the trucks have hit the road. ninety gazillion baseballs are bound for jupiter (not that jupiter).

meanwhile, the club keeps making small moves to improve depth, while it quietly plays a last-hand-on-the-car waiting game with roy oswalt. earlier, the club signed a minor league contract with alex cora, hopefully to be the eleventh-string guy called up rather than making kyle lohse play second base on his off-days.

maybe a more interesting signing was yesterday's minor league signing of scott linebrink. hopefully, he won't cut in line ahead of the more deserving young relievers. but, as relief depth that can be stowed in the minors at little to no cost, he seems like an excellent value. he's older (35), and he had a down year last year. he may be in a decline phase. on the other hand, he's been a pretty decent reliever in the past. bgh showed us yesterday how well he compared to kyle mcclellan in 2011. if anything, calling linebrink a mcclellan clone is selling him short. zips thinks linebrink will turn out more like mitch boggs - both have a projection for a 99 era+. mcclellan on the other hand projects to have only an 88 era+. a reliever who projects to be a hair below average is a good thing to get on a minor league deal, however you slice it.

the other most recent signing was a little younger and a little further from the majors. the cardinals signed andres serrano, a 17-year-old hurler from the dominican. for $750,000, getting a young pitcher with a fastball reportedly sitting in the low-90's, reaching up to 95 mph, with a nice curveball to complement his fastball. don't expect him to show up in jupiter next saturday.

but the gang has already started assembling. yadier molina and tony cruz have been catching pitches from adam wainwright, who apparently is in . . . wait for it . . . the best shape of his life. tyler greene and - bizarrely - rick ankiel have been standing in to take pitches against waino. it's great to see him obviously raring to go. i'm not sure that he would have told us that he felt terrible, but ordinary optimism wouldn't require the kind of hyperbolic commentary we've heard from him so far, as well as from the catchers and hitters sitting in with him.

not in the best shape of his life is allen craig, who isn't running and isn't taking swings. he is still rehabbing the muscles in his leg, following knee surgery a few weeks after the world series. it's hard to know how much time he'll need to get back into playing shape once his rehab is done.

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your mind is no doubt drifting towards the upcoming pitchers and catchers report date (february 18th!).

and while roy oswalt waits to see if the cardinals can convince the local pawn shop/check cashing place to give them at least $2m for kyle mcclellan, there seems to be precious little else to discuss in the way of the roster.

but there are some upcoming changes in the way the sport of baseball is to be run. since i needed to sit down with the new CBA (which, funnily enough, still does not seem to be posted online). however, the good people at MLB put some intern on the task of reading through a gigantic block of legalese, digesting it, and regurgitating a semi-readable Cliffs Notes version.

mlb gone wild

as you probably know, the league wants to introduce a second wild card team in each league. the two teams will face off in a single game to determine which of the two will proceed to play in the four-team LDS we are more familiar with. i think this will probably be at best a lateral move for mlb. as some people point out, it does create an incentive to finish first in your division. there's less chance that people will just forget to care about their division race in september. there have been in the past a lot of divisions where the 1-2 are close (think red sox/yankees; braves/phillies; texas/angels) but the #2 team will get the wild card anyway, so who cares by the end of september? on the other hand, you'll lose the converse drama associated with inter-division wild card races (think cards-braves last year) or even intra-division (rays-red sox last year). i guess i just hate the idea of a 1-game playoff deciding anything other than a pure tie in a division or wild card race.

the other thing to track is that the CBA mandates that the new wild card system be in place no later than the 2013 season. "no later than" potentially includes the 2012 season, and bud selig is hard at work to make that happen this year.

surprising nobody, the winner in this new system will surely be the coffers of whoever gets to broadcast these two games and, by extension, major league baseball for the fees it will get.

other scheduling and realignment issues

the astros leave the NL Central for the AL West in 2013. you know this already.

and having two leagues of 15 teams means season-long interleague. to the extent that changes how the game is played, note that it was easier during a defined interleague season for a national league team to bring up a DH-type from the minors briefly. since our DH-types tended to be nick stavinoha or mark hamilton, this will have almost no effect on us at all, because both hamilton and stavinoha have thus far been terrible at everything including DHing.

i would imagine most AL teams were previously unable to make the converse adjustment (briefly demote an offense-first player for a strong defender from the minors) because they likely have DHs and 1Bs that they are unwilling or unable to demote during interleague play anyway, so the changed interleague schedule probably has a modest negative effect on the national league. like we needed a further handicap.

luckily, this doesn't start till 2013, so matt adams will maybe get a chance to see if he can outdo hamilton or stavinoha.

