wellemeyer	zimmerman
1-2, 6.14	2-0, 2.38

there have been 9 players named "zimmerman" in major league history; the 2009 nationals have two of them. the guy pitching tonight, jordan zimmerman, is the second "jordan zimmerman" to reach the major leagues; the first one had a 7.88 career era in 8 games for the mariners in 1999.

j zim the 2nd was the 67th player drafted in the 2007 draft, chosen a few players in front of jess todd. quoting an old post from the Mound Talk blog:

Zimmerman boasts a good reportoire of pitches starting with his fastball. A true plus pitch, he works in the 91-93 range consistently. He has good heavy sinking motion on his fastball and will attack hitters on the lower half of the plate with it.

Zimmerman threw a good slider with sharp, late bite to it in college but has stopped throwing it as much at the instruction of the Washington Nationals.

Lagging behind these pitches are his changeup and curveball. His curve is becoming a bigger part of his aresenal with the diminishing use of the slider. He throws a big 12-6 curve that sits in the low 70s.

Everything about Jordan Zimmerman looks good. He is a big, college pitcher with lots of projection. He is polished and has great makeup. Even for a college pitcher, his polish and makeup is advanced. For this reason, he should be fast-tracked by the Nationals.

he got called up on april 20 and has pitched 2 games, both wins (vs the braves and the mets).

 

happy may day, ev’yone; what a great month april was. i'm filling the chair for dan while he gets the last of his undergraduate assignments out of the way. some random items:

 

i) boggs tossed another nice game. i'd like to say his slider was unhittable, because when the nationals swung at it they almost always missed; he got 6 swinging strikes on the pitch, vs only two balls in play. unfortunately, one of the latter was zimmerman’s home run in the 1st inning . . . . . . but never mind that. seems fair to say it’s a big-league pitch. boggs also got some swing-misses on his high fastball, including one by adam dunn to start off the 6th inning. that pitch was clocked at 93 mph, so don’t chalk up the unhappy events that immediately ensued to fatigue. boggs was still bringing it.

austin kearns swung through another fastball right before the hbp, which was the only real mistake pitch of the inning. the triple and double both came on pitches at the bottom of the strike zone -- a sinker to flores, a changeup to anderson. not great pitches, but neither was terrible. the fastball to zimmerman that ended the 5th was far worse, a fastball belly-button high down the middle; zimmerman drove it to the wall and nearly put the nationals ahead right then. indeed, that was a far more troublesome inning in my estimation; boggs hit cabrera, an automatic out if ever there was one (19 strikeouts in 20 career at-bats, or something on that order), and had to face the top of the order with men on base. he kept throwing his slider in the dirt, which enabled the nats to sit on his fastball; johnson whacked one for a single, and zimmerman almost blasted another one over the wall. boggs was lucky to escape that frame with the lead intact.

all in all, a very encouraging outing. boggs now has 4 walks vs 15 strikeouts this year; i'd a lot rather have him in the rotation than (for example) jon garland. i'm looking forward to his next outing.

ii) the game-tying and game-winning hits came from a man i derided in the Maple Street Press 2009 Annual as "the automatic out" in clutch situations. if you haven’t seen that article (and for shame, if that’s so), last year ankiel was beyond bad in high-leverage situations: in his 30 highest-leverage at-bats of 2008, he only got 3 hits and struck out 18 times. before last night, ankiel was sucking in his key 2009 at-bats, too: 1 hit in his 10 highest-leverage situations to start the year, with 3 whiffs. his woes last year were mostly due to overagressiveness vs breaking balls; luckily for rick, he saw only fastballs in the 7th and 9th last night. he did show some discernment during his 7th-inning at-bat, when the cards trailed 4-3 and had the tying run on 3d with one out. the first pitch was a borderline fastball, just outside; ankiel let it go, got the call, and went ahead in the count. that forced the pitcher to keep throwing fastballs, insofar as the sacks were jammed.

so far this season, in 18 at-bats deemed "high leverage" by baseball-reference (leverage index of 1.50 or higher), ankiel has 5 hits (.278 average), including 2 doubles, and only 3 strikeouts. signs of growth; may they continue.

