Hopefully that is just filler piece.

Seems like a typical Cardinals' move these days: sign a guy and hope he's better going forward than he was most recently.

In fact "cross your fingers" is probably encoded in their official Strategic Vision.

I'm getting flashbacks to Brett Tomko and Kip Wells....

I wonder what part of his Dodgers' performance attracted them the most: the career-high HR rate (2.3/9ip) or the career-low K rate (6.6/9ip)?

On the plus side his 2023 FIP (5.53) was 20 points better than his actual ERA (5.73) so there's some positive-regression potential right there.

I'm getting flashbacks to Brett Tomko and Kip Wells....

I'm getting flashbacks to Adam Wainwright.

To be fair, there are two good things to say about Lynn's 2023 -- he threw 184 innings and, Dodgers tenure notwithstanding, he K'd 9/9. There's something there but how in the world do you teach a 37-yo guy how to stop throwing HRs every other inning? (I exaggerate.) Is there some secret sauce like "no more 2-seamers?"

A 37 year old who is--let's not mince our words here--fat, and rapidly getting fatter, at that.

He's 37, fell off a cliff last year, thoroughly humiliated himself giving up 5 straight home runs in the playoffs, and can't be bothered to take care of himself. What about that package screams Guaranteed Major League Contract?

Oh, right, I forgot the most important part: he used to play for the Cardinals.

29 year old Dakota hudson would have cost $3.7 million this year and maybe $5 next year. He actually has a chance to be better. Lynn will likely be worse. We have very limited funds. Why make this trade?

Mo said he was going to go big on pitching, and at 6-5, 270, Lynn's about as big as they come.

and now a trade, of sorts:

"The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve hired former infielder Daniel Descalso as their new bench coach. Last year’s bench coach Joe McEwing will join the Cardinals’ front office as a special assistant to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak."

Lynn was pretty good in 2022, and got CY votes each of the three years before that. Track record is very nice until last year when it ... wasn't. You can't ignore 2023, but 1/$10m + a team option for another is a whole lot less than he would have gotten a year ago. Seems about right to me, and I don't hate this from the Cards perspective. The team option gives it some upside, and even if he sucks again, at least he eats (hah) innings.

It is a weird case. Looking at the peripherals, everything was fine (league average-ish mostly) and roughly in line with his previous results ... except that crazy HR rate. The EV, HH%, BABIP all fine. Is the HR rate a fluke or a harbinger of hard-hit balls to come?

What about that package screams Guaranteed Major League Contract?

Affectionately known as "a Bartolo."

An sudden skyrocketing of home run rate is a common way for old pitchers to abruptly hit the end of the line. They can still guile their way to some strikeouts, but when they fall behind in the count and have to throw strikes they get crushed, because the swing-and-miss, swing-and-foul-back stuff isn't there anymore. Glavine, Smoltz, Johnson, Halladay, Pedro, Oswalt... a sudden spike in HR rate presaged the end for all of them. It's not universal, but it's common.

I'd say it's at least an 80% chance, probably 90% or more, that Lynn is finished as a major league pitcher and will be released long before the 2024 season's end. That Cardinals management were eager to give him anything more than an NRI is the latest in a string of recent data suggesting they don't know they're doing, IMO. It's the kind of move you expect from the Pirates or the Royals.

"The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve hired former infielder Daniel Descalso as their new bench coach. Last year’s bench coach Joe McEwing will join the Cardinals’ front office as a special assistant to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak."

I assume Pete Kozma, Aaron Miles, Luis Alice’s, Tom Lawless, Mike Ramsey, Mike Tyson, Ed Crosby, Dick Schofield, Gene Freese, Rabbit Maranville and Raymond Charles will remain in their current roles?

29 year old Dakota hudson would have cost $3.7 million this year and maybe $5 next year. He actually has a chance to be better. Lynn will likely be worse. We have very limited funds. Why make this trade?

This was my first thought. Non-tendering Hudson makes sense if you're looking for upgrades, but then you turn around and do...this?

He actually has a chance to be better.

I'd actually rather take a chance on Lynn to do something he's done before than on Hudson to do something he's never done before.

Dakota Hudson would be fine if he had great command, but he doesn't, and never has, and hence he has a career 1.40 WHIP while striking out 6 batters per 9ip---and only 5k/9 in 2022-23 over 220 innings (dead last among MLB starters).

I'd actually rather take a chance on Lynn to do something he's done before than on Hudson to do something he's never done before.

Well hell, what's Chris Carpenter up to?

Both Hudson and Lumn could be had one year with an option year

Lynn 11/26 with millions in performance bonuses
Hudson 4/12-14

It's a value discussion.

Lynn may have the ability to do more but the extra Money could buy you Jordan Hicks in the pen. Are Hudson and hicks better than Lynn? Yes

Well hell, what's Chris Carpenter up to?

Maybe send a scout to see how well Joaquin Andujar is recovering from passing away in 2015?

#18 He's not interested unless he can start every 4 days.

A 37 year old who is--let's not mince our words here--fat, and rapidly getting fatter, at that.

