The Cardinals offloaded former 1st round pick and player without a position for a right-handed relief pitcher in Edward Mujica.
https://twitter.com/pgammo/status/230373752049897472
My first impression of this deal is that Zack Cox has really fallen off the map as far as prospect status is concerned. He’s already got a major league deal and he is on the 40 man roster, so the Cardinals had to do something with him soon. The Cardinals essentially dumped him for a 7th inning right handed reliever.
What do you think?
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Assume Rosenthal goes down. Who comes off the 40 man?
Cox was on the 40-man so no corresponding move needs to be made in that regard.
Yeah, don’t quite know why I didn’t figure that out a little quicker, duh.
Mark Hamilton will be DFA likely.
I know the Cards are in a pinch with the 40 man roster, but I think they sold Cox way too cheaply. Would have liked to see them include Cox with Seigrist, or Maness and try for Vargas from Seattle.
Boy, I don’t know how much value Cox really had. Is this more of a payroll move?
This was where Cox’s value was. Doubt he could have fetched more.
Cox has regressed in the offensive department this season is a very streaky hitter but has a good approach defense is below average as well. The Cardinals get there middle reliever or 6th and 7th inning man that they wanted. Good move for both sides.
No big loss here. Like you said, with Freese and Carpenter ahead of Cox, his days on the 40 man roster were numbered anyway. But, is Mujica that much better than Marte? I don’t know really, just asking the question. I know from his scenes in “The Franchise” that he seems like the kind of guy who is easy to root for.
One thing to remember about Marte is that he started the season doing very well, but the longer the season ran, the worse he got knocked around. The impression is that the league started to “figure him out” — which does happen to guys after the first time through the league. If so, the proper comparison is not between Mujica and Marte as he has been, but Mujica and Marte as he’s likely to be. I suspect Mujica wins that one hands down, as he does have a track record that extends way beyond that initial, pre-figuring-him-out phase.
I understand it but do think we sold Cox for about as cheap as possible. Doesn’t affect the 40 man, Cox was on a ML contract so money over the rest of this season and next there is only a couple-few 100k difference. Overall makes since, just think Cox could of improved his stock by the end of the year.
Always said Cox was not a high prospect. He was over ranked and overpaid. Was never better than Adam and Castellanos last year in Springfield. That’s my personal opinion and I always liked Matt Carpenter on 3rd base anyway.
With that being said, I still wish the kid well. I’m sure with time he will improve. In addition, he’ll have a better chance
to play in the Majors with the Marlins then with the cards.
The way Greg Garcia is mashing @ AA and questions about his range @ SS, I wonder if there is any thought to moving Garcia to 3B. If so, that would really make Cox superfluous.
Yeah thats what I was thinking as well
I’ve seen his range at SS. I don’t know what the concern is. Not Jackson range, but good.
I’ve never been a big fan of Cox but he was worth morey than Edward Mujica. It’s been said countless times in the last 2+ years but giving Cox that major league deal was a huge mistake. I was disappointed with the draft pick and have always hoped that he would prove me wrong but this disappointing trade is the culmination of Cox’s disappointing tenure as a Cardinal.
Wow this is a dissapointing trade for the Cardinals…ya Cox was having a down year in his 1st year of triple A…and i know some people are higher on him than others, but i think its pretty obvious no matter what you felt about it him, we should have been able to package him for alot more than a middle relief pitcher with a 4 plus era..id expect to be able to get someone like that for sugar shane or some other true tweener player…Cox still has a couple years to figure things out… very dissapointing trade imho i would have held on to him and atleast waited for his value to go up above run of the mill middle relief
Eh, where Cox was drafted (25th overall), the expected career WAR is a little over 2. Mujica probably won’t provide that in his one and a half cost-controlled years left, but I doubt Cox will exceed that either. Unless some other FO really overvalued Cox, he was always going to be no more than a throw-in in any trade that involved a player more valuable than a league-average reliever.
Also, the Cards couldn’t hold on to Cox as he was on a major-league contract. Other clubs knew that too.
Finally, Sugar Shane’s a replacement-level fifth OF. You can’t get anything for him besides minor league filler.
Actually, a 25-slot guy who manages a 2-WAR career has done better than most. The “expected career WAR” is biased by the very few players (Trout, Cain, Garza, Chuck Knoblauch before them etc.) who reach the all-star level and put up 10+ WAR careers. Those guys are in a VERY distinct minority for a slot that late in the first round.
