SB Nation - Brad Thompson

What the Cardinals can take from the Yankees, besides the luxury tax

DanUpBaby — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:06:53 -0000

First, some briefs on yesterday's roster moves:

It's interesting to see the Brad Thompson perception gap—the RotoWorld box in the sidebar thinks he'll have no problem finding a job, even as a fifth starter; the Baseball Primer thread is remarkably positive, for BTF. But I think the average VEBer wrote off the artist occasionally known as WonderBrad a long time ago.

I'll always think of him as a better pitcher than he probably was and is; I'm as susceptible as anybody else to overvaluing a player when he gets off to a good start, and there were moments there in 2005 (it seems like it's been longer) where his weird sinker seemed like the makings of a uniquely valuable short reliever. But I'm hard-pressed to think of any team that's strapped enough for choice to give him a clear shot as a fifth starter coming off a year with a K/9 of 3.8.

Jarrett Hoffpauir leaves the 40 man roster—and, though this wasn't the Cardinals' intent, the organization—a victim of circumstance; without the Julio Lugo deal he might come into 2010 as the Cardinals' best free choice for Skip Schumaker's equally awkward right-handed caddy, but Lugo has a name and at least theoretically plays short. It's tough luck for the Cardinals; finding purchase on a big league roster is hard for backup infielders who can't play shortstop, but Hoffpauir, with his occasionally impressive bat and his consistently impressive BB:K ratio, has one more definable skill than most of these guys. (Being a Cardinals farmhand is apparently also a path to gainful MLB employment for these guys—Edgar Gonzalez and the poor man's Jarrett Hoffpauir, Mike McCoy, both saw big league time this year.)

In 2010 he would have had Lugo on one side and Daniel Descalso, who somehow failed to receive regular playing time in his 2009 AAA stint, on the other, though, so maybe it's best he's gone to an organization without a veteran playing for free and a prospect at second. (Which makes it even weirder that Joe Thurston didn't get the Brad Thompson treatment—hopefully he'll spend his Memphis summer working on his footwork rounding second base, not standing next to it.)

With that out of the way, the big news: the Yankees have finally beaten the Curse of Clay Bellinger. It was a tough road, but I can only hope that they have enough footage of Jimmy Fallon running out onto the field to properly commemorate those long years in Fever Pitch 2. What did these Yankees do that the Cardinals can emulate, multi-billion dollar payroll aside?

1. Make the Free Agent deals count. The list of Yankees busts in the years between 2000 and 2009 is comical both quantitatively and qualitatitively—these guys signed Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, and Kei Igawa to deals totaling $106 million. The spending binge prior to 2009 will justifiably get a lot of attention as the difference-maker between this club and the ones that preceded it, but this time around Brian Cashman was at least forward-thinking enough to sign players who have established track records of performing in a way that resembles their enormous contracts.

This hasn't been true of the Cardinals' last three pitching free agents—Kyle Lohse was signed at the absolute peak of his value, for a dollar value that seems blissfully disconnected from the rest of his body of work. The Joel Pineiro and Mark Mulder contracts, each two years, $13 million, were both affordable risks, and one of them worked out better than the Cardinals could possibly have imagined, but they were an extremely speculative way to spend $26 million; there wasn't much in their recent history to suggest they were multi-million dollar pitchers, of a separate species from recent gambles like John Smoltz or even the first appearances of Lohse and Pineiro.

Matt Holliday is, for all his Boras-sized ambitions, a guy who will come into the first year of his contract almost certain to play up to it. He's durable, he's still within sight of his peak years, and he's a consistently excellent hitter with a broad base of skills. Which combines with makes Joe Strauss's recent, inexplicably phrased chat insinuations an interesting, if not instructive, topic of discussion:

Chairman Bill DeWitt recently denied that the club has made Holliday an offer; however, there are suggestions that the Cardinals discussed a 6-year, $96 million framework with Holliday's agent, Scott Boras.

I'll be honest: I have no idea what "suggestions" means when it is both unsourced and right after an official club denial but also accompanied by an extremely specific contract "framework." No idea whatsoever. But assuming that Joe Strauss is not the one suggesting this, or Joe Strauss's barber, this seems like a fine deal for a team that, as a recent fanshot noticed, is filled with a ton of decent players. $16 million could be parceled out to three or four basically average guys, hole-fillers, and probably earn more wins above that famous replacement player than Holliday himself. But this team doesn't need Reggie Sanders—it needs MV3.

An argument could be made that these big free agent contracts need to be seen as the reward for, and culmination of, years spent cultivating guys like Skip Schumaker and David Freese to negate the need for the Kyle Lohses. But at $96 million, instead of $180 million, I guess two out of three isn't so bad.

2. Develop an inconceivably long-lasting internal core. How are three of the Yankees' best players still holdovers from 1996? Asking the Cardinals to develop three to five borderline Hall of Famers over the course of the next three years is probably a little too much to ask, but it's nice to see the Cardinals progressing in this direction; Pujols and Wainwright were locked down early, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Colby Rasmus follow along the same path.

Losing Brett Wallace leaves them one future core player short, but I'm glad the Cardinals still have at least one in the system; winning 78 games in 2007 isn't far removed from having top prospects like Jimmy Journell and post-surgery Blake Hawksworth a few years earlier. Get here soon, Shelby Miller.

3. Look at all those young, successful relievers! The Cardinals made—and have continued to make—a good-faith effort at this with guys like Jason Motte and Chris Perez and Kyle McClellan. And since I am lost as you to the reasons for the enormous gap between Motte's PCL and MLB numbers, it's frustrating to see the Yankees' three fine young relievers, even if two of them had less than impressive postseasons.

Interesting, though, to see how the three came to be important parts in the Yankee pen—one should probably still be in the Yankee rotation, another was a minor league free agent and career starter.

Playoff Worrying In Particular

DanUpBaby — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:30:19 -0000

by Jeff Curry - AP

about 1 month ago: St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus (8) leaps over Milwaukee Brewers' Alcides Escobar, as Escobar steals third during the 10th inning of a baseball game Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009, in St. Louis. The Brewers won 9-7 in 10 innings. (AP Photo/Jeff Curry)

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Anybody can, and does, worry about the playoffs in general. But worrying about particular parts of the playoffs, especially tangentially relevant ones? That's the blogger's job.

