As I'm sure everyone here is aware, the Brewers have had a pretty big offseason, picking up Shawn Marcum from the Blue Jays and Zack Greinke from the Royals. The impression that I got prior to the Brewers' splash the last month was that the Cardinals were slight favorites over the Reds to win the NL Central, with all the other teams merely an afterthought. The exercise here is to see how perceptions have changed now that the Brewers, who have generally had a pretty solid offense, but were riddled with awful pitching, have shoved themselves into the conversation.

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If you've ever watched MLB.TV, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They play the same 3-4 commercials every commercial break all season. Not only are they annoying, but they are played at twice the volume of the game. If I am going to blow my speakers, I want them blown on my terms, not because I have a terrible, faux-Russian accent blasting at me from a premium service that I pay for. In this post, I will show you how to re-route all attempts at accessing the ads back to your own machine.

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     At the time of writing this, P.J. Walters has been added to the 25-man roster and (barring a very surprising turn of events) one of Blake Hawksworth and Brad Penny will be added to the disabled list. As pointed out by spants, the club is waiting to evaluate Penny on Saturday. Advanced logic would lead one to believe that Hawksworth is the one headed to the disabled list. At the same time, the Post-Dispatch points out (without expatiating) that players with injuries similar to Penny’s have been sidelined for multiple months. Hawksworth may not be too great a loss over the short, or even long, term. Significant time missed by Penny could badly expose the Cards’ pitching depth. Walters may be the answer. He may be as good as his gaudy ERA over 19.2 AAA innings indicates. Maybe the Cardinals need more depth.

     Anyway, VEB, I want to get right to the point. I have a friend. His name is Chad Gaudin. Chad, come on in. Chad, this is VEB, VEB meet Chad. I know some of you are already familiar with Chad. Thing with Chad is, he will be there for you when the rain starts to pour. There is some ancient scripture floating around that correlates that quality with one’s ability to be a friend. Not that Walters isn’t a good friend. He filled in a bit last year and wasn’t quite as terrible as his traditional stats indicate. That 30% HR/FB certainly influenced the dearth between his xFIP (4.74) and his ERA (9.56). This year, in AAA over 19.2 innings it’s the other way around. He’s got a 2.44 FIP and a 23/3 K/BB. Pretty damn good. But he’s also allowing only a .200 batting average on balls in play in a hitters’ league notorious for having high BABIPs. That’s probably driven largely by his 2.4% LD rate (the decimal is in the right place). With all that in mind, we’re talking about 19.2 IP. Batted ball data is tenuous enough in the big leagues over a small sample, and I would imagine even more tenuous in the minors. Still, it’s something to think about. ‘Course we don’t have to think about it. Walters will be in St. Louis by the time the next game starts. We can just watch and see!

     But what if he doesn’t pan out? Or what if, like we were discussing before, Penny and Hawk both are put on the DL? We could always call up Otto or Lynn or anyone else in the farm system. Sadly, I really don’t think the Cardinals have the minor league depth to fill a hole in the rotation for more than the spot start here and there. Serendipitously enough, a pretty good pitcher was just released. That’s right folks, for the low price of prorated league minimum you have yourself a one of a kind Pretty Good Pitcher! Chad Gaudin has, this year, built himself a gaudy (in a different way than Walters’) ERA. He clocks in at 8.83 on the ERA scale with a 5.94 FIP. Those aren’t the kind of numbers that a Pretty Good Pitcher is known for. But, c’mon, we’re working with a little over 17 innings of data here! Nonetheless, that’s what we have, so let’s dig a little deeper. This year, he has struck out 10.38 batters per nine innings with a 2.60 BB/9. If you prefer K/BB, he comes in at an even 4. I know what you’re thinking; and you’re right. It doesn’t matter how many guys you K and BB if you’re giving up a ton of runs. Sometimes, though, those tons of runs (tee hee!) are a result of some pretty unfortunate luck (unfortunate unless you’re the team about to get this guy for free). Gaudin’s BABIP rolls into town at a smooth .432 compared to his career .318 and a league average around .300. His FBs are leaving the park 22.7% of the time compared a career 9.9% and a league average of the same. His xFIP, which normalizes HR rate, of 3.93 helps illuminate this point.