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late last night, numerous rumors flew about the cardinals signing or being on the verge of signing roy oswalt. despite all his health question marks, he'd be a great addition to our rotation. and at the prices being discussed (presumably somewhere between oswalt's rumored aim for an $8m contract and the cardinals' earlier reported $5m offer) oswalt could get away with starting only 10-15 starts to be worth his contract. if he stays at all healthy, he's a great pickup.

here's what ZIPS thinks of the guys on our potential 5th starting pitcher list:

roy oswalt (age 34): 108 ERA+, 154.0 ip

edwin jackson (age 28): 101 ERA+, 198.7 IP

lance lynn (age 25): 93 ERA+, 126.3 IP

jake westbrook (age 34): 83 ERA+, 127.3 IP

this will cause some consternation on the field, assuming - and this is by no means a given - that wainwright, carpenter, lohse, westbrook, garcia, and oswalt all finish spring training healthy.

in that event, i would expect us to start the season with westbrook in the bullpen, as being noticeably the worst option among starters. other options suggested include carrying 6 starters, releasing westbrook, or seeking his permission for a trade.

carrying westbrook in the bullpen would almost certainly mean leaving lynn in memphis as the sixth starter. however, if we're going to have lynn to call up as a starter, carrying westbrook seems awfully redundant. he's probably not a very good addition to a pretty stacked bullpen. and he's not very compelling as a sixth starter because a) he's not likely as good as lynn and b) he can't be kept ready at memphis. stretching him out to start in the majors could be an ugly, cumbersome process. unless there's a protracted need for a seventh starter due to injury, he doesn't seem to make much sense on the team.

one complicating factor is the presence of kyle mcclellan. carrying both in the bullpen would leave two expensive, not very good pitchers on the squad. trading kyle mcclellan might lead to a measure of salary relief for the club, as well as leaving westbrook as the only subpar reliever in the bullpen. one thing to watch is to see whether the fallout of an oswalt signing might be a trade for mcclellan, clearing bullpen space and salary.

i don't like the idea of just releasing westbrook. even if he's not much more than replacement value, he could have substantial trade value by the deadline to a team needing an innings eater. as unpleasant as it might be to carry westbrook in the bullpen while, say, sanchez pitches in memphis, it might be worth doing through june.

and even with the somewhat dicey reliability of the rotation - none of carpenter, wainwright, or oswalt seem like sure 30-game starters - i'm reluctant to put the 6-man rotation into effect, unless one or more other starters look shaky or not at full strength in spring training. a 6-man rotation would mostly replace starts by comparable pitchers with oswalt starts, and leave westbrook still posting a lot of replacement value starts.

i have to say, things look pretty good within the division for 2012. the cards are not walk-away winners of their division this season, but they probably have some on-paper edge on the brewers and are several steps ahead of the reds.

today, i'd like to think more about what the division looks like through 2015, however. although prognostication is very difficult, i'd say there's a lot to like about the cardinals' position right now.

prospects and farm systems

the cardinals clearly had a very strong farm system, but it was great that someone did a very strong Victor Wang on John Sickels' assessments of prospects around the league. the cardinals ended up at #4 overall by total prospect value, which is even more bullish than i would have been on the system.

the cardinals have a good mix of high-end prospects, with one A-ranking and ELEVEN prospects ranked B or better by Sickels, as well as substantial depth in the form of B+/C+ guys.

if you're not familiar with Sickels' work, i'd suggest an extensive review of his site, minorleagueball.com. i think he does as good a job as anyone in assessing prospects, and certainly is far more generous in putting the information into the public domain. buy his book while you're there, if you're so inclined.

at least as interesting to me as the cardinals' rise among systems has been the fall of other teams within the division. both milwaukee and cincinnati have exhausted the depth in their systems by graduation and by trade, to compete in 2011 and 2012. the turnover of quality is reflected in their new ranks at #23 and #28 among MLB farm systems. the brewers carry no prospects ranked B+ or better. the reds carry a single A- and a single B+ player in their farm.

the astros are not likely to compete next year, and are out of the league in 2013. so, we really need not concern ourselves with the magic that jeff luhnow may do over the next several years in houston. their farm is terrible this year, too, ranking at 26. however, i suspect luhnow is very capable of fixing that circumstance.

speaking of excellent GM's, theo epstein has made his success in boston look like less of a mirage by making some canny trades and successfully charting the disastrous cubs onto a course of rebuilding. however, the farm is still lacking in high-end prospects, with only two B+ prospects (one of whom was acquired by epstein) taking up the high end of the farm. still, the cubs enjoy a wealth of low-end depth prospects.

the pirates have a several highly-rated prospects - in the form of two excellent pitchers, gerritt cole and jameson tailion, and one fine outfielder josh bell, but relatively poor depth following them. contrast them with the cardinals; where the cardinals have eleven B prospects or better, the pirates have five. still, the pirates are the closest farm competition to the cardinals, ranking at #11 overall.

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theyyesterday saw what was maybe the third mega-trade of the season (along with the latos, marshall, and continuing rumors of a garza trade). the cardinals show few, if any, signs of putting together such a trade. however, there's some value in taking a look at what we have to trade, and what we might be interested in.

a good place to start in discussing what we have to trade is future redbirds new top 20. if you haven't checked it out yet, you should. there may be some room to trade from the major league roster, but the most likely major league trade bait lies in our bullpen - mitch boggs, kyle mcclellan, for instance.

the untouchables: there are a couple prospects that i don't see the club ever trading. shelby miller seems off-limits, just because of his overwhelming talent and proximity to the majors. it's hard to think about what would be a fair return on miller. kolten wong also seems like a player the club will not move, having little serious rivalry at second base. trading wong would create a bigger vacuum than what any trade would fix.