No playoff roster surprises yet—Khalil Greene in his second comeback was rendered basically irrelevant by Julio Lugo's arrival and Tony La Russa's reluctance to move past the put-him-in-good-situations point on the comeback trail. From the first of August to the end of the season he'd played fewer than forty innings in the field, which is fewer than Troy Glaus played as a September call-up. The current arrangement leaves the Cardinals without a real backup shortstop, but Greene probably wouldn't have helped matters there, either; his play-by-play numbers, as one would expect of a guy dealing with serious emotional problems, moving on and off the DL, playing sparingly, were... almost as bad as Julio Lugo's.

What it does do is leave the Cardinals—Cardinals fans, really, since there seems to be no real internal debate about it—with an odd positional controversy. How healthy is Troy Glaus?

I don't know if I had any logical reason to be as surprised as I have been, but Glaus's brief comeback has been as spotty as I expected but in a totally different way than I'd anticipated. Some combination of his long, unexpected layoff, his size and shape, and the shoulder problems that were apparently keeping him from throwing three months ago had me expecting a loping slugger, our homegrown version of the PH-only Jim Thome the Dodgers acquired from the White Sox. While his usage did sometimes shake out that way, the results—as with Thome, but not Jason Giambi—were not there.

But his defense, when he was made to play defense, was a revelation. I didn't realize it until Glaus got back—middle infielders have been at the hot corner all year—but when Mark DeRosa plays third base, he looks like a second baseman. He's nimble out there, but his reflexes, his first move in either direction, just aren't natural. Sometimes he just doesn't make them. Glaus is a big, slow, heavy guy, but he moves immediately and aggressively toward balls; that almost-play on a barehander Sunday was something I wouldn't expect DeRosa to make—but it was also, before I saw him play, something I didn't expect New, Sedentary Glaus to make.

Unfortunately, if we're extrapolating from subjective observation and small samples (his UZR/150 is 125.3!) there's also the matter of his slow bat and his 130 professional at-bats in 2009. During his long rehab Glaus struggled at three different levels, peaking in an encouraging-but-not-very .216/.369/.392 at AAA. In the bigs he didn't have much room to work through a slump, if it's a slump, but he certainly hasn't looked as capable offensively as he does defensively. (Not that Glaus has ever looked like a worldbeater.)

So now the Cardinals are in an awkward position, at least if they want to press the issue: Play Glaus for his defense, even though he might not be able to hit? I can't say I ever expected to say something like that.

II.

While we're on the topic—I don't expect this to prove either really important or, in the end, determined in such a way that antagonizes the Viva El Birdos contingent. But B.J. Rains of the mothership knows how to make us worry: suggest that Brad Thompson and Todd Wellemeyer are both candidates for the playoff pen:

The decision to go with 12 pitchers means that two of the four among Blake Hawksworth, Mitchell Boggs, Todd Wellemeyer and Brad Thompson will be on the playoff roster. Hawksworth and Boggs, both rookies, are the likely choices to make the cut based on their performances and the number of their appearances down the stretch in relation to Wellemeyer and Thompson.

He's right: Brad Thompson hasn't appeared in a leveraged decision since the end of July, and Wellemeyer—well, no. Not Wellemeyer. Hawksworth has shown up twice as often as either of them in the second half of the season, and Boggs's startling bullpen fastball—I haven't seen a bullpen transformation as complete and abrupt as his in some time, no matter where he ends up permanently—is certainly a higher upside play than WonderBrad.

But mentioning it at all, even as a theoretical possibility... it gives me the shakes.

III.

I've saved the most worrisome for last; so finally we've gotten to Joel Pineiro's tentative transformation back into Joel Pineiro. The strikeouts are fine; they're up, actually. The home run rate had to come up eventually, though I didn't expect him to give up 46% of his seasonal home run total in the last month of the year. But his command, the supernatural aversion to walks that characterized the first five months of the Joel Pineiro Comeback Spectacular—gone. Four strikeouts and less than one walk per nine is Christy Mathewson; Four and a half strikeouts and two walks is last season's version of Braden Looper.

That guy is a useful pitcher, even in the playoffs, but for now that's what I'll be expecting, so that when Joel Pineiro turns in a shutout and the Cardinals advance to the NLCS I will be pleasantly surprised.

16-3 would even be a good save percentage

DanUpBaby — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:00:25 -0000

by Morry Gash - AP

2 months ago: St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Chris Carpenter throws during the third inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Monday, Sept. 7, 2009, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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It's hard to imagine this team without what it's gotten from Chris Carpenter to this point. Are they good enough to justify DeRosa? Holliday? Fangraphs, impersonal though it is, has pegged Carp for 4.6 wins above replacement, a $21 million dent into the contract that began 2009 with the Cardinals $19 million in the hole.

As late as that April 14 injury I was convinced that any value he added to the 2009 Cardinals was a welcome bonus. That's how I wrote him up in the preseason book, and though his first start had gotten me more excited than I wanted to be that squib game was all it took for me to lose the newfound confidence. I know it wasn't supposed to be serious—I know it wasn't the result of throwing a pitch—but between the Cardinals' reputation and Carpenter's was there anyone out there who wasn't a little suspicious that he'd be back?

But since then... well, since then he's thrown 21 starts unabbreviated by injury; 19 of them have been quality starts. 15 of them have gone at least seven innings, nine of them have involved no more than one earned run, and now four of them have brought together 32 scoreless innings, 36 strikeouts, four walks, 13 hits. He's really good. He's really, really, really good. He's not the bonus innings, he's the innings, qualified, as of yesterday's start, for the year-end ERA title. Without him this team is probably a lot warier about going for broke on a left fielder, especially when it involves trading their fifth starter.

Day off #1: Accomplished. La Russa frames Franklin's day(s) off like this:

"This series is going to be one where our starters hopefully will pitch effectively and get into the last part of the game, [but] we can't push them ridiculously," La Russa said. "Our offense will have to score some runs. And there will be some guys like [Brad] Thompson, [Todd] Wellemeyer, [Mitchell] Boggs, whoever, some of the other guys who are not the normal guys will have to get some outs."