iii) tyler greene became the 5th member of the 2005 draft class to play for the cardinals; indeed, fully 1/3 of last night’s lineup (boggs, greene, rasmus) came from that draft. if bryan anderson and daryl jones make it to The Show (as seems likely), they’ll bring the 2005 tally up to 7. the last cardinal draft to produce as many as 7 big-league players was the 1999 draft, which yielded 8 (including pujols, chris duncan, and coco crisp). only 6 of those guys broke in with the cardinals, though. the last draft to produce as many as 7 cardinal players was the class of 1991, which graduated 10 guys to st louis: dmitri young, allen watson, brian barber, john mabry, doug creek, allen battle, mike difelice, mike busby, john fracatore, and rigo beltran. . . . . ok, so quantity does not necessarily equal quality.

iv) the cardinals finish april with a 3.65 era, extending a run of fine first-month performances from the staff. the challenge has been to pitch well after april:

	april	after april
2009	3.65	???
2008	3.41	4.36
2007	4.20	4.73
2006	3.35	4.76
2005	3.38	3.50

the last time they pitched well all year was 2005 -- which, not coincidentally, is the last time they went through a whole year without a significant injury on the pitching staff. the 2009 team has already suffered the injury (carpenter), so if things hold to form we can expect the staff to begin unraveling any day now . . . . . but maybe this year will be different. maybe (fingers crossed) the farm system has now had time to produce the depth that was lacking in previous years. in addition to boggs, the cards can look south and bolster the staff with clay mortenson (1.45 era at triple A after his win last night), jess todd (1.46 era in relief), or big-league vets brad thompson and josh kinney. even blake hawksworth might become an option; he threw a gem the other night and has posted much better peripherals so far this year (0 hr in 22 innings, 6 strikeouts per 9 innings) than we’ve seen from him at triple A. we can hope there’ll be no mike maroths this year, nor any kelvin jimenezes, randy keislers, jorge sosas, or (praise god) "rehabbed" mark mulders to muck up the warm-weather pitching line.

having said that, the rotation merits close watching. wainwright still hasn’t found a groove, wellemeyer’s struggling like crazy, pineiro could turn into a pumpkin at any moment, and boggs still has everything to prove. in spite of the rotation’s terrific april line (13-2, 3.26 era), i'm holding my breath until carpenter returns. and will keep holding it every time he pitches, sneezes, or bends at the waist. . . .

to quote one of my favorite writers, the great jim anchower: hola amigos. i know it’s been awhile since i rapped at ya. . . . hope 2009 is off to a good start for ev’yone. danup is on the road today, so i’m filling in for him. i’ll do my best not to rehash too much old ground . . . . although what other type of ground is there in this slooooow off-season market? it’s all been hashed up pretty good. anyway, here goes.

first of all: the cubs signed so taguchi to a minor-league deal. gooch becomes the fourth member of the 2006 championship team to be acquired by the northsiders, following marquis, edmonds, and miles. no doubt jim hendry has made contact w/ scott spiezio’s agent, and there must be hopeful stirrings in the preston wilson and jeff weaver households.

next item: if the trade market for xavier nady is so hot (and that’s what i keep reading), then why the hell can’t the cardinals find any interest in ankiel? he and nady are both in their free-agent year, but ankiel’s a year younger, walks more often, has more power, and has a lot more value as a defender. nady has been linked in the rumor mill to the braves, nationals, pirates, reds, and giants --- and that’s just in the last week. the orioles and angels would also figure to be potential suitors. my guess is that the trade market will remain frozen until man-ram, adam dunn, and bobby abreu sign; once there are no free-agent bats left, maybe ---- maybe ---- the cardinals will get the offer they are looking for on ankiel (or, alternatively, ludwick).

if they don’t, they'll just have to pick up one of the 237 free-agent pitchers who remain unsigned. matt leach posted a rundown yesterday of that market, which even at this late date holds plenty of interest. ben sheets is on the list, and as much as we’d all like him to become a cardinal, we know it ain’t happening; he’s neither affordable nor reliably healthy, and therefore fails on both of the cardinals’ prime criteria. the team already has one $15m-a-year crapshoot in the rotation, and there aren’t many clubs that can afford more than one of those --- or even one, for that matter.

