LAKELAND, Fla. – The Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals have recently discussed a trade that would send infielder/outfielder Ryan Raburn to St. Louis, according to one person in the industry with knowledge of the talks.

Raburn has been battling for one of the final spots on Detroit’s Opening Day roster, but left-handed-hitting prospect Jeff Larish may have moved ahead of him in the competition. The Tigers can send Raburn to Triple-A Toledo without putting him through waivers – he has one minor league option remaining – but they may prefer to trade him for a pitching prospect.

Raburn, who turns 28 this month, has played five different positions in the majors – all three in the outfield, in addition to second and third base – and it’s been said that his versatility would make him an ideal player for the National League.

Raburn, a .255 hitter in 153 major league games, is generally regarded as a better defender in the outfield than the infield. Detroit manager Jim Leyland has also said in the past that he could be an emergency catcher.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy confirmed on Tuesday that his bullpen will include Rule 5 draftee Luis Perdomo, despite the fact that Perdomo gave up a homerun Monday, his second in 11 IP this spring. 

So its now official.  The Cardinals gave away Anthony Reyes, in effect.  They have nothing left from trading Reyes to the Indians last year.  What an error in judgement. 

"The guy throws 93, 94 with a good slider. He's been impressive," Bochy said.

Perdomo has 3 saves in four opportunities, along with 2 wins this spring.  And he has 10 strikeouts in 11 IP, while he has given up 5 walks. 

It puts the Cardinals' error in focus to consider how doubtful it is that right now the Giants would make a straight trade of Perdomo for Brad Thompson.

Or imagine how much better the Cardinal bullpen would be right now if McClellan took over Thompson's role as long reliever and Perdomo took McClellan's role....

Or imagine Reyes still with the Cardinals, with Duncan and LaRussa letting him pitch from his strengths.  The 27-year-old Reyes went 2-1 with a 1.83 ERA in six starts for the Tribe in August and September last season, after he was acquired in a July trade with the Cardinals.  Reyes has a 0.75 ERA this spring in four appearances, including 2 starts.  Sheesh!

I know, I know, that horse trade has already been beaten to death.  But with Perdomo now officially being kept by the Giants, it's time to note the last nail being driven into the coffin.... 

That the Cardinals have sent Chris Perez to AAA in favor of keeping Brad Thompson in the bullpen, demonstrates that in the roster formula for LaRussa and Mozeliak major league experience and the role a player is in (long term relief for Thompson) matter at least as much as superior talent (Perez vs. Thompson).

It seems a good bet that same formula will be applied in assigning one of these players to AAA:

• Thurston
• Ryan
• Barden
• Rasmus

The best move, IMO, would be to send Rasmus to AAA for a couple more months of seasoning, for these reasons:

• Just as the Cards have a surplus of RH relief pitchers, making it possible to send Perez to AAA to work on his conditioning and secondar pitches, the Cards already have a surplus of lefthanded outfielders, including Ankiel (full time) and Duncan (full time vs. LHP at least), and Skip Shumaker is said to be in line for a shift to the OF late in games when he is replaced by a reserve infielder with more experience at 2B (Ryan or Thurston or, best of all defensively, Barden)
• The market value for Ankiel and Duncan is not as high as it will be in a couple of months, if they show they are in full health (Duncan recovering from neck surgery, Ankiel from abdominal surgery).  Giving both maximum playing would be the best way to set up the most favorable trade of one of them before the July trading deadline.  Rasmus could then step into the role Rick or Chris vacate. 
• Rasmus, like Perez, has shown that he needs more seasoning to harness his own talent.  His hitting has been inconsistent this spring, despite flashes that show off his ample talents.  And he has even misplayed some balls in the field.  Giving Colby a tuneup at AAA and then moving him to the big leagues this summer would put him under less pressure than putting him on the opening day roster.
• The clock on the arbitration and free agent clock for Rasmus would be delayed a year if Colby came to the Cards this summer rather than in April.   That alone would mean that the Cardinals would be spending a whole year of Rasmus at low cost just for his playing part time for two months this season.  Mozeliak seems too smart at managing the team's assets to squander his player resources in that way.

So it shouldn't be a surprise if the Cardinals start the season with these players instead of Rasmus:

• Thurston - the only LH infield reserve with much power
• Mather - the only RH outfield reserve with much power and one who could platoon with Ducan vs. LHP
• Ryan - the best reserve at SS and a solid defensive reserve for Shumaker at 2B, with a couple of years of ML experience already
• Barden - another RH bat off the bench who could then sub in the field at 2B, 3B, or SS, with very good hitting this spring and a taste of ML experience, at least

The choice really seems to be between Barden and Schumaker.  A case can easily be made for keeping Rasmus and sending Barden to AAA, of course.  We might not know which way the Cards go until the end of the last spring training game: a nice little drama to make this last week of waiting for the real games to begin a bit less boring....

