SB Nation - Joe Mather

Note To Self: Read Brandon Kruse Before My 2010 Drafts

raygu — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:00:31 -0000

More photos » by Chris O'Meara - AP

2 months ago: Tampa Bay Rays' Ben Zobrist lines a second inning RBI single off New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia during a baseball game Friday, Oct. 2, 2009 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Rays' Jason Bartlett scored on the hit. Catching for the Yankees is Jorge Posada. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

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I know what you are saying. Who in the world is Brandon Kruse. Brandon Kruse writes for Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster. A few days ago, I was flipping through my 2009 Baseball Forecaster and stumbled upon his article titled: "Speculating on Breakouts-1". Kruse looked players who had a Rotisserie value of $10 or less the prior year and who met all of the BaseballHQ filters for their respective breakout profile. Had I read this article before my 2009 drafts I could have had a few sleeper hitters who had breakout years in 2009. Here is who he wrote about-9 players in all:

1. Brian Anderson (OF, CWS)

2. Erick Aybar (SS, LAA)

3. Manny DelCarmen (RP, BOS)

4. Joe Mather (OF, STL)

5. Martin Prado (MI, ATL)

6. Ramon Ramirez (RP, KC)

7. Seth Smith (OF, COL)

8. Eugenio Velez (2B/OF, SF)

9. Ben Zobrist (SS/OF, TB)

Well, it's obvious not everyone on this list had a breakout season, but a few really standout. Ben Zobrist had a huge breakout season going 27-91-91-17-.297. Can he duplicate his performance in 2010?

Martin Prado had a nice breakout season as well. He took over the 2B job from soon-to-be-traded 2B Kelly Johnson. In 450 ABs, Prado went 11-49-64-.307 with 38 doubles.

The Rockies Seth Smith had a breakout season also. In 335 ABs, he went 15-55-61-4-.293. Those numbers project to around 25 HRs and 85 RBIs if he played everyday, which could happen should Colorado were to deal RFer Brad Hawpe in the offseason.

In his first year as a full-time starter, Erick Aybar went 5-58-70-14-.312 in just over 500 ABs for the Angels this year. He is one of the reasons why SS Brandon Wood rides the pine when he gets called up to the big league club.

Everyone looks for sleeper picks before their drafts. I suggest taking a look at Kruse's article in the 2010 version of Shandler's Baseball Forecaster before your drafts in 2010.

Poll

Will Ben Zobrist duplicate his 2009 performance in 2010?

Yes, he's Chase Utley Lite.

27 votes

No, he will regress a little bit.

47 votes

74 votes | Poll has closed

Hot Corner Futures

the red baron — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:56:33 -0000

by Morry Gash - AP

They call him Lego. And he will destroy all you hold dear. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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So apparently this Matt Holliday guy is pretty decent at playing the baseball, huh?

On the list of least expected wins of this year, I would have to put that one right up near the top. For eight full innings, it felt like the Cards were just going to let the game slip away from them, victims again of poor at-bats and bases left full of runners. Oh well, the collective mind of Cardinal fandom said to itself, you can't win them all, I suppose. Hell, the Cubs haven't actually gained a full game on the Cards since late July; that's a pretty good run. Just one of those days when the team didn't quite get it done.

But Matt Holliday was having none of it. Hey there, collective consciousness, he said, that's loser talk! Why, I'm going to hit this Hall of Fame changeup over that center field wall just to prove to you how wrong you are!

And so he did. And there was much rejoicing.

Oh, and I would like to send my thanks to Tony La Russa for sticking to what I like to call the Grand United David Weathers Theory of Baseball. On second thought, I need a better name for it than that. GUDWTB just doesn't really stick in your mind, does it? Someone help me out with a better name.

I'll be honest with you; there really isn't a whole lot else I can say about last night's game. Smoltz looked very, very shaky in the early going but then seemed to get himself back on track; with his ability to get the strikeout, I think he's going to be a very, very useful weapon for the Cards come playoff time, most likely late in the game. I do think we need to change Blake Hawksworth's nickname to the Lucky Charm. Just saying.

Given the fact today's contest is a day game, I'm going to be brief this morning. Or at least try.

The longer the season goes on, the more convinced I become the Cardinals are probably going to resign Matt Holliday. He's been so good, and such an ideal fit, I just can't see the Cards letting him walk. Never mind the PR disaster; the fans will follow as long as the team wins. But more importantly, I think the organisation is still committed to keeping Tony La Russa on board as the manager, and having Holliday in a Redbird uniform for the near future could go a long way toward helping make Tony's decision whether or not to return in 2010 and beyond much easier. Plus, Scott Boras or no, Holliday seems to be honestly enjoying his time here in St. Louis, enough I think he'll accept a fair deal with relatively little fuss. He isn't going to be giving the Cards a discount, by any means, but I also don't think he's going to hold out and try to get Mark Texeira money. (I was getting ready to make a comment about how good our pie is here in flyover country, but then played it back in my head and decided that maybe wasn't the exact best phrasing I could come up with.)

No, to me, the more interesting free agent situation of the offseason for the Cardinals is going to be that of their current third baseman, Mark DeRosa. DeRosa is in a rather unusual position going into the offseason, and it will be very interesting indeed to see if he'll get anything approaching the sort of contract most of us assumed he would be due.

The problem, of course, is DeRosa has problems. Specifically, he has a wrist problem and a status problem. The wrist problem revolves around a tendon sheath and will require surgery in the offseason to repair it. The status problem revolves around the letter A.