Any draftee after the first ten, or at most fifteen, is really a lottery ticket. Sometimes you win, and your chances of winning with the 25th slot are slightly better than with the 50th. But usually you lose.
Actually, I got that 2+ WAR average by dividing total bWAR for that slot by the total number of picks at that slot.
It’s actually an average of 4.3 WAR per major leaguer.
However, I agree that at that slot, they are kind of like raffle tickets (just with a very few big prizes).
4.3 WAR per major leaguer, or about 2.4 WAR per 25th draftee overall. But this isn’t the kind of thing where you want to just look at the mean (what you calculated), because it’s so strongly biased by those few mega-successes. To see why not, compare the 25th pick to the 402nd pick. The average WAR per draftee is only a shade lower at 402 than at 25, and the WAR per major leaguer is quite a bit higher. Now try to name the former Cardinal drafted in the 402nd slot …
The only thing a major league contract does is start burning your option years quicker, but because Cox was drafted, he gets 4 options not the normal 3, so this is only his first year of burning his actual option..which means we definately could have held on to him a good while longer before deciding to dump him for a middle reliever, we gave up too early on this guy imho. If you dont think Cox would be any good even if we did try to hold on to him thats your opinion and your entitled to it, we will agree to disagree on this one because a guy that could still become an everyday player should be worth more than a middle reliever to me.
I need a clarification. He was drafted in 2010. First played pro in 2010. 2011 and then 2012. Is that not 3 options with one remaining for 2013?
Players with less than 5 years pro experience (like Cox) have 4 options, I believe.
2010 didn’t count as burning an option. something weird in the old CBA about playing in rookie ball didn’t count as an option if it was under a certain # of days.
I doubt there were many that had high hopes for Cox any more, but I certainly hoped he would have more value as a trade chip.
A swing and a miss on that first round pick!
Way, way to early to say that.
Not really. It’s too early to say Cox will be a bust, but it’s not too early to say the Cardinals whiffed on the pick. All they got for him was a mediocre RH Reliever. So essentially, they used the pick on a 7th inning decent reliever, we can all agree that that would be a disappointing 1st round pick.
Did the cards then wiff on Rasmus too? Still have to let it play out.
Also, if they get a decent 7th inning releiver…Still not bad for the 25th pick. Picks 25-30 don’t tend to produce alot of Major league talent. It really depens on the draft year.
If you are able to get any value of a late round pick, it good.
As state elsewhere, the wiff was probably in the contract offer and not the pick.
Not really. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, most guys selected in the 25th slot overall have either not made it to the majors at all, or had “careers” amounting to less than 1 WAR. Only about a quarter of them go on to have real careers. (You can check this out using the “Draft” functions at baseball-reference.com.) Expectations for a draftee that late in the first round shouldn’t be all that high, and it is accordingly somewhat inaccurate to call Cox “disappointing” just because he hasn’t been one of those 25% that actually make it. He still might, but I’d bet against it.
I think he still could be…but he will probably be a rule 5 pick up.
What is the average WAR of guys who are at one time rated #62 on BA’s Top 100, as Cox was in 2011? What’s the percentage of them who go on to have “real careers”? What about guys who sign the 9th biggest contract in a draft year? I could think of ten different ways to “rank” Zack Cox in a slot that would be better than draft #, and they’d still be problematic.
Goodness, I keep seeing this “25th pick” nonsense. Surely you recognize what an arbitrary and meaningless basis that is to detemrine whether Cox, individually, is likely to have value as a ML player. It’s just nonsensical on so many levels.
Depends on how you look at it.
In the context here, the discussion is about how it was a wiff of a pick at 25. The information you provided shows that the cards did in fact get value out of that pick.
Pointing out that Cox was a 25th pick is NOT nonsense. It is an attempt to temper expectations by explaining the reality of the way the draft works, which many people simply do not get. I’m sorry that you feel that attempting to get it is “nonsense.”
All indications to date are that Cox is on an entirely normal career path for someone drafted toward the end of the first round, and that “normal career path” is simply nothing to get excited about. A guy whose “normal career path” from here leads to a 1-2 WAR career is nobody you want to bend your guts to extract maximum value from when you trade him. If you want to believe that Cox has a better future than that in front of him, go ahead. Past experience suggests otherwise.
