If only both teams had appreciated their fans EVERY weekend.
This final weekend of the 2024 season will be Fan Appreciation Weekend at Oracle Park as well as a farewell to the team as it heads towards a now-annual fall hibernation. The disappointing San Francisco Giants will host the disappointing St. Louis Cardinals for a 3-game series that the kids whose slang is a couple of years behind are calling “mid.”
Both teams came to their “disappointing” labels in similar fashions. Like the Giants, the Cardinals spent a record number on their payroll ($215 million to San Francisco’s $250 million). Like the Giants, the Cardinals tried to mix in some young players with veterans and other former prospects who’d managed to stick — and the plan getting mixed results. In fact, the Cardinals look like a cautionary tale from that perspective:
What if your star prospects who don’t hit the ground running as major leaguers but eventually do improve simply never get better than simply a little above average? St. Louis is 23rd in runs scored this season (655) and because they can’t hit (96 wRC+ – 20th) they have a -54 run differential. Pitching-wise, they’ve been middle of the pack, which simply hasn’t been good enough to overcome very little power from the lineup (team slugging percentage? .388) which also features position players who are poor on defense (-17.8 Defensive Runs Above Average) and even baserunning (-2.7 runs).
And yet, they’re doing better than the Giants at this point. They’re 29-21 in 1-run games, 24-22 in interleague, 44-37 at home and 37-41 on the road coming into this series. They have been as low as 9 games under .500, which is more than the Giants (6), but they also managed to get 6 over back in July — the Giants have never been better than 3 games.
There are rumblings that manager Oli Marmol might not keep his job, but Ken Rosenthal seems to think he’s safe for now because next year will be the final year of the current GM. That might be another season the team can’t afford to sacrifice to the old ways. Katie Woo dropped a very familiar-sounding bombshell this morning in The Athletic (sub required):
The Cardinals have lost their way, according to people within the organization interviewed by The Athletic, all of whom were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. All described an outdated player development department, one that has hurt players like Walker. Some lamented the organization’s emphasis on directing more money to the big-league payroll, even if it meant skimping on hiring the coaches, instructors and modern technology that are vital to refining players as they progress through the minors. Those decisions have left the organization to reckon with the harsh reality that they have fallen behind their rivals.
It’s safe to say that both franchises are a bit of a mess right now, with their fan bases split between thinking the team is just a little bit of time away from really being something or poorly managed and nowhere close to achieving glory.
This weekend won’t prove anything one way or the other, but it will give both team’s younger players a chance to play with few expectations and maybe that allows us to see more flashes of raw talent. Sure, the Cardinals will want to sweep to wind up 84-78. The Giants will want to sweep to hang another 82-80 medal around Bob Melvin’s neck. Neither team can spoil anything except by playing bad baseball.
That could happen — these are not good teams, after all; but, here are a few reasons why we can expect it to be… better than unwatchable:
- The Giants will start three pitchers with great curveballs. In a slider-sweeper sport the Giants have persevered by throwing the curveball with great success. As a team, the Cardinals are about average against the pitch, but that’s as a group. Nolan Arenado (+6 Run Value) and Pedro Pages (+3) are doing the heavy lifting. Will the Giants get solid starts?
- As commenter positiveuphemism noted in the comments yesterday, “If Snell throws 6 more shutout innings, he’ll finish the year with a sub-3.00 ERA.”
- Heliot Ramos is 2 home runs shy of 24 (fitting for the year we lost Willie Mays), Matt Chapman is 3 home runs shy of 30. I don’t envision the Giants hitting 5 home runs in a 3-game series, especially off the bats of just 2 players… but I also didn’t expect they’d go 7-2 on a 9-game road trip and they did. So, look for these milestones. Root for them.
Series details
Who: St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Francisco Giants
Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California
When: Friday (7:15pm PT), Saturday (1:05pm PT), Sunday (12:05pm PT)
National broadcasts: MLB Network simulcast (Friday)
Projected starters
Friday: Miles Mikolas vs. Landen Roupp
Saturday: Andre Pallante vs. Blake Snell
Sunday: Michael McGreevy vs. Hayden Birdsong
Where they stand
Cardinals, 81-78 (3rd in NLC, -7.0 WC), 655 RS / 709 RA | Last 10 games: 7-3
Giants, 79-80 (4th in NLW, -9.0 WC), 683 RS / 682 RA | Last 10 games: 7-3
Cardinals to watch
Michael Mcreevy: He’s Pipeline’s #10 prospect for the Cards’ system who is essentially a junkballer, featuring a 92 mph sinker, a 93 mph four-seamer, an 85 mph high-spin slider, an 89 mph cutter, a changeup, and a curveball. This is basically Miles Mikolas 2.0. Miles Michaelas McGreevy.