the only other pitcher leach mentions who’s actually good is andy pettitte. i might rather have pettitte than sheets, given his superior health record. but i doubt he will end up in st. louis, for the simple reason that he has never expressed any interest in pitching here. even though his two previous teams (yankees and astros) are both out of the running, andy might still have an offer in his home state of texas (the rangers) or back in new york (the mets) --- and if he doesn’t, he might just retire. it seems unlikely to me that the cards would offer him $15m on a one-year deal, and if they did i don’t think it’s likely pettitte would take it. if both those things were to happen, hallelujah.

once you get past those two guys, you’re down to the garland / looper / perez tier; perez will be too expensive (the mets are gonna throw tons of money at him), and the other guys just aren’t that much better than the top in-house option, kyle mcclellan. on the contrary, mcclellan (my opinion) has more raw ability than anyone left on the market besides sheets and pettitte; he’s got a live arm, good mound presence, and command of three big-league pitches. to that, you can add the fact that mcclellan is club-controlled for another 5 years and has some upside, which is the main thing lacking in the looper / garland model. even if you get a decent season out of a stopgap like that, you haven’t really moved your team forward; you still have the same damn problem, a so-so rotation. guys like that seal in mediocrity; they keep your team from backsliding too much, but they also keep it from moving forward. whereas if the young player pans out, you’ve got one less problem to solve for the next few years.

duncan thinks mcclellan has the makings of a starter --- same as he thought about wainwright, looper, and wellemeyer . . . .

as unsatisfying as the off-season has been so far, i can’t relate to the angry-fan stuff. the cards aren’t in bad shape. they didn’t lose anyone of consequence off last year’s team, they improved at shortstop very cheaply, their in-house personnel ought to improve the bullpen, and they've got near-ready prospects at several positions. they still have question marks, and they still haven’t made the redefining move they are so primed to make this off-season --- the acquisition that opens a new window of world-title opportunity. the cards came into the off-season with money to spend and talent surpluses to deal from; if they come out of it with nothing more than khalil greene, trever miller, and (let’s just say) jon garland, that’ll be frustrating. but splashy off-seasons don't always pan out --- viz. the mariners and tigers last winter --- and dull off-seasons sometimes do. after their disappointing third-place finish in 2003, the cards had a lackluster winter and seemed to fall further behind the competition. while the cubs added greg maddux and the astros added clemens and pettitte, jocketty did nothing more than acquire a couple of free-agent stabilizers (jeff suppan and reggie sanders) and a bunch of retreads and rejects --- jason marquis, roger cedeno, julian tavarez, marlon anderson. the cards didn't land their starting second baseman, tony womack, until the last week of spring training; their opening-day platoon in left field consisted of anderson (a journeyman middle infielder) and 37-year-old ray lankford, who’d been out of baseball for more than a year. they played .500 ball for the first month and a half of 2004 and looked like anything but a contender. . . . .

sometimes it takes a while for things to jell. maybe they will jell in 2009, or maybe they won’t. it’s too soon to say.

Game 2 of the NLCS; Game 1 of the ALCS. enjoy the baseball, enjoy the weekend.

if you're not already using SB Nation's postseason portal, you're really missing out. the affiliated blogs (Over the Monster, DRays Bay, The Good Phight, and True Blue LA) are all top-notch. simon says check them out.

this series features VEB’s adopted team, the tampa bay rays. in looking over their roster, i’m surprised at how few truly homegrown players they feature. what tampa has done is, in some ways, even more impressive than growing their own --- they’ve poached cheap young players from other organizations and knit them into a winning roster that feels homegrown:

pos	player	how acquired	age	yrs to fr. ag’cy
c	d navarro	trade (dodgers) for m hendrickson	24	3
1b	c pena	free agent	30	2
2b	a iwamura	free agent	29	2
ss	j bartlett	trade (twins), partial for d young	28	3
3b	e longoria	homegrown	23	7
lf	c crawford	homegrown	27	2
cf	b upton	homegrown	24	4
rf	g gross	trade (mil) for j butler	28	3
dh	c floyd	free agent	35	1
sp1	j shields	homegrown	26	6
sp2	s kazmir	trade (mets) for v zambano	24	4
sp3	m garza	trade (twins) for d young	24	5
sp4	a sonnanstine	homegrown	25	5

