Viva El Birdos

Albert Pujols is the unanimous NL MVP

2009-11-24T20:02:05Z

More photos » by JACK DEMPSEY - AP

about 20 hours ago: FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2009, file photo, St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols douses teammates during a National League Central division title celebration following the team's 6-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies, in Denver. Pujols was unanimously voted National League MVP on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009, becoming the baseball first player to repeat since Barry Bonds won four in a row from 2001-04. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File)

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Obviously the BBWAA checked SBN's crib notes; Albert Pujols wins unanimously, Hanley places second, and—well, Ryan Howard somehow continues to be grossly overrated by people who watch him and Chase Utley every day.

I don't know how to explain this phenomenon; Chase Utley is among the smoothest-looking, most complete players in baseball, able to do just about anything, from home run hitting to Inside Baseball-y grit work, better than everybody else at his position. Ryan Howard is great in "the second halves of seasons", but as simple as it seems to me maybe this is worth repeating: this means he is not great in the first halves of seasons. His team's games count the same either way. Ryan Howard was probably one of the ten best hitters in the NL this year; he's a slow first baseman. This is a difficult combination to turn into the third best player in baseball.

But that's enough about Ryan Howard, the annual MVP bogeyman, for this year—Albert Pujols should have won, and he did, and for once every BBWAA writer tasked with the supremely difficult task of figuring that out did so. Viva El Hombre!

The Greatest Cardinals of Each Time: The American Association

2009-11-24T11:00:14Z

It is a lucky thing for Cardinals writers that Stan Musial's birthday falls in the offseason; in July it would be a blip on the radar while complaining about relief pitching remained in fashion, but in November there is simply nothing else to talk about. As The Man gets older and his first plausible heir nears 30 it makes sense to begin wondering where each will fall on the list of all-time greatest Cardinals, even if the resulting P-D article was less than satisfying in some ways.

But it's simply too soon; Albert Pujols has played nine seasons, while Musial went an astonishing sixteen before his skills finally dropped below a Hall of Fame level. Even in a comparison of their careers to this point there's a lot to confound; Musial began his career during World War II, amid a serious drop in competition, which makes it seem like he arrived at 21 fully formed instead of maturing into someone who put up the same stats against better players at 25.

It's hard to compare players across eras; it's easier in baseball, which has stayed comparatively stable since the live ball era, when the jump shot was a gleam in Hank Luisetti's eye and the forward pass was 20 years old, but even then we must deal with integration, with expansion, with timeline adjustment (I'm not for it, for what it's worth) and the changing utilization of pitchers. When Albert Pujols finally retires—at fifty, having won, as the saying goes, fifteen straight MVP awards and then six straight Albert Pujols awards—it will be time to wade into the murk that comes with adjusting for World War II and the really-live-ball era into which Bobby Bonilla allowed Albert Pujols. Until then we can only say that Albert Pujols is the best Cardinal of this era, and Stan Musial the best of his own. Until then the interesting question is this: Who's the best Cardinal of each time?

The American Association Browns: 1882-1891

If you've been in the Cardinals' team store you already know that these guys, the rough-and-tumble Browns of the American Association, created a World Series to earn some extra money, and once put himself in as manager, are not officially recognized by the St. Louis Cardinals as... Cardinals, est. 1892. But prior to joining the National League the Browns were among the best teams in base ball, winning four consecutive pennants and taking a proto-World Series championship in 1886.