Of those guys I expect to see the most of Brad Thompson, who's been basically invisible since his stint in the starting rotation back in the 2009 Cardinals Malaise Era. Here's another gimmick stat—in WonderBrad's eight games as a regular short reliever, throwing one inning, he hasn't walked a batter. This is a career-long thing, and shouldn't come as a particular shock; when you put a guy like Thompson, who has trouble missing bats (4.7 K/9) in the bullpen, into the rotation, where he has to face the same guy more than once with his one-and-a-half pitchers—his fastball/slider/changeup all seem to move like the same pitch thrown at different speeds, and if it were a particularly impressive one that would be a great trick—he's going to become super-hittable (3.6 K/9, another .25 home runs per nine.)

I'm not saying Thompson is the answer to any question except "Who could be suspended for five games without anybody ever noticing?". But his career spent at the replacement level might be an unfair representation of his value.

(I can't finish this blurb without divulging my own self-interest, here; Brad was the first in a long line of spotlighted non-prospects, and as a long reliever he has become so anonymous that I'll always have my first impression of him as a useful middle reliever with a remarkably loopy "sinking" fastball.)

ITEM: I BLAME THE DERBY

Albert Pujols, pre-ASB: .332/.456/.723

Albert Pujols, post-ASB: .320/.433/.611

Joe Mauer, pre-ASB: .373/.447/.622

Joe Mauer, post-ASB: .356/.415/.580

Miscellaneous Sunday Ramblings

chuckb — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:14:42 -0000

by Gene J. Puskar - AP

When you hit a ball that far, it doesn't really matter how well you run the bases provided you touch all 4. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

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I have to admit to being a little bit stumped this morning. What’s there to say? We’re playing great baseball, though it helps that we’re playing bad teams. Tied for the best record in the NL. Biggest lead in baseball. We run out our 2nd string against the Pirates and still manage to win the game. Pineiro goes today and he’s been a little shaky his last few starts. I mean, relatively shaky. When you go most of the season w/ an ERA under 3 then the last 5-6 starts haven’t been that great. If we’re comparing him to the Pineiro of old, he looks great. Since the beginning of August, he has a 4.35 ERA and has given up 4 homers in 41.1 IP. That doesn’t sound like a lot of homers but consider that he had given up just 3 homers in the first 4 months of the season, 4 in 1 month and 1 start is a lot. His ground ball % over the last 6 starts is just 58%. Again, that’s very high but lower than his % for the entire season. The bottom line is that he’s been getting more pitches up over the last 6 starts and been getting hit harder as a result.

Baseball Prospectus has this stat that they call secret sauce. It’s their supposed measurement of ability to succeed in the postseason. I think, by now, we all recognize that the postseason is basically a crapshoot. The people at BP have looked at all sorts of statistics to find their relationship to postseason success -- # of veterans, success down the stretch, # of homers hit, etc. They found that only 3 stats had a statistically significant relationship to postseason success – fielding runs above average (defensive ability), K/9 by the pitching staff, and WXRL (how good your closer is). Right now, according to big league teams, the Cards are 12th in the secret sauce report and 4th among possible NL playoff teams. We’re behind the Dodgers, Giants, and Rockies but way ahead of the Phillies. Brad Lidge is really weighing them down.

The problem I have w/ their numbers for the secret sauce report is that they use numbers for the entire pitching staff (K/9) over the entire season rather than trying to weigh them according to projected postseason usage. Brad Thompson doesn’t strike out anyone but if he’s pitching in postseason games we’re not going to win many games, and it isn’t b/c he doesn’t strike anyone out. They should try and weigh the numbers according to the fact that Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Ryan Franklin will be pitching an inordinately high % of the innings. None of them are huge strike out pitchers but they still strike out more than Thompson and Kyle Lohse. In 2006, we were very low in the secret sauce report primarily b/c we were getting killed by WXRL. Izzy was horrendous that season but wasn’t even on the postseason roster. There was no accounting for the fact that Wainwright would be closing games. Would it have made a big difference in the report? Maybe not but my main argument is that they use what has been rather than what will be and that affects the validity of the report. Take it w/ a grain of salt.

I was curious about how tough our competition has been so far this season so I decided to look at the OPSes of NL starters’ opponents. It turns out that Wainwright has faced much tougher competition than either Carpenter or Pineiro so far this season. Out of 53 NL starters who’ve pitched 120 innings, Wainwright’s faced the 18th highest opponent OPS -- .731. That’s 11 points and 23 spots higher than Tim Lincecum, btw. Pineiro is 38th (.722) and Carp is 45th (.718) out of 53 in terms of the toughness of their competition. Jason Marquis, btw, is 50th so some of his good season can be attributed to the fact that he’s faced relatively weak competition.

As far as our hitters go, out of 124 NL hitters w/ 300+ PAs, Skip Schumaker has faced the 5th easiest pitchers, Colby Rasmus the 11th, and Albert Pujols the 14th, as measured by SLG against. Chris Duncan was 17th, Brendan Ryan the 48th, Ankiel the 52nd, and Yadi the 54th easiest pitchers. Somehow Ryan Ludwick has gotten screwed. He’s had to face the 78th easiest pitchers – much tougher competition than most of the lineup. We’ve faced some pretty light competition this season, a fact that shouldn’t be all that surprising considering there’s just 1 other team in our division above .500, and they’re barely above .500.

Finally, when Rasmus was picked off 1st base last night I got the idea to compare our baserunning this season (something BP measures relatively well, most agree) to previous seasons. There’s been a lot made of Joe Thurston’s baserunning escapades, for example. Right now we sit 12th baseball in overall baserunning. Our baserunning has added about 0.208 runs to our total so far this season. Oakland’s been the best in baseball, according to the report, adding more than 11 runs – and 1.1 wins – to their total by being good at running the bases this season. The worst has been the Orioles who have cost themselves more than 19 runs, and nearly 2 wins, on the bases. So our baserunning’s basically had a neutral effect on our win total this season.

Here are our totals since 2004.

	EQBRR
2009	0.209
2008	-6.441
2007	-11.478
2006	-7.020
2005	7.608
2004	7.632

We were first in baseball in ’04 and 3rd in ’05 and this year’s the only season we’ve had a positive number since ’05. It’s also probably our 3rd best team (behind ’04 and ’05) over that time period. Interesting. Gotta get a game thread up soon. Early game. Late riser. Not a great combination!