     Look, I know that this is a small sample. I know that the guys who decided to release him get paid a lot more than me. Hell, the things that I get paid for have nothing to do with baseball. But if he’s injured, why not DL him? I think this is just a knee jerk reaction to some terrible results from a guy who has been underrated throughout his career. Speaking of his career, ERA, FIP, xFIP and even tERA can all get along and agree that he’s right around average in the mid-4s. The one season where he pitched 199 innings and made 34 starts, he was worth 2.2 fWAR. I can’t find anything particularly fluky about that year, aside from maybe the 51% GB rate (!). Plus there’s another guy in the rotation getting paid $10MM for that production. Anyway, I don’t really see batted ball types over a 200 inning sample as being particularly fluky. All I think about when I see that is some disgusting towel owned by Dave Duncan and that he was probably doing something a little different that year, like throwing his fastball a lot more, which has quite a bit of movement.

 

This graph shows pitches thrown with the frequency on the left and the year at the bottom:

 

Here we have horizontal movement on the left:

 

And now, vertical movement on the left:

 

This one doesn't really add much, but I'd just like to point out that the few times he does throw his sinker, he throws right about as hard as his 4-seamer. Dave Duncan.

 

     In the end, maybe only one guy goes on the DL and Gaudin gets a MLB offer that the Cards can’t give him. Maybe they both hit the DL and we need his league average production as a stopgap until Penny comes back, in which case he then goes to the ‘pen. Hell, maybe he’s good this year and comes to spring training in 2011 to win the 5th starter spot. If that’s the case, we don’t have to worry about paying a guy $9MM and hoping he’s Brad Penny and not Todd Wellemeyer. You know, VEB, this really would be like trading for a perfectly average guy without having to give anything up. Or pay him anything. As a matter of fact, it would be exactly that. This is an all win situation and I’ll be disappointed if the Cards sit on their thumbs with this guy while Penny’s latissimus dorsi (I think that’s a Tool album) falls off and Walters remembers that sick stuff with bad location only works in the minor leagues and against Alfonso Soriano.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com

http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/

physical is scheduled for Tuesday. terms agreed to...wait for it...one year, $7.5MM base salary with $1.5MM in incentives. wow. just...wow. too much money for the guy, imo. we'll see how it works out, i guess. i might add some more info to this post as it becomes available. or maybe i'm just saying that to reach 75 words.



via mlbtr via buster olney



five four three two one

Hold your horses for a second there, Johnny!  Open the garage door, turn off your engine and spit out those sleeping pills, darn it. This is merely in reference to Goold's piece on the matter. It's one of those unthinkable things in Cardinal Nation, but if it genuinely makes you a better team (and with the haul the best player in the game is likely to bring in, it undoubtedly would), would you do it? For all we know, we have no chance of extending his contract if he doesn't see St. Louis as a team that can compete long-term. Great management and great scouting are fine, but $150-200MM is always going to be an advantage over the $100MM maximum the Cardinals' front office will be forced to work with in the foreseeable future.

 

So! For a little hypothetical fun (or maybe it's more akin to waterboarding), let's think about what El Hombre could return to the Cardinals. I will also be operating under the assumption that Brett Wal -- err, um, Allen Craig will be ready to step into the 1B job on day one of 2010, so getting a replacement in return is not of the utmost importance.

Poll

WWMD?

100%

Oh my goodness!

107 votes

107 votes | Poll has closed

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That's right, Goold is reporting that Jess Todd has been selected by the Indians as the second player for Mark DeRosa.

 

That means that our system is now essentially lacking of anyone who could make a significant impact this year - except maybe Boggs - with Brett Wallace, Jess Todd and Clayton Mortenson being sold off for our shiny new toys of  Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa.  I really think that Todd is the bigger loss between him and Chris Perez and all that said, the deal isn't  nearly as ridiculous as the Holliday deal.  Either way, I sure hope that Mo can do some selling and get something out of Glaus and Kaheel.  If not maybe we can get five first round picks in '10.  That doesn't do much to help us in the next couple years, but it's a bit of a consolation.

Jess Todd was called up from Memphis on Thursday.  With Lohse and Pineiro both being big questions, it was obvious a move was going to be made.  But calling up Jess Todd?  Who saw that coming?  I think this implies more than just a fill in roll.  Todd was added to the 40-man roster in lieu of calling up a Boggs or Hawksworth where both are on the 40-man and one has performed at the major league level.