Baseball in the 1880s was moving in the direction of the sport we know now. Gloves were being adopted; there were two leagues that occasionally played each other; the number of balls to a walk and where a pitcher ought to stand varied across the decade. By the end of the period the Browns were playing about 140 games a year, give or take a few. But careers were short and effective careers even shorter. Here's every hitter who accrued 1000 plate appearances for these Browns:

Rk	Player	OPS+	PA	To	From	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SB	BA	OBP	SLG
1	Tip O'Neill	158	3519	1884	1891	785	3183	697	1092	185	70	47	625	300	118	.343	.406	.489
2	Bob Caruthers	156	1146	1884	1887	268	985	245	308	56	27	15	146	154	75	.313	.409	.470
3	Tommy McCarthy	115	2471	1888	1891	540	2241	507	687	93	25	17	295	200	270	.307	.371	.393
4	Yank Robinson	115	2584	1885	1891	603	2108	462	537	100	30	12	303	419	221	.255	.392	.348
5	Dave Foutz	112	1248	1884	1887	302	1194	204	353	54	26	7	201	51	39	.296	.326	.402
6	Curt Welch	106	1648	1885	1887	381	1539	296	426	81	28	8	272	77	148	.277	.325	.381
7	Bill Gleason	101	3041	1882	1887	659	2838	552	781	99	33	7	232	161	42	.275	.324	.341
8	Arlie Latham	95	3932	1883	1889	839	3652	829	975	134	48	11	245	239	367	.267	.319	.339
9	Charlie Comiskey	92	4554	1882	1891	1036	4389	816	1198	161	58	26	694	135	336	.273	.299	.354
10	Hugh Nicol	83	1594	1883	1886	383	1488	255	361	44	12	0	103	100	38	.243	.293	.288
11	Shorty Fuller	72	1841	1889	1891	407	1629	316	390	42	22	3	154	192	140	.239	.327	.298
12	Jack Boyle	71	1518	1887	1891	381	1393	213	336	40	15	11	185	101	42	.241	.304	.315

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That's it. Only Charlie Comiskey, first baseman-manager, suited up every season (except for 1890, when both the AA and the NL came under attack by the Players' League), but he can be pretty easily removed from consideration; at the time first base was considered significantly more defensively important than it is now, and he was certainly an excellent one—although probably not, as he'd later claim, the first man to play off the bag—but his .273 batting average was empty even in an age of empty batting averages, and his player-managing is a skill extremely specific to this era.

Tip O'Neill, on the other hand, was among the best hitters in the American Association's brief history, winning two consecutive batting titles for the Browns and, in 1887, having the best season of the decade. That year he actually hit .435/.490/.691, leading the league in all three slash stats, runs (167 in 124 games), hits, doubles triples, home runs, and RBI, but thanks to a brief scorekeeping experiment it originally went into the record-books even better than that. In 1887, perhaps in the throes of its first sabermetric revolution, baseball decided a walk counted, for record-keeping purposes, as a hit. This was the only season it was true, and it coincided with Tip O'Neill's career year, the end result being that, depending on whom you ask, he still holds the all-time single season batting average record at .492.

Among position players, O'Neill is basically unchallenged for Browns supremacy; Arlie Latham is another honorable mention, thanks to his baserunning, his shaky play at third base (at the time nearer shortstop, as a defensive position, than center field), and the good fortune of being nicknamed "The Freshest Man on Earth", but he doesn't have the hitting chops, either.

But in the 1880s the question of greatness is a discussion that must necessarily include pitchers. These teams used no more than three pitchers in a season, if they could help it, and they almost always finished games. Careers win totals ended up basically within historical norms, Cy Young aside, but it was because a great pitcher's career was compressed into the brief and wonderful moments before his arm became completely useless to him for the rest of his life. Hoss Radbourn, for instance, newly minted Twitter star and one of the greats of the 1880s, won 309 games and lost 195, which is remarkably close to Tom Glavine's career record of 305-203. But Glavine did it in exactly twice as many seasons as Radbourn did—22 to 11.