the unlikely: i don't think these two prospects are out of bounds, but i think they probably have at least as much value to this club, if not more, relative to other clubs. matt adams i wouldn't have put in this category prior to the failed pujols negotiations. with pujols gone, adams has far more value to the club. however, adams seems like a decent, not great, first baseman. more important, first basemen seem far easier to replace on the free agent market at a reasonable price. oscar taveras is the other prospect who seems unlikely to move. he may be the cardinals best position player prospect. he's astonishingly talented. however, taveras carries a few question marks, and outfielders are not as hard to replace as other position players. last, he's still a couple years away. i think the club would have to be seriously tempted to consider trading either one.

the high-end talent: the club is chock-full of excellent pitching talent. as such, either carlos martinez or tyrell jenkins could be trade bait. they would be the centerpiece of any trade in which they were involved. expect great things in return for either.

they were expendable: in the event we are hunting less stellar prey, the second tier of our pitching talent could well be in play. joe kelly, jordan swagerty, trevor rosenthal, or maikel cleto are all possibilities. i think we'd be selling low on rosenthal, so i'd be most surprised to see him go anywhere - he lacks the market value of higher end talent, unless the trading partner scouts him carefully.

the third base crew: zack cox and matt carpenter are obviously fairly redundant, especially with a resurgent, world series hero david freese still more or less healthy. while there is nothing safe, the club realistically only needs so many third basemen. the no-brainer would be to put cox on the block. as a first-round pick he has an obvious pedigree that will be readily apparent and highly valued by a trading partner. carpenter is unlikely to have the same currency on the market, but may have equal value to this club. some players have obvious value that sells well on the trade market. others have value that will be hard to see for a club that hasn't scouted the player very carefully. cox is clearly the former; carpenter is the latter.

the targets: where would the club look for help? shortstop, center field, possibly a catching prospect, maybe an improvement prospect over adams at first? third base, left field, starting pitching, and the bullpen are all strengths. wong looks like a steady, up-and-coming second baseman. fellow prospects, like hak ju lee at short, or peter bourjos in center. and you'd need to match with a club with needs in this area - easy enough, when starting pitching is what you're selling. because cox is so expendable, i'd look for someone with an opening at third.

sorry, but something came up this morning, so you will have an open thread for today.

briefly, i note that mlb trade rumors is distressingly announcing that arthur rhodes is not retiring, and that he will decide where he'll land soon. worse, they claim the cardinals and the mariners have both shown interest in him. unless the cardinals showed interest months ago, that makes no sense. bettween scrabble and romero and swindle, there's surely no need for a fourth left-hander, especially one who is completely dreadful.

otherwise, share below your one dream acquisition for this off-season, whether by trade or free agency.

fyi - if you didn't see this article, it's worth checking out. nominally, it's about cardinals "quirkiness" which seems to be a synonym for "crappiness (except for ray lankford) within the last 20 years."

* * *

some time ago, bj rains idly speculated about yadier molina's next contract. shortly thereafter, several cooler heads prevailed and noted that rains was predicting a historic contract for molina, relative to other catchers. see below for a collection of catchers who have managed to score an eight-figure average annual value in free agency.

historically best compensated catchers (AAV)

jorge posada - $13.1m (2008-11) [career wOBA .366]

ivan rodriguez - $10m (2003, 2004-07) [.343]

joe mauer - $23m (2011-18) [.377]

jason kendall - $10m (2002-07) [.333]

jason varitek - $10m (2005-08) [.336]

mike piazza - $13m (1999-2005) [.389]

arguably, molina is difficult to fit into this matrix - or really, difficult to calculate his value at all using the tools available to us. molina is a defense-first catcher by conventional wisdom. and the biggest weakness in conventional WAR is an inability to capture catcher defense.

on the offensive side, molina's career wOBA is .310 according to fangraphs. while his offensive production has improved substantially, he still has a projected .320 wOBA according to Bill James - which is a rough way of addressing some up-and-down recent seasons.

so, our dilemma is that molina is nowhere near an offensive comp to the most well-paid catchers out there, but we have no way to really assess how his defensive value compares to that of the other best-paid catchers. since molina is working on a $7m option, it seems very likely that molina will make more than the $7m in the option.

whatever one thinks of molina's defense, it seems fair to say that any defensive superiority on molina's part does not make up for the offensive gap between him and joe mauer. so, given the salary precedents above, it seems like we're likely talking about something in the vicinity of $10-$13m in AAV for yadier's next contract.

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things to be thankful for this holiday:

i'm thankful that we have enjoyed ten years of matthew leach as our MLB.com correspondent. he's been a good reporter, a fine writer, and clearly has a keen sense of analysis. he is well-deserving of a promotion to the national mlb.com beat. also, he just seems like a really nice guy. at least we still have goold. i wish matthew nothing but the best in new york city.

i'm also thankful that his replacement at mlb.com sounds intriguing - jennifer langosch is a mizzou graduate (apparently, they have some kind of j-school there?) who put in five seasons in pittsburgh covering the pirates for mlb.com, publishing under the endearing blog title "by gosh, it's langosch." while at Mizzou, she also did some freelance work for the springfield news-leader, which lends lots of coverage to the cardinals' AA team. sadly, despite missouri ties, it appears she was born a braves fan. nobody's perfect.