 

I think this could be the organization testing its RH relief depth as they begin considering dealing a Perez type pitcher to fill our holes at 3B and 4th in the lineup.  Or are they auditioning Todd as potential trade bait?  Todd is currently 3-1 with a 2.96 ERA.  He could potentially fill that setup role next year.  Todd --> Motte?  Is it any step down from Perez --> Motte?

 

Either way, I think the guy can be good and I like the move, both for what it is in the immediate term and also what it implies, in my perhaps convoluted min, that a trade is imminent and they are setting the table for it.

 

Thoughts?

Glaus officially won't be back until probably August at the earliest.  With the assumption that Glaus will be back sometime around August (a risky assumption) I'm inclined to favor a trade for DeRosa who can play pretty much everywhere and we won't be stuck having to choose between DeRo and Glaus like we would with Beltre.  Of course, the salary differences are also in favor of a DeRosa signing, but i think any deal for Beltre would have to include the M's eating half or so of his salary.  And with Mo's comment that he doesn't “think there’s any guarantees he’s going to play,” now is definitely the time to be seriously pursuing a 3B.

 

At least Mo says that the dialogue with othe clubs has increased and that he's going to "ramp it up a little bit more in terms of intensity to see what we can do.”

 

Will he do it though?  Will DeWallet let him? Will it be a player with value comparable to DeRo or Beltre?

 

Brett Wallace was 3 for 4 with a HR and raises his BA back to .284

 

 

 

 

So, here's an interesting dilemma we find ourselves in.  We trade an injury-riddled 3B with a personality conflict for an injury-riddled 3B without a personality conflict and he goes down with injury.  Shocking?  I'll let you decide.  It's not really the point, either way.  Troy Glaus' shoulder injury and what I believe to be the likely results of his early-June review leave the Cardinals in a precarious position at 3B.  Barden and Thursty have predictably come back down to earth, Glaus is out until at least September (purely speculation), there's a hot-hitting prospect in Memphis with questionable defense being haunted by some mythical arbitration clock, the guy we assumed to have the job in the bag come April 6th, didn't start on April 6th and got well out-played by the pair that ended up taking the job, and in the end it didn't really matter because now he's out until around the end of July.

 

A precarious situation we find ourselves in, yes. But it's a situation we're in nonetheless.  So I turn to you VEB, your glorious plush, rocking and recliner front offices and all their glory in search of an answer.  Or maybe just an interesting discussion of the matter.  In the event that Troy Glaus is not expected to return any time soon, what do we do?  Do we continue to roll with Joe Barden?  Do we bring up the kid with 23% body fat, begin his arb clock and somehow run the risk of "spoiling" him if he doesn't hit 40 HRs and snatch the RoY from Colby?  Do we make a hilarious, yet possibly sensible move and pick up a guy like Mark DeRosa to spite the Cu--I mean strengthen our offense and defense.  Bear in mind this would probably require giving up a Kyle McClellan, a Jason Motte, Mitchell Boggs maybe or, god forbid, our ace pitcher Joel.  And if none of those options are workable or feasible, do we just do what everyone in the room is thinking and convert Adam Ottavino to third base and be done with it?

 

I say we stop pussyfooting around and bring up Wallace now.  Drop Stavinoha and when Ank gets back, drop Thurston.  In the unlikely event that Glaus comes back, assess how Wallace has compared to Glaus' traditionally average defense and great offense.  If Wallace has been a flop, send him back down.  If he's been a good hitter and even close to an average defender, trade Glaus, get SP prospects.

 

And I suppose if Glaus is out for the season and Wallace flops, ditch Wallace back to Memphis (because I want Raz to get that RoY) and do something along the lines of slightly Cubbifying our lineup.  But making a move like that should be last resort, especially when we've got a cheap young guy performing at every level who is pretty much guaranteed to be better than our current duo.  And if he comes up and stays up, all this arbitration business will have seemed pretty insignificant.

 

Is the answer to our hot corner woes under our collective nose?  At the end of the day, is it a whole league away?  Or will we dive into the minors to find something finer?  I suppose we can only wait and see, but what's the fun in that?