As I look over the Rangers roster, I note that it tilts heavily right handed. The main offensive threat from the left hand side of the plate is Josh Hamilton, who loses 79 points of OPS versus LHP pitching, shedding OBP but gaining power, with a slash line against lefties of .260/.284/.541 in 2011. For his career he loses 161 points of OPS, posting a .278/.326/.471 against lefties (he is .308/.366/.543 overall for his career).

Other than him, the only other left handed batters with more than 300 PA are Mitch Moreland, and David Murphy. None of these are particularly fearsome hitters. In 2011, they have the following stats:

Moreland vs RHP  .266/.326/.456   vs. LHP .234/.298/.279

Murphy vs RHP .296/.348/.461  vs. LHP .215/.274/.234

The next most likely left handed batter to see playing time is Endy Chavez, who has a minimal platoon split in his career.

Both Moreland and Murphy have significant platoon splits. But neither are that fearsome with against right handers, and Moreland has seen limited playing time this postseason.

Other than Hamilton, the most dangerous hitters in the Rangers' line up are right handed. It also has little in the way of switch hitters. It seems a lineup that  provides limited opportunities for a left handed short reliever.

Arthur Rhodes has been minimally effective this season, with lefties hitting .245/.344/.528 off of him, and righties managing a .288/.312/.534 line. He has, though, been reasonably effective in the postseason, facing 7 batters, walking one, allowing no hits, and striking out 3. Rhodes also is not likely to go long or eat many innings--in 51 games his year he pitched just 33 innings. 

Rhodes also spent much of the season a Ranger, so I would think they are well aware of his current capabilities. 

Given:

• the limited number of left handed hitters on the Rangers roster
• the only one exceptional left handed hitter in their lineup
• Rhodes' limited effectiveness against any sort of hitter this year
• Rhodes' inability to have long appearances
• The Rangers knowledge of him

...one can make a case that he does not belong on the roster. Given the Rangers' heavy tilt to the right, a right handed reliever might make more sense. Given the limited effectiveness of Rhodes, it seems questionable to remvoe a RHP just to bring him in the face one batter. He might only face 2-3 batters the whole series. Hamilton has faced him 4 times in his career, with 2 walks, one strike out, and no hits.
Jake Westbrook, for example, can pitch multiple innings and was more effective against left handed batters this year (.260/.343/.391) than Rhodes. 
I'm pretty sure the Cardinals will keep Rhodes on the roster, but I would think seriously about cutting him if I was them. The only exception would be if they have reason to believe that some other pitcher (out of Westbrook, McClellan Sanchez, and Boggs) is even less likely to be effective.

 

I am a Mark McGwire fan. I said it. I admit. When he played, he played with a quiet class and dignity. I admired him. Now, of course, he has been smeared with the taint of the steroid scandal, and people question his fitness as a hall of famer.

People say that a steroid abuser has no place in the Hall of Fame. The problem to me is that we don’t know who used steroids. Without that knowledge, we might put someone in the Hall of Fame simply because they were better at hiding their usage or suspicion of such. In fact, a steroid user might already be in the Hall of Fame.

Hall of famer Tony Gwynn was a popular and awesome player. From age 22 to age 27 he hit an incredible .335/.391/.444. But when he turned 28, he started to fade. From the age of 28 to the age of 32, he put up a diminished line of .319/.372/.420. But then, at 33—an age when even most stars start to rapidly fade—Gwynn was better than ever. From the age of 33 to the age of 41 he hit .356/.403/.500. His rebirth started in 1993. The same time that many players, including Mark McGwire, were using steroids.

Did Gwynn use steroids? Something odd was certainly going on in San Diego during this period for players in their thirties. Steve Finley (long one of my favorite players) was a singles hitter throughout his career in Baltimore and Houston, putting up a line of .274/.313/.386. As a thirty year old joining the Padres in 1995, he hit .297/.366/.420. And then he seemingly discovered Gwynn’s magical formula for youth in 1996, hitting .298/.354/.531. His 30 home runs that year equaled more than his previous three years combined. This was no one-year fluke. From age 31 to 39 he hit .274/.333/.489, adding more than 100 points of slugging above his previous career numbers.