i'm thankful that walt jocketty is the GM for the Reds. after being comparatively quiet for a few years, walt dealt three top ten organization prospects and an intermittently good starting pitcher to san diego for mat "one t" latos. he followed up this move by trading a decent starting pitcher - who admittedly was lost in the crowd of okay but unspectacular starting pitchers in cincinnati - and two top twenty prospects, at least one of whom would have been on most top ten prospect lists after an excellent 2011. arguably, there was a fair amount of redundancy in the prospects traded, but even so, a four-win starting pitcher and two-win reliever seems like a terribly small haul for a pretty good chunk of the cincinnati farm (and two decent starting pitchers), especially for a team as yet without a left fielder. i understand the desire to capitalize on the remaining votto era, but it seems

conversely, i am generally thankful that john mozeliak is the GM for the cardinals. despite skip schumaker, he's had a very good offseason. he extended berkman and carpenter in reasonable deals. he's avoided overpaying for furcal or beltran or pujols. he's fostered substantial growth in our farm system and avoided trading away bits of the farm for poor return. that's not to say he doesn't make moves i don't agree with or that seem counterproductive or short-sighted. but on balance, we could do much worse. also, despite the rotating middle infield of terror, yuniesky betancourt has never spent a day in a cardinals uniform.

i am thankful that the cardinals won the 2011 world championship.

i am thankful that i have my health, as do most of my closest family members.

i am thankful to have a blog where hundreds of people come together as a community to share their thoughts and ideas.

this got knocked around a little bit last night, but dan szymborski had pity on a man coming off a plane with nothing to write about and posted his projections for the st. louis cardinals in 2012.

actually the coolest thing about the projections is that you can practically taste that sweet, sweet prospect-y goodness. matt adams being worth a 98 OPS+ next year (the same projection as for david freese)? yes, please. occasionally downtrodden zach cox putting down a 92 OPS+? okey-doke. neck-and-neck 3B prospect matt carpenter with a 94 OPS+? sure. shelby miller out-pitching lance lynn (starter edition), who in turn out-pitches kyle lohse and jake westbrook? i should be paying $3.99 a minute to hear this.

now, of course, the most likely outcome, barring catastrophic injury, is that we do not see much of those four prospects this year. they'll have a further season to mature. in 2013, when we might more likely see some of these guys, they should be ready to put on a good show. of course, it is silly to put too much faith in these projections. there are many slips betwixt cup and lip, and i don't think all of them would truly pick up a bat tomorrow and put up those numbers.

but it is good news for the future. moreover, it's reassuring for now - both carpenter and cox are projected to hit numbers more or less comparable to descalso (93 OPS+), which would make them adequate infield backups, if needed.

in the outfield

the new projections are also a chance to bash some conventional VEB targets. in the anual game of "what league-min player is skip schumaker now comparable to?" skip (5th outfielder edition) looks indistinguishable from rule 5 pickup erik komatsu (both projected for an 86 OPS+), except that komatsu would probably be a good centerfielder. both have better projections than adron chambers (83 OPS+), which is slightly surprising to me. i could stand to watch chambers spend the season in AAA to let komatsu take a reserve outfield role, but staying in memphis so skip can take up a roster spot is somewhat annoying. aaron luna hangs about looking like a potential emergency call-up a la andrew brown (85 OPS+). ZiPS has just given up on shane robinson and daryl jones; sorry, guys.


behind the plate

ZiPS weighs in strongly on the backup catcher debate, projecting an 82 OPS+ for bryan anderson, compared to a 74 OPS+ for tony cruz. backup catcher is not the most exciting position on the field, but it will surely be interesting to see how this shakes out in spring training. (p.s. dan, if you're reading this, it looks like you did the tigers projection before gerald laird signed in detroit, and thus he appears in neither team's projections. i'd be interested in comparing his projection to our current backups.)

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josh kinney signed a minor league deal with the mariners.

veb late night is in full swing with car and love advice.

i am drinking eggnog and bourbon, and watching chungking express.

enjoy this overflow while we await the baron's wednesday missive.

as we recover from the traumatic week of endless rumors and tweets, ending in albert pujols taking his talents to long beach (or thereabouts), we are slowly gathering ourselves for the next step, trying to figure out where we go from here.

unfortunately, the next-best-thing on the market was already gone. jose reyes is going to be a marlin. tiptoeing down the list of the next big free agents, jimmy rollins's name comes up shortly thereafter.

now, rollins resonates with me as kind of a quintessentially unappealing player to a sabr-type. overrated for a long time, received an undeserved mvp, aging middle infielder due for a collapse.and all of that is true. the most concerning statistic about jimmy rollins is 33: his age.

still, the market hasn't really coalesced around him yet. the phillies are probably most likely to re-sign him, partially because he's a familiar hometown hero and partially because ruben amaro has not yet grasped the whole aging curve business. (he's due for a fairly brutal crash course, soonish.)

however, if the phillies find another option, and rollins seems less adamant about 4-5 years, should we be interested in him at, say, three years? probably not, but he's a more interesting case than you might think.

first: the guy is starting to take walks. after going eight seasons without putting up an 8 percent walk rate, he's put up a 9 percent or better walk rate in three of the last four seasons. that's interesting. if he can maintain a decent walk rate, that's a skill that is less likely to decline as he ages.

second: it's not at all clear what is happening to his hitting. he's walking a lot more, so you'd think he'd have a soaring obp, right? nope. as his walk rate has risen, his batting average and babip have tanked enormously. his babips over the last four seasons are .290, .251, .246, and .275, which are completely abnormal.

and his sudden contact difficulties don't seem to relate to changing quality in contact: he's had line drive rates of 20, 1917, and 24 percent over the last 4 seasons.

while he had a down year defensively in 2011 (3.1 uzr/150), his defensive stats have been generally above average to very good.

the one thing that seems not-mysterious is the decline of his power. rollins' iso is not going to see the good side of .200 again. it would be nice if it saw the good side of .150. don't hold your breath for 25 hr from him.