And for my next trick...

chuckb — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:00:20 -0000

More photos » by Tom Mihalek - AP

You're not going to find your head w/ a half-hearted effort like that, Todd!(AP Photo/Tom Mihalek)

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It’s miscellaneous numbers day here at VEB and I intend to start w/ the dominance of our pitching staff. One of the truest measures of a pitcher’s dominance is his ability to induce swinging strikes. If a pitcher can get a hitter to swing and miss, he’s got good stuff. Which pitcher has the highest percentage of swinging strikes on our staff? The answer is Dennys Reyes, coming in at a robust (you didn’t think I could mention his name w/o some sort of pun, did you?) 19%. (He’s actually tied w/ Mitch Boggs.) Here are the numbers in full:

	# of strikes	% looking	% swinging
Reyes	223	29	19
Boggs	231	26	19
Miller	241	29	17
Wainwright	1419	31	15
Carp	895	28	15
Motte	392	27	15
Franklin	368	32	14
Wellemeyer	1096	26	13
Lohse	751	32	12
McClellan	415	28	12
Pineiro	1164	29	9

It’s something that Pineiro, w/ his success this year, is at the bottom of this list but you should also notice that only Wainwright’s thrown more strikes this year and, in fact, he’s averaging only 3.43 P/PA – lowest on the team outside of Brad Thompson. To me, Boggs’ appearance at the top of this list is notable in light of Wellemeyer’s struggles this year. To me, despite the fact that he’s thrown just 400 pitches so far this year, his 19% swing and miss rate is an indicator that he can get big league hitters out. I’m not Tony, of course, but I’d trust him more than Wellemeyer every 5 days. (I’m posting this Sunday night as I’m heading to St. Louis to watch the series against the Dodgers so hopefully by Thursday, Boggs will have replaced Wellemeyer in the rotation.)

Next, we all know that "there is no such thing as ‘personal catchers’ w/ Tony so you can dismiss this next bit of information as completely irrelevant.

Pitchers’ ERAs by catcher in 2009:

	era
Yadi	3.71
LaRue	4.44

Yadi’s clearly the better catcher, right? Pitchers perform better w/ Yadi behind the plate, correct? Now try this one on for size:

Games started by pitcher w/ Jason LaRue behind the plate:

	# of starts
Wellemeyer	8
Thompson	2
Lohse	2
Pineiro	1
Boggs	1

Maybe we can’t tell much from catchers’ ERAs after all.

Finally, one of the unheralded elements of baseball is a player’s ability to run the bases. Generally speaking, faster players are better base runners than slower runners, ceteris paribus, b/c their speed allows them to take the extra base more often. They also steal more bases than slower base runners, by and large. So let’s take a look at some of the Cards’ base running stats for the season so far.

First of all, BP – which most agree does base running stats as well or better than anyone – has the Cards as the majors’ 9th best base running team so far this season and 5th in the NL. They have us as adding 2.56 runs as a team just by being able to take the extra base and steal bases well. Now, it’s important to understand that that’s only a quarter of 1 win but it translates to about 4 runs over a full season. So while base running matters, the difference between the majors’ best base running team and the worst is about 3 – 3.5 wins over a full season. Last year the difference was 33 runs – about 3 1/3 wins.

As far as our best and worst base runners go, it should come as no surprise that Yadi and Joe Thurston are at the bottom – Yadi b/c he’s slower than D.C. rush hour traffic and Thurston b/c it seems like every time he reaches base he’s pulling a Suppan-in-the-’04-Series base running snafu. At the top of the list is that guy who still has a lot to learn about playing this darn game. EQBRR is Equivalent Base Running Runs which is equal, essentially, by players advancing on hits, ground outs, fly balls, as well as stolen bases. Lugo’s, DeRosa’s, and Holliday’s numbers include their numbers from their previous teams.

	EQBRR
Rasmus	2.38
Ludwick	1.56
Schumaker	1.47
Ryan	1.00
Lugo	0.00
Ankiel	-0.09
Pujols	-0.58
DeRosa	-0.68
Holliday	-0.74
Thurston	-1.07
Yadi	-2.84

Rasmus’s numbers place him 25th in the majors while Yadi’s place him (gulp!) 687th. Many of you are saying, "Bullshit! Albert’s one of the best base runners in baseball. Proof is in the fact that he leads the team in steals!" My response to that is that Albert does the best he can w/ what he’s got but he’s just not very fast. He does run the bases extremely well but he also has physical limitations that don’t allow him to take as many extra bases as many other players take. Albert is actually least effective in taking the extra base on hits and on what BP calls "Equivalent Other Advancement Runs" which, I suppose, means advancing on wild pitches, passed balls, taking the extra base on overthrows or going to third on bad pickoffs at 1st…stuff like that. Again, as you see, the difference between the team’s best and the team’s worst nearly 2/3 of the way through the season is about half a win but, as close as this division is and will likely be the rest of the way, every half a win counts.

All-Star Lilly Dominates Cardinals; Cubs Win 5-2 (Still Worried About Marmol, Though)

Al — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:29:55 -0000

More photos » by Paul Beaty - AP

Write your own caption.

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Games like this absolutely infuriate me.

Infuriate? How can a crisply-pitched game with timely hitting, 5-2 Cubs win over the Cardinals, be infuriating?

Because I keep wondering why the team that showed up today can't show up every day! What is it about the 2009 Cubs that makes them play like this -- like the 2008 version -- one day, and another (yesterday, for example) look like they couldn't beat a team of T-ballers?

If anyone has the answer to that, call Jim Hendry and Lou Piniella right away. They, like the rest of us, would like to know.

Ted Lilly went eight innings for the first time since May 2 vs. the Marlins, when he also allowed just one run, and was in command all the way, posting his 100th career victory. He could have had eight shutout innings if Jeff Baker hadn't triple-clutched on a ground ball that the speedy Colby Rasmus beat out for an infield hit; later in that inning a bouncer by Ryan Ludwick glanced off Aramis Ramirez's glove for a RBI double, and that's all the Cardinals got till the ninth inning. More on that ninth inning later.

In the meantime, the Cubs came out swinging in the first inning against Brad Thompson, though the only really big hit was Baker's two-RBI single with the bases loaded, after Milton Bradley had taken one for the team and was hit by a pitch, forcing in the first run of the game. Nice work, Milton, and nice work again in the fourth inning; Bradley reached on a dropped third strike when it seemed as if no one really knew what was going on or where the ball was. That inning didn't produce any runs, but Lilly also had a nice idea when he tried to push a bunt past Thompson with Bradley on third. Lilly, realizing his hitting limitations, tried to surprise the Cardinals and almost got away with it. (Dave reminded me that such a play works much better with a lefthander on the mound.)