The year of Finley’s surge—1996—is an important one to remember. That was the year that Ken Caminiti enjoyed his MVP campaign. Ken Caminiti came to San Diego in 1995 as a 32-year old with lifetime numbers of .260/.315/.385. Leaving the Astrodome, he could expect a small bump in production, but given that San Diego was also a pitcher’s park, it would not be extreme. But Caminiti was also at an age that marginal talents begin to fade rapidly from the game. Instead Caminiti exploded and kept his improved production even when he returned to the Astrodome. From the age of 32 to 37, he hit .294/.382/.537. And he later admitted that he used steroids during this time.

Wally Joyner also admitted to trying steroids while with the Padres during this era.

The highly unlikely pattern of dramatic improvements in hitters in their early thirties in San Diego is troubling, especially since in two cases the players improved shortly after joining the Gwynn and the Padres. We don’t know if Gwynn had a hand in Finley’s and Caminiti’s improvement. And we don’t know if all three shared a common source for dramatic improvement at an age when players decline. All we know was that during the steroid era, several Padres players experienced dramatic improvements at an unusual age for such improvements, and at least one of them used steroids. Someone wanting to make a case that all three used steroids certainly could.

But we don’t know all of what happened. We never will. This is not a knock on Tony Gwynn. To be honest, I have no idea whether he (or Finley) used steroids. I hope not. But we can’t know whether Tony Gwynn used steroids. Or any other player from that era. Whether Mark McGwire is admitted to the Hall of Fame or not, we’ll never know if the Hall of Fame is free of the taint of steroids. Given the likely prevalence of steroid use during the era in which he played, I doubt McGwire’s exclusion will keep the Hall of Fame steroid free.

 

 

Earlier, I posted a small study concerning how Albert Pujols might age by examining similar players. That study used the most similar players lists available at the time: the current Baseball Reference lists for Pujols and the 1-year old 2010 Baseball Prospectus list of 10 most similar players. This is a follow up that uses the 2011 Baseball Prospectus list (generated after the 2010 season). This time I also use Baseball Prospectus’s WARP, instead the similar WAR, since I was already on their site, and I think WARP is probably good enough, as we are looking at shapes of data.

As I said before, Pujols is awesome and will hopefully be a productive Cardinal for a long time. I’m not intending him any disrespect with this post. I know new study is not that statistically sophisticated and uses small sample sizes—I offer this for thought and discussion, not as certainty.

 

Part 1: The Most Similar Players

Baseball Prospectus uses factors such as a player’s statistics, position, age, and body type to generate similarity scores.

The 10 most similar players, listed from most to least, are these: Lance Berkman, Vladimir Guerrero, Todd Helton, Barry Bonds, Frank Robinson, Wade Boggs, Frank Thomas, Jason Giambi, Jeff Bagwell, and Chipper Jones.

One problem with this list is that few players are in reality very similar to Pujols. A similarity score of 70 is high, and a score over 50 means a player is substantially comparable. Only one player, Lance Berkman, scored over 70. The next two highest are Vladimir Guerrero at 59 and Todd Helton at 58. The other scores ranged from 42-49. By comparison, the other active players in my study have lists of similar players mostly in the 70s or higher. None had a players in the fifties or lower.

I decided to omit Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi from the study due the possibility of their PED use tainting the data. This leaves me with an admittedly small sample, but nonetheless this is a sample of superstars who rake. For active players, I do not count statistics past 2010. I also will not mention the first month of anyone’s performance this year in my discussion.

Part 2: What can we expect from the first 4 years of the contract?

The question is how much Albert Pujols might be expected to produce after his current contract expires. When discussing this, people often say that if he signs a contract of 7 or more years, of course his production will likely be diminished towards the end of the contract. But if you sign him you are paying for the earlier years of the contract when Pujols can be expected to continue his established high level of performance.   

Since Pujols was 30 last season, I established his level of performance  by averaging his WARP for his age 27-30 seasons. I then did the same for his similar players. From ages 32-35—what will be the first four years of Pujols’s contract, the players averaged a per season WARP value of slightly over 60% of their established value. This is pretty disappointing. If Pujols follows this same trend, he will average a WARP of 6.28, meaning he will be worth a bit more than 6 wins above a replacement player. This value is lower than that of any season of his career (his lowest was a WARP of 6.4 in 2002). Now, 60% of Albert Pujols is quite good--to give you an idea of what that looks like, in 2002, he had a slash line of .314/.394/.561. However, that was in a higher scoring era than today, so the numbers would look lower today, as WARP is normed. But it would still be good.