As a likely Type A free agent this year, DeRosa will cost any team interested in signing him either their first or second-round draft pick in the 2010 draft. In the past, a player with numbers good enough to qualify as a Type A would generally be the sort of player a team would be perfectly willing to part with a draft pick for, but the math of baseball has changed. Teams are valuing their draft picks much, much more highly than in the past, as we saw this past winter. Players like Juan Cruz and Orlando Hudson found themselves on the market much, much later than anticipated, largely due to the Type A status and accompanying draft cost they were carrying around with them. Of course, Dayton Moore then proved not all teams have quite made it on the bandwagon yet; personally, I'm kind of hoping Moore continues making ~~stupid~~ brilliant moves like that and decided to stick it to his team's cross-state rival by trading them Alex Gordon for a bucket of KFC.

If the only issue for DeRosa were his arbitration status, he would likely be just fine. There would be at least one team out there willing to give up an early draft pick for the offensive upgrade he would immediately give them. Unfortunately for Monsieur du fait de Monter, his wrist issues and rather advanced age make him a bit of a risky bet anyway; add in the loss of a valuable draft pick, and I don't think too very many teams are going to be beating down his door, contract in hand.

Keeping all that in mind, I thought I might look at a few of the more likely candidates to fill the Cardinals' impending opening at the hot corner; give us all a bit better idea of just what's out there.

Mark DeRosa

Pros: Power bat, solid on-base skills. (though those have suffered since coming to St. Louis. Consternant!) Is, by all accounts, a good clubhouse guy. (Valuations may vary.) Gives outstanding interviews. Quite handsome. (Seriously, we've all seen his wife -- and no, I'm not posting pictures -- and I have to say, he might be the good-looking one in that marriage. Just saying.) Cool name. Will likely come on a short-term contract, due to factors outlined above.

Cons: See above. (Wrist, age, etc.)

Troy Glaus

Pros: Has hit for power in the past, decent on-base skills. Solid defender. A source of significant entertainment even when striking out. Scratch that, especially when striking out. Will likely come on a short-term deal, probably one-year.

Cons: Has missed almost the entire season after having left shoulder surgery, so health is a serious concern going forward. (And let's face it, we've seen what happens to St. Louis third basemen after they have shoulder surgery.) Well on the wrong side of 30, so decline is a concern.

David Freese

Pros: Very good glove. Young. Has a great story as a native St. Louisan. (Again, valuation may vary.) Has shown good power at the minor league level. Walk rates consistently near 10% at most levels. Making league minimum.

Cons: Unproven. May have lingering concerns about health after having ankle surgery. Was less than forthcoming about the injury with the organisation early on. Has few weaknesses as a player, but also has no real outstanding tools.

Brett Wallace

Pros: Remarkable plate discipline, plus power to all fields. Should hit early and often. Has good hands. Will be very inexpensive, making league minimum as a rookie. Great nickname already, though he apparently doesn't really like being called the Walrus.

Cons: Not actually an option. (Sniff)

Allen Craig

Pros: Hits and hits and hits and hits. Has never posted an OPS below .868 at any full-season minor league stop. Hits for both average and power, with a .921 OPS this year in Memphis. Will make league minimum.

Cons: Struggles in the field, often attempting to catch the ball with an oven mitt. Occasionally tries to get traded in mid-inning to avoid playing defense. Once invited Tony La Russa to a party at Michael Vick's house. Wants to pee in your pool. (Note: none of this is true, but I can't think of any other reasons why Craig is so universally ignored in the organisation.)

Joe Mather

Pros: Best nickname ever. Tremendous power, plus athleticism. Versatile; can play third, first, and any outfield position. Inexpensive, making league minimum.

Cons: Is a below-average defender at third. Missed almost all season with wrist issues; it will remain a concern until he proves it is not. Probably going to steal your girlfriend. Better fit in the outfield or as a supersub than an everyday third baseman. (Then again, so is DeRosa, so...)

Adrian Beltre

Pros: Best defensive third baseman on the market; barely a step down from Scott Rolen or Ryan Zimmermann. Younger than you think. Numbers have been depressed in Seattle; may be undervalued. Could come on short-term deal to try and reestablish himself. Enjoys free balling. Possibly a good bet to capture a bit of contract-year lightning in a bottle.

Cons: Health is a concern, as Beltre had season-ending shoulder surgery in July. Doesn't really like the walks so much (career .325 OBP). Scott Boras client. Competitiveness has been questioned at times. May have left his free balling days behind.

Chone Figgins

Pros: Fun to watch. Seriously. Hits for high average and has become a very good on-base player. Versatile, though truly awful in the outfield. Solid-average defender at third, maybe a little better than that. Walk rates have increased steadily.

Cons: Has little (read: no) power. Aging curve is not kind to speed players over 30. Will likely require long-term contract, and at high dollars. Is a fan favorite in Anaheim (as well as a manager favorite), and seems a fair bet to resign with the Angels. Violates rules of scrappiness by being black.

Joe Crede

Pros: Very good defender. Local product (Jeff City), nice story. Strong arm, good hands, plus range.

Cons: Has never been much of a hitter, and is in further decline. Chronic back problems have necessitated multiple surgeries. No longer has much power, and has never had much in the way of plate discipline. Over 30 with serious physical issues.

Melvin Mora

Pros: Would come cheaply on a short-term deal.

Cons: Is fairly awful. And old. And kind of a jackass. And awful.

And that, folks, is just about it. Technically, there are a few others, guys like Craig Counsell and Rich Aurilia and Nomaaaaaahhhhh, but I just can't really see the Cardinals looking at any of those guys too seriously. I suppose Pedro Feliz might be an option, but I'm not feeling it.

So given the options, what would be your choice? Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Beltre if he came on a one-year deal, and I like Chone Figgins a lot. As far as Figgins goes, though, with the Cards needing to find budget space for Hurricane Holliday as well as the impending Albert mega deal, I doubt he's much of an option. Also, as I said above, I just get the feeling he stays in Anaheim. A guy I would very much be interested in is the player Figgins is blocking, Brandon Wood. Wood has destroyed the minors for several years now, but has struggled to make the transition to the big leagues. I think the Angels' handling of Wood has had a hand in his struggles, as he's never been given much of a chance to prove himself, instead filling in at short or third here and there with inconsistent playing time. He may be a bust, but I think it would certainly be worth finding out.

