ClassicO wrote: ↑30 May 2025 15:48 pm
I love baseball. I'll watch almost any game.
But I am in the camp of "build for a WS or bust" when it comes to the Cards. You can't have a "mentality" that isn't all-out, or be satisfied with just making the playoffs.
If, despite best efforts, management isn't honest with themselves that they don't have the makings of a team that can win a WS, don't be afraid to make necessary changes.
The Cards haven't had the WS mentality for a while, for perhaps three reasons:
1) They have been guilty of the "sunk cost fallacy" too often, playing high-priced players because they've invested so much in them despite midling results;
2) They had a long stretch of not investing in the international free agent market; and
3) They lost focus on (and investment in) player development.
That shouldn't happen if you have a "ring or bust" mentality. They seem to be rectifying all three, but this trade deadline will tell us.
Well said. Nowhere in your well-reasoned list did you say they need t spend half a billion on Shohei Ohtani, because they don’t. But if you can’t or won’t, you have to be smarter, more aggressive, more nimble than the other guys, and they just refuse to do so.
Seems to me they do. Ozuna. Goldy. Arenado. Gray.
etc.
You can call the Cardinals whatever you want, but I don’t think anyone would call them “aggressive” or “nimble.” These guys invented the term “risk-averse.”
Cecil was a risk
Leake was a risk
Fowler was a risk
ClassicO wrote: ↑30 May 2025 15:48 pm
I love baseball. I'll watch almost any game.
But I am in the camp of "build for a WS or bust" when it comes to the Cards. You can't have a "mentality" that isn't all-out, or be satisfied with just making the playoffs.
If, despite best efforts, management isn't honest with themselves that they don't have the makings of a team that can win a WS, don't be afraid to make necessary changes.
The Cards haven't had the WS mentality for a while, for perhaps three reasons:
1) They have been guilty of the "sunk cost fallacy" too often, playing high-priced players because they've invested so much in them despite midling results;
2) They had a long stretch of not investing in the international free agent market; and
3) They lost focus on (and investment in) player development.
That shouldn't happen if you have a "ring or bust" mentality. They seem to be rectifying all three, but this trade deadline will tell us.
Well said. Nowhere in your well-reasoned list did you say they need t spend half a billion on Shohei Ohtani, because they don’t. But if you can’t or won’t, you have to be smarter, more aggressive, more nimble than the other guys, and they just refuse to do so.
Seems to me they do. Ozuna. Goldy. Arenado. Gray.
etc.
You can call the Cardinals whatever you want, but I don’t think anyone would call them “aggressive” or “nimble.” These guys invented the term “risk-averse.”
Cecil was a risk
Leake was a risk
Fowler was a risk
And all those moves would have gotten the top executive fired in an organization that valued winning.