Lilly continued dominating; after the one run scored he gave up only two harmless singles and got out of the seventh with a slick double play that kept his pitch count low enough for him to throw the eighth (otherwise Angel Guzman or Sean Marshall probably would have thrown that inning). I especially liked the way Lilly ran out of the dugout for that eighth inning, something you likely didn't see on TV -- hustling, even though he was nearly gassed.

Then Lou decided to, again, give Carlos Marmol some work in a low-pressure situation, four runs up in the ninth inning. It was... not pretty. After an easy groundout, a single and walk put two runners on and then Marmol got a comebacker... which he almost threw into center field; it took a great stab by Ryan Theriot to prevent that, and Tony LaRussa came out to argue the out call at second base (he might have had a point; Theriot might have been off the bag). When Yadier Molina singled in a run, Lou was forced to summon Kevin Gregg to finish it off, which he did.

What's wrong with Marmol? Mike thinks his velocity might be down, which means he can't use the fastball as an out pitch and he either doesn't have command of, or doesn't trust, his slider, which was the pitch that got so many hitters out last year. It's getting beyond the point of "a couple of outings" for Marmol -- since June 2 he has thrown 18 innings and issued 20 walks. That's... well, it's bad. His season WHIP is 1.51 which is... well, it's bad. Maybe the All-Star break will help him get his head on straight.

The All-Star break also beckons Derrek Lee, who suffered a relapse of the neck spasms which put him out of action for almost a week in early May. D-Lee says he's good to go tomorrow, but I wouldn't take any chances with that unless he shows up tomorrow morning and says he's 100%. And although Koyie Hill said he could catch both games tomorrow, Jake Fox says he's ready to step in and catch if needed. If he is needed, expect him to catch the second game, where Randy Wells will start -- Fox caught Wells as they were both coming up through the system and making the same stops for the first few years of their careers.

Note I said "second game" -- Lou has, according to that link, decided to switch starters tomorrow and go with Z in the first game and Wells in the night game. That's fine with me. The Cubs can make a statement tomorrow. It's way past time to do so.

Fox-TV, Fuld And BJ Ryan News: Cubs vs. Cardinals Preview, Saturday 7/11, 3:10 CT

Al — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:00:13 -0000

Where will the magic Fox-TV wizard send you today?

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The Great Fox Blackout Wizard hath decreed that this day, Saturday, July 11, 2009, shall have two major league baseball games televised across the land of the United States of America.

And further decreed is that one game shall be the New York Yankees vs. the Los Angeles Angels, and thus denizens of the coastal areas of the land shall see that game. The St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs shall be visible only to those in the provinces, thusly:

Alexandria, LA; Austin, TX; Baton Rouge, LA; Biloxi, MS; Bowling Green, KY; Cedar Rapids, IA; Champaign, IL; Chattanooga, TN; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Colorado Springs, CO; Columbia, MO; Columbus, MS; Columbus, OH; Davenport, IA; Dayton, OH; Des Moines, IA; Evansville, IN; Fort Smith, AR; Fort Wayne, IN; Grand Junction, CO; Grand Rapids, MI; Green Bay, WI; Greenwood, MS; Harlingen, TX; Houston, TX; Huntsville, AL; Indianapolis, IN; Jackson, MS; Jackson, TN; Joplin, MO; Kansas City, MO; Knoxville, TN; La Crosse, WI; Lafayette, LA; Lake Charles, LA; Lansing, MI; Lexington, KY; Lima, OH; Lincoln, NE; Little Rock, AR; Louisville, KY; Madison, WI; Memphis, TN; Meridian, MS; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; Monroe, LA; Nashville, TN; North Platte, NE; Oklahoma City, OK; Omaha, NE; Ottumwa, IA; Paducah. KY; Peoria, IL; Phoenix, AZ; Quincy, IL; Rochester, MN; Rockford, IL; Sioux City, IA; Sioux Falls, SD; South Bend, IN; Springfield, IL; Springfield, MO; St. Louis, MO; Terre Haute, IN; Topeka, KS; Traverse City, MI; Tucson, AZ; Tulsa, OK; Wausau, WI; Wichita, KS

As usual, the divvying up of TV markets for these games appears to have been done by monkeys throwing darts. Cities that usually get an American League game when there's one game from each league, such as Kansas City and Minneapolis, are getting the Cubs today -- but not Dallas. Houston gets the Cubs, but not San Antonio; Phoenix and Tucson get the Cubs, but not Yuma. It looks like you'll see the Cubs if you're in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, and portions of Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Arizona, Ohio, South Dakota and Colorado. Otherwise you're out of luck. Bizarre.

If you missed the FanShot posted by SydKyd last night, this news was buried in the recap of the Iowa Cubs' 11-5 win over Oklahoma City last night:

[Sam] Fuld was taken out of the game because he was called up by Chicago to take the roster spot of the injured Geovany Soto.

I hope he starts all three games in left field the rest of the weekend.

Also, Dave van Dyck reports in the Tribune that the Cubs have "great interest" in B.J. Ryan...

But they can't negotiate with him until Monday, once he clears waivers.

This is one signing I hope is done before the season resumes next Thursday.

Today's Starting Pitchers


Ted Lilly Cubs	vs.	Brad Thompson Cardinals

8-6	W-L	2-5
3.32	ERA	4.92
97	SO	19
23	BB	14
17	HR	7
vs. StL	--	vs. Cubs

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Ted Lilly	8-6	17	17	0	0	0	0	111.0	104	44	41	17	23	97	3.32	1.14

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Brad Thompson	2-5	16	7	0	0	0	0	53.0	58	31	29	7	14	19	4.92	1.36

Brad Thompson was supposed to start yesterday. Then he wasn't. Then he was again. By the time yesterday's preview thread had posted, the Cardinals had chosen Chris Carpenter to throw, but I had already written this about Thompson. Thus, you get to read the Thompson preview again, since he is now (apparently) definitely starting this afternoon. He has had a couple of decent starts this year and several mediocre ones. The only current Cub to have more than a handful of AB vs. Thompson with any success is Derrek Lee (3-for-6, 2 HR). Aramis Ramirez is 0-for-6 against Thompson; maybe this would be a good day for him to sit.