It’s an “arbitrary and meaningless basis” only if you believe that you can’t predict potential from how front offices value prospects at draft time (that is, you believe Cox has the value of an average overall 10th pick when he was actually picked 25th). As I happen to think that guys (and gals) doing this as their full time job aren’t complete idiots, I defer to them over you.
Oh, and BA prospects who were 62th from 2000-2004:
2000: Pablo Ozuna
2001: Alex Cintron
2002: Brad Wilkerson
2003: Clint Everts
2004: Bobby Jenks
It seems that someone on here is overestimating just how valuable a player who was drafted 25th overall or was 62nd on BA’s prospect list is.
BTW, those years were arbitrary; I just picked the 5 years starting from 2000 because it’s a round number.
You can do your own research here: http://thebaseballcube.com/prospects/byYear.asp?Y=2004
Wow if you told me about this trade two years ago and that my reaction is “meh”…
M’eh. He was drafted to be traded IMO. . .he fell in Cards lap and they felt compelled to take him. Not disappointed in the Mujica pick up as Cards at least received a ML quality reliever in return. With Freese and Carpenter with the big club, and Piscotty/Wisdom/Kelly below, he would have been a utility guy for us, and redundant with the superior defender Carpenter already on our bench.
I think this trade had more to do with moving Cox than anything else. i don’t see a whole lot of difference between Mujica and Marte.
Better FIP and xFIP in recent years before this year.
one is 31, one is 28. One has a whip of 1.15, one has a whip of 1.4.
All other peripherals are lower.
Am waiting to see what the Reds gave for Broxton, if the give is close to the same, would rather have Broxton
Broxton is finished. He’s been incredibly lucky with KC. Not sure why the Reds would want him, it’s plausible that he diminishes the quality of their bullpen. Maybe to keep up with the Mujica caper? Just a glance at the Reds bullpen #’s and it seems that he should only be a clean-up guy. Here’s to hoping his ERA catches up with his peripherals in Cincy and that he takes away plenty of save opportunities from Chapman.
Exactly right….
Reportedly prospects Donnie Joseph and J. C. Sulbaran. KC may have done pretty well for themselves on this one.
Agreed. I think I might take Joseph over Broxton right now.
Add to the mix that the Cards have a couple more years of control of Mujica while Broxton will be a free agent after the season, and that the Cards gave up no pitching and have some minor league depth at 3b, I like the Cards move better.
And that we are (I think) actually SAVING money by trading Cox’s ML contract for Mujica’s arbitration rate. Not a bad move by any stretch, though not a good one either.
Actually Mujica is on a one year contract at $1.625 million, while the Cards were paying Cox $750000 this season and $850,000 next season (each season includes $400,000 of his $2 million signing bonus).
Don’t have a problem with trading Cox but underwhelmed with Mujica…hope he succeeds and Cox gets a chance in Miami
I would have thought Cox had more value, but If Mujica is this year’s Dotel, and they make the playoffs, then it is probably a good trade. I do think Mujica is an excellent middle reliever.
Drafting Kelly, Piscotty and Wisdom at 3B, along with having Freese and Carpenter meant Cox had no spot and due to the MLB contract meant he needed to be moved either now or in the off season.
“Excellent” maybe overstates it, but “useful.” Historically he has been rather average, with the one notable feature that he doesn’t walk many hitters — unlike certain other relievers I could name. That’s one thing that very definitely sets him apart from Marte, to whom he has been compared.
I’m hoping this means that Rosenthal will go back down and resume the process of turning into a serious major-league starter. This trade deadline feels like the dog that did not bark: more important than who was traded for whom, is who was NOT traded. Mo refused to yield to temptation. Good on him, I say.
Mujica also gets alot of groundballs.
“Useful.” Heh..,.that’s what I called Dontel last year in the Rasmus trade thread. I would be perfectly happy with a Dontel-level useful reliever this year.
I think this moves also shows how much the cards value Matt Carpenter.
Yes. Cox’s play has suffered. But what really hurts his value is that he only has 1 option year remaining. So out of options at 24 is pretty tough for development. To put that in perspective, Tyler Greene is 28. Allen craid didn’t even make it to the majors until 25.
This is the danger of major league contracts. I don’t think we will see too many more of these with the new CBA.
In fact major league contracts are prohibited under the new CBA rules. Prohibiting them is good for the teams and also for virtually all players who have received them.
Good to know.
To put it in perspective…Looke at the difference in value between Mike Olt and Zack Cox.