He’s made just 2 starts, but based on his Statcast heatmap and minor league numbers, he has excellent command (2.3 BB/9 and 0.9 HR per 9). He was St. Louis’s first round pick (#18) of the 2021 draft, by the way, a draft that has already graduated successful players like Jackson Merrill, Matt McClain, Sal Frelick, Colton Cowser, Gavin Williams, and Jackson Jobe. Others like Henry Davis and Jack Leiter haven’t really gotten it going, of course, but the Giants selected Will Bednar, so yeah.
Jordan Walker: Lots of power, lots of swing and miss. He came into September with a .439 OPS, but on September 1st went 5-for-5 with a home run, 3 RBI, and a stolen base against the Yankees. Did that ignite a hot streak? No. In 78 plate appearances across the season’s final month, he’s 18-for-74 (.243 AVG) with just 3 walks (.282 OBP) — but, 10 of his 18 hits are extra base hits (5 doubles, 5 home runs — .514 SLG). He has been a lot better on the road, relatively speaking:
HOME: .137/.220/.315
ROAD: .244/.277/.410
Nolan Arenado: I figured he’d never slow down, but last year was the first year where he had a noticeable fall-off from his peak: an .805 OPS in the first half but just .663 in the second, and this season, and this year it’s .714. His 16 home runs will be his lowest total outside his rookie season (10) and the lockdown year (8). He’s slugging just .313 here in September, too. But yes, he’s still great on defense (+9 outs above average, +9.4 Defensive Runs Above Average), so he’s still in line to snag some Heliot Ramos & Matt Chapman liners.
Paul Goldschmidt: [cue “My Way”] I’m not going to miss him when he leaves the league, but it’s important to note that players like Goldschmidt don’t come along all that often. His 138 wRC+ makes him the 15th-best hitter in MLB since his debut in 2011. By wins above replacement (FanGraphs flavor), his career +56.3 WAR is 5th, behind Mike Trout (85.7), Freddie Freeman (61.3), Mookie Betts (59.8), and Jose Altuve (57.8). He’s just ahead of Buster Posey, too (54.2). According to JAWS, he’s a Hall of Famer. Good riddance, I say!
In 164 games against the Giants, he’s slashed .300/.405/.551 with 32 home runs 113 RBI, 41 doubles, and 5 triples. 104 walks against 144 strikeouts. He has hit like an MVP against my favorite team and I feel as though I’ve seen every single one of these hits and they’ve all felt like someone stabbing me. In 152 games this year, his age-36 season, he’s hitting .241/.299/.406. Bye! So long! Get outta here!
Giants to watch
Blake Snell: If this is his final start as a Giant — and I feel very strongly that it should not be despite Farhan Zaidi’s insistence that the team not play to the top of the market anymore — then let’s see if he can go out on as strong a performance as he’s had since July. The Giants are 12-2 in the 14 starts he’s made and he has a 1.23 ERA in 80.1 IP with a no-hitter and 5 double digit strikeout performances in the batch. It didn’t wind up being a lost season for him as this dumb blogger opined, and he has the chance to end it on the highest note. The Cardinals have been worse against lefties than righties this season (.671 OPS vs. .712).
Grant McCray: In his KNBR hit yesterday, Zaidi answered a question about Marco Luciano which made a lot of sense. Ultimately, these young players have to show something that gives the coaching staff confidence in playing them. Luciano wasn’t hitting and he couldn’t play defense, but McCray can field and although he strikes out a lot, he has shown the ability to hit for power from time to time. Having said that, on this 7-2 road trip he hit .129/.206/.194 starting every game. The Cardinals aren’t a strikeout staff (21.7% – 24th), but neither were the Diamondbacks (21.1%) and they struck him out 7 times in 13 at bats.
Tyler Fitzgerald: He went 31 games and 127 PA between home runs and that home run on Tuesday night was probably his highlight of the road trip. He went just 7-for-34 with 17 strikeouts and just 1 walk. Yes, he probably makes sense as a superutility guy for 2025, but that suggests that the Giants will be able to throw many more talented players into the mix to make this possible and I just don’t have that confidence. Maybe he can adjust back?
Really, all of them: It’s one last chance to watch players until March. That’s a rough thought.
Prediction time