Ted Lilly is 5-1, 1.96 in eight starts at Wrigley Field this year. He's faced the Cardinals once this year, on May 19 in St. Louis, threw pretty well (3 ER in 7 IP) but the Cubs got shut out. I'm not going to bother posting Ted's splits vs. Albert Pujols, because it is my opinion that they should put Pujols on every single time he comes up this weekend -- well, except maybe if the bases are loaded. On the other hand, Pujols has had 9 PA with the bases loaded so far this year. He is 6-for-8 in those 9 PA with 4 HR and 20 RBI (the non-AB was a sac fly). Maybe walking him with the bases loaded minimizes the damage. All told, though, members of the current Cardinals roster are hitting .197 (37-for-188) against Ted.

See the list above the fold for the markets carrying today's game on Fox. For other games today see the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

I was remiss yesterday in not giving a plug to our friends at the SBN Cardinals site Viva El Birdos. There are several posters there who visit BCB regularly and we always welcome them. Feel free to go over there, too -- just be nice and talk baseball.

Overflow comment threads will post today at 4:15 pm, 5:15 pm and 6 pm CDT.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

The Next "Big Series" Of July: Cubs vs. Cardinals Preview, Friday 7/10, 1:20 CT

Al — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:00:13 -0000

More photos » by M. Spencer Green - AP

Write your own caption.

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Odd coincidence or serendipity?: Mark DeRosa won't be playing this weekend as he's on the DL, while one of the three pitchers acquired from Cleveland in the DeRosa trade last December will make his major league debut sometime over the weekend (presumably) after being recalled this morning to replace Kevin Hart on the roster. Hart is headed to Iowa to get some work before he himself is recalled after the All-Star break to make another start or two before Ryan Dempster returns from the DL himself.

Got all that straight? Good, because the Cubs have some ground to make up this weekend. Starting the weekend 3.5 games behind the first-place Cardinals, it would take a sweep to overtake them. That's unlikely, but winning three of four would put the Cubs 1.5 games behind going into the break, over .500 at 44-42, and in pretty good shape for the second half.

In the meantime, Bruce Miles tells us that the Cubs may indeed have interest in B.J. Ryan:

The 33-year-old Ryan will have to clear waivers, and once that happens, the Cubs likely will explore the possibility of signing him.

Insiders say any team that ends up with the former closer probably will want him to start out at Triple-A. The Blue Jays are on the hook for the approximately $15 million Ryan is owed through next season. The Cubs, or any team that picks up Ryan, will have to pay him only a prorated share of the major-league minimum salary this year and the minimum for 2010.

The idea of sending him to Iowa first ought to calm the fears of those who think he'd just blow games left and right for the Cubs. Try him out in Triple-A first. Sounds good to me. Get it done, Jim. Meanwhile, Jeff Stevens will be recalled today to fill the roster slot vacated by Hart.

Today's Starting Pitchers


Rich Harden Cubs	vs.	Brad Thompson Cardinals

5-5	W-L	2-5
5.35	ERA	4.92
77	SO	19
32	BB	14
15	HR	7
vs. Hou	--	vs. Cubs

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Rich Harden	5-5	14	13	0	0	0	0	69.0	71	45	41	15	32	77	5.35	1.49

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Brad Thompson	2-5	16	7	0	0	0	0	53.0	58	31	29	7	14	19	4.92	1.36

Brad Thompson shuttles back and forth between starting and relieving, though he has never started against the Cubs. He has had a couple of decent starts this year and several mediocre ones. The only current Cub to have more than a handful of AB vs. Thompson with any success is Derrek Lee (3-for-6, 2 HR). Aramis Ramirez is 0-for-6 against Thompson; maybe this would be a good day for him to sit.

Rich Harden is 2-1, 3.44 in three career starts vs. St. Louis. On April 26 in St. Louis, he struck out nine in six innings and the Cubs won 10-3. He's even handled Albert Pujols well -- 1-for-6 (a double).

Today's game is nationally available on WGN and on EI and in the St. Louis area via FSN Midwest. For other games today see the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

Overflow comment threads will post today at 2:15 pm, 3:15 pm and 4 pm CDT.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Sometimes the other pitcher is just really, really good

DanUpBaby — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:00:38 -0000

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Lincecum is hungry like the wolf during the fifth inning of a baseball game Monday, June 29, 2009, in St. Louis. Lincecum threw a two-hitter in the Giants' 10-0 victory. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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Nothing to be done—it's not often a game that seems so lopsided at the start, featuring a slumping team and a lopsided pitching matchup et cetera, actually ends up so lopsided. Brad Thompson seems like the ideal underdog in this kind of thing; he's not much but he's rarely beaten into the ground, and even in tonight's game he, uh, minimized the damage, to the extent of his abilities. Too many singles, an enormous home run, but just one walk; in another configuration that might not be four runs.

But the Cardinals would still lose. I hate to mention the no-hitter, but Lincecum's having a just-about-perfect season so far. His ESPN season projection: 35 starts, 246 innings, 285 strikeouts, 60 walks, nine home runs. That's right: style guide rules dictate that I spell out the number of home runs he allows in 246 innings. That's a good omen, unless he's stepping in against your team's stunned lineup.

I don't profess to know who we'll still be talking about 20 years from now, certainly not when it comes to pitchers, but Lincecum looks the part. He's wholly unique as a character, from his little league mound presence to his wild Gashouse Gang delivery, but statistically he's a perennial—tons of strikeouts, no walks, no home runs. You can't ask for anything more than that. Like I said: I don't want to jinx it, but for the last year and a half he's pitched like a poor man's Pedro Martinez. Nothing this team could do about that.

After the jump: Mark DeRosa energizes the team, Clayton Mortensen has a bad day, and in a very special episode Joe Thurston reveals that he suffers from baselexia, and has been hiding it all along because he didn't think the gang would understand (even though they really do!)

DeRosa's leaping catch, sandwiched between standing ovations two and three on his first night in curtain call country, requires me to invoke the exceptions-proving-the-rule clause of sportswriter stubbornness. That beautiful play aside, he's currently 0-7 in two unattractive Cardinals losses since the team fed Chris Perez into the Miklasz Care-o-meter. Of course this means nothing, and of course nobody thinks it does. Which is a fine way to start writing about a subject.

