Under The Knife 7/10/23

Home Run Derby and Who's Next

It’s All Star week, the draft went about as expected, and the Home Run Derby is tonight. (Pete Alonso goes for three with his Longball Labs bats!) I’ll have more on Wednesday about injury data and trends, but a Cardinals fanbase freakout last week got me thinking.

A well-researched piece from Ben Frederick, laying out the results for John Mozeliak and for Michael Girsch, pushed up the calls for change. Mozeliak has been with the team since 2001, which is almost unheard of in baseball. However, the Cardinals have long been very stable over the years. Going back to 1984, there have only been four GMs, with ownership similarly stable as well. Only the Yankees and Athletics come close to this, which is telling. All three have been very successful over those periods. Some of that is axiomatic - you don’t stay if you don’t win - but look at other teams, even successful ones, and the consistency often isn’t there and often matches wins and losses with turnover and rebuilding in the image or guidance of new leadership.

(As an aside, have you noticed that with the A’s, the long term pairing of Billy Beane and David Forst get almost none of the blame for their situation, both on and off the field? I agree that they shouldn’t, but an educated fan base is intriguing, especially as that franchise exits. I’m telling you, Oakland is going to be a prime expansion spot. The only issue now is the two best are western. I don’t think that’s a major issue, especially if MLB reconfigures divisions and leagues, or, I’d suggest putting a new Oakland team in the NL so they could play the Giants more.)

My question to Cardinals fans is, if not Mozeliak and Girsch, who? There’s a number of good candidates out there to be sure, but most are untested. I asked several of my trusted sources in and out of baseball who they’d put on a list and it started with Theo Epstein. Almost all acknowledged that probably isn’t an interesting job to him at this stage. A couple mentioned David Stearns, who knows the division but is expected to be headed to the Mets in some capacity. If Stearns takes Billy Eppler’s job, several mentioned him as a proven candidate. Matt Kleine, Michael Groopman, Jason Pare, and Jason Parks were all mentioned, though I discount that a bit due to our overlapping social circles. All are well qualified and have been on shortlists.

Some mentioned in-house candidates, like Randy Flores and Moises Rodriguez. I normally discount these since if you’re going to clean house or change things up, why just keep everything but the top the same. (I’m looking at you, Kansas City.) For St. Louis, their use of former players and emphasis on stability might make that more likely.

My answer right now is that there’s not an immediately available upgrade to what the Cardinals have in the front office. The team, on the other hand, should be. Mozeliak and Girsch should have at least the season to see what can be made of it, if a direction can be made clear, and if not, well then, few GMs retire in baseball.

On to the injuries:

EURY PEREZ, SP MIA (no injury)

The Marlins shocked the baseball world by sending Eury Perez down to Double-A Pensacola. While the beach is nice there, the idea that Perez’s workload is best managed by sending him to the minors is ridiculous. Minor league teams, even with great stadiums and fine staffs, don’t have the resources that major league teams do. What sending him to the minors does is stop his service clock, something the current CBA seemed to have solved. This seems more like a David Samson move than a Kim Ng one.

The Marlins have long been thought to be exceptionally conservative with their pitching and sports science. It’s gone past conservative at this stage to an area where they’re just obstructionist. The lack of sports science and modern pitching technologies used here is well documented and known within the industry, so the idea that this is anything based on modern workload management isn’t supported. Innings limit? Sure, but what is that number based on, aside from “look and feel”?

While I can’t know Perez’s chronic workload from outside (and my guess is the Marlins don’t either) pitching him at Double-A is only going to reduce it, which isn’t a good thing. There’s almost nothing to be gained by this move. Perez might throw less, but he’s going to throw hard and there’s no real measurement on his fatigue levels, and those levels and stress are what is needed to actually manage his risk.

As always, Joe Sheehan has an excellent take on this at his newsletter, though he gets to the same place in a different way than me. Joe’s using his experience and analytics to get to a place where workload management and sports science get me to. That the Marlins can’t do the same is problematic. People like Kim Ng and Oz Ocampo are making mistakes they’re simply too smart to make, which makes me wonder why they’re not able to get where most of baseball has.

CARLOS RODON, SP NYY (strained back/back spasms)
NESTOR CORTES, SP NYY (strained rotator cuff)