He's 37, fell off a cliff last year, thoroughly humiliated himself giving up 5 straight home runs in the playoffs, and can't be bothered to take care of himself. What about that package screams Guaranteed Major League Contract?

Remember when CC Sabathia started taking care of himself better? Rich Garces? Worked out great for them.

I say good for Lynn. He's had a really good career and never seemed to get a big contract commensurate with his value. Hopefully he figures it out and sticks around as a crafty old guy for 3-5 more years.

Rich Garces, really? He was finished at 31, as most fat guys are. Sabathia was finished at 38, but he was declining from being C.C. Sabathia, whereas Lance Lynn is declining from being Lance Lynn. C.C. put up a 115 ERA+ at 37, Lynn hasn't topped 100 since he was 34. And at no point in Sabathia's career did he ever look as completely washed at Lynn did last year. If you're going to wishcast a Lance Lynn comeback, at least cite Bartolo Colon!

And sure, by all means, great for Lynn. I hope he bounces back, even if I wouldn't take 5-to-1 odds on it. The story here is the Cardinals spending their resources unwisely.

If you want fat and durable I'd think David Wells is the go to.

Mickey Lolich just sat out 1977 and wasn't really able to come back (decent results in a low workload and then done). He was basically a league average innings eater by 1977 -- and the Cardinals would settle.

EDIT: And supposedly his waistline eventually caught up with Hoyt Wilhelm. What I heard was that he couldn't field the position any longer which is why he retired.

Rich Garces, really?

The point was that both Garces and Sabathia were big heavy guys who lost weight and then didn't pitch as well. IIRC, Garces's terrible age 31 season came after he came to camp 'in the best shape of his life.'

And now Kyle Gibson

This doesn't have the appearance of a team going for broke to recapture past glory

It looks more like a team that lost a lot of revenue from Bally

Rick Reuschel was another tub of goo that aged gracefully.

the latest in a string of recent data suggesting they don't know they're doing, IMO. It's the kind of move you expect from the Pirates or the Royals.

Hey, that's the last=place Cards to you buddy!

The factoids in #12 are interesting but we didn't have EV, HH% back then. We did have BABIP (Glavine skipped because he was never a K pitcher):

Smoltz 354 in his HR spike season
Pedro** 332 over his last 180 innings
Unit 293 (309 the year before ... Unit is a FIP icon in that his career BABIP is league average)
Halladay 304 and 253 over his last 220 innings
Oswalt ... holy crap, 407 ... his BABIP spiked to 321 the year before the HR spike

In Halladay's last season he lost his control although that might have been pitching around guys to try to control the 1.7 HR/9. Anyway, a mix there. Oswalt, Smoltz and Pedro are more what I would expect -- a HR spike accompanied/preceded by a BABIP spike which implies they were getting hit hard. Lynn is not (yet) getting hit hard. From 41 on, Johnson's K/9 dropped to the low 8s, down 2.5-3 K/9 (or a 25% drop) which we aren't yet seeing with Lynn (9.4 this year).

If I had to bet, I'd bet he will start getting hit hard this year and is done and I would expect worse than even odds on that bet. But I'm not sure this is a typical pattern ... could be. He did see a spike in FBs this year. Smoltz also had a big spike in that last year; Pedro gave up more FBs throughout his 30s.

** I'm not sure which we're counting as his HR spike season. Over his last 6 "seasons" it was 1.1/9 with highs of 1.3 and 1.4. So arguably the spike occurred before the BABIP jump. Unit is similar, the numbers are just in his last season when it jumped to 1.8; it have been in the low 1's for his 40s.

Not really seeing the point of this with the addition of Lynn, we have enough filler pitchers. I'm fine with filling out the backend of the roster, and you can never have a surplus of useable arms, but the goal and promise to the fans was a top tier pitching while staying within the same budget, and wasting 15 mil or so on a couple of back end pitchers just doesn't seem to be approaching that. Heck I've been saying we see what it takes to sign Woodruff to a 2 year+ team option contract (my guess would be basically give him his arby year split up---so a 2 year 12mil or so contract, so he can rehab for one year and come back the next year, kinda like we did with Chris Carpenter and include a team option for the third year for some high amount like 17-20mil(or whatever the going market rate is) Then work on a trade for Manoah, (Carlson or Tyler O'Neil straight up if doable) and then get him the surgery he so clearly needs and again that is another guy that we get with high end potential but who isn't useful this year.) and sign someone like Montgomery and Lynn or Gray and Gibson or preferably Montgomery and Gray.

I always paired Lynn and Gibson in my mind as the guys who I felt got ignored by the market and scooped up by the Rangers. Some of their success was probably Maddux-related though.

But CFB those 32 starts will be worth an extra 1.5-2 WAR all by themselves. :-)

I do wonder if the thought process is that they want a couple of veterans who more or less call their own game, or know enough to call their own game to take pressure off of Contreras for calling games?

I always paired Lynn and Gibson in my mind as the guys who I felt got ignored by the market and scooped up by the Rangers. Some of their success was probably Maddux-related though.

Mike Minor is available.