if they want to, the rays will be able to run most of this same team out there in 2011. yet just 3 everyday players and 2 starting pitchers came up through the ranks w/ this franchise, and nearly the whole bullpen comes from outside the organization. i’m not counting some key role players, including rocco baldelli (who starts against left-handers) and ben zobrist; david price will probably be in next year’s rotation, and reid brignac may join the starting lineup at shortstop. so they’re becoming more homegrown, rather than less.

in that respect, tampa bay is aping (roughly) the model that made the kansas city royals so good back in the 1970s. the royals (for those of you who are old enough to recall) got good with other teams’ young players --- amos otis (snagged from the mets), john mayberry (astros), hal mcrae (reds), freddie patek (pirates), darrell porter (brewers) --- and then became a dynasty by rolling in homegrown players like george brett, frank white, willie wilson, and al cowens. beginning in the late 1970s, the royals churned out boatloads of mound talent --- dennis leonard, steve busby, paul splitorrf, rich gale, and dan quisenberry in the 1970s, then bret saberhagen, danny jackson, mark gubicza, et al all in the 1980s. the result: 15 winning seasons, 7 playoff appearances, 2 pennants, and a championship in their first 21 years of existence.

surprisingly, the red sox rely on homegrown talent at least as much as the rays do. they drafted and groomed four of their starters --- at 1b (youklis), 2b (pedroia), ss (lowrie), and cf (ellsbury) --- and acquired a fifth (varitek) from the seattle farm system; he has spent his entire big-league career in boston. they gave 60 starts to homegrown pitchers during the season this year, and the back end of their bullpen for the playoffs (masterson and papelbon) is completely homegrown.

the series is a battle of ballparks, as much as anything. tropicana field was the al’s 4th lowest-scoring park, with an average run total 5 percent lower than average; fenway was the league’s 3d-highest scoring, with an average run total 7 percent above the norm. so the essential questions might be: a) will the red sox offense (2d in the league) be able to score at the trop, and b) will the rays’ pitchers (2d in the league in run prevention) be able to put up zeros at the fens? during the regular season, the answer to question A was no: boston hit just .216 / .303 / .365 at the trop and scored 33 runs in 9 games, or 3.7 per game; the sox went 1-8 in those games. the answer to question B was also no: tampa bay pitchers gave up 6 runs a game in fenway and allowed the red sox to hit .289 / .388 / .452; the sox went 7-2 at home. the rays have 4 games at home, which yields a not-insignificant advantage, and i don’t think they will be intimidated by the red sox: they won both of the head-to-head series played in september, when the division title (and october home-field advantage) was still very much up for grabs.

shields, who will start game 5 (if nec) at fenway, lasted a total of just 4.2 innings in his 2 starts there this season and gave up 11 runs, almost singlehandedly losing both games; but the sox could hardly touch him at the trop, scoring just 2 runs against him in 15+ innings. kazmir was vulnerable in either location --- he only had one decent start in 4 tries vs the red sox this year. the only tampa starting pitcher who thrived at fenway this year was andy sonnanstine; sure enough, he’ll start game 4. if it comes down to game 7, matt garza will face jon lester; garza had a 4.50 era vs the red sox this year, while lester dominated the rays (3-0, 0.90).

the teams are closely matched on paper, but i’m gonna pick the red sox to win for two reasons. one, i think they have more dominant players; the rays have superb depth and balance, but you need game-changers in the postseason and i think the red sox have more of those. and second, the red sox have the better bullpen --- that alone could decide the series.

i’ll be rooting for the rays in my heart, but my head says the sox will win. let’s make it 7 games.

g’morning everyone --- just keeping the seat warm today. a few items from here and there:

• in september, a commenter suggested (and forgive me, i can’t find the post) that the cards’ fall from contention might aid pujols’ mvp chances --- because he might see more pitches to hit. that appears actually to have happened: as i noted last week at the Daily Fix, el hombre only drew 2 intentional walks in september --- after having been ibb’d 32 times in the first five months of the year. for whatever reason, teams were a lot more willing to challenge albert in september, and he took advantage of the opportunity to pad his counting stats: his 27 rbi in 24 september starts were nearly a quarter of his season total. that finishing kick propelled him to 4th in the nl leaderboard in rbi, and he wound up tied for 4th in the league in homers --- in other words, top 5 in all of the triple crown categories, which still carry a lot of sway among many bbwaa voters. those figures, combined w/ his superior rate stats and the lack of a suitable rival, might garner albert his 2nd mvp award.
• you can vote for albert, by the way, in the Internet Baseball Awards over at Baseball Prospectus. pujols won the IBA MVP in both 2005 and 2006; he lost out last year to matt holliday.
• one more albert item: Lookout Landing calls him the most underappreciated player in baseball.
• as long as we’re talking awards, am i the only one who thinks sabathia deserves the national league cy young? granted he only pitched in our league for half a season --- he came over in time to make 17 starts, or 3 fewer than wainwright made this year (and 1 fewer than cc made in the american league). but nearly half his nl starts (7) were complete games, and he led the league in that category despite his limited playing time. he also tied for the league lead in shutouts --- not only in the nl (where he tossed 3) but also in the al (2 sho). that feat in and of itself ought to be good for some kind of award. another point in cc’s favor: from july 8 (when he joined the nl) forward he led the league in every pitching category except strikeouts, where he finished second. his 1.65 era was nearly half a run better than his next closest competitor during that span (santana, at 2.09), and he threw 18 more innings than the next hardest-working guy. his average start for milwaukee lasted 7 2/3 innings. to cap it off, he threw a complete-game 4-hitter on the last day of the season to put his team into the playoffs. he never yielded more than 4 runs in a game for milwaukee; he yielded 2 or fewer 10 times. i’d place sabathia among the top 3 in nl mvp this year.
• as good as cc was, the brewers paid a pretty penny. they completed their trade for sabathia the other day by sending an outfielder named michael brantley over as the player to be named later. opinion’s divided on this guy --- he has exceptional on-base ability (career minor-league obp of .399) and good speed, and has handled high levels well at a young age --- reached double A at age 20 last year, spent all of 2008 there and posted a .319 / .395 / .398 line. the last figure in the slash lines is the knock on brantley --- no power. BA had him ranked as the 18th-best prospect in the southern league; john sickels rates him a B, and kevin goldstein likes him. he’s roughly comparable to john jay. so add that to the already high bounty milwaukee gave up for their 3 months of sabathia. (and, alas, cc wasn’t very good is his playoff game, was he. . . . .)
• espn released their park factor calculations for 2008, and st louis rated as the 4th-toughest national league park to score in, trailing only petco (by far the most inhospitable hitting environment in baseball), dodger stadium, and pnc park in pittsburgh. overall it ranked 23d among the 30 nl teams. last year it ranked 22nd; in 2006 it ranked 20th; and in all three years, the runs scored there have fallen between 93 and 95 percent of average --- it, the park suppresses scoring by 5 to 7 percent. those are some pretty consistent scores, and they were achieved despite some pretty drastic personnel churn --- the only players who have held starting jobs all 3 years of the ballpark’s existence are pujols and molina (a fact that, in and of itself, is fairly shocking . . . . ). the cards’ home/road pitching split was narrower than usual in 2008, a mere 13 runs (vs 59 runs last year and 66 runs in 2006); their home era of 4.06 was right in line with previous figures (3.93 in 2006, 4.17 in 2007), but the card hurlers improved dramatically on the road in 2008.

no ballgames today; the final four is set, and VEB's adopted team is still alive. red sox appear to be the best team left, but that's just on paper --- which ain't worth nothing this time of year.

thanks ev’ybody for the gold watch and all the kind words and well wishes; i am truly touched. transition procedures are underway, and we should have things settled by next week.

i promised to work up a roster matrix for today, so here it is w/out further ado:

 