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well, i used to be disgusted

but now i try to be amused

since his hamstring got busted

you know the angels wanna pay my pujols

but when he told me about their side of the bargain

that's when i knew that he could not refuse

and i don't care if he's older

now the angels wanna pay my pujols

oh-oh, i was watchin' you a-bargainin' away

my heart got broken in the snappin' and the play

how come everybody wants to pay you so much cash

plus lozano strikes me as an ass . . .

oh, i know that he's disgusted (oh why's that)

because he's feeling underpaid (oh that's too bad)

he gets tired of fuss (oh i'm so sad)

but still makes less than holliday

how can you say that he's too old

now the angels gonna pay my pujols

i said, "i can't take it, here's two-twenty-five"

he said "drop dead" and left with some other guy

that's what you get when you chase a hall of famer

guess i'll see who hasn't made it yet through waivers

oh, i used to be disgusted

but now i try to be amused

since his hamstring got busted

you know the angels wanna pay my pujols

but when he told me about their side of the bargain

that's when i knew that he could not refuse

and i don't care if he's older

now the angels wanna pay my pujols

pujols! the angels wanna pay my pujols!

pujols! the angels wanna pay my pujols!

pujols! the angels wanna pay my pujols!

Elvis Costello - Red Shoes (Live TOTP 1977) (via korkhammaregon)

browsing through my posts from the last year, i have to say, i don't find too much that makes me shudder in retrospect. although, i suspect there's a lot more luck than wisdom in that.

ok, this one turned out both crass and inaccurate:

DAN UGGLA TRADED TO ATLANTA FOR A PILE OF POOP STOP

uggla's trade for omar infante and mike dunn turned out to be prescient. after turning down a generous offer from the marlins on an extension, uggla got the trade he was looking for. turns out that infante was worth 2.7 wins for the marlins and uggla outdid his marlins offer, netting a 5y/$62m contract from atlanta, putting up . . . 2.5 wins.

oh well, if cheap scatological humor is wrong, i don't want to be right.

speaking of cheap shots, derek jeter was not smoking crack, but the yankees were. jeter got $51m over 3y and put up his worst season in forever, at 2.3 wins.

ok, i'm proud of this one, even if it was not that difficult to criticize: the comparison of bronson arroyo and jeff suppan turned out to be dead on, or rather, arroyo ended up being much worse than suppan did as he aged. the reds issued him a 3y/$35m contract last year, and he rewarded them with an epically bad season, posting a 5.71 FIP (although a fairly typical-for-him 4.54 xFIP, which is better but not actually good), ending up 1.3 wins BELOW replacement.

my projections for the cardinals 2011 bench were not terrible, but i am terribly fond of the following sentence in retrospect:

craig is in line for a real breakout year. my gut says that we will look back on his 2011 performance as a triumph.

of course, i remember miguel batista joining the cardinals, but did anyone remember ian snell? yeah, he was on the team once. both looked kind of like crap in january 2010. both looked like crap later in the season, but only one of them threw way too many innings for the big club.

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scene: the dining room in the modest st. louis area home of mike matheny's in-laws, ron and donna*

*not their real names**

**unless, by chance, they are. 

mike matheny stands at the head of the dining room table. on his right sit (starting with those closest to him) adam wainwright, chris carpenter, yadier molina, and albert pujols. on his left, sit david freese, lance berkman, and matt holliday. at the foot of the table sits john mozeliak. the table bears an enormous thanksgiving spread. the players and mozeliak look expectantly at matheny as he speaks.

matheny: i want to thank you all for coming to join us. and i want to thank my wife's parents, ron and donna*(**) for having us all over for thanksgiving. i know it's not easy to forgo thanksgiving with your families, so it is a special gift to have you all with us. but it's so important to me that we be close like a family as we start our new season together. that's why i wanted to get the guys who tony always regarded as his "core" together, as well as some guys (gesturing at freese and berkman) who i think are going to be an important part of the core going forward. and i . . . 

pujols: (stands up awkwardly) i just want to say thank you for inviting me, mike. i'm here because i have a lot of good friends here ( nodding at yadier) and because you and i played together, mike, and i have nothing but respect for you, mang. but i gotta say, until my contract situation is resolved, that's all i can be here for. i can't tell you i'm gonna be a cardinal, you know, because there's 29 other teams that want me. and i don't know where that process is going to end. (looks expectantly at mozeliak, who shifts in his seat) so, i really gotta have somebody pick up the phone and talk to my agent before people start assuming i'm on the team next year. (sits down)

matheny: . . . and thank you for saying that albert. we all understand the contract situation and we all know it will bew resolved soon.

mozeliak: well, not too soon. i mean, unless somebody's agent has to hurry up and get a deal so he can pay all his debts.

pujols: oh, mang, that's nothing but lies from a bunch of lowlifes on the internet got nothing better to do than make up stuff about guys in the business of baseball.

matheny: yes, and i don't want the contract situation to get in the way of . . . 

