The most recent buzz has just come in about Roy Halladay saying the the Cardinals may have serious interest via Mlbtraderumors.com

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/07/cardinals-have-real-interest-in-halladay.html

I know there has been a couple posts about him already I want to lay out some of the things that need to be looked at in order for us to be able to acquire Halladay.

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According to MLBTradeRumors.com via Baseball America, the Cardinals have been in negotiations with Wagner Mateo, 16 year old outfielder from the Dominican Republic since May and plan to sign him after the signing period begins on July 2.  The report says we will give him a 3 million dollar signing bonus.

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Chris Carpenter is just got done pitching in his first outing of Spring Training.  He looked great today going 2 innings with no problems.  He gave up 0 hits, 0 walks, and 0 runs and didn't even throw 20 pitches.  Mike Shannon said he looked like he was throwing free and easy and that he was not struggling with his arm at all.  This sounds very promising to me.  Carpenter was effective, located, and had zero signs of any health issues.  The Down Side: He never really got into the 90's.  But that may not be such a bad thing, since this is his first game in many days.

Jon Jay is also looking good.  He has been playing DH and has gone 4 for 9 so far with a double and an RBI triple.  The double was deep of the right field wall and was nearly a Home Run.  Schumaker is hitting well and is playing decent defense not making an error so far, although I don't think he's done anything spectacular.  I did notice on a groundball that he did not get down on it very much, but it was a very easy play.  The ball was a slow roller and was pretty easy.  Ankiel has already made some great defensive plays.  Rasmus is 2 for 12 with a double.  He also tracked down a ball over his head and got some glove on it but couldn't hang on.  He was in right field though.  Duncan has gone 2 for 9 with 4 strikeouts.  Greene has gone 1 for 5.  Our starting pitcher besides Carpenter haven't looked to good so far.  Motte and Perez have both thrown a scoreless inning.  Motte threw one strikeout and gave up 0 hits.  Perez had 0 strikeouts and gave up 1 hit. 

There's an early update on some of the Cardinals question marks.

Also Mather is looking good at third base.  And he has taken number 7.

Duncan just came up with the bases loaded and had a Grand Slam robbed by  Nationals outfielder, Maxwell.  Then he came up with two men on and hit one to the wall.  He's just missed 5 RBI's and 2 Home Runs by a few feet.

Cardinals winning 5-0

Franklin went 3 innings with 5 strikeout and just one hit (an infield hit by the way).

If Skip Schumaker could play average defense at second base, he would be a great choice as our next second baseman.  

I used a couple of basic hitting sabermetrics to determine his runs created and I also used a linear weight formula to compare him to second basemen around the majors from 2008.  The stats I calculated must be fairly accurate because they said the Pujols was the best hitter in the National League (and the majors) and Pedroia was the best hitter in the American League.

The linear weight said that Schumaker would be the 5th best hitting 2B in the Nationals and 11th in the majors.  The runs created stat said he would be 4th best in the Nationals and 9 in the majors.   The only better option that we might have a chance at would be Jose Lopez which I would recommend we do if we can get a good deal for him.  Only $1.6M.  But that’s for a later time. 

With our surplus of OF we could easily afford to move Schu to second.  If he can prove that he can field the grounders then there is absolutely no reason not to give him the job.

Which leads me to Adam Kennedy.  He was nowhere near the top of the list in these hitting categories.  Schumaker was nearly 40 better in both runs created and linear weights.  That is a fairly significant offensive upgrade, which I think would outweigh the defense downgrade.  To be fair to Kennedy, he did play in 38 games.  But regardless, I still think Schumaker would have a great offensive advantage over Kennedy. 

Schumaker was even a little better than Hudson on offense but Hudson played only 107 games while Schu played 153 and these stats are affected by amount of playing time, so Orlando would be a better option if we can get him. 

Schumaker was our second best hitting OF last year.  DeWitt just came out and said we’re not being affected by the economy much due to the all-star game, so what I take out of that is that we have money to spend.  Manny anyone?  He was the best hitting OF last year creating more runs than anyone with 140 and finishing in second in the linear weights by 1/100 of a point.  Ludwick was 5th.  Ankiel wasn’t too shabby.  That would be a great lineup.

Although if we did somehow sign Manny, Ludwick or Ankiel would be gone for pitching.  Now for pitchers I used a rating based off league average.  If we are going the trade route, there are a few people I would like to see in a Cardinals uniform.  Not much from the Marlins, Nolasco or Volstad.  If Detroit is trading, I want Gallaraga.  There are a few others I would like to see.  The Free agent wise, Perez was only slightly above average, so I’m not too upset there except he good have had some more potential.  We’ll see I guess.  Looper was above average and started 33 times.  He is what we need.  I am all for re-signing him.  Cheaper and more durable than Sheets, he fits in with what we need and he will not cost us our 1st round pick. 

By the way, Springer was very slightly better than Fuentes last year.  He would have also been a few million cheaper.  But we couldn’t sign either.  Also, our only starting pitcher that was below league average for us last year was Pineiro and he wasn’t that close to league average.

To finish this off, I’ll just say that we should sign Manny trade Ludwick/Ankiel and/or a prospect or two to the Mariners for Rowland-Smith/Morrow and/or Lopez.  Or to Marlins for Volstad and/or Uggla (probably just one of them)  Then we still have a logjam in the OF if we get Lopez or Uggla so we can trade Dunc to the AL for some relief help.

2B Lopez

CF Ankiel (Rasmus will go to Memphis for a while)

1B Pujols

LF Ramirez

3B Glaus

SS Greene

C Molina

P

RF Schumaker

Or flip Lopez and Schu

I can go on longer but won’t waste your time with more ideas that will never happen that this turned into at the end.