2009 ROSTER MATRIX
THE BASELINE

STARTERS	BENCH	ROTATION	PEN
molina c $3.3m	miles ut $2m	wainwright rhp $2.6m	perez rhp $400K
pujols 1b $16m	duncan lf $600K	lohse rhp $7.1m	franklin rhp $2.5m
kennedy 2b $4m	barton of $400K	pineiro rhp $7.5m	motte rhp $400K
glaus 3b $11.3m	mather of $400K	wellemeyer rhp $2.5m	mcclellan rhp $400K
[vacant] - - -	ryan ut $400K	carpenter rhp $14m	kinney rhp $400K
schumaker lf $450K	rasmus of memphis	boggs rhp memphis	thompson rhp $500K
ankiel cf $2.5m	anderson c memphis	todd rhp memphis	jimenez rhp memphis
ludwick rf $1.8m	freese 3b memphis	mortensen rhp memphis	worrell rhp memphis
TOTAL $39.0m	TOTAL $3.8m	TOTAL $33.7m	TOTAL $4.6m
OVERALL	PAYROLL:	$81.1m

the numbers are a lot more guesstimate-y than usual this year, because the cards have 3 arbitration-eligible players who are coming off very good years ---- ludwick, wellemeyer, and ankiel. all 3 are difficult to price, because their paths to success were so strange; it’s hard to find players to compare them to. wellemeyer and ankiel are both in their 3d year of eligibility, which is usually a pretty high-priced year, but since neither had ever established himself before 2008 their baselines are low; you can’t price them the way you’d price a typical 3d-year arb-eligible. my guesses aren’t very scientific, but they’ll have to serve for now.

i’ve given those 3 guys an aggregate salary bump of $4.5m. molina and wainwright both get $2m salary increases next year, and carp’s salary goes up by $3.5m; kennedy gets a nominal bump but glaus’s salary comes down by a couple million. the net effect on the payroll is about $10m worth of built-in salary increases, partially offsetting the roughly $35m that comes off the books (izzy, mulder, looper, encarnacion, spiezio, springer, flores, and miles).

we can anticipate a few more alterations to this grid. kennedy will be gone, but most (if not all) of the salary will probably remain on the cards’ debit sheet. i expect felipe lopez to be re-signed, probably for about $3m. there’s a reasonable chance they will sign izzy to a low-base, high-incentives deal. they will sign a big-league backup catcher; anderson isn’t ready, and it wouldn’t do him or the organization any good to rush him. miles? he may finally have played himself off the team --- after hitting .317 there might be a decent offer or two out there for him, and if it takes multiple years to keep him i don’t think the cards would commit. [my mistake --- miles is still a year away from free agency; he only hit the market last year because the club non-tendered him, and i wouldn't expect that to happen again.] at least one outfielder will almost surely be traded. and at least two left-handed pitchers will be acquired --- you might have noticed that there is not a single lhp listed on this chart.

if we set aside $10m for the anticipated acquisitions (lopez, izzy, backup catcher, LOOGYs), that leaves about $12m for a shortstop. anybody think they can get rafael furcal at that price? i wouldn’t think so, but with creative salary structuring they could probably make it work. don’t forget, glaus’s salary departs after 2009 and a league-minimum player will probably take over, so the club will be able to accommodate a $15m shortstop more comfortably from 2010 forward. i’ve heard that furcal and the dodgers have mutual interest in an extension, so the question may be moot . . . .

this matrix is only a starting point, but it’s a much better starting point than where we found ourselves at this time last year. in its current state, this payroll has a more rational allocaton of dollars than we’re accustomed to. last year’s bullpen cost $16 million, and the bench tallied nearly $6m (not counting encarnacion’s salary); both units are now composed mainly of cost-controlled homegrown players --- as they should be. while there are obvious holes, there also is a lot of flexibility in this matrix --- various options for taking in here, letting out there. it’ll be very interesting to see how it unfolds.