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the Arizona Fall League ended this week. a select few Cardinals were flown down to Arizona to play in Peoria, which is apparently in Arizona now. i believe it has something to do with the football Cardinals.

anyway, at least one cardinal acquitted himself very well, some of them looked terrible, and most of them were pretty undistinguished in their service.

the undisputed champion of the small sample size was ryan jackson. he followed up a pretty reasonable 2011 in Springfield (.278/.334/.415) with a .342/.438/.500 line in Arizona. the long-time glove-first shortstop has begun to show a more adept approach at the plate. of course, the AFL numbers come with not just a small sample size warning, but a very strong offensive skew to the league and the parks. still, there's not really an environment where a .938 OPS is a bad result for a shortstop.

tyler lyons was clearly the team champ on the pitching side. he managed a 4.85 ERA in almost 30 innings (remember the whole hitter-friendly skew), but his peripherals were more telling: 7 walks to 28 strikeouts, for a 4:1 K:BB rate. he did get touched for 4 homers in that brief stint, but i am more interested in the strikeouts and walks.

two prospects making a name for themselves this season on the offensive side produced some resoundingly okay numbers. oscar taveras put forth a .307/.312/.413 line in 75 ABs, and matt adams hit for a .250/.258/.475 line in 80 ABs. between them, they had 3 walks. taveras's line is more appealing to me because he's coming from Quad Cities (instead of Springfield), he's 4 years younger, and he doesn't play first base. taveras is still stretching himself to play against leagues of almost exclusively older players; adams should be solidifying his dominance at the plate.that said, it would be nice to see more walks from both of them, even in a tiny sample size.

the rest of the pitching staff looked mostly terrible in their short stints. most notably, david kopp may have played his way out of the club's plans on the relief front; he was not among the names on the 40-man roster yesterday, making him eligible for the rule V draft next month. he put up a 10.13 ERA, with a 5:8 K:BB rate in almost 11 innings. keith butler didn't look very good either, with a 6.75 ERA and a 5:11 K:BB rate. justin wright looked similarly poor, with an 11.42 ERA and a 6:14 K/BB rate. again, it's a small sample size in a rare, batter-friendly environment, coming at the end of what was a very long season for many of these players, with none of the pitchers representing anything like the cream of the crop in the system. i don't think there is anything to worry about here, but few of these guys did themselves any favors.

also, if you haven't looked at d-dee's fanpost just to my right here, you should. right now, it has 103 recs, which is almost as many as the transcript of joe strauss and bj rains being stuck in an elevator for an hour would have.

in honor of the opening of the offseason, i would like to state that i am, in fact, in the best shape of my life.*

 *this is possibly true. low bar and whatnot.

 the philadelphia phillies celebrated the opening of hot stove season by promising to pay jonathan papelbon $50 million over the next four years, with a vesting option for a fifth year. when papelbon's agent explained to him that this was, in fact, a lot of money,* jon was very pleased. while papelbon is probably the best closer candidate free agent out there,** he is still only the best closer out there.

*assuming they won't sign madson also, the only non-replacement value reliever left on the squad is bastardo.

**if the phils wanted to pick up a 1B/DH type, why would they pick up left-handed jim thome? howard's career wOBA v. LHP: .323.

elsewhere, the rest of the baseball world seems to be willing to wait out the early days of the free agent market. the marlins invited both jose reyes and albert pujols to visit them as they relocate from florida to miami.

In the non-snark division, the good news is that the Nats catcher is alive and out of the clutches of his captors.

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you can't go home again.

the heroes of your youth had their meaning in a specific context, at a specific time in your life. and when you go back to revisit them, like a house you used to live in, they are changed. something new has moved in. not better or worse, just different and strange.

this is where my thoughts went when i heard about the death of bob forsch: perennial cardinal, author of two no-hitters, starting pitcher in three different world series.

bob forsch wasn't an all-star. he wasn't a cy young candidate. he didn't collect any gaudy array of awards. but he was a constant presence in the cardinals organization, spending the vast majority of his career in this organization. he started 21 games for the Astros in 1988 and 1989, along with some relief duty.

and he was a fixture in my childhood memories of the club. the first ballgame i ever remember attending was his second no-hitter. i was still a little boy who didn't yet understand baseball well, and no-hitters are by their nature uneventful, so i fell asleep. i remember waking up to the news that he had pitched a no-hitter, and trying to wrap my head around the concept. i didn't really understand what had happened, but i knew it was special.

from the adult world, looking back, forsch was a steady, unspectacular presence on the team. he was worth more than 4 wins above replacement as a pitcher only once. he was a pitch-to-contact guy who would have made dave duncan's heart sing. in the fast-paced, astroturfed, defense-first world of Whiteyball he found his calling.

the man had a career strikeout rate of 3.65 K/9, making jake westbrook look like pedro martinez. but he didn't walk many guys, leading the league in walk rate in 1980 with 1.38 BB/9 and with a career 2.68 BB/9. somehow, he translated his pitch-to-contact skills into a 15-season career.