As for the in-house options, I know there is some sentiment to bring back Glaus, but I would vote no. Maybe if DeRosa does in fact go elsewhere Glaus would be worth it on a one-year low guaranteed deal, but shoulders just scare me. I think DeRosa is a better bet to be productive coming off his postseason surgery than Glaus coming off his long year of rehab. Just my opinion, though.

In the end, DeRosa probably represents the best option, especially if offered arbitration and signed for only a single year. Otherwise, I'm comfortable letting David Freese have first crack at the position in spring training, then look for possible solutions as the season goes on if he struggles. Well, technically, I would probably give Allen Craig first crack at it, but that apparently isn't in the organisation's plans. It is kind of nice to see the Cards giving Craig the chance to break Crash Davis' minor league home run record, though; that's the sort of thing we'll all remember forever. What? What the hell is fiction?

Above all, though, please god no more Joe Thurston. This is one case where I absolutely don't care what the numbers say. I can't take another season of watching him play third base for this team.

What say you, mob? (I would say angry mob, but who can be angry after watching the Douche Crew crash and burn?)

The Baron's Playlist for the 9th of September, 2009

"Poke" - Frightened Rabbit

"Holes" - Mercury Rev

"Blake's View" - M. Ward

"Robot Ponies" - Laura Barrett

"He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot" - Grandaddy

The October Team

DanUpBaby — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:17:11 -0000

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

St. Louis Cardinals' Harold Ramis, right, celebrates with teammate Brendan Ryan after hitting a walk-off home run in the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres in a baseball game, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009 in St. Louis. The Cardinals come from behind to beat the Padres 7-5. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

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Good to see He Who Shall Not Be Named Correctly hitting the baseball hard, walk-off or no walk-off. (But walk-off, if I have a choice.) Now that he's begun to hit again—.346/.393/.500 in his last seven games—we can try out the new narrative: he didn't hit anything for a while, then he began to pull the ball, in the accepted Smooth Home Run fashion, for a week or so, to no effect. It's too easy to attribute the lack of lift on his fly balls to his much-reported weight loss, because it is basically attribution by connecting the only two things we know about him... which is to say that my head said no, but my Scout's Gut said yes. And now, having begun the slow march back to playing weight, voila: his good swings become enough to make even Jay Randolph alert and excited.

It's so easy, which is why it probably doesn't mean anything. But there you are.

Anyway, Rasmus's bizarre splits, which almost explicitly defy foolhardy bloggers to see a pattern—two bad months to start the season that are almost identically valuable but do it in completely different ways, one great month with no walks, and now a July that follows the May pattern (low OBP/high power) and an August that follows April (high OBP/no power)—got me thinking about one of the best arguments put forth during the Tigers-in-Three moment of 2006: the team that won 83 games in the regular season was not the one that won 11 in October.

The team that, GOB willing, gets to the NLDS this October will—more obviously this time—not be the one that went 25-31 in May and June. But what does that mean?

THE GOOD

1. Matt Holliday >> Chrick Dunkiel

This, of course, is the big one: Matt Holliday replaces two guys who, luckily for this baseball writer, have sucked almost identically hard over the course of the season. What's he do in a short series that the Platoon of Despond wouldn't? For one thing, he gets them there; his extraordinary performance over the first 20 games of this deal has been worth an incredible 1.5 wins over a replacement player. One example of a replacement player is... Rick Ankiel, whose performance to this point in the season has put him exactly at 0.0.

Even in a brief series, and even accounting for Holliday's inevitable descent from Mount Olympus, that kind of boost is difficult to overestimate. Ankiel's MLVr—the fraction of a run, per game, that a team would gain from plugging him into a lineup of average hitters—is -.118. Holliday's number last season (with the Cardinals this year it's 1.1) was .320.

That's the difference between, say, Albert Pujols and, uh, Matt Holliday. If a series were to go seven games that difference would be theoretically worth three runs. Losing Brett Wallace is going to hurt, and it's going to hurt for quite a while. But the difference between the absurdity that was the off-season Matt Holliday discussion and the trade that actually happened last month is that Rick Ankiel's collapse has made what would have been worth less than a run per playoff series into something that could influence the outcome of the postseason.

2. The Infield Shuffle >> The Old Infield Shuffle

Over the first two months of the season it would be charitable to say that Skip Schumaker played second base badly—if the resounding agreement of UZR and Dewan's fielding runs was any indication, he played second base like no one who has been allowed to play second every day has done in the last five years. He played it like an outfielder, and not a good outfielder—Tris Speaker, the Gray Eagle, was said to play center field from just behind second base, so close that he was a factor on double play balls. Skip Schumaker just stood behind second base.

Around June, Joe Thurston found himself in a similar situation. After his surprise April, and his surprisingly decent May, he became the de facto starter and found himself hitting like Skip Schumaker played second base. He managed four extra base hits in two months of full-time starts, during which he hit .220. His OPS hung around .570 (but it's OBP heavy!)

As if that weren't enough, the Cardinals, through May, had committed themselves pretty thoroughly to Khalil Greene, who had seemed like a pretty thrifty upgrade in March. I don't know if you've heard about this, but he struggled with anxiety problems, and also the bat, hitting .171/.213/.220 in May before leaving the team. The My Name is Brendan, this is My Brother Greene, and This is My Other Brother Greene platoon split starts at the position for a few weeks until both Greenes fell out of the picture, and everyone realized suddenly that Brendan Ryan had used his time in Memphis to become Ozzie Smith.