some of you correctly read the hint i dropped yesterday: i’m stepping aside as the main blogger at VEB. there are various reasons behind the decision, but it’s mostly a question of work / blog / family balance. i'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep all 3 of those balls in the air, and 2 of them simply can’t be dropped. so i gotta let the 3d one go. i’d be lying if i said i didn’t have regrets --- i’m definitely going to miss the routine and the platform. but i’ll also admit that i’m looking forward to sleeping a little later and spending a little less time in front of this laptop. i’ve started tossing BP to my 6-year-old, and (if i may say so) the kid can hit. my 4-year-old daughter has started swinging the batty-watty as well, and she makes regular contact. (i'll pause for a second while jeff luhnow enters this information into his database . . . . ) however much i might enjoy writing about baseball (and i enjoy it a lot), playing the game with my kids is better. that's the priority i’m trying to preserve --- it all comes down to the old spending-more-time-with-the-family thing. it’s a cliché, but it’s really true in this case.

so that’s the bad news. the good news is that red baron and houstoncardinal are going to stay on board, with HC picking up some extra writing duty. and i’m excited to report that DanUp, who many of you know from Get Up Baby, is going to come over and join VEB. those of you who read GUB already know what a terrific writer and analyst dan is, and those of you who aren’t familiar w/ GUB will find out soon enough. i think these changes are gonna be very good for the blog, frankly, because the realigned team will be able to devote more time and ongoing attention to the site than i can. i feel very good about leaving the site in their care --- they’re all great writers, they know their baseball, and they know this community. i have complete confidence that they'll take the site forward and maintain it as a worthy destination, gathering place, and resource. my thanks to them for taking on the task.

thanks also to azruavatar for all his contributions to the front page, as well as behind the scenes; he has decided to give up his friday gig here to focus on Future Redbirds. it’ll take a week or so to get danup trained on the platform and set up a new writing schedule, so i’ll be on regular posting duty for a few more days until all that gets sorted out. beyond that, i’ll be showing up in the discussion threads from time time, another loudmouth with an opinion. blogging comes and goes, but fandom is eternal --- and i’ve enjoyed sharing mine w/ you here at VEB. to all of you who have reciprocated over the years, my heartfelt appreciation.

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a little followup on the lohse deal --- he’ll make $7m this year, $9m next, and $12m in 2011 and 2012. a total of $41 million, which is totally consistent with the market. unfortunately, it has been a lousy market --- most recent contracts of this type have been duds. here’s the mostly complete list (i might have missed one or two) of free-agent pitchers who got long-term deals (ie, 3 years or longer) after the 2005-06 season, 3 seasons ago: aj burnett, kevin millwood, jarrod washburn, matt morris, esteban loiaiza, and paul byrd. here’s the list from 2 years ago: jason schmidt, barry zito, gil meche, vicente padilla, adam eaton, jeff suppan, jason marquis, miguel batista, and ted lilly. many of those pitchers had more distinguished records than lohse at the time they signed their deals; 2 to 3 years later, how many of them look like good deals? the lilly and meche deals look good; the burnett deal looks ok; the suppan and marquis deals are not disasters. but the majority of these contracts are catastrophes; they made their teams worse rather than better.

i don’t know why teams never consider front-loading. even accounting for salary inflation, lohse is more likely to be worth $12m in 2009-2010 (his age 30-31 seasons) than in 2011-2012 (his age 32-33 seasons). so why not pay him accordingly? give him $12m in each of the next two years, then slide the scale down at the back end of the deal. that way, if he has a bad season or gets hurt in the first couple years of the deal, his contract isn’t radioactively bad the last two years. i realize that paying larger sums up front would increase the cost of the contract marginally for the cardinals, but as a value proposition i would think you optimize the performance-per-dollar ratio the other way around. if there are any real economists in the house, maybe you could comment on that idea.

i’ll be back thursday w/ an updated roster matrix.

congratulations to the brewers and their fans --- first playoff season since ’82, and only their second ever (discounting the ’81 strike playoffs). the old Northwest Territory will be very well represented this october --- chicago, milwaukee, and either minnesota or the south side. (c’mon twins . . . )

in 2007, the season couldn’t end fast enough for me. when the schedule ran out, i mainly felt relief that i wouldn’t have to write or read about that awful team anymore. this year i feel just the opposite: i really liked the 2008 cardinals. perhaps the main reason i liked them is because they decidedly weren’t the grouchy 2007 bunch; by comparison, almost any team would have seemed likeable. but if this team had staggered through a 76-86 campaign, as was generally predicted, i doubt i would feel much affection for them, no matter how hard they played. after a year of tragedy and tension, we needed a year in which baseball was pure fun again. the organization delivered.

