What is wrong with the Cardinals offense? Why aren't they scoring more runs? These are questions that have been asked a lot this season. Some of the answers that have been looked at have been things like hitting with men on base, Albert not hitting like God himself, Holliday's struggles with runners in scoring position, the slumps of Ryan, Skip and Yadi, the presence of Miles on the roster. It's a long list. But the fact is the Cards have hit pretty well with men on base, Albert isn't very far from his career averages, Holliday is heating up like he does every year, Miles doesn't get enough at bats to really have that much of an impact (but it is frustrating none the less) and Skip seems to be returning to his 300 average form (Yadi and Ryan still are troublesome). 

One thing I seemed to notice while watching games is that the Cards seem to never put the lead off man on base. It always seems like they are starting rallies with 2 outs. I was curious if stats would reflect this or if it was just my perception. So I took a look first at the overall team splits and also at the when healthy starters plus Lopez. 

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Maybe this should be a fanshot, because I'm referencing a post by the great Joe Posnanski. I dunno. There was a line in his live blog recap during the 7th inn. He simply stated that since 1920, only 11 pitchers the age 21 or younger had struck out 10+ in a game without walking a batter. Nolan Ryan, Vida Blue, and Dwight Gooden had done it twice. Only one pitcher had done it 3 times. Any guesses?

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After reading Fourstick's excellent fanpost on the Cards future payroll obligations and the subsequent discussion, I found myself wondering about what kind of compensation could be heading the Cardinals way in the 2010 Draft. I'm not very familiar with the whole process, but I think I have a good grasp on it after doing some research. If I happen to miss something or make a mistake somewhere I'd appreciate the feedback. Here are the links to the sites I will be referencing in the post:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/07/free-agent-comp.html - This is an old post but it does a nice job of stating the rules for the draft compensation of free agents.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/07/elias-rankings.html - This post is a projection of Elias player rankings up to July 12th. Obviously these rankings can change and are just a projection, but it is a nice starting point for looking at the 2010 compensation possibilities.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/10/stats-used-for.html - This post gives a rundown of the stats used to compile the rankings.

Any salary information is taken from Cot's baseball contracts.

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There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth over the Cards defense so far this season, and I wanted to take a look at just how bad, or not bad it's been. I consider defense to be about run prevention, so I'm not going to look too much at individuals but the team as a whole. Lets see how good we are at preventing runs and how we compare to the rest of the league in various catergories.

These stats are as of May 15th and were taken from or created from information on fangraphs.

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