Regardless of whether Carp rejuvenates and takes off on another tear this year, that was in my opinion one of the top bonehead Mo moves.

It screams not knowing the value of a player should you NOT extend right away. He wasn't going anywhere, his value was not going to INCREASE to other teams only decrease yet we paid him for an increase. Just flat out stupid!
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Man, sometimes when you're right, you're right....

Everything wrong with this team comes down to it's starting pitching staff.

The dirty little secret about offenses is that ALL of them are inconsistent. The good ones are simply really really good when they're on. There are a lot of studies done on this and ultimately the conclusion is that we would all be shocked by how much mediocre baseball even the great teams play.

Just about every 'powerhouse' team in recent history plays .500 baseball for most of the season. Few of them are just constantly clipping off weeks where they're 1-2 games over .500 to get to a plus 40 on the season. Rather, most of them have a couple of white-hot stretches where they'll win 30 of 40 and over the remaining 120 games, they'll be just slightly above average.

And in the static you'll find that they aren't generally going out there in those hot stretches and winning a bunch of 1 run games. They tend to just go piss-pound teams over those streaks and play pretty ordinary baseball in the other games.

The problem right now is that the Cardinals have an offense and a bullpen that is good enough to go on a couple of those streaks and then play 'fine' baseball for the remainder of the year. But that goddamn starting staff continues to wreck them. And it's going to barbecue the bullpen as well. You cannot ask a team to go out there and dig out of a 3-4 run hole by the 5th inning every day. You can't ask the bullpen to throw up 4-5 zeroes every day.

This starting staff is completely unacceptable and major changes need to be made.
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Mozeliak has been among the worst GMs in the sport over the last 5 years. It's truly remarkable how routinely awful he's been at pretty much everything.
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Going back and looking at how trades have worked out over the past few years is rough. Even the guys traded away for Goldy are playing well.

Also speaking of Goldy, one very concerning thing is the big second half bounce isn’t a career trend even though it happened last year.
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Weaver and Pham had plenty of chances to shine here. They had their moments of excellence. But, They were meh or failed during most of their time here. Now, at least currently, they are prospering. Ball players move to new teams and turn their play around. Happens all the time. So we have to decide, is this something we are doing wrong?

It seems at least to me that developing young players is not the weakest area that they need to improve on. We have a lot more deficient areas. Like Mo, a cheapskate owner, a too rabid fan base willing to tolerate missing the playoffs 3 years in a row.
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How did Pham fail?
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he didn’t seize his opportunities. They gave him the starting job on opening day in CF one year. He lost it for cause.
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Fire Mo...
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As soon as he is healthy and has fastball command.... he needs to be in the rotation in St. Louis. Why waste his innings in Memphis?
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Alex Reyes seemed to get stronger as he progressed. Retired last eight batters straight, including four of his six strikeouts plus four infield outs. In addition to his fastball that peaked at 99, he used his slider and curve. Of course, it is high-A.
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Strong return for #stlcards RHP Alex Reyes for @GoPBCardinals tonight. 70 pitches, 40 strikes, over 5 IP. One 1st-inning ER on 2 singles, 2 BBs and 6 Ks. Fanned the side in his final inning. Fastball was 97 mph, peaked at 99. He was pitching regularly in rehab in Jupiter. pic.twitter.com/3WyQiqOJUC

— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) May 23, 2019

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I guess Wacha and Wainwright just need some more starts, right? :-)
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He put up almost 8 WAR in about 700 ABs. That's a ridiculously awesome pace.

Dexter Fowler not only cost the team a first rounder and 80 million, he cost Tommy Pham and continues to hamstring Bader's development.

It's the worst move this team has made since the Mulder trade at the very least.
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Oh and cheaply.
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So are you on board with trading Reyes away for a box of chocolates for not seizing his opportunities thus far?

The Pham decision was a mistake both in talent evaluation and fiscally. He was making peanuts and probably would be very economical for the foreseeable future. Another stupid move.
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At this point I’m just waiting for Mo to announce we have extended Wacha for 5 years and 65 million with a no trade and player option for a 6th year at 20 million.
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Pham played excellent baseball when healthy
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