Unfortunately, he's not an era-adjusted Ozzie Smith—shortstops can hit now, due to a 1992 Supreme Court decision on the subject (People v. Ordoñez), so .284/.324/.377 is not quite so impressive as it was in 1989. But the combination makes him an above average player, the likes of which the Cardinals thought they'd signed up for when they traded two bottom cards off their Inexhaustible Supply of righty relievers.

Meanwhile, at second base, Schumaker's UZR/150 began its slow ascent from the Mariano Duncan Trench. In April and May it hovered around -30; in June, -19; now, as of the most recent Fangraphs update, it's -11. All the while his raw UZR has stuck between -8 and -9. I don't know if this makes him average, but even mediocre is a major improvement. The trade for Julio Lugo, and the return of Khalil Greene, also means that he never has to face a left-handed pitcher again.

Finally, at third base, the Cardinals replaced Joe Thurston with Mark DeRosa, who managed to avoid Cardinals infamy by not missing the second half of the season with a wrist injury. The Lugo and Holliday acquisitions mean that DeRosa's versatility (he was originally cast as a solution in the outfield, too) no longer makes him uniquely suited for the Cardinals, and his fielding at third is erratic as advertised, but the combined acquisitions have meant that Thurston's done little but replace Schumaker at second base, something his above average glove there warrants.

This total recasting of the infield is Mozeliak's secret coup of the year; he came into June with a catastrophic loss of third base depth and a bizarre experiment at second. In two moves he managed to fill third base, provide some insurance at short, and hedge against Schumaker's poor defense and complete inability to hit left-handed pitchers. That makes a huge difference now, and it will in Hypothetical October, too.

3. Fifth Starter Question Mark

Yes: a question mark for the fifth starter is good news. Todd Wellemeyer has spent most of the season being an emphatic exclamation point. Q: Will the Cardinals starter give up as many runs as innings pitched? A: Wellemeyer!

But his eclipse means a few things. For one thing, the Cardinals might get better-than-replacement-level performance out of his replacements down the stretch, which could make a difference in the still-tight standings. For another, having no set fifth starter means that La Russa won't be tempted to tinker with what are obviously the best four pitchers in his playoff rotation.

THE QUESTIONS

1. The right-handers

Watching Jason Motte pitch has become a terrifying proposition to me. It's not that I don't have faith in him, though I don't, at this point—it's that I'm sure there's still an excellent reliever lost somewhere in his career, and with every stomping mop-up outing I'm watching him on eggshells, hoping that he shows that 2008 form for one inning at a time.

His bad mop-up inning and his excellent partial inning over the weekend did a little rationalizing of his days-of-rest splits, which have, to this point, been held up as a beacon of hope. Unfortunately, when each is moving, even in a different direction, toward 6.00, that's not a good thing; after those mediating innings he's at 11.42 with no rest and 4.55 with. He's been bad on no days rest, not very good with it; he's sucked in a box, and with a fox, etc. etc.

But if it were just Motte struggling, the Cardinals would be in fine shape. But over the course of the season they've traded Chris Perez and Jess Todd and found out that Kyle McClellan has a serious control problem, one he simply does not strike out enough batters to overcome. If Ryan Franklin were to begin sucking (that is, more than he does now) any start that does not go past six innings will become Chinese-curse interesting in a hurry.

With Smoltz and Eduardo Sanchez both in the dismissive-response stage of the Elusive Mozeliak Answers continuum, the only hope for the right-handers is that Blake Hawksworth continues to pitch well—so far, so good—or that Jason Motte starts to. After all the activity it's a little difficult to watch a question be answered so passively, but the Cardinals are fresh out of excess faberge.

2. Kyle Lohse

I don't know what's wrong with Kyle Lohse, and westcoastbirdwatcher being banned and all I can only speculate, but since his lost June he's been occasionally effective but noticeably dull, in the opposite-of-sharp sense; his command is gone, his fastball is lost, and after his told-you-so April has come a told-you-so May, July, and August, as his season-making walk rate from 2008 has fallen almost perfectly to his career numbers.

Even if he continues to struggle, or just continues to be Kyle Lohse, this isn't a season-ender. In the playoffs, the Cardinals need either Pineiro or Lohse to look like a third starter. Joel appears to have that covered.

Unrelated, underreported note: those of you who join me in checking Gulf Coast League scores every so often will have noticed that one Joe Mather doubled in Quicksilver Jr. in their afternoon beatdown at the hands of the GCL Astros.

The GCL is just barely a minor league; nobody cares about the score, nobody watches the game, and were it not for the other group of differently-affiliated teenagers at the other end of the field there would be no stats kept at all. But it's good to see Mighty Joe/Joey Bombs/Bizarro Duncan taking some swings on his way back to earning those nicknames. This is step one to making the roster in 2010, though probably not as a third baseman.

Your 2009 St. Louis Cardinals

DanUpBaby — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:15:07 -0000

A little housekeeping—you may have noticed this elsewhere, but the latest SB Nation synergy-type move means that we bloggers get to use AP photos, like the one sitting stage-right of this post. It's all part of their plan to slowly replace bloggers with more reliable photographs, each worth something on the order of a thousand words, but don't worry—with the red baron on our side I'm confident Viva El Birdos will be the last baseball blog standing.

Now then: Happy days are here! Real baseball news! Real, final decisions! Things to complain about!