But he still would be producing only 60% of what he is producing now, and these would likely be the most productive years of his contract. From age 36 on, he can be expected to decline, as all humans do. As my previous study noted, few players can avoid serious decline at these ages.

Part 3: Another approach: individual season performance

One problem with aggregating data is it can mask individual differences. If some exceptional players beat the effects of time, the failings of others can mask it. So I tried other ways to look at this. One question is, how many more seasons at above his established level can we expect from Pujols?

The players in my study have played a combined 54 seasons while aged 32 or older. In six of those seasons these players managed to equal or exceed their established level of production—an average of less than once per player. One player reached his established level twice. Three players never hit at their established level again.

Of course, many of these players could perform at a slightly lower level and be quite productive. So I examined how many times these players reached or exceeded 75% of their established level of production. The 8 players collectively reached this level only 10 times. One player reached it three times, and two players never produced at even 75% of their established level again. In short, producing at a level of 75% of their established level was a difficult feat for these players.

Part 4: Age 32-36 performance, by player  

Even taken individually, the players do not present an encouraging picture. I’ll discuss them in order of similarity.

Two players are not yet old enough to discuss from ages 32-36.

During the ages of 32-34, Big Puma has produced at a level equal to almost 95% of his established value. This is a bit misleading, as his established value was driven down by a poor age 29 season (and Pujols’s established value is not driven down by a poor season). This makes it easier for Berkman to reach his established level. Also, since he only has three years of data at age 32 or older, his mammoth season at age 32 completely distorts the data. In contrast to the retention of his value, the trend of his WARP scores during the three years was quite troubling: 8.2, 4.9, 2.0. So he is not really that encouraging of a comp. However, so far he sure has been fun to watch this year!

During the ages of 32-35, Guerrero has produced at a level slightly less than 50% of his established level.

The following players will have their age 32-36 seasonal production examined.

Todd Helton produced at a level equal to 28% of his established level.

Mr. Robinson produced at a level equal to 69% of his established level.

Wade Boggs produced at 37% of his established level.

Frank Thomas produced at 50% of his established level.

Jeff Bagwell produced at a level equal to 74% of his established level.

Chipper Jones, the least comparable player to Pujols, also is the best case scenario. He produced at a level equal to almost 88% of his established value.  He had two seasons that exceeded his established level, and another one that was at least 75% of his established level.

Jones, Bagwell, and to a lesser extent Robinson, did fairly well at retaining their value. Still during the 15 seasons they were aged 32-36, they combined for only 4 seasons that exceed their individually established levels of production, and only 6 seasons (40% of the total) reached a level of at least 75% of their established level. Half of those were from Jones.

Part 5: Conclusion

Based on this study of superstars most similar to Pujols, it is not realistic to expect many more seasons of production out of Pujols equal to his established level. The study suggests we can expect one more. If he gets three more, that will be better than anyone on the list. In fact, the study suggests that one more season at or above his established level and two more between 75% and 99% of that level would be beating the odds.

If I had to guess, I’d expect him to beat the 60% average over the first 4 years of a deal and produce at a level equal to 75% to 80% of his established level. But players like Helton and Guerrero provide a warning of the risk that even a superstar can quickly lose his value between the ages of 32 and 36. And this whole study is a sobering reminder of how quickly time erodes the skills of even elite talents.

Part 6: Extras

In the discussion of my previous study, someone asked about the production of players before reaching age 27.

So in response, for this pool of players I looked at how players’ age 24, 25, and 26 seasons compared to the "established level of production" in my study (from ages 27-30). The age 24 seasons were at 75%, age 25 seasons at 95%, and the age 26 seasons at 117%. For Pujols, the numbers were 88%, 79%, an 86% respectively. As a group, the players in this study peaked much earlier than Pujols did. I do not know what implications this has for his aging.   

 

Obviously, no one knows how Albert Pujols will age. But if we want to make an estimate, how can we do so?

Albert Pujols is an exceptional talent and a great player to root for. Given my choice, Albert will be batting cleanup for Cardinals and contending for a triple crown when I take my grandchildren to a game in 2024. However, given that he will be 44 by then, that is not likely. Much to my dismay, he will eventually prove to be mortal and show the effects of age.

