On building through established ML players vs. prospects

[mattmitchl44]

Fundamentally, I think we all know that the Cardinals' organization under Bloom has to be a lot smarter in acquiring talent in every way possible than they were the last 5-10 years, and they in particular need to be smarter than most of the other MLB teams.

However, if you ask yourself where can "being smarter" pay the biggest dividends toward bringing an elite level of talent to the Cardinals roster, is it:

1) in trading for or signing established ML players, where all 30 teams have years and years of information on them at the ML level and the level of uncertainty (usually barring some significant injury) of who they are likely to be a player going forward is small

or

2) in identifying prospects who other teams undervalue, but you see better what their potential is even though there is a great deal of uncertainty in predicting the future of prospects in general?

It should be intuitively obvious that there is much more leverage to be gained by "being smarter" when you can apply that the high uncertainty situation of prospects than the lower uncertainty situation of established ML players.

By being smarter when it comes to established ML players, you can gain some small edges on the other MLB teams. You can maybe see the guy who is going to be a 3 WAR player instead of a 2 WAR player like the other MLB teams think and you can bid just a bit more to get them and book a small win over the rest of the league. That's fine.

But with prospects, maybe you see the guy who you decide (rightly) can be a 2-3 WAR player for you for six years of team control, while the organization that has them thinks they are nothing but a minor league filler. Gaining that kind of bigger edge is more possible because of how much uncertainty there inherent is in projecting any prospect for 3, 5, 7 years down the line.

So if we are talking about the Cardinals can leverage "being smarter" to dramatically rebuild the talent level on this team, they can get more leverage by "being smarter" about prospects than established ML players.

[sikeston bulldog2]

I’m thinking that most - be smarter moves have been made. Sometimes it comes down to career years from a stud and two compliment pieces, a pop up Ace, no injuries, AND luck, mucho luck.

Like everything goes your way luck.