The final roster—as of Thursday night—for your perusal:

YOUR 2009 CARDINALS
FOR A WHILE AT LEAST
LINEUP	BENCH	ROTATION	PEN
C YADIER MOLINA	IF JOE THURSTON	ADAM WAINWRIGHT	JASON MOTTE
1B ALBERT PUJOLS	IF BRIAN BARDEN	KYLE LOHSE	JOSH KINNEY
2B SKIP SCHUMAKER	IF BRENDAN RYAN	TODD WELLEMEYER	RYAN FRANKLIN
3B DAVID FREESE	OF COLBY RASMUS	CHRIS CARPENTER	KYLE McCLELLAN
SS KHALIL GREENE	C JASON LaRUE	JOEL PINEIRO	TREVER MILLER
LF CHRIS DUNCAN			DENNYS REYES
CF R?ICK ANKIEL			BRAD THOMPSON
RF RYAN LUDWICK

When reached for comment Tony La Russa, who looked suspiciously like Brian Barden in a pair of dark sunglasses, said, "I planned on taking 25 utility infielders north, but I had to make some compromises—who would I double-switch them with, otherwise?" He added, "You guys haven't seen Tony around here, have you? You'd tell me, right?"

If nothing else, this is one way to guarantee plenty of playing time for Colby Rasmus; but the bench, as it stands right now, is impossible to understand—and I say this as, like all of you, an experienced La Russa watcher. After 13 years of this stuff, I'm usually able to at least divine a plausible explanation for his roster machinations, but putting Brendan Ryan and Brian Barden on the same roster, with one backup outfielder, when all four of your outfielders have recently shown a significant platoon split in the same direction—this is a new one.

Don't get me wrong; his reason for not taking Mather north makes sense:

"He knows that we believe in him," manager Tony La Russa said. "We need him. But right now, his at-bats aren't consistent. His stroke from at-bat to at-bat is not quite what he's capable of doing. ... We've just got to get him right."

I can buy that; Mather got into a prolonged slump at the end of Spring Training, has a limited body of successful at-bats to fall back on, and probably spent most of his spring concentrating on playing a position he was moved off of in 2005. With Glaus's return date currently in the Cardinals Mystery Zone, there's plenty of time for Mather to get his work in and eventually spell a struggling David Freese, or return to man the outfield against tough lefties.

But I think it's impossible to overestimate how well Brian "Enunciate" Barton would fit this roster. Right now the Cardinals' best option against left-handers off the bench is Brian "Slur it" Barden, whose hitting credentials are trailed by a long string of qualifiers—but his best years were in Arizona, in the PCL, but they were also two years ago, but only for an infielder, really, and so on. He's also an infielder, not that that's stopped La Russa before, but if I had to guess I'd say La Russa is chomping at the bit for a chance to bring Barden in as a pinch hitter in the late innings for Duncan et al and then move Schumaker to the outfield.

The Rasmus thing—I appreciate that. Last year the Cardinals had two outfielders reach 150 games and still managed to find at-bats for Barton, only nominally a member of the roster, Duncan, and Mather, and none of them were tagged as Growing Boys like Rasmus; he'll get plenty of chances to play. But there's no need to handicap the team to evince that. I hope La Russa will explain the need to carry three defensive replacements for Skip Schumaker at some point, because I can't even begin to get inside his head on this one. (Maybe he'll bring in a different one based on the particular way in which Schumaker is struggling.)

If you don't like it, I guess, as fans of really old weather jests are fond of saying, wait five minutes—perhaps use them in silent meditation on the Major League line of one Rico Washington.

The Cardinals take on the Redbirds at 7:05—you can see it on FSN Midwest. I'll have a proto-game-thread up for the occasion.

40 Men Enter, 25 Men Leave

DanUpBaby — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:33:12 -0000

Everybody saw the Barton cut coming, except maybe the Play Like a Cardinal people, but now that it's actually happened the weirdness of the potential 2009 roster comes into sharper relief.

There are three—and this is the scientific term—points of weirdness, as far as I can tell. Three places where the likely construction of the roster comes into stark conflict with the realities of the roster at this moment.

#1: Long Relief: It's not always necessary to have the long reliever; it usually just means that a team has one relief pitcher it odes not trust at all in high-leverage roles, which for the Cardinals, of late, has been WonderBrad and his wild-looking fastball. But the way the roster is shaping up, the Cardinals are going to have one too many right-handed set-up men:


LEFT	RIGHT
1. Trever Miller 2. Dennys Reyes	3. Ryan Franklin 4. Kyle McClellan 5. Chris Perez 6. Jason Motte 7. Josh Kinney

That strikes me as the best bullpen the Cardinals could come north with, and a pretty satisfying one given last season's adventures. But it probably won't happen. Goold, on this topic, suggests that Thompson is a shoo-in, which makes sense since I'd be stunned if La Russa actually moved Franklin to long relief, which is where a guy with his stamina belongs in a bullpen constructed like this. But Motte's dominant Spring performance—not just the ten strikeouts, but the zero walks—seems like it's forced the Cardinals' hand.

Do the Cardinals go north, then, with one of La Russa's favorite early-season affectations? Let's assume, for purposes of this entry, that they do, and WonderBrad joins the list above. Moving forward, we have the second and third points of weirdness.

#2: Utility Infield; #3 Too Many Outfielders: Here's the fearless prediction portion of our afternoon. I think to get this increasingly strange situation right you have to take these two roster crunches at once. Here's a table—this assumes the Cardinals will carry four backups, plus the opening day third baseman and minus Jason LaRue, whose spot is guaranteed unless the Cardinals' Matt Pagnozzi fetish reaches new heights.

INFIELD	OUTFIELD
1. Joe Mather 2. Joe Thurston 3. Brendan Ryan	1. Colby Rasmus? 2. Joe Mather 3. Joe Thurston

I'm stunned, honestly, to see Rasmus on the Major League Grapefruit squad at this late date, especially in a post-Barton world. But with Jon Jay as his only remaining competition for the Duncan's-legs position, Rasmus seems to have an inside position on the So Taguchi Memorial 100 games/300 at-bats roster spot unless Schumaker finally loses his grip on second base.