One way to estimate how quickly Pujols will succumb to the effects of time is to look at other similar players. The difficulty here is that Pujols is a unique talent—few players are similar to him. But if we want to use hard data, that is the best we can do. If nothing else, by combining players, we can learn something from the shape of the data.

What follows are the results of a small, quick study I did on the aging of players similar to Albert Pujols. The WAR numbers are from Fangraphs. I am aware that this is not an incredibly statistically sophisticated study, but it is better than picking a player out of the blue who did not age well and simply using them as an example. 

Study 1

The first set of players I used was the Baseball Reference.com list of players most similar to Albert Pujols at age 30. This generated the following list:

Jimmie Fox, Frank Robinson, Ken Griffey, Lou Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Mel Ott, Juan Gonzalez, and Manny Ramirez.

This list is a bit odd, as it seems very heavy on OF. On the other hand, it includes a list of highly talented superstars who could rake.

For the study, I decided to exclude Juan Gonzalez, as he seems totally out of place on this list. For example, the other players averaged a 7.6 WAR from age 27-30, while he averages a 3.3. Pujols averaged an 8.43.

One issue with the list is Jimmie Foxx left for the war at age 35 and missed most of two years. However, it is unclear how negatively this impacted his performance—in his final 100 games before leaving he only managed a WAR of 0.6.

I next tried to set an established value level. To do so, I simply averaged the WAR of the group of  players’ age 27-30 seasons. I went up to age 30, as that is the current age of Pujols. Using 4 years was admittedly arbitrary, but players tend to be stable throughout that time of their career. Using three years of data--ages 28-30--does not change the data much—there is a difference of less than 0.2 of WAR.  

For each subsequent age, up to 38, I computed the group’s total WAR for that age. Then I divided it by the group’s established level of production. This told me how much of their established value level they retained at that age.

For example, the group of players as a group averaged a WAR of 68.375 from age 27-30. At age 31 the group produced a WAR of 59.6. This amount was 87% of their established level of production.  

Then, to derive an estimate of what value Pujols might have at this age, I multiplied the percent of their established value the other players retained by Pujols’ established value. For example, if they retained 87% of their value, I project he will retain 87% of his established value, too.

The results are as follows.

Age	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38
Percent of Value Retained	87	72	77	55	52	36	20	15
Pujols’ Projected WAR	7.3	6.1	6.5	4.6	4.4	3.0	1.7	1.2

 

Study 2

I ran the same study again, but this time I used Baseball Prospectus.com’s most recent list of similar players. This list was generated before the 2010 season. It does list many more first basemen. The list is as follows:

Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell, Jason Giambi, Eddie Murray, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Travis Hafner, Todd Helton, Jack Clark, and Fred McGriff

From this list, I excluded Travis Hafner for a variety of reasons. Mainly, at 33 years old, he does not provide much data on aging. I also considered eliminating Jack Clark. I left him in, but I am happy to provide results excluding him if anyone wishes.

The players had an average WAR of 6.5 during their age 27-30 seasons.

The results are as follows:  

Age	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38
Percent of Value Retained	102	87	62	81	70	37	17	19.5
Pujols’ Projected WAR	8.6	7.3	5.2	6.8	5.9	3.1	1.4	1.6

 

Discussion of results

The studies are far from flawless, but they do yield a few interesting results. Study 2 suggests a much more gradual aging curve for the next five years of Pujol’s career. Overall, however, they both predict a steep drop from age 36 to 38. At these ages many players in the studies often lost most of their productivity or left the game altogether. In short, despite these being lists of elite players, most rapidly lost their value after the age of 35.

In addition, if one looks at the data, there is no clear way to determine who will hold their value.  

Based on these results, a five-year contract, even at a higher annual value, would probably be optimal. Of course, it is also highly unlikely.

The best case scenario from the players studied was Hank Aaron. In his age 36-38 seasons he produced WARs of 5.9, 7.6, and 5.1. If Pujols could retain a similar value, he would be worth a high annual salary even in an 8-year contract. However, Aaron was an extreme outlier in the study—no one else was even close. Four of the players studied had little or no value after age 35, and Todd Helton seems likely to join them.

I have tried to list what the Cardinals farm system has produced since 2003--a period of 8 years. This gets tricky, because someone like Wainwright can be seen as a product of the Braves system, and someone like Gregerson could be seen as a Cardinal. I'll put an asterisk next to be people who started in another organization.