Anyway, it seems like we're very open, as a rule, to glossing over early failings to help an Energizing Trade narrative along; if the Cardinals struggle for another two weeks and then take off we'll still happily credit it to DeRosa's account, is all I'm saying. It's a good thing that we do, too, because otherwise season recaps would be considerably less interesting.

Our last Energizing Trade is almost too recent for me to recap—it's Jeff Weaver, riding in to save the day by not pitching all that well and then finally pitching pretty well in the playoffs. It was a different trade than this one, to be sure; it could be lauded because it was low risk, converting two good months from toolsy Terry Evans into a starting pitcher, and derided because it was low reward. But it was made with the same idea in mind, the new blood at a rough spot kick-starting a moribund team. Here's Some Blog on the occasion of the trade:

it does not strain the imagination to suggest that weaver might come in here, make 16 starts, turn in 9 or 10 quality starts and win 7 games. none of the cardinals' competitors in the division is likely to add a better pitcher than that; in what currently looms as a tight three- or four-way race for the division, weaver has a chance to make a real difference.

and then on August 3, after Weaves and the Cardinals got blitzed 16-8 by the Phils, midway through one of their famous multi-game losing streak:

i've seen all i need to of weaver; the experiment failed. he was worth a look, but these early blowouts sap morale, and the cards appear to have reached the limit of theirs. weaver's next turn comes monday in cincinnati, the first game of an important series; the cardinals simply can't afford to send him out there.

common sense dictates that his slot should go to wainwright, but it remains la russa's policy to run other, less competent pitchers out there.

(That last sentence is irrelevant, but I left it in because it's classic lboros x-acto knife prose. My rendition of that thought would require three sentences, eleven em-dashes, and a day-late qualification of my earlier position.)

As we know, here in the future, the Cardinals sent Weaver back out there, and he had his best start of the season, striking out seven in six innings to run the team's modest winning streak to three games. Then they got blown out 10-3. (That just was not a team that could Get Started—it was tuned for frustration, a lot like this one.)

Weaver didn't get the team going; one guy doesn't turn a mediocre team into one capable of meteoric winning streaks. But they went 8-7 when he started, and he replaced Sidney Ponson, who had not appeared in a game the Cardinals won since the end of May at that point. Weaver didn't pitch long enough to make quality starts, but even what he did, improbably as he did it, was enough to make that real difference. The Cardinals won the division by a game and a half.

Weaver and DeRosa and everybody this side of Will Clark can't make a team win eight in a row for the Gipper, or get everyone into shape with a well-placed montage. But if they play better than the mess they replace, and the division's close enough, they can certainly take the credit for it. I won't blame them.

Does someone want to explain this at-bat to Gameday?

SPD	BRK	PFX	PITCH	RESULT
89	7"	12"	Fastball	Called Strike
86	8"	5"	Changeup	Swinging Strike
87	7"	7"	Changeup	Ball
87	7"	4"	Changeup	Foul
91	7"	11"	Fastball	Stop doing that!

Juan Uribe homers (2) on a fly ball to left field.

There's Mortensen's problem, right there: 89 mile an hour fastball, 86 mile an hour changeup(?), consecutive pitches. To make things worse, 49 of his 50 pitches were classified as either fastball (ranging from 89 to 93) or changeup (ranging from 82 to 86). Some—maybe even most—of those pitches were probably sliders, but few of them did much of what Dizzy Dean would call sludding, and when they weren't the change of speeds wasn't enough to throw anybody off the scent. (His two strikeouts were against Pablo Sandoval, who will swing at anything and in that at-bat did, and Andres Torres, who swung at two of the worst consecutive pitches I have ever seen a non-pitcher wave at.)

I'm not about to judge a guy on one outing, but he's 24 right now, and the idea when the Cardinals reached for him back in 2007 was that he was only a few years away from shoring up the bottom of the rotation on the cheap. Back then I whined about the bizarre tactic of intentionally drafting back-of-the-rotation guys, who usually seem to show up, uninvited, on their own accord, and I'm still worried about the efficacy of that idea when I see Mortensen now. Now's the time the Cardinals were preparing for when they drafted him; hopefully he's ready for it.

Bill James Online's main draw is getting to read The Man Himself write incisively and accurately about all things baseball once or twice a week, but it has a sideline in exotic statistics, and one of them attempts to quantify how many bases a player adds or subtracts from the team till by virtue of his baserunning. It passes the first rule of statistical thumb: the players who you would expect to be really good at it are really good at it.

Scott Rolen, for example—here we take off our hats for a moment of solemn reverence—he's really good at it. This year he's taken twelve extra bases and made just two extra outs. In 2004, when he was at the height of his powers, he took nineteen and was only caught once, for a grand total of 26 bases the average runner wouldn't be expected to have.

Joe Thurston, for example—he's really not good at it. He's a daring, speedy baserunner; he's taken eight extra bases so far, and gone from second to home four times out of six chances. He Makes Things Happen, and if he had just kept his head down and done that he would still be assembling a cult utility-infield following. But he's already made five outs that the average baserunner wouldn't be expected to make. The final analysis rates him, already, at -6; Bill James Online sadly does not allow anti-leaderboards, but I'd be hard-pressed to think of anybody who weighs less than 270 pounds who would already be in that range.

It would be exciting if his outs came in the course of, well, Making Things Happen, but the weird thing is that just the opposite is true; they come on some of the most mundane plays imaginable, plays in which baserunning risk is the last thing on anybody's mind, up to and including the team playing defense.

His last gaffe was probably not game-altering—let's not humor ourselves, Joe Nathan was coming in—and it was almost excusable, coming as it did after LaRue and Oquendo had a sign mixup. But it just wasn't a situation in which you expect a major league baseball player to even be threatened, and that is what makes it so unspeakably frustrating to see it playing out over and over. I've just never seen anything like it.

choosing up sides

lboros — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:00:23 -0000

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

jeff luhnow's first selection in the amateur draft was also his best so far.

