Your owner made David Glass look like Jerry Jones.
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KK gets $4 million a year. $14 milllion guaranteed. Could have been worse anyway. Like giving Carp $20 million a year for no damn good reason except to make him comfortable.
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It means hes fucking awful.

29 other teams got to see the guy and hes compiled nearly a decade worth of tape as a professional.

And nobody saw fit to offer him more than a bad relief pitcher. Dude just got offered Jake Diekman money.

If we're unbelievably lucky he'll amount to Tyler Lyons and it's far more likely that he's Chasen Shreve.
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In terms of WAR. Over the last 12 years the Cards rank #3 in fewest IP and PA from negative war players. Who ranks ahead?
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Some arenado to stl rumors floating around. If you could do it without giving up Carlson, would that be ok?
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nope. I love him as a player but we don’t have the bench of players to pull off a trade like that. With a long term deal, sure.

But, we are going to have to give up Carlson and or Gorman plus a lot more pitching to get him for two years.

Carlson alone will give us more WAR in 6 years than Arenado in 2 years.
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A Nolan Arenado trade is ‘starting to look inevitable,’ according to Ken Rosenthal. #STLCards

— STLSportsCentral (@stlsportscntrl) January 9, 2020

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:-) He's not headed to STL
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I think you're overestimating the value of Arenado given his contract.

Everyone uses surplus value as the key component to team building these days. Arenado at market rates (virtually identical contract to Rendon) carries very little surplus value. Anybody that wanted to pay that kind of money to a premier 3b had their shot at Rendon.

So why would a team now give up Carlson (with LOADS of surplus value) to acquire him?

I'd like to think that Mozeliak learned an important lesson with the Goldschmidt deal. You can take on a big contract or you can give up significant prospect capital to acquire surplus value. But you cannot give up significant prospect capital to acquire a big contract.

And we won't. Honestly, the kind of deal I can see happening is something built around Arenado, Gorman, Bader, an arm and a dead weight contract like Fowler, Carpenter or both.

Unless the Phillies get involved with Alec Bohm and drive the bidding up, I think the Cardinals could get Arenado at a largely revenue neutral price point for the next 2 years at the cost of Gorman and some depth.

Look at it this way - the Cardinals are probably updside down on Carpenter and Fowler by, what, $45 million? They're on the hook for roughly $72 million on those 2 guys over the next 2 years. If both of them were FAs and were able to finagle 2 year deals, you think they'd get $30 million combined between them? Fowler's OBP and Carpenter's 2018 might get them in that neighborhood.

So if they're both included in the deal you need to get $45 million or so in Surplus value. Nolan Gorman slots in at somewhere around $30 million in discounted surplus value (there will be a little variance in there, but that's a fair landing spot). Obviously he could blow that out of the water or fall short of it, but that's the discounted nature of projections on prospects.

Bader probably carries about $20 million in surplus value because his variance is so much lower than Gormans. He WILL produce wins because his glove is steady and he's fast. He'll be worth about 3 wins/season over a full season because of his defense alone and with 4 seasons of control, that'll carry some value. Moreover, he's especially well suited for Colorado given their massive OF and the fact that breaking balls (his El Guapo) don't break as well there.

Then you give them a dude that throws hard with movement like Junior Fernandez who should play nicely there to provide some of the bullpen help their historically trash bullpen needs.

So you're at roughly $50 million in surplus value at that point. Probably $45-$55 depending on the value placed on Fernandez and Gorman or any premium placed on Bader's defense in a massive OF.

And Arenado's surplus value, especially with his opt-out potentially locking you into a bad deal if he struggles away from Colorado or costing you more money in 2 years if he doesn't, is something near zero given his market contract.

So if your $50 million in surplus value offsets the $45 million you're underwater on Fowler/Carpenter then you've now balanced the scales almost perfectly. In the process, the Rockies get the high ceiling young asset they'll need to get in an Arenado deal, they'll get a CFer that profiles extremely well for their park and an arm that fits them as well and they'll remove any long-term contractual risk should Arenado get hurt or decline in the later years of his deal if he doesn't opt out (not to mention the prospect capital they'd retain instead of him if he DOES opt out).