it caught my attention just last week that the cards had a fair chance to post the franchise’s highest team batting average of the last half-century; thanks to a furious closing burst of hitting, they actually did better than that. they finished the year with a team average of .28122, beating out the 1954 cardinals’ mark of .28085. the last cardinal team to finish with a higher batting average than the 2008 team was the 1939 club, which batted .294.

that ‘39 team had two players who batted .380 or higher in more than 100 at-bats, don padgett and curt davis. they are the last cardinals to pull off this feat until felipe lopez did it this year. lopez hit .385 in 156 at-bats after joining the cardinals, the 7th best average in franchise history (post-1900) by a player with more than 100 at-bats. here are the top 10:

	ab	avg
rogers hornsby, 1924	536	.424
rogers hornsby, 1925	504	.403
rogers hornsby, 1922	623	.401
don padgett, 1939	233	.399
rogers hornsby, 1921	592	.397
ray blades, 1930	101	.396
felipe lopez, 2008	156	.385
rogers hornsby, 1923	424	.384
curt davis, 1939	105	.381
stan musial, 1948	611	.376

can we conclude anything at all from lopez’s post-trade breakout? flukes do happen, but still --- .385? i mean, .330 is a fluke; .385 seems like a different order of magnitude, ie like it might be related to actual ability. since the divisional era began, there have only been 15 full or partial (ie, post-trade) seasons in which a player compiled more than 100 at-bats and batted higher than .370 --- 3 by tony gwynn, and most of the rest by stars like george brett, larry walker, ichiro, and rod carew. lopez becomes only the 4th journeyman player on the list; the others are broderick perkins (1980), david dellucci (1999), and oscar gamble (1979, after his midseason trade to the yankees). perkins batted .280 the following year, gamble .278, and dellucci .300 in just 50 at-bats; in 2001 he hit .276 as a half-time player on a world-championship team.

based on this extremely limited evidence, we might guess that lopez’s gaudy average really does mean something; can’t draw any firm conclusions from it with so few precedents, but in the last 40 years every guy who batted .385 for two months continued to produce at a decent clip the following year. lopez finishes this season with a .283 overall average; he batted .274 in 2006 and .291 in 2005, so it seems reasonable to characterize him as a reliable .280 hitter --- one with decent pop and good speed and an acceptable walk rate. pretty well-rounded offensive player for a middle infielder. he’s no good w/ the glove, but that’s why god made the defensive substitute. lopez will be 29 years old next year, and he wants to stick around; if the cards were to sign him up for a year or two, cheap, and make him the everyday 2bman, i wouldn’t mind.

re the lohse contract --- goold reports at Bird Land that it’s similar to the carlos silva deal from last winter, ie 4 years and $48m. if those figures are anywhere close to true, i think it’s a dreadful use of resources; all-star money for an average player. the contract has a chance to pay fair returns in year one, but by year three i think it’s gonna be a mangy dog --- the type of deal that makes the team worse, not better; the type of deal everybody bitches about on talk radio. at the very top of his game lohse might be worth $12m a year, but no player is at his peak all the time. he’s never going to give you a $15m season for your $12m --- he’s just not that good --- but he is very capable of having a $5m year. it’s nearly all downside risk; there’s almost no upside. check out the playoff teams this year; how many mid- to back-end starters are making $10m a year on those teams? i count two: ted lilly (who the cards could have had 2 years ago for less than they're now gonna pay lohse) and suppan, who had a joel pineiro-like season for the brewers and may not crack their postseason rotation. now look at the crappy teams ---- miguel batistas and jarrod washburns and kevin millwoodses and gil meches abound. the 2008 playoffs will be dominated by young, cost-controlled starting pitchers --- the dodgers, phillies, rays, angels, and twins / chisox are all trotting at least 2 of them out there. last year's playoffs were similarly skewed (see the rotations of the rockies, indians, dbacks).

ah hell; i'm repeating myself. here’s an old post that sums up my position. and here’s another one. whatever its defects, at least this contract will make la russa happy. . . . . .

tune in tomorrow for some information about important changes at VEB.