SB Nation User Blog: lefty fan

Time to re-balance our portfolio

lefty fan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:51:32 -0000

In the investment world, it's necessary to re-balance your portfolio from time to time. The same is now true for the Cardinal roster. There are several underperforming "funds" that are wasting our teams chances to win. Let's look at who I think are the biggest offenders.

1. Adam Kennedy - He can only play 1 position. What does he do for this team at 2nd base that Ryan, Miles, or Izturis cannot? We don't need 4 sub .700 OPS middle infielders. It's time to give his roster spot to someone who has a chance for an extra base hit. If Kennedy were a stock he would be Ford or GM. The good ol' days are over.

2. Brian Barton - Make no mistake, I believe Barton has talent. The problem is that LaRussa is not going to play him enough to justify a roster spot. We have plenty of outfielders; this team has more pressing needs than a project like Barton. If Barton were a stock, he would be some alternative energy company (all promise, no profits).

3. Randy Flores/Ron Villone/13th pitcher - If LaRussa is unorthodox enough to bat the pitcher 8th, then he should be able to try the exotic experiment of carrying only 1 LOOGY. I understand that we need innings protection with the recent run of injuries, but you can solve that problem by giving one of the LOOGY spots to Parisi, Thompson, etc. These guys would be any company that is currently under bankruptcy protection.

4. Chris Duncan - When he's right, Duncan can provide something this team desperately needs...power. The problem is that Chris hasn't been right for the better part of a year now for various reasons. You might as well give him about another week to earn his keep. If Duncan were a stock, I say he would be AB. Whether you like it or not, the takeover is inevitable!

The hardest part of the roster equation is who takes the open spots. My first candidates would be Mather(if healthy) and Stavinoha. At least that would end Braden Looper's career as a pinch hitter. It's also about time for Mozeliak to swing a trade for at least 1 upgrade to this roster.

Albert's elbow

lefty fan — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:23:37 -0000

After reading about Albert Pujols' appearance at the Winter Warmup on Monday, I have been suprised by the lack of comments posted here about his elbow condition. On one hand, Albert's elbow has been a problem for several years. On the other, when you see the names Dr. James Andrews and Albert Pujols in the same sentence it raises an eyebrow. As erik pointed out in a comment earlier this week, he can't straighten his arm.

Based off Albert's comments, it appears that surgery is now a when, not if proposition. The question is how long would he be out if he had Tommy John surgery? For pitchers, this is typically at least a year between active duty. Is this timeframe any different for position players? What about 1st basemen who can "hide" their arm strength? I seem to remember Tony Womack having TJ surgery and being back in about 6 months.

My concern is that Albert is going to play hurt until it's obvious that he needs to get fixed. His numbers last year were good but not Albert good. My biggest fear is that he plays 3/4 or all of 2008 and then decides to go under the knife. This team is being built for 2009 and losing Pujols for any amount of time for '09 would be a big blow. Any thoughts?

7 things not to do this offseason

lefty fan — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:16:35 -0000

It's not exactly the deadly sins, but here are things I don't want to see the Cardinals do in this critical offseason.

re-sign David Eckstein: I love the guy but he's not that much or any better than Brendan Ryan or Aaron Miles when he is healthy. Save the money for pitching.
exercising So Taguchi's option: Ditto for loving So but we have cheaper parts that are just as good and/or better.
counting on any significant contribution from Mulder and Carpenter: If we learned anything from '07, it should be that you can never have enough starting pitching.
trading anything of value for Dontrelle Willis: For some reason I keep thinking that Walt is fixated on trading for Willis. He might be better than his stats this season, but I wouldn't give up any prospect to find out.
give up on Scott Rolen: I'm biased here because Scott is my favorite player. I want to believe that after this latest surgery, he still has at least 2 good years left.
planning on Jim Edmonds to be your everyday CF and bat 4th: I think Jimmy has been one of the best CF in the history of the game, but he's done as an everyday player. The team can't expect him to be an impact bat at a premium position everyday.
let Walt and Tony come back without contract extentions: Of course Tony has no contract for next year yet, but the days of this year to year junk should be over. We have seen what a distraction this can become to the team. If Bill Dewitt wants these guys to come back next season, he needs to lock them up for the next 3-4 years. This organization needs direction and another year of listing leadership doesn't help anyone.

Is it too early for the Hot Stove League yet!? I've never seen a season like this and the offseason is going to be damn interesting as well.