From there, the backup situation gets stranger and stranger. It makes one yearn for a manager willing to do away with the backup catcher role—if Molina were to get hurt, La Russa could Be La Russa like no one ever has ever Been La Russa before, and sub in Jason Motte for him until the second catcher was recalled from AAA. But instead, for the purposes of this prognostication, I think he'll just alternate between Thurston and Mather as de facto fifth outfielders.

World Baseball Classic action today: the United States plays Puerto Rico in a winner-takes-all game at six, and Japan brings out Yu Darvish to put the hurt on South Korea at ten. I'm excited to see Darvish pitch—five years from now, when some team is offering $70 million and a PTBNL to negotiate with the Nippon Ham Fighters for his services, I'll be able to put a fastball to the name.

Post-script: As far as the Play Like a Cardinal commercials go, I like "Does NL MVP Albert Pujols Have a Secret Identity?", "Fredbird Makes a Disappointing Lunchtime Discovery", and "Skip Schumaker Models the Latest Baseball Superstition." They're not at Mariners level yet, but I like that the Cardinals have gone in that direction.

Know Your Enemy: St. Louis Cardinals

Al — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:15:22 -0000

Every year, it seems the experts dismiss the Cardinals, for one reason or another -- not enough pitching, not enough depth, whatever. And every year, somehow, the Cardinals contend. They have had only one losing season since 1999.

Some here have made fun of him for various reasons, but the fact is, a lot of the credit has to go to Tony LaRussa. Only the great John McGraw and Connie Mack have more wins as a manager than TLR; he'll celebrate the 30th anniversary of his first managing job this summer, and that's more years than anyone but Mack and McGraw, too.

The Cardinals are counting on
Adam Wainwright to have a big year photo via losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com

He must be doing something right, leading his teams to 12 postseason appearances, five pennants and two World Championships.

Before I get on to analyzing the team, a few words about the long and intense Cubs/Cardinals rivalry. Many here have made fun of them, and we get the same on Viva El Birdos, the SBN Cardinals site. But for me, I enjoy Cubs/Cardinals games. I've got nothing bad to say about the Cardinals fans I have met. They love their team and are passionate about the team and about baseball, and knowledgeable. All I want is for the Cubs to beat them every time we play them, but this isn't like the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, where the fans really seem to actually hate each other. This rivalry is built on mutual respect, and over the last 25 years, both teams have had their times of dominance.

OK, enough of the lovefest. The Cardinals have their flaws again this spring, as they appeared to last spring, but they'll probably have enough to at least eke out a winning season, mostly on the strength of their power hitters, Albert Pujols, Troy Glaus, Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick, who combined for 126 homers last year (comparison point: the Cubs' top four home run hitters hit 100 dingers in 2008). Glaus, of course, had shoulder surgery in January and there's no specific timetable for his return. These aren't your father's Cardinals, either: back in the era when the stolen base was king, the 1982 World Champion Cardinals hit only 67 homers, last in the majors, and had only two players in double figures (George Hendrick, 19, and Darrell Porter, 12).

While the Cardinals' outfield and catching slots are solid, the infield is only half so: Pujols and new SS acquisition Khalil Greene. The Cardinals are currently attempting to squeeze outfielder Skip Schumaker in at 2B. He's hitting well this spring, but fielding: not so much. Prospect Tyler Greene (now that would be a confusing DP combination) is also getting some time at 2B. For now, some combination of Brian Barden, Joe Mather, Brendan Ryan, and Tyler Greene will man 3B until Glaus comes back.

The key to the Cardinals' rotation is whether Chris Carpenter is healthy and ready to return. He has made three starts (eight innings) this spring without allowing a run, but the Cardinals are taking it slowly with him, too. Adam Wainwright will start on Opening Day; he threw well in 2008 after returning from an injury and they'll need him to be their ace all year. Last year, the Cardinals went far with the surprisingly good performances of Kyle Lohse and Todd Wellemeyer. They'll need more of that if they have hope to contend.

Right now, closer is an open position: it'll be either rookies Jason Motte or Chris Perez, or Ryan Franklin, or the dreaded "bullpen by committee", which I doubt LaRussa would use.

Besides Schumaker, other Cardinals having good springs are K. Greene (12 RBI, .447), Pujols (.361) and Ankiel (.348). But they will only go as far as their pitching does or doesn't carry them.

Predicted finish: third, between 81-85 wins.

A Modest Trade Proposal; and Cubs 10, Diamondbacks 7 Recap

Al — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:22:54 -0000

I wound up being fairly busy this afternoon; have had an issue with Comcast (don't ask) which was finally solved, so I didn't hear much of the Cubs' closer-than-it-needed-to-be 10-7 win over the Diamondbacks, which was accomplished with most of the big guns enjoying a Sunday off in the Phoenix area while only our Cajuns among the regulars took the trip to Tucson.

One of them, Mike Fontenot, hit his third homer of the spring -- I really like Fontenot and I know most of you do too and I think he could be positioned for a real breakout season. Micah Hoffpauir also homered, a three-run shot, giving him 13 RBI for the spring, which as of this writing ties him for the major league spring lead with one guy who's a legitimate RBI man (Ryan Howard) and one who isn't (St. Louis' Joe Mather). The Cubs' four-run eighth inning, which sealed the victory, featured three homers, Fontenot's and two others by guys (Brad Snyder and Welington Castillo) who won't make the major league roster, off a guy who won't make Arizona's (Kyler Newby).

The Angels' Maicer Izturis. Future Cub?? photo via upload.wikimedia.org

Both starting pitchers, Rich Harden and Brandon Webb, got cuffed around pretty good; Harden had to get pulled by Lou after he walked in a run. Let's just say it wasn't Rich's finest hour, and hope he does better next time.