That deal on its face seems absurd, but when you dig into the actual value of these guys and their contracts, it really isn't.

I'm gonna give you guys the same warning I did when the Goldschmidt deal went down - you DO NOT ignore surplus value. When everyone was saying we 'fleeced' the D-Backs I was about the lone voice saying we overpaid and by a fair margin.

If the Cardinals can get Arenado for something along the lines of Gorman, Bader, Fernandez, Fowler and Carpenter - do it. If you have to give up much more than that, you're losing the deal and if you can't clear those 2 bad contracts in surrendering those assets, you're losing it BADLY.
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So is Gorman not the cant' miss product he was somewhat billed as? Seems everyone has cooled on him.
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Nobody with a hit tool below 70 should EVER be considered 'can't miss'.

Gorman probably has something near a 70 raw power grade, but a hit tool probably around 50. Guys with average or below hit tools tend to have tougher transitions through the mid-high minors and are more likely to be totally exposed in the majors.

So when you're looking at stuff like FV, a guy with a hit tool like Gorman's is going to struggle to get much higher than say a 55 FV unless he can demonstrate 35+ HR pop in AAA while underage. Because of his stumble in High A last year (especially the declining BB rate to go with the rise in K rate), I put a 50 FV on him.

That's a good prospect; probably deserving of something near a top 50 rank. But like I said, I have a real hard time putting 'can't miss' on a dude w/ a mediocre hit tool until he demonstrates the ability to succeed against advanced pitching. He hasn't seen ANY of that yet.
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Thanks for the update. Is Carlson more of can't miss type?
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As a Rockies fan let me just say that Jeff Bridich may be the single worst GM in MLB. The Cardinals would certainly fleece him blind in any potential Arenado deal. Ian Desmond, Wade Davis, Brian Shaw, Fat Daniel Murphy...the list of terrible f/a signings by this guy is as embarrassing as it is long. He should be forbidden to trade Arenado. Not because it's a terrible idea, but because there's no way Bridich wouldn't get his ass handed to him in a trade with an organization that knows what its doing like the Cardinals. We can't fire this dolt soon enough.

But he went to Harvard, sooo....
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Classic ceiling v. floor.

Gorman has a little more potential to be a true superstar, IMO, because he has the kind of power that creates enough fear in pitchers to yield a .400 OBP if he'll just let guys walk him. But that's the rub - will he?

Carlson, OTOH, has less raw power but may have more game power because he has a far better hit tool. He's also faced advanced pitching and done quite well against it. I'd say he's probably a better OFer than Gorman is an IFer, but in the end their respective defensive contributions will be in the margins of each other either way.

I have a hard time being terribly objective on Carlson because he's a guy I was calling 2 years ago as a dude who was going to explode onto the scene. I REALLY liked his approach even when the numbers weren't there, especially for a guy playing up a level. I'm wrong often enough on these young guys that when I peg someone like Carlson or Flaherty, I tend to develop a bit of a crush.

Yes, Carlson carries significantly more value because his variance is WAY lower. Is that 'can't miss'? Depends on your definition. Is he a guaranteed All-Star in the Ronald Acuna mold? Nope. Is he going to play in the major leagues? Yup.

If you're asking if I would personally guarantee that he will one day start 150 games and put up an average or better wRC+ in that span, I'd tell you no, I won't bet my life on it. But I'd probably give you 2-1 odds if you wanted to make the bet with me. He's as safe a bet to be a solid major league regular as you'll find in the minor leagues right now. He's a prospect built on a near complete absence of flaws more than he is a slew of standout tools.

But if you get a minute, find a video of his swing from the left side. It sure is purty. Nice high release and great torque through the middle that just does it for me.
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I have no idea on the surplus value stat. I'll trust you on your numbers. I love Arenado, always have. But, Carlson seems like a cant miss player. We need him badly, Gorman will hit for power but is he cant miss?


Why would Colorado take our shit contracts of aging players? And why would Carp or Fowler approve the trade?
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