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Team culture seems to be one factor that makes the difference between winning and losing in sports.  I submit that premise for your discussion. 

Culture is the prevailing, persistent pattern of ideas, beliefs, assumptions, customs, symbols, and traditions that are shared by a group. Different teams, different cities have different cultures. They are ever evolving, but the core pattern of beliefs and assumptions tend to get passed down by various “rituals”, “legends”, “heroes”, and “myths” that express the core beliefs and assumptions and practices of the culture. This is what makes culture persist for a long time, changing much more slowly than particular customs and symbols do.

There is plenty of research evidence that every organization has a culture, and that culture has a significant, pervasive effect on the success of the organization.  (Anyone can google the question and find a number of articles from leading business schools and organizational psychologists.)  Rather than cite the dry academic evidence, I will post the much more colorful and entertaining evidence that can be found in articles by baseball writers and reporters.  I hope those who are interested in the question of culture will enjoy them.

Here is the first reference for your consideration:

How did the Rays do it?
By Gerry Fraley
SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
10/21/2008

[Excerpts]

Joe Maddon insists that he is as “old school’’ as Branch Rickey....

(Outfielder Delmon) Young was among several young players whom Maddon felt had a sense of entitlement that turned the club into a splintered group.

“I was more concerned about building relationships and trust within the organization,’’ Maddon said. “The accountability factor had to be nurtured and grown. It was almost at zero.’’

In case anyone did not get the message, Maddon twice pulled talented center fielder B.J. Upton from games this season after he gave half-hearted efforts. Upton has tied a record with seven homers in the playoffs.

“We’ve always had talent over here,’’ Upton said. “In the past, it’s kind of been guys on the individual, trying to do their own thing. Now, we’re thinking like a team and playing like a team.’’

I remember seeing an analysis a year or two ago that showed that World Series teams usually have three things in common: strong starting pitching, an excellent closer, and excellent defense.  Offense is less important than any of those three factors. 

Based on those four factors, the Cubs looked like the team to beat this year in the NL.  And going into the playoffs, they still looked like the team to beat.  Jayson Stark, among others, picked them to finally go the World Series.  The Cubs had three excellent starting pitchers, a very good closer, and excellent defense. 

So how did the team rated the best in the NL get swept by a team with a .519 winning percentage, a team they had beaten 5 of 7 times during the regular season?

Iin the clutch, two of the starters failed, and the defense failed. 

It seems Dempster just didn't have the fortitude of a Carpenter or a Gibson, etc.; the pressure seemed to get to him, leading him to give far more walks than he did per game during the season. 

Then with Zambrano on the mound, the emotionally volatile narcissist, and erratic performer over the last half of the season, the Cubs seemed to tense up, and they made a record number of errors. 

Being in a deep hole by the third game, the pitching and defense returned to normal, but the hitters seemed to be pressing against a very good pitcher, and that was the end of the series. 

Reminding players of the "curse" by having a Greek Orthodox priest sprinkle holy water on the field before the first game at Wrigley probably didn't help put the team in the right frame of mind either.  Sports psychologists tell us that athletes perform much better when they aim for success rather than when they aim for avoiding failure. 

But aiming to avoid failure has become the definitive value and a core tradition of Cub culture. 

The Cubs don't need a lot of different players, other than to replace Fukedome with an impact lefthanded hitting outfielder.  Otherwise, the Cubs have an excellent lineup that needs only some tweeking.   

Nor do the Cubs need a new manager.  Piniella is very good. 

What the Cubs seem to need is to replace their culture of avoiding failure with a culture of anticipating success.  A real change in culture, not just the adoption of "Cubs swagger". 

Imagine what a Pujols or Gibson would do for that team.  Fortunately, the Cards have Pujols, and they have a deep tradition, going all the way back to the Gashouse Gang right up to the present of "Playing a hard nine".  Cardinal players in this era, like those since the 1920's, play like they have a chance to beat anyone, even when the odds seem stacked against them. 