Would you want to take Jocketty's job?

lefty fan — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:40:18 -0000

Even the most optimistic Cardinal fan would have to admit that this season might be over. Our boys have fought hard at times this year, but barring a miracle even greater than the 2006 WS run, we are done. With this thought in mind, I started to sketch our 2008 payroll/roster. This exercise didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

I'm making 2 assumptions:

There are no trades to dump salary or fill holes
Salaries from Cot's contracts are acurate

Cot's contracts admits there info is not always 100% correct so if you see any discrepancies, please point them out. The Cardinals have 10 players under contract for '08 totaling $71.8M! Here is the list of those player's and their salaries:

Under contract in '08
Pujols $16.0M
Rolen $12.0M
Carpenter $10.5M
Edmonds $8.0M
Mulder $6.5M (at least)
Encarnacion $6.5M
Looper $5.5M
Kennedy $3.5M
Spezio $2.3M
Flores $1.0M

These additional players are still under the Cards control via an option or arbitration:
Izzy $8.0M option
Taguchi $1.1M option
Molina- arbitration
Wainwright- arb
Duncan- arb
Maroth- arb
Thompson- arb
Reyes- arb
Miles- arb
Johnson- arb
Welleymeyer- arb
Ryan- arb
Kinney- arb

Let's say the arbitration guys are going to average around $0.75M each (Maroth will make alot more). If they keep Izzy, drop So, and tender contracts to the arbitration guys, that would put the payroll around $88M.

Let's make 1 final assumption: Bill Dewitt will budget for a $100M payroll in 2008. That leaves around $12M to upgrade and fill out the roster. We only need an impact shortstop and centerfielder!

My conclusion is that Walt and/or his successor will have some tough decisions to make. Should Izzy go? Can we get anyone to take Rolen or Edmonds or do they have anything in the tank? We can count on Mulder, Looper, and Reyes/Wellemeyer to start right? Wait 'til next year, ha! More like wait 'til 2009. We better hope Rasmus, Ankiel, and Ryan are the real thing!

Will we ever see an evolution in pitching mechanics?

lefty fan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:23:49 -0000

I stumbled across what I thought was an intersting article about the former pitcher Mike Marshall and his pitching research center in Florida. Here is the link:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb/la-sp-marshall12jun12,0,3616325,full.story?coll=la-sports -underdog

There doesn't seem to be any video of the motion they describe, but it did get me thinking about what changes may or may not evolve in the future. Take a look at Marshall's stats at the bottom of the article. As a RELIEF pitcher in 1974 he logged 208 innings in 106 appearances with a 2.42 ERA! I know the game has changed and I'm not saying that Marshall has the answer to pitching durability, but I wonder how much time and money MLB teams spend on studying/teaching pitching mechanics. My perception is that pitchers were more durable 30+ years ago, but has anyone seen a statistical study comparing the generations? Maybe Walt needs to send some scouts down there and find us some arms!

Charting Randy Keisler

lefty fan — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:59:58 -0000

Not that too many people are concerned about the exploits of Randy Keisler given the Cardinals many problems, but I have been tracking Keisler's starts for the VEB pitch charting project. Let's hope Carpenter is back in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime here are my observations of Randy's 2 starts.

Pitching lines in first 2 starts:
4/10 (PIT) 6.0 IP, 5H, 2R, 2ER, 1 BB, 3K
4/18 (SF) 5.0 IP, 6H, 4R, 3ER, 3 BB, 2K

Interestingly enough, each game went 12 innings with the Cards winning 3-2 in Pittsburgh and losing 6-5 in San Fran. Keisler gave us a chance to win each game, but is he anything more than a stop-gap, AAAA starter? Let's take a closer look.

What weapons does Randy have in the bag?
Fastball- 88 to 90 mph
Cut Fastball- 84 to 86 mph
Curveball- 70 to 74 mph
Changeup- 79 to 81 mph

Keisler's fastball is not your typical lefty 2-seam, tailing pitch to right-handers. In fact, he has been able to get inside on righties with success. I am not fond of his cut fastball. It doesn't appear to have much movement. His standard fastball is much more effective at jamming righties. His curve was much better in the second start versus SF and can be effective as long as he doesn't over use it. Keisler's changeup is above average and is a good complement to his fastball. All in all, he does has the stuff to be an effective 5th starter, imho.

The concern over Keisler's career has been control. In his 133.1 career major league innings before this season, his walk rate was about 5.3 per 9 innings. So far in his 11 inning Cardinal career, he has walked only 4. A closer look shows that Keisler has thrown 181 total pitches in 2007, but only 104 for strikes. Of the 47 batters faced, only 25 saw a first-pitch strike. The 25 who saw a first-pitch strike could only muster 4 hits and 1 walk. If your left-handed, throw strikes, and have a pulse, you can be a successful big league pitcher. Throw strikes Randy, Babe Ruth is dead and Albert is on your team!

There are dozens of ways to breakdown this pitching data. After Keisler has a couple more starts, I'll work on shifting through some more details. Let me know if there are any suggestions or requests.