total lack of a coherent big picture plan that is unbelievably frustrating for me. I’ve expressed my disdain for MO’s inability to evaluate any of his own talent, but even that pales in comparison to the lack of a cohesive plan.

If you are selling at the deadline then you are reimagining by definition your future both near and longer term. You had huge assets at 3rd and 1b who would have undoubtedly brought nice long term returns to pair with your best prospects who can replace the vets you just dealt. If you think you are closer to winning next year and want to keep your vets then you deal Walker and Gorman while they still have value.

There is no plan that I can see.
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To quote Jim Rome - rack em
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All he did was trade our players that are off this team in 6 weeks anyway. That wasn't even the bare minimum.

You are not signing any of them after the next 6 weeks. No way are you having a miracle run and make the playoffs. They had to go. Where Mo fucks up is not giving up his precious Faberge eggs until they are cracked or missing pieces. And all he gets is a small part of what he could have received if he was good at his job.
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