Oops. Wasn’t done.
also becasue of the contract, Cox has been pushed ahead of schedule.
I am just relieved that our good and excellent prospects are still intact! After watching the Phils give Hamels $24 million, you realize how important it is for the Cards to develop these young guys into stars.
I completely agree with you Jim. With the price inflation and length of contracts being given, I am on the bandwaggon to offer Lohse the $12-13 million (estimated) qualifying offer, which Borat will reject, thus giving the Cards an extra 1st round pick in 2013, and to exercise the mutual option on Westbrook. One more season of Wainwright, Lynn, Westbrook, Kelly, Carpenter and Garcia (subject to Carp and Garcia recovering from their injuries) with Miller, Martinez, Rosenthal, Dickson and Scrabble as potential starters is good and relatively cheap. Any free agents or trades they make to add to that inventory is a good thing. I am guessing that is why they were flirting with attempting to acquire Shields and Masterson. At their contract prices and years of control either would have only added to that depth. However I am glad that all they have given up out of the minor league system is a somewhat superfluous Cox.
The price and thus risk to control good to excellent starting pitching is only going to get worse.
Even if they could resign Lohse for 3 more years and even an option at the approximately $12 million he is currently owed that is something they would have to consider since the cost to get free agent pitching is so exhorbitant. That is probably a pipe dream with Borat in charge of the negotiations.
Lastly the cost to get Mujica is a cautionary tale as to the even the value of middle relievers. It seems obvious that they could not get Wade Davis from TB or Gregorson from SD for the same ZacK Cox. Those type of good middle/set up relievers are also getting more expensive. A very good lesson to not give away guys like Gregorson in the future. I doubt, but worry that Luhnow snapped up Fick on waivers. Thus hopefully they won’t give up too quickly on guys like Reifer, Cleto, Rondon etc.
The problem is, you can still only have 40 guys on the 40-man roster (modulo the 60-day DL). Stockpiling players like Fick at AAA as break-glass-in-emergency relievers may sound attractive, but either they occupy a 40-man slot that may be needed for more important (i.e., less “fungible”) things, or you risk losing them through waiver claims when they’re outrighted or assigned, as happened with Fick.
The other thing this trade highlights is how unpredictable bull pens can be. Last year it looked like we had all the home grown, high quality bull pen depth we could handle. Now we are trading away our first round pick from 2010 for a ho-hum middle reliever.
I actually agree with both of you. Grunt, hopefully they just make the right choices. Yes, Illinois, bullpen pitchers are a fickle type of player. McClellen and Sanchez have been major disappointments and they went cheap with Romero in replacement of Rhodes (they really need to develope lefty relievers….maybe Browning can be usable longterm). Letting Dotel go was a difficult decision and maybe Mujica can replace him. If Fuentes or Browning can deliver, and then Scrabble, Salas and Mujica pitch like they can (and Scrabble and Salas have given some positive evidence recently), I think the bullpen will be fine.
I do think Mujica is somewhat better than ho-hum. Not great, but pretty good.
Perhaps Mujica is an upgrade from ho-hum, but when the best the GM can envision for this guy is the 7th inning, it’s hard to get too excited isn’t it?
Well, when you’ve got Boggs devouring the 8th and Motte throwing 99 in the 9th, is that where you want to use the guy you trade for?
Nobody is asking for excitement about this trade. It’s just one of those incremental improvements that teams try to make when the core is sound. Mujica doesn’t have to be very good, to be better than what was getting run out there as the first RH out of the pen in half of the games (Salas playing this role in the other half now that he seems to be over the kidney stone). Yes, Street or someone of that caliber would have been a better pitcher. The opportunities such a pitcher would have to actually help the team win games would be rather limited. Mo judged that they would be too limited to justify the steep asking price a Street or equivalent would have commanded.
Agree Grunt. 7th inning pitcher was all we needed and quite frankly, all you could hope to get without digging deeper into our stash. I don’t know what else folks hoped that a .260 hitting passable defense minor leaguer would get us. It was to our misfortune that he did no better this year, but it is what it is. Cox was still the guy to trade.
Huh? Edwin Jackson was available for $10M/year over 1 year last year, and likely will be available for about the same rate (maybe 2-3 years now) this coming offseason. I’d rather have Edwin Jackson than Kyle Lohse myself.
Make Lohse a qualifying offer so that we pick up a draft pick if he leaves. Joe Kelly isn’t really that much worse than Lohse (the difference between them certainly doesn’t justify giving Lohse $36M/3 years).
