Martinez reached his highest ceiling for a brief period of time.

Taveras died.

Reyes is still TBD(don’t think he’ll ever reach his true potential, but we’ll see).

You also left out guys like O’Neil, Flaherty, and Carlson, who arguably had the best offensive season for a Cardinal rookie short of Pujols in the past 30 years.
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Wellll Martinez definitely had high level talent. He couldn’t remain focused. Tavernas homers to win a playoff game and then drunk drives and kills himself and girlfriend. Reyes, I got nothing. :-)
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Took 4 years for O'Neil to look like a major league player and Flaherty really only has 2 good years under his belt which happened as many years ago.
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Carlson's rookie year production was inferior to even Randall Grichuk and on par with Piscotty.
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There's nothing questionable about the Dodgers' title.

How can you ding them for the 60 games when they won seven straight division titles from 2013-2019 and followed that up with 106 wins?

In the playoffs, they beat the Rays (96 wins in 2019, 100 wins this year) in the World Series and the Braves (four straight NL East titles from 2018-21) in the NLCS.

The Rays beat the Astros (100 wins each year from 2017-19) in the ALCS.

The teams that were supposed to be there were playing there in the end.
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Carlson had a higher OBP, WAR, and way more walks.

Grichuk had higher SLG and OPS.
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Grichuk's wRC was 25 points higher.
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The real prospect to get excited about is Jordan Walker.

Modern day George Foster with the athleticism to play 3B and steal bases. He was recording 117 mph exit velocities just days into his pro career at low Single-A Palm Beach.
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Grichuk was also 23/24 in 2015.

Carlson doesn’t turn 23 for another few weeks.
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Flaherty’s proven enough to show he’s lived up to the hype.

O’Neil’s issue is that the FO/management didn’t give him full time playing duties until recently. I have little faith that they can evaluate hitters correctly or to get good value in return.

The only hitter I’m fine with them trading was Arozarena because of Liberatore. They sold low on Pham. Voit would’ve been serviceable off the bench. Didn’t get a good return on Grichuk. Intentionally sold Piscotty at low value to get him back home.
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He's been mediocre to bad more years than he's been good.

He's been in the league for 5 years and he has a 8.4 fWAR. He gives up too many HRs. He was hyped up like one of the best pitchers in the game, and for about 1.5 seasons it looked like he was, but the best pitchers in the game put up his career fWAR in a single season.

If he never pitched another day in his life and he ended with 1.68 fWAR a season over his career after being a top 30 or w/e he was prospect when he was called up and you are saying he lived up to the hype then you are straight up lying to yourself.
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LOL
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I was coming in to say congrats on the season and ask what Cards fans here thought about pursuing Corey Seager to handle SS and add some lefty punch to the lineup, and then I saw this.

I mean, if you think Flaherty is disappointing,
I’m sure there are 29 other teams who would gladly take him.

But this is such a weird critique of a 25-year-old starter. Saying he’s been up for five years is also disingenuous.

He debuted as a 21-year old late in the year and made six starts in 2017. They were not great. But again. Extremely young guy finding his ground.

In 2018, he pitched like a budding ace and took a big step forward. Twenty percent above league average, good peripherals. 3 win season.

In 2019, he legit was an ace. 5-win season. 50 percent above league average. Phenomenal peripherals.

He wasn’t good in 2020, but such a strange year it’s hard to critique anyone.

He was good again this year and just got hurt.

I don’t get it.
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You don't get it because you think he was good this year.

You say he was bad last year, but good this year? The only thing he did better this year was be fortunate to not have a worse ERA. He had a 3.22 ERA when he was expected to have a 4.86. Every single advanced metric is as bad or worse than it was last year. He doubled up his IP from last season which amounted to 0.3 fWAR over what you say was a bad year. Ya... he was amazing this year.

He was really good for 1.5 seasons 2 years ago. You know who else had a run like that? Jake Arrieta.

Would I take Flaherty right now? Absolutely. But only because like you mentioned he's 25 years old and he has shown at his peak what he can be. But he hasn't been that in 2 years and injuries aside, if he comes out looking like a 2 fWAR pitcher again next year, I would probably think about seeing what teams would be willing to trade for him, if he was on my team.
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Ok, back to ripping Mozeliak/FO.

The poorly constructed bullpen is why last night happened. Relying on a patchwork bullpen, where literally the only passable additions were Garcia and McFarland(who I think is a pumpkin), is a travesty.

I like Reyes, but second half he was horrendous and has no control. Cabrera and Gallegos are fine.

Everyone else can go aside from Garcia.

Having Kolten Wong might have helped last night, but the FO is going to continue selling the notion of COVID/expenses.

The Cardinals have a shit ton of money coming off the books. If they do not invest in the IF, rotation, and bullpen and instead seek having internal options fill those holes-like putting Liberatore in the rotation when he may not be ready or settle with putting him in the bullpen or having the corpses of Lester and Happ return-something is terribly wrong.

I have no confidence they’ll address their needs at all and view the WC as a way to sell to the fan base that this team is good and competitive.

Fuck.
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