I decided to list only players getting at least 1000 plate appearances in the majors or pitching 150 innings. Thus Josh Kinney and Bo Hart, sadly, do not make the cut.

Position players: Molina, Ryan, Schumaker, Duncan, *Ludwick, Rasmus

Pitchers: Haren, Reyes, *Wainwright, Narverson, Garcia, Mclellan, Boggs, Perez, Thompson, Gregerson

Feel free to let me know if I missed anyone.

I assume Motte and Jay will make the list before their careers are over. I'm sure some will make a case for Craig and Freese eventually making it.

We could make a study of this (I may in a few weeks when I have the time), and see how this compares to other teams, such as in WAR. I'm guessing it is well below average--particularly in position players. It would be a big help if other can make similar lists for other organizations we can use as a reference.

Any thoughts? 

 

The news reports the Cardinals might be interested in Blue Jay SS Alex Gonzalez. Should we be excited?

Gonzalez is 33 and is signed for $2.75 million this year with a $2.5 million team option.

This year Gonzalez has 17 home runs, but that is pretty much the extent of his offensive contribution, as shown by his .259/.296/.497 slash line. Essentially, his poor OB% negates much of the value of his power. Fangraphs has him as 4.9 runs above average with the bat and 3.1 runs above average with the glove for 2010.  

Can we expect him to continue to produce at this rate? Well, if one expects him to hit something close to his career rate going forward, then no. For his career, he is a .248/.294/.402 hitter--Fangraphs has him as 128.1 runs below average with the bat over his career. If one wants to only go by his more recent performance, from 2006-2009 he was 33 runs below average with the bat. For his career, with the glove, he has been 21.5 runs above average, making him slightly above average over his 12-year career.

Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA predicted he would hit for a .241 True Average this year (near his career mark). Instead, he has produced a .274 True Average, which is the highest of his career and shatters his 90th percentile forecast of .264.

In short, Gonzalez’s first half hitting in 2010 is not only not very good, it far exceeds his career norms and the wildest predictions of his offensive ceiling. If he regresses at all to career norms during the second half, he will be a poor hitting, average defensive shortstop.

That said, he might be an improvement over the 2010 version of Brendan Ryan, which probably says more about Ryan’s performance than it does Gonzalez.

Two Closing Notes:

1. Gonzalez’s 2010 line of .259/.296/.497 is fairly close to Khalil Greene’s 2007 (the one when he hit 27 home runs) line of .254/.291/.468.

2. While Jose Bautista is not mentioned in the article, I would suppose he is a Blue Jay who might be traded and would fill in at third and could chip in as an OF. He is 4 years younger than Gonzalez. While he also is having a fluky year with the bat (.237/.361/.543), for his career he has been a significantly better hitter (.238/.334/.421) than Gonzalez, with more walks and power. While his .308 True Average is also above his 90th percentile forecast of .295, the weighted mean of his forecasts is .273, or essentially what Gonzalez has produced this year, meaning Bautista’s expected performance with the bat entering the season is as good as Gonzalez’s fluky season. In short, Bautista is likely to be much more productive during the second half of 2010 than Gonzalez is. He is not much of a fielder. Whether he would be an improvement over Freese is open to debate, given Freese’s injury and lack of a proven track record.

There have been numerous calls for the Cardinals to trade for a bat, many of which come from the writers of the Post-Dispatch. While I agree the offense is sputtering, I'm not sure what trades would help it.

Last year, the team was "blessed" with holes at 3B and LF, making it easy to upgrade the offense. Let's face it, it was not hard to realize we had to replace Sloppy Joe.

But who does the newly acquired "bat" replace now?

Pujols, Rasmus, and Holliday are all fixtures in the lineup and will not be replaced.

The worst hitter has been Ryan, and he certainly is replaceable. But while another shortstop might well hit better, few shortstops meet the definition of a "bat." For example, picking up Christian Guzman and his .293/.333/.373 line would be a step up from Ryan, but he is hardly a bat who will turn the offense around.

Our next worst hitter is Molina, who cratered in June after a poor May. But Molina is our established starter, and Tony valued his defense even back when Molina was a poor hitter at the beginning of his career. He's not leaving the lineup, and even if the team wished to replace him, finding a catcher who is available, plays defense acceptable to to Tony, and is a "bat" would be quite difficult.

Skip is not the best hitter, but his hitting has come around lately, and there are few available second basemen who would be much better.