The Arizona announcers, Greg Schulte and Tom Candiotti, were pretty kind to the Cubs (and decent overall), although one of them did say "Mitch" Hoffpauir before correcting himself, and called the Cubs' 9th-inning pitcher "Ascancio" instead of "Ascanio". No matter how you pronounce the name, Jose did not have a good day and had to be bailed out by David Patton. The D'backs radio guys seemed convinced that the Cubs are going to "run away" with the Central, with the Cardinals having "too many question marks" and feeling that if there's a surprise team, it might be the Reds (my view: not as long as Dusty is managing them). Which brings me to my trade proposal, something that would help both teams involved and be doable from a contract point of view.

Several people here have suggested that Maicer Izturis of the Angels would be a good pickup. After looking at what he's done and what positions he can play, the fact that he's a switch-hitter, and his contract status, I agree.

Here's the guy we can dangle in front of Tony Reagins: Chad Gaudin. Yes, we've all dissed Gaudin for his poor performances in spring training so far and the Angels themselves knocked him around pretty good on Friday. But the Angels have some question marks in their starting rotation now, with Ervin Santana expected to start the year on the DL and Kelvim Escobar's return date still uncertain. Gaudin, who made 34 starts for the A's, in the same division as the Angels, in 2007, would give them an extra arm to put in the mix.

Meanwhile, Maicer Izturis seems to be on the back burner for the LAA's. He's gotten far fewer spring AB's than Erick Aybar, who may be the frontrunner for their starting SS position, or the Angels might even finally turn to Brandon Wood, who was their golden-boy prospect a few years ago and who is having a good spring. If Wood starts, Aybar could back him up and Izturis would be expendable.

In this era, where it's occasionally difficult to make deals because of contract mismatches, this one's almost perfect. Gaudin is scheduled to make $2 million this year and Izturis' deal is for $1.6 million. Izturis could back up 2B, SS and 3B competently and his bat is acceptable for a backup role. He's got a little bit of speed and draws a few walks (well, at least more than his brother did as a Cub).

It makes sense, Jim Hendry. Here's one you could do that could help both teams, and we could forget about the Esteban German (now wearing uniform #53) experiment.

Picked Off: Spring Training Boxscores 2/25/2009

faketeams — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:15:07 -0000

CF Jordan Schafer, Atlanta Braves: He started the Spring off with a HR and SB from the nine hole. With the game moving towards a defense-oriented one, a centerfielder with a reputation for good defense and a strong throwing arm could move quickly. Unfortunately for Schafer, Josh Anderson started in CF and was replaced by Brandon Jones while Schafer moved from RF to LF to replace Matt Diaz.

1B Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds: He hit third in what looks like the expected Opening line-up. Coming off an 84 RBI rookie campaign, Votto spend most of his time hitting 6th or 7th. In 87 Batting 3rd ABs, he drove in 17 runs with a 347/425/680 slashstat line. This bears serious watching.

3B Joe Mather, St. Louis Cardinals: Most of the fantasy focus in the Cardinals' infield is on converting-OF Skip Schumaker. More interesting is who plays third base while Troy glaus is out. In the team's Grapefruit League opener, Joe Mather started at the hot corner. He slugged .474 in 133 ABs last season, so he is someone to watch in NL-Only formats.

LHP Brett Cecil, Toronto Blue Jays: In two innings of work, the converted Maryland Terrapin reliever allowed just a homerun to the first batter of the game to go with four strikeouts. Will he be the next surprisingly under-the-radar Blue Jays starter?

C Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Texas Rangers: He started at catcher in the Rangers' Cactus League opener. Taylor Teagarden replaced him with Max Ramirez spelling DH Hank Blalock. The boxscore doesn't show anything of note i.e. a Royal caught stealing or just stealing a base or any E's.

1B Travis Ishikawa, San Francisco Giants: While Pablo Sandoval started at 3B and hit 3rd in what looked like a realistic Opening Day line-up, the day's news goes to Ishikawa who hit two HRs. Can Sandoval's combustion-powered hype machine afford to give another Giants some of its oxygen?

Getting Bobby Bonillaed

DanUpBaby — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:00:10 -0000

Someone asked a bizarre question of the Commish a few days ago, in the immediate aftermath of the Troy Glaus surgery. I'll pull it:

Q: Hello Mr. Hummel. With the Glaus injury being the latest news on the Cardinal injury list, who can blame Cardinal ownership for not buying into some of these questionable, but tempting FA players that are still not signed? While Glaus is out, what do you think the Cards will do if one of these younger guys (Wallance or Freese) has a massive Spring, makes the big club and carries it over into the season? It could easily happen. recall Terry Pendleton's success when he first arrived in 1984. No one could get him out. Then you have Pujols in 2001. Do you have any thoughts about how this could all shake out if such a scenario occurred?

Well, I certainly don't think it could easily happen. The thing about Wally Pipp, the now-verbed first baseman famous for losing his job to Lou Gehrig, is that he was a good player but not a great one, a steady-at-best type who lost his job to a great player. Some revisions of the story mention his two home run crowns, earned in the height of the Dead Ball era, but that's giving the Wally Pipp who got himselfed that fateful day a little too much credit; by 1925 he was 32, coming off a number of unimpressive seasons; if anything it's like Richie Sexson losing his job to somebody last year.

Or Bobby Bonilla losing his job to somebody in 2001. It's not often the player who does the Pipping ends up one of the five best first basemen of all time—mostly just those two times—but as a blog thought experiment the idea of Troy Glaus, who's not Wally Pipp, getting ousted by David Freese, who is certainly not Lou Gehrig, is, at least, worth considering. The way I see it, there are two issues with any possible Pipp candidate: timing and talent.