The Cardinal culture of winning seems to be a key factor in the Cardinals having been the most dangerous NL team in the World Series in the last 100 years.  In the four Series they have lost in their nine since the end of World War II, there was either a fluke (in '68 superb outfielder Curt Flood slipping in center field against the Tigers in game 7, and in '85 the umpire's blatantly bad call at first base), or the team was deflated by a major injury just before the Series began (losing Vince Coleman in a tangle with the tarp in '87, losing Chris Carpenter to a nerve problem in 2004).  Even with those mishaps and missteps, the Cardinals are 5-4 in the World Series since WWII and 10-7 in their last 100 years.

Meanwhile, the Cubs have been losers of their last 12 final post-season series, including 7 World Series losses from 1908 to 1945.  Hardly anyone alive today remembers a Cub World Series victory.  No wonder the Cubs have a culture of losing.  Until that culture changes, it looks like a good bet that their tradition of ultimate futility will continue, even in years when the team has the talent to win.

Hey, all you Izturis detractors, why are you not lobbying for Izturis to be traded to the Dodgers?  (Jason Stark says the Boys in Blue are looking for a backup SS.  See below.)  Perhaps the Cards could replace Izturis with Brian Barden.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Brendan Ryan should remain a backup player.  He's only two years younger than Cesar, and Brendan has not done any better with the bat than Izturis.  In fact, their hitting stats are very similar, except Ryan doesn't even have one home run, and his ratio of strikeouts to walks is not nearly as good as Cesar's; and his fielding is not as consistently excellent, so actually Cesar has played better in the field and at bat.

 

Dodgers looking for SS

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

 

Posted by Jayson Stark

The Dodgers are now unsure about the future of two shortstops -- Nomar Garciaparra (who sprained a ligament in his left knee) and Rafael Furcal (back surgery) -- so they've resumed their search for another. But with Furcal expected to return in early September, the Dodgers don't seem to be focused on acquiring a front-line player. Instead, they've been inquiring about utility players -- bats off the bench -- who can fill in at short for a couple of weeks.

You just knew I'd have to comment on the day Izturis hit his first home run of the season!  And it wasn't a cheap shot, like Ludwick's bounce off the outfielder's glove just barely onto the top of the left field wall.  : )

John Mozeliak and Jeff Luhnow deserve kudos for their assessment of available shortstops last winter. Izturis, as projected by his performance the last time he was healthy and playing full time, is turning out to have been the best SS available when the Cardinals let Eckstein walk..

Current OPS ranking of the four most recent Cardinal shortstops (primary position):

• Izturis .695, 6 strikeouts in 118 AB's
• Ryan .689, 8 strikeouts in 58 AB's
• Renteria .650, 20 strikeouts in 156 AB's
• Eckstein .637, 12 strikeouts in 118 AB's

Izturis not only has the best OPS of the four as of today but he also has the best strikeout ratio by a large margin.

Izturis also leads the group with 3 SB's but he has been caught 3 times and he has twice as many AB's as Ryan.

Renteria leads the group in HR's but with only 3.

Defensively, Izturis has the best zone rating and scouts rate him the best fielder among the four.

Izturis, who will still be only 28 by the end of this season, is five years younger than Eckstein and Renteria (both 33 by end of season). Ryan will still be 26 by the end of this season. Brendan is only 2 years and a month younger than Cesar.

Plus,

• Renteria's salary this year is 10M
• Eckstein is getting 4.5M
• Izturis is getting 2.85M
• Ryan gets $393k

In addition,

• Ryan still needs more seasoning.
• Eckstein is more and more injury prone.
• Renteria cost valuable prospects and over three times as much in salary.

Out of the 40 shortstops listed in the MLB batting stats by ESPN.com, Izturis' current OPS of .695 now ranks 24th, just ahead of Boston's Julio Lugo.

No doubt azruavatar will say that Cesar's performance is "unsustainable".  We'll have a chance to test that hypothesis with a better sample size at the midpoint of the season.

But for now, considering Izturis' fielding excellence, his performance so far this season should be considered at least average overall among MLB shortstops, a lot better than the great majority of fans and sportswriters were predicting.

 

How is Cesar Izturis doing just over 20% of the way into the season?  Has he been a solid contributor, as this VEB  fan predicted in an earlier fan post?

Fielding

Cesar's RZR stands at .897.  That is second in MLB only to Troy Tulowitzki among qualified SS’s.  Izturis is still approximating the gold glove form he displayed the last time he was playing healthy and full time, in 2004 and early 2005.

Hitting

Cesar's OBP stands at .354.  That's better than the 7th ranking ML SS, out of the 25 ML SS’s with enough AB’s to qualify for the batting title.

But Cesar's SLG is very low, even lower than expected, only .293, slightly better than the 22nd ranking SS (out of 25).