Ludwick was hitting fine before his injury, should be back in a couple of weeks, and I doubt the team can really upgrade there.

That leaves us with third base. Freese is injured and unproven, and while he was hitting OK, he was not lighting the world on fire. It is easier to find a slugging third baseman than some other other positions. Still, he wasn't terrible.

So, given that, who would you try to trade for? Assuming they did not cost too much, I'd consider:

Dan Uggla--Can bop at 2B or 3B

Mike Aviles--not a "bat," but likely an improvement over Ryan.

Thoughts?

While I was reading this piece comparing the Cardinals to the Phillies, I was remembering the old Bill James comment that one challenge of improving a team is not that of fixing obvious problems (like the Cardinals currently have in LF), but of how one handles the need to improve overall where there aren't positions that are obvious problems. 

For the last few years, the Cardinals have an offense that is increasingly built around Albert Pujols, which limits their ability to have big innings and can make the offense easy to negate. As the linked piece points out, the Phillies have more hitters who are dangerous than the Cardinals do. The Cardinals need a sequence like they had a few years ago: Walker, Pujols, Edmonds, Rolen. 

The problem is not that the current Cardinals have a lot of bad position players:

• Skip is a nice little hitter at second
• Ryan, if he can keep up his current level of hitting, has a glove that carries his bat
• Molina has a decent OBP and a great glove
• Rasums, while he did not hit particularly well in 2009, needs to play to grow into a good hitter
• Ludwick (2009 version) was OK
• Freese could hit at above replacement level

And so on. It's not like it's obvious that any of these players in particular needs to be replaced.

The problem is that none of these players are currently a strong offensive player. Skip, Ryan, or Molina, if they are the worst hitter in your lineup, aren't going to hurt you. But when they are amongst the best hitters in your lineup, you have a problem. 

This would seem like a difficult problem to solve. Plugging Freese into third doesn't solve this problem, and none of the free agent third basemen do, either. Putting Holliday in LF is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't solve the problem alone

The mistake is that the team reviews things position by position--the problem with Skip isn't that he is bad, it's that the team needs some great hitters someplace other than 1B, and Ludwick, Skip, etc., aren't helping. We've got to get some great hitting at three positions from among LF, CF, SS, 2B, RF, 3B, and C. In short, some decent players need to be replaced, not because they are bad, but because they aren't great.

Is it me, or do the Cardinals have serious credibility issues with their announcements concerning injuries?

When the Cardinals first announced DeRosa would miss a few games with a sore wrist, I told a friend that I was sure that inevitably "a few days" was going to be weeks or months, not days, because the Cardinals always seem to be wrong when they say something about injuries. And now DeRosa's "2-3 days" has morphed into a DL stint, just like when Kyle Loshe got hit by a pitch, he went from not having to miss any starts, to one start, to well over a month.

Over the last few years, whether it was comments about injuries and/or return times for Glaus, Loshe, and DeRosa this year, or Carpenter, Mulder, Edmonds, Duncan, Ankiel, and Tyler Johnson in previous years, what the Cardinals say about players' health often seems to be wildly optimistic and consistently inaccurate. The initial diagnose of a problem is often wrong, and even when correct, the projected recovery time is rarely accurate.

Is this endemic to the sport,  a deliberate attempt to mislead, a symptom of the difficulties of the medical profession, or simply a sign that they are not getting good medical advice? Are they simply having bad luck?

Any thoughts?

The Associated press reports that the average baseball team's opening day salary decreased by 1.7% from last year, or about $1.6 million per team. 16 teams cut payroll.

The Cubs increased payroll by $16.5 million. The article does not discuss them, but the Cardinals are down quite a bit more than the average (the cards are down about $10 million and 10%, I think).

While I don't think throwing money at players will solve the team's problems, I'm still curious why the team is cutting more than most teams and how this helps the club construct a winning team around Pujols. 

 

 

Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus predicts the Cardinals to finish the season at 79-83, and as the 19th best baseball team in 2009 (Requires subscription).

He is highly critical of the team defense, faulting Schumaker at 2B and Duncan in LF as a poor idea for a pitch-to-contact pitching staff. He also views the pitching as over its head last year and is "skeptical of a Chris Carpenter comeback."

Among the teams he ranks as (albeit marginally) better: The Brewers, Giants, Marlins, and Reds.