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howdy gang; i'll be sitting in today and friday while danup takes his annual leave of the pixels. i got nothing to say about the team this morning that you don’t already know; start hitting soon, boys. please?

the amateur draft starts tonight with rounds 1 through 3, plus a couple of sandwich rounds; i’ll post a comment thread for that, and a concurrent one for the baseball game against florida. i won’t be on hand tonight to update the picks on the front page as they’re made, so if anybody with keys to the blog has a chance to do that, go for it. and thank you.

this will be the 5th luhnow-run draft; that’s a lot of drafts for one guy. according to Baseball America’s executive database, only three scouting directors have run more drafts for the cardinal franchise -- marty maier, fred mcalister (rip), and george silvey. and maier’s were non-consecutive, which leaves silvey and mcalister -- both franchise legends -- as the only two men with longer uninterrupted stints than luhnow at the head of the draft.

there’s still plenty of room for argument about how effectively luhnow has drafted. he’s already had 10 draftees get to the majors -- rasmus, greene, boggs, stavinoha, and garcia from the 2005 draft; perez, walters, luke gregerson, and sugar shane from ’06; todd from ’07 -- but none has been around long enough to establish how good a big-leaguer he will be. the pundits give luhnow good marks -- since he started drafting, the cardinals’ farm system ranking (according to the likes of baseball america, keith law, and kevin goldstein) has jumped from at or near the bottom in 2005 to the top 10 this year. but there are a lot of doubters too, as joe strauss documented in his p-d article on sunday:

.[N]umerous holdovers from Jocketty's regime remain skeptical of a process they believe has amassed plenty of complementary "bat guys" and bullpen arms but few starting pitchers or "impact" players.

Late to the organization's greater emphasis on quantitative analysis, manager Tony La Russa openly has questioned the level of "experimentation" within player development and scouting under Luhnow.

Said La Russa: "What you can look at is: Who did you take? Who did you have the chance to take? What guys get to the big leagues? And of the guys who reach the big leagues, who are impressive? They're fair questions to ask."

Another organization member is blunter still: "There is very little down there, very little. We haven't drafted players you build a team around. We draft guys who may one day help. That's not opinion; that's fact."

anybody want to guess who the anonymous speaker of the last quote is? i'll bet you a number-one draft pick it’s dave duncan . . . . whichever "jocketty holdover" did say it, that comment made me laugh. in the years immediately before luhnow took over, the cardinals didn’t draft players you could build a triple A team around, much less a big-league club. during the dying days of jocketty’s tenure, he’d look down at the memphis roster for a short-term fill-in and his best options would be washed-out 30ish hitters like scott seabol, brian daubach, or timo perez, or mound journeymen like brian falkenborg and kelvin jimenez. the top "prospects" drafted late on jocketty’s watch, such as travis hanson and reid gorecki, didn’t even rise to the level of replacement players.

so it’s a fact -- not an opinion -- that the farm system is stocked with vastly more promise than it was when luhnow took over. he’s been procuring players for four years now, and in that time he’s brought into the organization two likely major-league regulars (colby rasmus and brett wallace), several others who are possible regulars or semi-regulars (daryl jones, pete kozma, tyler greene, bryan anderson), a bunch of others who have bench-player potential (most notably allen craig, john jay, tyler henley, daniel descalso), and a passel of guys with a good chance to stick somewhere as a reliever or mid- to back-rotation starter (mitch boggs, jaime garcia, lance lynn, clay mortensen, chris perez, jess todd, luke gregerson, francisco samuel, fernando salas). that’s not including anybody who’s presently at class A or below (ie, nearly the entire 2008 draft class), nor toolsy caribbean signees like roberto de la cruz and eduardo sanchez and gerardo mannbel.

let’s place that haul alongside the production of previous four-year spans:

	2005-08	2001-04	1997-00	1993-96
STARS	????	dan haren	albert pujols jd drew	matt morris
REGULARS	probably 3 to 5	skip schumaker	adam kennedy yadi molina jack wilson chris duncan coco crisp rick ankiel	placido polanco alan benes braden looper
PART-TIMERS	possibly 8 to 10	kyle mclellan joe mather brad thompson daric barton brendan ryan anthony reyes jason motte	bud smith mike crudale pablo ozuna	eli marrero jay witasick cliff polite britt reames chris richard kerry robinson brent butler

in this chart, the "regulars" category includes starting pitchers who earne a regular rotation spot, plus closers; "part-timers" includes non-closers in the bullpen. i didn’t bother to list replacement-level players (such as stavinoha and shane robinson), who are legion in all the 4-year periods and of absolutely no interest.

what immediately jumps out at me is that the cardinals drafted their asses off in the late 1990s -- and thereby set up the dynasty of the 2000s. between 1997 and 2000 they brought 8 everyday players into the organization, or 2 per year. they drafted an entire up-the-middle core -- yadi behind the plate; kennedy and wilson in the middle infield; crisp in center -- plus a pitcher with ace potential (ankiel) and two mvp-type hitters (pujols and drew). even though they squandered some of the talent (crisp and wilson were both dealt for half-season rentals, and ankiel you know about), the cardinals added an extraordinary amount of value to their portfolio during those years. we don’t think of the 2000s dynasty as being draft-built, but it really was -- their good drafts in the last half of the 1990s yielded albert pujols and matt morris plus (via trade) edgar renteria, jim edmonds, and scott rolen.

could the 2005-08 draft cohort turn out to be as productive as 97-00? not likely, but not impossible. if we’re lucky, rasmus and/or wallace might eventually fit into the "star" category; they might be the two most promising position players the cardinals have drafted since pujols (although wallace’s early showing at memphis -- 4 walks, 21 strikeouts, .088 isolated power in 91 at-bats -- does give me slight pause). daryl jones could turn into coco crisp, and pete kozma could grow up to be jack wilson (a player he was compared to at the time he was drafted); so could tyler greene, for that matter. there might be a closer (perez) and/or a rotation regular or two in the group. . . . in an extremely lucky scenario, there might be 8 everyday players (including a star or two) to come out of luhnow’s first four drafts. more likely the group will produce 3 to 5 regulars plus some bench depth; a good, not great, haul.

will the cardinals be able to build a contending team around these guys? too soon to tell; ask me again when luhnow’s preparing for his 8th or 9th draft . . . . .

Red Baron Note: Hey, gang, Aaron here. I'm going to be covering the draft as it happens over at the RFT, and I'll try to keep the draft thread here updated too whenever a pick is made. I'll probably save the heavy analysis, but I will make sure at least the names and maybe a link or a couple of sentences is put up.

Also, I know Erik is doing a liveblog over at FR via the CoverItLive software, so be sure to check that out as well. Lord, I love draft day.