Pippee: Chris Duncan; Pipper: Joe Mather; Problem: Timing. An issue with Wally Pipping as a concept is that the clean breaks you get with the Gehrigs and Pujolses of the world rarely happen unless you've got Lou Gehrig or Albert Pujols. Chris Duncan's replacement, after his 2008 slump, was really several players, but stylistically and logistically his replacement was Mather, another big, late-blooming home run hitter.

Commenter TheBirds wrote what is perhaps my favorite description of the Duncan/Mather dynamic about a month ago, when he said "I would call them Superman and Bizarro; guess who's Bizarro."

It's a perfect comparison. Mather is broad-shouldered, fast, and graceful. He doesn't just look like a baseball player; he looks like someone's caricature of a baseball player. Duncan is the same size, but he's slow and slope-shouldered; in the outfield he looks like the before shot in infomercials, where a woman filmed in harsh black and white is fumbling with a telephone or an old ab machine or barbells. Most importantly, though, they have the same powers; Duncan's career OPS, even after his disastrous 2008, is still .840.

Mather's problem, as a potential Pipp, is just that—not only is he not demonstrably better than a hypothetically healthy Chris Duncan, that's not his only competition. Pipps are chosen in hindsight, and if Mather surprises and wins a job in the outfield this year and in the years to come we'll remember 2008 as the year Chris Duncan got hurt and lost his job. If he doesn't, it'll just be the year they called Mather up and he played 50 games.

Freese hasn't got as much trouble as Mather here—if he hits well in Spring Training, his only competition for playing time at the position will be Troy Glaus. But like Mather his only clear advantage is being younger and cheaper.

Pippee: Fernando Viña; Pipper: Bo Hart; Problem: Talent. I worked at the State Fair in August 2003, when Bodhimania was in full swing, and I'll never forget the first time I saw a kid come up the stairs of the Giant Slide, where I was posted, wearing a Bo Hart jersey. I was stunned that the Cardinals were able to manufacture them so quickly; more than that, I was stunned that the kid and his mother (they were riding together) had not considered the possibility that buying a Bo Hart jersey a month after his call-up might not be a great wardrobe longevity decision.

Viña to Hart is the perfect Wally Pipp situation; Viña was a very good second baseman who'd fallen off and was now injured, and Hart came in in midseason and caught everyone's imagination. Unfortunately, Hart just wasn't very good. No amount of fan goodwill could vault him past the Tony Womacks of the world, and if you're getting Bo Harted by the likes of Tony Womack you're just not going to be Wally Pipping anybody.

Freese is better than Hart, who was stretched as a utility infielder, but to Pipp Glaus he's going to have to convince the Cardinals that they're ready to trade a third baseman who put up an OPS+ of 124 last year. The bar is a lot higher.

And Joe Mather's Secretary was named Lincoln

DanUpBaby — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:15:06 -0000

Brief post today—as the scheduled-poster publishes this I'll be a half an hour into the GRE.

Now is as good a time as any to talk about what we can reasonably expect from Joe Mather next year. Yesterday's fanpost on the subject made me think, more than anything else, about how little I usually think about Mather. I think he gets lost in the shuffle because the major potential outfield move of this offseason, trading Rick Ankiel, segues so neatly into the major prospect move of this offseason, promoting Colby Rasmus.

But as said fanpost demonstrates, by comparing Mather's AAA mashing and subsequent debut with Rick Ankiel's AAA mashing and subsequent debut, it was a rookie year worth more consideration than I've been giving it. Here's what it looks like with his AAA rampage converted into MLB-equivalent stats. (MLEs courtesy Baseball Prospectus.)

	G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	K%	BB%	AVG	OBP	SLG
AAA MLE	59	216	59	13	1	15	29	35	16%	13%	.273	.374	.551
MLB	54	133	32	7	0	8	12	32	24%	9%	.241	.306	.474
2008	113	349	91	20	1	23	39	67	19%	12%	.261	.335	.522

I like this because both his major league debut and his last stint in Memphis demand to be looked at with a little suspicion—his AAA stint because it was so great, his MLB time because it was so sporadic. What it reminds me of, off-hand, is the jump from AA to the PCL that he made in 2007.

	G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	K%	BB%	AVG	OBP	SLG
AA	64	234	71	17	0	18	29	32	14%	12%	.303	.387	.607
AAA	70	253	61	10	1	13	23	51	20%	9%	.241	.329	.443
TOTALS	134	487	132	27	1	31	52	83	17%	11%	.271	.357	.522

Eerie, right? I bolded the numbers that I didn't have to change after I copied and pasted this table, for maximum eeriness, but the broader point is a little less parlor trick and a little more interesting: both years Mather, who has been notoriously slow to develop—2007 was the first year in seven that he managed an .800 OPS—started off slugging .600 and, after a promotion, continued to hit for power but struggled with his previously solid plate discipline. Since Mather followed up his first taste of AAA with the second slugging outburst, this is a pretty optimistic line of reasoning.

There are reasons for tempered optimism. For one thing, he's not all that young for a guy who's got 133 major league at-bats; he's just a little over a year younger than Chris Duncan, for instance, with whom he'll be competing for playing time come Spring Training. (The MLB promotion had the opposite effect on Duncan, too; in his two pre-hernia half-seasons he far outperformed anything he'd ever done in the minor leagues.) ZiPS, for its part, expects the man called Bombs to regress even from his MLB debut, hitting all of .243/.308/.425.

But after the unlikely emergences of Ludwick, Ankiel, and Duncan over the past few years I'm having a hard time maintaining anything resembling hard-line skepticism about uncelebrated slugging AAA outfielders. What's your Joe Mather projection, from playing time to venue to production? (He's an impressive player to see in person—I think there might be a significant correlation between positive projections and the amount of time you've spent watching him take long home run swings and lope around the outfield.)