That makes Cesar's OPS .647, very low, only slightly better than the 19th ranking ML SS (out of 25). 

That 19th ranked SS happens to be David Eckstein.

Comparing Izturis to all ML Hitters This Season

Many in this forum have repeatedly bemoaned Izturis' weak hitting (he's certainly no Renterria or Tulowitzki, we all agree), but a few have even referred to Cesar as the worst hitter in the major leagues.  Let's test that assertion:

Of the 193 qualified batters to date this season, 33 have an OPS lower than Izturis.  That is, Cesar has a better OPS than 17% of the full-time ML players.  Okay, he's not a great hitter.  None of us imagined he would be.  But Izturis so far has been a respectable hitter, though barely so.

The season is only one fifth finished, though.  So we can expect all player stats to gravitate, or regress, toward their career averages (or, more precisely, to the next point on their rising or falling career performance curve, depending on age and epxerience).  The fact that one fifth of a season is too small a sample size to make a projection for a full year is strikingly illustrated by looking at some of those 33 players who today have a lower OPS than Izturis but at least some of whom are extremely good bets to end up with much better numbers than Cesar by the end of the season:
 
Gary Shefield
Ryan Howard
David Eckstein
Adam LaRoche
Ryan Zimmerman
J.J. Hardy
Freddy Sanchez
Khalil Greene
Andruw Jones
Mike Lamb

Wow.  It will be a bit of a surprise for most fans to see Izturis hitting better than Eckstein.  But to see Izturis outhitting Sheffield and Howard is a shock!  Hail, Cesar! 

A Solid but Not Great Contribution So Far

So far, Izturis is right on track to match his OBP from his last period of good health and full time play (2004 and early 2005), so we should expect about the same OBP the rest of the year.  His .293 SLG is 40 points lower than his career SLG, though: .333.  And his SLG this year is about 90 points lower than Cesar's .381 SLG in 2004, his last full year of healthy, full-time play.  So it appears safe to say that we can reasonably expect Izturis to hit more doubles and a few more triples than he has so far this season.

Let's check in again at the mid-point of the season and see how Izturis is doing by then, when we'll have a more solid basis for projecting his stats for the whole year.

It took awhile for Cesar Izturis to get the rust out in spring training.  By the last week of the exhibition games, Izturis executed what Rooney and Shannon called the best defensive play by any player they had seen on any team all March.  Finally, St. Louis fans and sportswriters are coming around to recognizing that Cesar Izturis is an exceptional fielding shortstop (always has been, except when he was having hamstring problems or suffering from an ailing elbow that required ligament replacement in 2005).

But the misperception continues that Izturis is "the worst hitter in baseball", as some have claimed  This despite the fact that Cesar continues to show good plate discipline, with few strikeouts, a good number of walks, and a tendency to hit solid line drives.  Cesar has never had much power at all, but, for the Cardinals so far in this budding season, he has been getting on base and not giving up AB's, which is primarily what the Cards want their #9 hitter to do batting behind the pitcher and ahead of Pujols:

After 10 games of the regular season, Izturis has an OBP of .394, better than every player on the team with more than 12 AB's, other than Pujols.

But Izturis has a SLG of only .308 (his line drives have been caught most of the time so far).  That should go up if he keeps hitting line drives.  At this early stage, Cesar's SLG is better than that of Duncan, Kennedy, and Miles.  And his OPS of .702 is better than that of Duncan, Schumaker, Kennedy, and Miles.

An earlier indication that Izturis had regained his timing as a hitter was that Izturis had a BA of .300 and OBP of .417 in the Cardinals' last nine games of spring training, when the Redbirds and other teams were playing their regulars for the final tune-up for the season (after the Cardinal brass met on a day off, March 19, to make key decisions on the final roster).

People continue to ignore the fact that the last time Izturis was healthy, in 2004 and the first third of 2005, he was a very respectable hitter.  His poor hitting in the last half of 2005 was at a time he was seriously ailing, and his poor hitting during the last half of 2006 was when he was back from major surgery and playing only part time (which may have kept him from regaining his timing).  His poor hitting during the first half of 2007 came at a time when he was again playing only occasionally because he had a prolonged hamstring problem. 

If you examine the pattern of development for Izturis over his career, it becomes evident that after his first two years, when he was pressed into duty for the Dodgers at the age of 22, before he had had time to become a big league hitter, Izturis did, at the age of 24, become a respectable hitter.  The last stretch of his career when Izturis was fully healthy and playing full time, at the age of only 24 and 25, his batting average was .301 and his OBP was a very respectable .344.

