I've been thinking lately about how hard it is for a contending team to be tolerate of the struggles most young pitchers have when they start at the major league level.  While some guys like Lincecum come up and dominate early, many struggle early on as they adjust to MLB hitters.  I decided to do some research and find out how well young pitchers (three years of service time or less) have fared over the past two seasons, measured by WAR (all of the stats were found on Fangraphs.com).   In both 2008 and 2009, I set the cutoff at 100 innings pitched to account for rookies who only make a few starts because of injuries.  Here is what I found;

Continue reading this post »

These past ten games have shown us a few things: our pitching is good and Ludwick is much more important to our offense than most of us realized.  But moving forward, I think the biggest improvement we need is another right handed bat in our lineup.  Which brings us to Matt Holliday.  While his numbers are down playing in Oakland (.269/.352/.429), some of this can be attributed to playing in Oakland and changing leagues.  While it can be a concern that his numbers are down away from Coors, I see this as an oppurtunity to get him at a below market price (even dealing with Billy Beane).  So what would it take to get him?  We would have to give something significant up to acquire him, but the depth of the farm system makes this possible.  My offer would be D. Jones, Perez/Todd, and Mortenson/Hawksworth/Boggs.  This would be dealing two players from our strengths (OF, RH relief) while including a pitching prospect (none of which project to be better than a #3). I know that Holliday is a free agent after this year, but he could provide help for the stretch run this year and might fall in love with St. Louis as other players have in the past. 

   So what does everyone else think? I am offering too much, do you not want Holliday at all?  If so, who would you rather have to add some pop in our lineup?