Look bud, I just said those two were rumored to us. Mo has been far from perfect but he's not the only culprit with how the last 3-4 years have gone. I'm replying to multiple points made in posts below.
Not signing Scherzer- When Scherzer was a FA the Cards had the best ERA in baseball and starters in a 30yo Waino, Lackey, Wacha, Martinez, and Jamie Garcia. Now you hafta remember what Waino, Wacha, Carlos, and Garcia were back in those days. And he was wanting like $17M per.
Not going hard after FA's- We offered the same or more to both David Price and Jason Heyward and yet they signed elsewhere. Its insane to pay Bryce Harper 35M+ for 13 years when he can't even get his team out of 3rd place. How many titles did he win again in WAS? I'd much rather take a 5 year gamble on a perineal All-Star in Goldchmidt than a 13 yr gamble.
The OF - We do not need a CF. Get Ozuna back, play Fowler/Martinez/O'Neil in the other 2 spots. Now Fowler hasn't been great, but other than last year he's been pretty good when healthy. And he is just a domino in the tragic death of Oscar Tavarez, who the FO has budgeted to be a cornerstone for 15 years. Suddenly that happens, cards trade for Heyward, then sign Fowler after his departure. Then we do Piscotty a solid to be near his dying mom.
Miller, Cecil, Gregerson, and Duke were all fantastic relievers before signing here. At some point it's on the players.
Not crazy about the Carpenter extension but I understand it. Gorman is about 2.5-3 years away so they needed a bridge. And when he's right he's he's not a bad signing. Prior to this season Carp had really only had one bad half of a season in his whole career. Again not crazy about it but I get it.
Trading Voit- we got assets that have yet to pan out but the guy had NO position except DH. He wasn't even serviceable at 1B or OF. And unless I'm mistaken he was out of options and we needed room on the 40 man so his days were numbered anyway.
If you're gonna fault him for the above then you hafta credit him for Hudson, Flarrety, Kizner, Dejong, Gorman, Arozerena, plus the other 2 high end 3bman we have in the system.
Again I'm not MO's biggest fan, he got on my wrong side when he hired Matheny instead of Tito. But when you step back and look at the moves from afar in the times at which they were made then things are not near as cut and dry as they neatly appear in the rear view mirror. This isn't fantasy baseball, there are very few "good" and "bad" moves, most are complicated and somewhere in the middle.
As far as this season, yea we're in first place, but we'll know much more of what we are after these next 3 series. Unfortunately it's a hard deadline this year. So as of now we're in the mix and you can't take those for granted so if there is a SP upgrade to make, we hafta try to make the move unless it costs us Gorman. I've seen an 83 win team win the WS in 06 and a 105 win team get swept in 04. With an addition I think we are good enough to get in the tourney. That's the only prerequisite of winning the whole thing.