Given the persistence of the perception that Cesar can't hit at all, it's worth repeating that his .344 OBP came in 889 consecutive AB's over the season and a third in 2004 and 2005, before his physical problems began (elbow, hamstring, etc.). Izturis' AB's in this period amount to 33% of his career total of 2751 AB's before the Cardinals acquired him.  That's too large a sample size of consecutive AB's to ignore, but people continue to do so.... 

Izturis is healthy and playing full time.  Let's give this former Gold Glover and All Star a chance to show what he can do under those conditions rather than reciting over and over the notion that he can not make an important contribution to the Cardinals this year.

Making projections for any baseball season is risky, even if quantitative analysis (stats) and qualitative analysis (scouting reports) are combined.  Even the most scientific, comprehensive statistical analysis, by itself, takes into account only the variables that can be quantified.  This leaves a lot of variance in the projected performance unaccounted for.  So, for example, as scientific and comprehensive a method as the Diamond Mind projections can miss the mark by a significant margin in projecting overall team performance or performance for individual players.

Case in point: Diamond Mind's projections for 2007 had these notable misses:

Three of the 8 playoff teams in 2007 were underestimated by 10 games or more, including both World Series opponents.

Colorado - last place, 77-85 projected record vs. actual 90-73 record

Arizona - third place, 79-83 projected record vs. actual 90-72

Boston - third place, 86-76 record vs. 96-66

Two other notable teams were overestimated by 7 games or more:

St. Louis - first place, 85-77 record vs. 78-84

Dodgers - first place, 91-71 record vs. 82-80

Despite the risk of embarrassment, I will venture to make the case for what the great majority would regard as a very optimistic projection of the Cardinal win total this season.

Rather than going into a recital of the statistical evidence, which has been discussed in so much detail already that your eyes would glaze over if I repeated any of it, I'll look at the broader picture for the Cardinals, using as the primary reference point the Cubs, since Chicago is the consensus team to beat this year in the NL Central. 

Bold prediction: The Cardinals will score more runs and give up a lot fewer runs than last year, enough to more than erase their negative 104-run differential in 2007 (just replacing the 32 starts by Kip Wells and Mike Maroth in 2007 with league-average starts would, alone, eliminate the entire differential, even if the Cardinal offense didn't improve).  Here's the rationale:

RUNS ALLOWED

This is considered by almost everyone to be the Achilles heal that will do in the Cardinals this season.  The doubts are easily understandable.  But I believe they are grossly overblown.  

The starting pitching is the looming concern, of course.  Two notes first:

The defense will be somewhat improved from last year (probably better in LF, SS, backup C, and RF, but significantly weaker, though still solid, at 3B).

The relief pitching should be better than last year, when the starters melted down and overtaxed the bullpen, finally wearing them out by September.  There will be much better reinforcements this year, if needed, including the return of Josh Kinney by June, and from AAA, if needed, Motte and Perez.

As for the starters, they will leave the team very vulnerable in April.  But first the good news: Wainwright's pattern last year indicates that he will offer top tier performance (as he did last year the last two thirds of the season) and I predict that Lohse, with Duncan's guidance on pitch selection and preparation, will offer legitimate #2 performance rather than his historic #3 level.  The bad news is that Thompson and Wellemeyer are #4 or #5 performers as starters, and Looper is a #6 performer (after mid-May last year his performance was very weak the rest of the season).  If that mediocre rotation, on balance, was slated for the Cardinals for the entire season, I'd join the chorus of those who pick the Cards for fourth place, behind the Cubs, Brewers, and Reds. 

But, wait, there's hope, for two reasons. 

First, the schedule of 28 games for the month of April includes 21 games against teams that finished under .500 last year.  That could allow the Cards to hold the fort (or keep their heads above water, if you prefer that image, in view of the recent floods).  