he's not a hall-of-famer, though he's a decent candidate for the hall of the very good, especially in the jon garland sheer endurance division.

beyond endurance, his other real claim to fame on the statistical end of things was that he was an exceptional hitter, as pitchers go. he was worth a respectable, though unspectacular, 30.4 wins above replacement as a pitcher in his 15 seasons. however, he was worth a further 10.1 wins above replacement with the bat. we often forget to take a look at the offensive value of pitchers. while it's usually not determinative, it's non-trivial in many cases. in forsch's especially; there's a vast difference between being worth 30 wins and 40 wins over a career.

in 1976, he hit for a .363 wOBA; he hit for a .353 wOBA in 1980. he finished his career with a .249 wOBA. his only real career hardware - other than his 1982 WS ring - was a pair of silver slugger awards in 1980 and 1987.

he ranks 24th on the career list of most offensive runs earned above replacement among pitchers, trailing fellow cardinals bob gibson, jim kaat, and steve carlson.


in short, he's a decent candidate for the cardinals hall of the very good; maybe he even fits the starting rotation for their exhibition team.

but for me, he will be first and foremost a core member of the Whiteyball Cardinals.

along with willie mcgee, tom herr, and ozzie smith, he was a member of  very select few to play on all three of the world series teams of the 1980s. in my mind, he is throwing no-hitters and blasting grand slams.

that is why it is bizarre for me to look back on those days and see him with new eyes, to try to judge him on sabermetric grounds. it's weird to think of a man who was larger-than-life to me in my youth as jon garland with jeff mathis's bat. instead, i'll acknowledge his limitations while remembering the glorious postseasons of the 1980s and the unique role he played in each one.

maybe i can't go home again, but maybe bob can. 

thank you for the memories, bob. may the forsch be with you.

well, that was a fantastic ride. after 2006, i suppose i should be used to world series runs that run against all conventional wisdom.

it's hard to think back to the early dominance of the cardinals in april, followed closely by the abject collapse of the team. i don't have to remind you - since every other article about the season recalls it - the run of the cardinals back from a 10.5 game deficit. 

the epic run to the postseason, closing on the last day was nothing but a prelude to an exciting 5 game series with  the phillies, a  challenging 6-game nlcs against milwaukee, and finally one of the most exciting  world series in recent memory.

along the way, we saw a historic single game offensive performance by albert pujols, repeated and unexpected clutch offensive performances from david freese (who - and you will never believe what i have just discovered - is actually from st. louis!), a remarkable endurancefest from chris carpenter, and a nearly perfect postseason from the stalwart members of the bullpen - including jason motte, fernando salas, and lance lynn.

posting two world series victories and three ws appearances in eight seasons (the albert pujols era)  is an outstanding showing for any team. 

and one can't mention albert without noting that today is day one (of five) of the exclusive negotiating period. 

i will try to have some further thoughts later in the day.

go cardinals!

maybe the most remarkable thing about this postseason is that the cardinals have faced excellent pitching and have mostly overcome the excellent pitching. that's a combination of having a truly excellent offense and a lot of luck in a pretty small sample size. let's take a look at some of the star pitchers we've faced.

zach greinke

greinke, former AL Cy Young Award winner, is an excellent pitcher, who pulled down an astonishing 2.98 FIP/2.56 xFIP this season. in the postseason, though, he's looked more human (5.49 FIP/4.02xFIP), especially against the cardinals.

10/15  5.2 IP / 5 R / 2 ER / 2 BB / 0 K / -.240 WPA

10/ 9  6.0 IP / 6 R  / 6 ER / 2 BB / 6 K / -.334 WPA

shaun marcum

for all his late season struggles, shaun put together a decent 2011, an excellent #3 pitcher in a very solid rotation (3.73 FIP/3.89 xFIP). he's looked superficially different in september (4.49 FIP/3.89 xFIP - note the identical xFIP to his season number) and actually different in the tiny post season sample size (6.49 FIP/5.08 xFIP). i'm inclined to think that his late season struggles are not likely to predict poor performance tomorrow, but if he is suffering from some kind of injury, fatigue, or dead arm, i sure wouldn't complain about us running up the score on him early. his lone game against the cardinals did not look good:

10/10 4.0 IP / 5 R / 5 ER / 1 BB / 1 K / -.277 WPA

yovani gallardo

the #2 in the brewers rotation, gallardo's 3.52 FIP/3.59 xFIP would make him the best pitcher on a lot of staffs. his postseason numbers look good (3.97 FIP/ 3.93 xFIP), but reflect two strong games against the d-backs and one weak one against STL.

10/12 5.0 IP/ 4 R / 4 ER / 5 BB / 2 K /  - .139 WPA

the only brewers pitcher who's looked any good against us is, funnily enough, randy wolf, who is treading a post season road mediocrities like jeff suppan and jeff weaver know well. however, these three top pitchers combined to throw TEN walks at the cardinals in just under 21 innings, counterbalanced by only 9 strikeouts. wolf, naturally, threw 6 K's to one walk in seven innings.

baseball is a funny game.