Jackson took that contract because he needed to find a place to play. Remember what happened to Lohse a few years ago that caused him to sign with the Cardinals on a bargain, 1-year deal? Same thing happened to Jackson this past off-season. He just got a new agent, so I doubt he’ll be looking for the same money he’s already getting.
There won’t be pitchers who need to find a place to play this year?
2 WAR pitchers who cost $10-12M just aren’t that hard to find.
No, I’m saying that Jackson isn’t going to do what happened last year, which is why he switched agents. Before this season, Jackson has been a 3-4 WAR pitcher for three straight seasons. He wants to be paid based on his performance over a number of seasons, not a single season. I seriously doubt that he’ll accept a $10-$12 million offer unless most GMs think he’s regressing.
And if he’s regressing, I don’t want him.
I was using Edwin Jackson as an example, but anyway, we’ll see. I doubt switching agents will increase his rate significantly. I think he’ll get $10M-12M/year (likely for multiple years, up to 4, but likely for 2-3). That’s my prediction.
You know, if Borat actually were in charge of those negotiations, I bet we could swing a pretty interesting deal…
before you judge this trade, don’t forget the added value of the countless number of “Last of the Mujican” Mike Shannon jokes. That’s what i’m most looking forward to.
Mo wasted a blue chip prospect on a need he should have addressed this past winter. What a complete waste of a prospect that was rushed to AAA w/o graduating from AA. What an embarrassing trade.
ya ok joe…
Sound thought, Mike. Stay hot…
Blue Chip? He was 66 comming into the season, then stunk it up and only has one more option year.
When next year’s prospect list comes out, I doubt you will back on here admitting you were wrong.
Yea- most young hitters struggle at AAA with only 600 AB’s under there belt. Those ranking mean nothing. Good for you, if you need them to form an opinion.
He wasn’t anything close to a blue chip prospect, I geuss you don’t undertand he has to be rushed because of his MLB contract and only having 1 option year left ? Whats embarassing how miss informed you are on how teams valued Cox. He isn’t hitting for power or getting on base or even hitting for a decent average and he is stinking it up defensivly at 3rd. Don’t see much value so far, not to say he can’t turn it around but i don’t see anything special.
he hit for an OK average after adjusting a little in A/AA but still no power and iffy OBP skills. coupled with the question if he can even stick at 3rd, don’t see why you are so high on him. He still has some time and potential to develop but he was worth the good RH relief pitcher we obtained.
Your arguemt is all over the place.
You say “blue chip prospect” then say Prospects rankings don’t mean much. Which is it.
Yes, most hitters do struggle at AAA, but lots of good hitters do not.
You say he has value, then how do you expect he doesn’t get slected in the rule 5?
You say he needs additional time…But how do they do that without options?
Yes, I use facts to form opinions. Zack Cox is 23, struggling at Memphis, is not a good fielder, doesn’t hit for lots of power, doesn’t get on basemuch and only 1 option year leaft. Not a hot prospect and surely not a blue chipper.
Also, given the fact the cards have Freese, Carpenter, Descalso and craig on the ML roster, and more comming up…not lots of room for cox.
Marlins might make out all right, but they only have 1 year to do it. The cards don’t even have that luxery.
Who you gonna recommend Joe. I can already tell that I’m not gonna use you as the reference. Cox lost his luster. I don’t need anybody else to confirm that. I don’t give a lot of credence to your 600 at bats rule, particularly when it’s a 3 year college player.
I AGREE. THIS KID HAS AN UPSIDE THAT HASN’T BEEN MENTIONED. ARE THE SCOUTS ALWAYS WRONG. MARLINS HAVE A NEED FOR A THIRD BASEMAN. IF THIS WAS AN EVEN TRADE, THE CARDS ORGZ. MAY REGRET IT LATER. COX COULD STIL BE IN COLLEGE OR ONE YEAR OUT. IMPATIENT. I AGREE. TALENT. ABSOLUTELY. DON’T JUST LOOK AT STATS. LOOK AT GROWTH.
THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON IS TO THE LEFT OF THE “A” KEY
But that growth is limited by his contract.
No offense Joe, BUT……..I’m gonna guess that Mo talked to several other clubs about Cox. Right? So I’m also gonna guess that Mujica was the very best offer(or extremely close to it)that he got for Cox. That means that 100% of professional scouts disagree with you that Cox is a blue chip prospect. I think you mean that he was once upon a time a blue chipper. He is now one of those that just did not pan out. This is one of those win-win trades that will be good for the Cards and Cox.