The biggest reason for hope in the rotation is the depth of starting pitching in the Cardinal supply chain, unlike last year when the team kept throwing Kip Wells out there almost all year and resorted to disastrously failed reinforcements such as Mike Maroth and a prematurely returned, still very weak Mark Mulder, and a not-ready-for-prime-time Anthony Reyes.  In stark contrast this year, a series of very probable, solid improvements will be added to the rotation, in late April (Pineiro), mid-May (Mulder), June (Clement, perhaps), and July (Carpenter).  Pineiro's #3 level of pitching, or better, will be an improvement over Thompson or Wellemeyer's #4 level, whichever he replaces; Joel thrived under Duncan's coaching last year with the Cards, who corrected a flaw in his delivery that had been tipping his pitches.  Mulder has regained his strength, by all reports, and just needs to finish reestablishing his arm slot and mechanics; he projects to perform at a #3 level at least, possibly #2; either would be better than Thompson or Wellemeyer, whichever is left in the rotation by May.  Clement is a big question mark, obviously; he might build his strength enough to provide #3 level performance, which would be a huge improvement over Looper, or Clement might not pitch one effective inning for the Cards; even if Clement fails, it looks as if McClellan could improve the rotation by stepping into a starting role (or Mortenson or Garcia temporarily) until Carpenter returns, finally, in July.  Again, all reports indicate that Carp is right on track; the history of recovery from his kind of surgery indicates he should perform this year a notch below his strongest previous level as he continues to build strength; that would put him at the #2 level of performance.

One more bit of hope for the Cards comes from the fact that 12 of the 15 games the Cardinals play vs. the Cubs will come in July or later in the season.  Those 15 games will be the most important games of the regular season, since each game provides a 2-game difference in the standings: the Cards will either gain a full game (+1) in the standings, compared with the Cubs, or lose a full game (-1) at the end of each contest.  The good news is that in 12 of the 15 games vs. the Cubs the Cards will have their best rotation in place:

Carpenter
Mulder
Wainwright
Lohse or Clement
Pineiro

That could be as strong and deep as any rotation in the NL by the end of this season.  Or it could fail to materialize if some of the four starters on the DL as the season begins do not regain good health and strength.  Chances are that Pineiro will join the rotation, since the tightness in his shoulder is not serious.  And the reports on Carpenter and Mulder indicate they are both right on track to return.  Even if only one of them returns, it would make the Cardinal rotation above average on balance, at least (a healthy Carpenter last year, alone, instead of Reyes or Wells, would have probably put the Cardinals in first place by the end of the season).. 

RUNS SCORED

The Sabermatricians, using a variety of formulas, predict the Cardinals will score more runs this year than last.  I concur, based on the method of pattern analysis I use for offensive (and defensive) projections, reliable enough to have led me to predict the 100-win season in 2004 when the consensus among sportswriters was that the Cards would not even win a wild card berth.

The pattern of previous performance for the key Cardinal players indicates that they will contribute more on offense than the Cardinals got last year from the same positions:

Pujols - Will get better pitches to hit, with Glaus and Ankiel batting behind him, both of whom could hit 30 HR.

Kennedy (Backed up by Miles) - Will hit much better this year (by positive regression to the mean after his aberrant season in 2007) and Adam will be backed up vs. LHP by Miles, who does have a solid OBP vs. them. (despite all his other shortcomings).

Glaus - Will have a much higher OPS than Rolen did last year and add 20-25 more HR's to the offense.

Ankiel - Great tools, still moving up the learning curve, very motivated and focused (in effect, replaces Encarnacion, who had much less power)

Duncan (backed up by Barton) - Recovered from hernia, getting his batting stroke back (and has become a competent left fielder)

Schumaker (backed up by Ludwick) - Will perform better this year than Edmonds did last year (Schu, Ludwick, and Ankiel all outperformed Edmonds in OPS last year by a good margin). By July an even better replacement will arrive, Colby Rasmus.

From the other two positions, C (Molina backed up by LaRue) and SS (Izturis backed up vs. LHP by Ryan), the Cardinals will probably have less offense than last year.  Still, that leaves six spots in the batting order improved and only two diminished.  The net effect will be significantly more runs scored, especially more HR's from the outfield and 3B.

On balance all of these probable improvements indicate that the Cardinals' total runs scored will be within 20 of the total for the Cubs this year, at least (even with Soto and Fukedome joining Chicago).  I predict the Cardinals will outscore Chicago.

OTHER VARIABLES

Aside from the promotion of Colby Rasmus by mid-July, if not before, the Cards will probably have a great opportunity to improve by then, by trading surplus pitching (especially Lohse and maybe Looper, who will be free agents at the end of the season, and probably Reyes) and a surplus lefthanded outfielder (Duncan or Schumaker?).

BOTTOM LINE

I predict the Cards will win at least 85-88 games this season, probably not enough to win the wild card, much less the NL Central.  But as Joaquin Andujar used to say, "Ya nevah know". 

The Cardinals aren't the only team with questions and vulnerabilities. Gagne could flop as the Brewer closer, considering his awful record with Boston last year, and/or Sheets could get hurt again; and Zambrano could melt down longer than he did last season and/or Kerry Wood's arm could fail and/or Fukedome could struggle to adjust to the NL and/or Soto and Pie and other young Cub players could have their own difficult adjustments, etc.  