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since today is a travel day as we wander back to miller field, i'll put up a temporary thread now, and put up a more substantive one midday/early afternoon tomorrow.

that game felt good to me pretty much all the way through. while jaime was not in complete lockdown mode all game, i thought he looked fine. while he only put in 5 innings, i thought that tony's early call to the bullpen was a clear case of tony deliberately choosing to push his bullpen rather than distrust of his starter.

i really don't hate the bullpen usage in the unique context of the postseason. tony knew he had a travel day today to rely on. and the bullpen has looked very comfortable in the postseason. motte pulled off another 4-out save (yes, due to the intricacies of the save rule, that 7-1 victory counts as a save.) it may be profane to think forward while we are enjoying a postseason run that falls just this side of miraculous, but i keep thinking that the bullpen's success is guaranteeing that tony will have some faith in salas and motte in 2012 - with some room for rzepczynski, sanchez, and lynn to play a real role in the pen ( ignoring the notion that we might be able to do away with westbrook and put lynn or zep in the rotation). i am also inclined to think that the sparing usage of boggs and mcclellan makes it more likely we see dotel return than see either pitching in april. tony seems to rely on his "feel" for his players as much as their actual statistics.  and the postseason seems like a great place to give tony a good "feel" for you.

the other player who seems to have seriously affected tony's "feel" for him in the post season is long-suffering adron chambers. while he shouldn't anticipate any starting time absent injury, i think he's written into the outfield bench in pen. given how he's watched andrew brown and corey patterson take up time in the outfield, he should feel great relief. i also note that it can't possibly hurt that the guy shows tremendous spirit; he's visibly excited to be with the team, and always seems to have an enormous, infectious grin on his face. he's fun to watch in huge disproportion to his talent.

back to the game: i thought there was little to complain about on the offensive end. it felt a little bit like yesterday, except with hits strung together just right, rather than abandoning dozens of players on the basepaths. 4 errors from the brewers helped make the scoring happen. all this good performance and good fortune made the game one of the only games i've felt we totally controlled. it's a great way to return to miller park, needing only to take one of the next 2 games.

gripe: there was a terriffic baseball game today, and i tried to find some postgame coverage that would analyze the game a few hours later. nothing. college football? sure. college basketball? yeah. hockey? you bet. discussions of a nonexistent nba season? oddly, yes. baseball, nothing. i had to watch half of sportscenter before i saw a baseball. these are two of the best teams in baseball playing a very dramatic series. it would be nice to see the national sports media show some interest.

the cardinals looked very good today, reaching marcum - one of the brewers best starters, but struggling recently - and half of the brewers' bullpen for runs.

albert pujols put the lie to a lot of the muttering by blasting 3 doubles and a homer (.387 WPA). the rest of the team chipped in to make the game a blowout.

edwin jackson did fine, though he did not look excellent, nor go terribly deep into the game. arthur rhodes continues to make one wonder how long anyone will continue to hand him the ball. lance lynn, salas, and motte looked very good in relief.

this was exactly what the team needed. the team has a #happyflight return to st. louis for a crucial 3-game homestand. the brewers have a very extreme home-away split this season. it also doesn't hurt that game 3 is a carpenter start, who has looked indomitable recently (except in his short-rest start).

yadier molina could not resist the temptation to rise to some of the trash talking bait by adding a "crybaby" gesture in the direction of the home dugout while the cards were stacking up the runs, a gesture which will surely garner some talk (if not more).

"phillies in three two!"

so there's this Team. a baseball Team. and they have a tough season. they lose their best pitcher before the season starts. their star player is laid up with maladies and slumps undetermined for months. he has his worst season ever.

and then the rest of the Team gets banged up. lots of trips to the disabled list, even for the remaining stars on the Team. the best remaining pitcher starts out in a funk of bad luck and can't seem to catch a break.

by the middle of the season, they're lucky to be hanging on to third place. the pirates (THE PIRATES!) of all teams are in first place. the Team looks in a funk. whole months pass where they play below .500 ball or barely break even.

the pirates begin to fade, but the brewers turn it on and go on an almost unprecedented winning streak. the Team is games and games out of first place in their division.

then august happens. september happens. the Team starts pulling down win after win. a lot of the weakest members of the Team get bumped for stronger ones.

by the middle of september, the division looks mostly out of reach, but the atlanta braves have started a collapse. from ten games out of the wild card, the Team inches closer, until the last game of the season.

in the final game, the Team demolishes their opponent behind their substitute ace. they wait expectantly to see the braves face the juggernaut - probably the best team in the league with a historically good rotation - to see if the Team goes right into the postseason or a one-game sudden death match with the braves. and the juggernaut puts the braves away.

the Team is in the postseason.

but then, the Team's first matchup is facing the juggernaut. a stacked lineup is merely the entree to a rotation that is not the best in the league, but the best in a decade. as the Team merely backed its way into the postseason, no one gives them much chance to beat the juggernaut.

but the Team rolls. the Team pushes. the Team puts its best on the field, night after night, making every game a contest. they force a game five.

and then, against anyone's predictions and working behind an improbable 3-hit complete game shutout by their substitute ace, they win.

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see, they are weeping with joy!

in the meantime,

Prince - Let's Go Crazy (via 01114691)

cardinals up 1-0 in the bottom of the fourth. go cards!