I don’t know a thing about the pitcher we obtained, but I don’t know why this trade was made. We should have sat on our hands instead and let Rosie be the 4th RHRP.
Then do what with Cox?
That would have been the wrong thing for the long run, IMO. Rosie has way too much potential as a starter for him to fester on the major-league bench. One of the good things about this trade is that it allows him to go back to the minors and resume working on the secondary pitches, etc., so that he can reach that starter potential. That is no small thing. Besides, he’s still down there and available for a call-up if some RHP in the big team’s bullpen implodes.
The mistake was made drafting Cox in the position the Cardinals did. He wasn’t worth that pick. The evaluation of him was wrong from the beginning.
Other teams don’t care about that misjudgment and owe the Cardinals nothing for making the mistake.
The amateur draft this past June told us what the front office thought of Cox. Not much, as the team loaded up on the third base prospects. It signaled the end of Zack Cox in the Cardinal system.
It’s addition by subtraction at this point.
The Marlins have assigned him to their AA affiliate. Bottom line: the pick of him at that position in the draft was a mistake. It happens, and you move on.
He was a late round pick. The cards were fine picking him where they did. In fact, the reason he fell so low was becasue of signability.
The problem, pure and simple, was the major league contract. There was nothing wrong with the Cards drafting him where they did. Moreover, teams don’t draft for positional need. They draft for talent. So the fact that the team drafted a bunch of 3B had nothing to do with how they valued Zack Cox. You’ll notice they’re all at A ball and below.
If Cox wasn’t signed to a major league contract he’d still be in the organization.
Charlie-
I remember when Cox was drafted. He was considered a steal at the spot the Cards got him. He just did not pan out and just like hundreds of other 1sr rounders in history.
I think it a little ironic that the strength of the minor league system over the past several years, right-handed relief, was the target need for this trade. I don’t mind giving up Cox, but where have you gone Sanchez, Reifer, Fernando Samuel, Jess Todd, etc, etc…
Funny how a year ago, nobody would give a nickel for Boggs. And I remember a time when Sanchez, Samuel, Todd, Reifer, tec. were all top flight prospects. That is why it is important to keep all of our top tier pitching prospects. Only about half of them will pan out.
Relievers, as a general rule, really aren’t top tier pitching prospects, for the very reasons you two just stated–they tend to be more volatile than other prospects, even starting pitching prospects.
In simple terms this deal as it doesn’t classify as a “big trade” it certainly addressed a big need IMO. Let’s be honest with ourselves…Cox’s value isn’t as high as some of us tried to make it out to be. As I was not a big fan of the Cox pick I still supported him and hoped for the best. The challenge with him IMO is his D isn’t even avg anywhere and hit bat isn’t special enough to negate how bad his D actually is. There are many similarities with him and Brett Wallace…though I see Cox as a little better on D at 3B but Wallace with more overall power than Cox (sure this can be argued). So back to that realistic view the trade value of Cox was not much, if any, higher than this. Mujica will be a valuable piece to our bullpen and has an ability to get our righties quite well. He also had much greater success in old Marlins park which was more of a neutral park and their new one leans on the hitters side. You put him with Boggs and Motte as our 7/8/9 guys and I have much more confidence.
Their new park actually leans toward pitchers, and is one of the tougher HR parks in the league. I don’t think you can read too much into his numbers there since he only threw about 20 innings at the new park, but that stadium seems like the ideal place for somebody with his skill set (high GB and HR rates, low LD rate).
If you think about it, its basically like we drafted a pretty good, cheap, ML-ready right-handed reliever with our first round pick in 2009. Not a bad haul by any stretch.
Pretty interesting discussion and perception of Cox.
The ML contract was a mistake, but the only way they could get him to sign for the amount agreed was to give him that option because of the pay out. The cardinals knew it would be tough due to his signability.
Zack is another example of what happens to a player when pushed through the system faster than necessary. He’s just 23 and been rushed. While I am not sure it is a good fit for him, maybe it will work out like it did for Solano who has done well in the Marlins system.
I am going to assume he will get called up in September to get in some experience, which is good.
Despite what is thought about him as a player, this is a real good clean kid and I wish him the best.
Agree. The ML contract is also not always in the best interest of the player.