The Cardinals have the most questions, yes, where it matters most, in the rotation.  But the Cardinals also have a good supply of potential answers, far better than those they tried last year (Maroth, Keisler, a weak Mulder, etc.)

Even if the Cardinals end up only hovering around .500 by the end of this season, it will be fascinating and fun to watch the team develop and add exciting new players (Barton, Rasmus, Perez, McClellan, Mortenson, Garcia, etc.), reloading and shaping the team into a new blend, on the run, near-term and long-term, with a very strong new core (Pujols and Rasmus, Carpenter and Wainwright, perhaps Duncan, Barton and Ankiel, etc.).  

This Cardinals team seems to be set up to sneak up on the competition and surprise them, maybe not as much this year as they did at the end of the season in 1964 or after their miserable September in 2006, but considering how low the expectations are for this team, it looks like an excellent bet that the vast majority of Cardinal fans will be very pleasantly surprised by the end of this season.

I posted this as a regular post a month ago.  Another VEB blogger suggested I make this a FanPost.  Here goes:

It seems that Cesar's talent and skills are being significantly underestimated by sportswriters and by great majority of VEB bloggers.  What seems to be overlooked in his case is the projections that should be made from looking at his developmental curve and at the effect of injuries and other disruptions on Izturis' performance.  To ignore patterns and trends in a player's performance history can lead to  gross mistakes in projections of future performance.  This seems to be the case with Izturis.

Let's examine the pattern of his career:

 

Because of his excellent defense, the Dodgers rushed Izturis to the NL too young, when he was only 21 years old, before he had developed as a hitter, and he was an awful hitter his first two full seasons, when he was 22 and 23 years old:

2002 AVG .232, OBP .253!!!
2003 AVG .251, OBP .282!!!

In his third full season, at age 24, Izturis moved up the learning curve enough to become a respectable hitter:

2004 AVG .288, OBP .330

That year he had 193 hits, including 4 HR, struck out only 70 times in 670 AB, and stole 25 bases in 34 attempts.  He also won a gold glove.  

The upward trend in his hitting continued in the beginning of his fourth full season, at age 25:

April 2005 AVG .333, OBP .370 in 102 AB
May   2005 AVG .350, OBP .402 in 117 AB

Izturis was voted to the All-Star team that season.

But in June 2005 he began having a series of physical ailments and as a result his hitting abruptly plummeted:

June  2005 AVG .105, OBP .154, in only 86 AB

His hitting continued to suffer and his playing time continued to diminish significantly the rest of that year.  After the All-Star break he had only 22 more AB than he had had in May alone:

2005 Post-ASB AVG .216, OBP .257, in 139 AB

Izturis was playing hurt.  At the end of that 2005 season Izturis had Tommy John surgery.  During the offseason, the Dodgers  signed Furcal to play SS. After Izturis returned to the diamond, on June 20, 2006, the Dodgers played him part-time at third base.  A month later, on July 31, 2006, Izturis was traded to the Cubs for Greg Maddux and $2 million cash.  

Only three weeks later, on August 22, 2006, the Cubs put Izturis on the DL with a bad hamstring.  He had only 60 AB that month and his hitting continued to suffer (.233 AVG, .292 OBP).  When he came off the DL in September he had only 13 AB.  

It seems that these severe disruptions of Izturis' regular play, through a combination of physical ailments and being shifted from SS to 3B, as well as being traded in the middle of the season and soon after going on the DL, seriously interfered with Izturis' timing or his confidence as a hitter, or both.

By the beginning of last year Izturis had lost his job as the regular SS for the Cubs.  He had only 50 AB in April and his hitting continued to suffer under those conditions:

.200 AVG, . 273 OBP

But in May, Izturis got more playing time, he seemed to get back on track again finally:

.297 AVG, .350 OBP in 74 AB

Izturis outhit Ryan Theriot that month.  But in the next month, the Cubs gave Theriot increasing playing time as the regular SS and the Cubs reduced playing time for Izturis, once again relegated to the role of utility player (56 AB in June) and his hitting plummeted again:

June 2007 AVG .232, OBP .259.

Finally, on July 19, 2007, the Cubs sent Izturis to the Pirates.  He had only 28 AB that month and 106 AB for the rest of the season.  

How will Izturis respond to being given regular AB's every day again and playing at his natural position full time at short?  How will he respond to the encouragement of his fellow Latin Americans who are the team leaders on the Cardinal infield, Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina and Jose Oquendo, and to playing before a full house of encouraging, gracious fans rooting for him every home game in St. Louis' "Baseball Heaven"?  Will these conditions allow him to regain his confidence and find his batting groove again, so he can play at the level he did in 2004 and the first third of 2005, before his physical ailments derailed his career?  Will Cesar get back on track on his development curve as a hitter, from his premature entry to the NL, into his third season when his hitting came together respectably?

It should be fascinating seeing that question answered when the season begins.  But let's not join the madding crowd's bleating about how awful Izturis will be until we've seen how he actually performs under the conditions he will face in St. Louis.

The most recent set of data we have for Izturis under normal conditions, that is, as a healthy player with a full time role at one position, is in 2004 and the first third of 2005.

Based on that set of data, Izturis has demonstrated that he can reasonably be expected to be a respectable hitter, at least, for a shortstop. The data cover 889 consecutive AB's over one and a third seasons in 2004 and 2005, before his physical problems began (elbow, hamstring, etc.). Izturis' AB's in this period amount to 33% of his career total of 2751 AB's, a very good sample size. In that large sample of AB's, Izturis has an AVG of .301 and an OBP of .344.  It is highly improbable that performing at that level over that long a period was a fluke.  And given that Izturis is still only 28 years old, it is reasonable to expect that he will still be near the top of his career curve.

Taking into account the performance curve and injury history for Izturis, it would seem to be a good bet that Izturis will be a solid contributor this year.

Yet otherwise knowledgeable baseball aficionados seem to discount the pattern of Izturis' career and what it indicates about his actual level of talent and skill.  In fact, most sportswriters and VEB bloggers seem to make a habit of discounting the projective power of statistical trends and patterns.  Few sportswriters or fans raised strong concerns about the pattern in Mark Mulder's performance in his last year with Oakland, before the Cardinals acquired him.  Likewise, few expressed strong concern about the trends for Tino Martinez before his acquisition.  But quite a few criticized the Cardinals for taking Chris Carpenter out of the "trash bin" while he was still recovering from serious arm problems, after a career that was only league average.  The future performance of these players and others is best predicted by combining an assessment of their statistical patterns and trends along with direct observation and analysis of the players' performance skills.

Izturis is 28 years old, an age when most players are still in their highest  performance range on the age-performance curve.   It is not unusual for a player in his late 20's to perform much better than he did in his earlier years.

Consider the pattern for Ozzie Smith, for example.  Based on Ozzie's performacne in his first several years in the NL, almost no one publicly predicted when the Cardinals acquired him that such an awful offensive player would become a solid contributor offensively.  

Here is Ozzie's OPS+ in the four years before he became a Cardinal:

82
48
71
62

Compare that with Cesar's OPS+ in the four years before he became a Cardinal:

88
66
57
60

Smith was young enough to be on the upward side of his learning curve, and he went on to become a much better hitter than he had been before he became a Cardinal.  

Ozzie joined the Cardinals at age 27.  Cesar is 28.

The primary difference between the offensive success of Smith and Izturis before joining the Cardinals, aside from the fact that Smith's OPS+ of 48 was 9 points lower than Izturis' lowest OPS+ and Izturis' OPS+ of 88 was 6 points higher than Smith's highest OPS+, is that Smith had stolen more bases.  Of course, Smith had the advantage of no having had his performance hindered by a lingering hamstring injury and Tommy John surgery and by being jerked around from SS to 3B, 2B, utility player, etc., while he was recovering from injury.

Before you blast me for comparing Izturis with Smith, keep in mind that I am only referring to their offensive success before joining the Cardinals.  I am not comparing their careers overall, nor their fielding.  The point is that it seems very likely that most sportswriters and VEB bloggers would have been just as pessimistic of Smith's prospects offensively, when he became a Cardinal, as they are now of the prospects for Izturis.  

Again, Cesar could turn out to be a bust.  Or he could turn out to be an undervalued player who was a very smart acquisition.  Nothing in the empirical data makes either of those predictions more likely than the other.  We just won't know until the season unfolds.

What we do know is that it is foolish to make predictions based on past performance while ignoring conditions that might have had a major impact on the player's performance.  To achieve the highest success in predicting peformance, we must take into account the well established pattern in the learning curves of baseball players in their 20's, and we must take into account  how much a player's history of performance can be skewed by the impact of injuries and lack of regular playing time.  The best predictor of future performance is past performance, but under the same or similar conditions.  That proviso is disregarded at the risk of the analyst.