So in a few years a great pitcher could be extremely valuable. Here are the Browns who managed to pitch 1000 innings before it became necessary for someone else to comb their hair:

Rk	Player	ERA+	IP	To	From	Age	GS	CG	SHO	W	L	H	R	ER	BB	SO	ERA	HBP	WP
1	Bob Caruthers	146	1293.1	1884	1887	20-23	142	141	10	106	38	1151	579	360	219	488	2.51	45	33
2	Silver King	145	1433.2	1887	1889	19-21	161	153	10	111	50	1300	693	431	310	574	2.71	17	29
3	Jack Stivetts	138	1051.0	1889	1891	21-23	122	99	8	72	50	909	577	352	479	691	3.01	14	74
4	Dave Foutz	136	1457.2	1884	1887	27-30	166	156	16	114	48	1305	760	433	362	619	2.67	47	48
5	Jumbo McGinnis	117	1325.0	1882	1886	28-32	153	145	18	88	61	1252	751	402	203	474	2.73	25	11

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You'll remember "Parisian" Bob Caruthers from the first list, and that's why he's one of my favorite Cardinals of all time. If O'Neill is the easy choice, Caruthers, who would be a shoo-in if he hadn't been dispatched to Brooklyn following the 1887 season, is the Fun Choice. In MVP discussions the Fun Choice can be terrifying; it leads to people making straight-faced proclamations about Shannon Stewart being the AL MVP, or Ryan Howard being more valuable because he sucked at the beginning of the season. But here I can empathize with it.

Bob Caruthers was one of the best hitters in baseball and one of the best pitchers in baseball at the same time; in 1885 he led the AA in ERA+, and in 1886 he led it in OPS+. That 1886 season is one of the coolest of early baseball's freakshow years; he went 30-14 with a 2.32 ERA, second in the league, and also hit .334/.448/.527 in a league that hit .243/.305/.323. ERA+: 148; OPS+: 200. On days he didn't pitch he stood in right field, where his arm was presumably more than accurate.

Silver King is probably also worth a mention; owner of a famous "crossfire" pitching delivery that resembles Mark Worrell's wind-up a little more than is comfortable, King, who stepped into the void left by Caruthers as a 19 year-old, went 45-21 with a 1.64 ERA in his second of three seasons with the hometown Browns. His is maybe the prototypical 19th century pitcher's career: 142-75 as a 22 year-old, he would finish his career, after a brief and somewhat successful comeback in the late 1890s, at 203-154. Those three seasons with the Browns were great, as is his Arthurian name, but unfortunately for the guy who followed Parisian Bob he just couldn't hit.

This early in history, even our methods for determing the most valuable player aren't extremely useful. By WAR, Caruthers is the winner; he was worth 30.6 wins above a replacement pitcher alone, without even taking his hitting (+9.6) into account. But Caruthers played in an era where one good pitcher was simply more valuable than he is now, since he pitched such an extreme proportion of his team's games. O'Neill, only a position player, spread those same 30 wins out over seven years, but it was through no fault of his own.

American League MVP Watch

2009-11-23T09:33:55Z

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

5 months ago: Seattle Mariners third baseman Adrian Beltre runs down Minnesota Twins' Joe Mauer for an out as Mauer tries to steal home in the 10th inning of a MLB baseball game Friday, June 5, 2009, at Safeco Field in Seattle. The Twins beat the Mariners 2-1 in 10 innings. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

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A full post later today, on the occasion of Stan Musial's just-passed 89th birthday, but today is the official start of round two in this offseason's sportswriter-narrative boxing-match between Traditional Statistics (apparently wins and losses, exclusively) and the Newfangled (among them FIP, tRA, WAR, strikeouts, innings pitched, batting average et al); Joe Mauer, author of what is arguably the second-best hitting season in tools-of-ignorance history, and Derek Jeter, author of perhaps the second-best season in Derek Jeter history, are squaring off for the AL MVP.

As sea-changes go the offseason of 2009 has seemed a little forced—Zack Greinke was both astonishingly good and a great story, a combination that has won pitching plaudits since before Cy Young was born, and Tim Lincecum was a repeat champion facing off against two pitchers on the same team who led the league in strikeouts and pitched thirty innings more than his nearest competitor. This will be no different; Joe Mauer hit .365, and would have no real competition, in 1929 or 2009, if the Hall of Fame shortstop on his tail were playing for the New Jersey Yankees.

Certainly 2009 is more welcoming to sabermetrics than 1999 was, but this is a slow and strange process, not an inexorable march toward the terrifying future. Ten years ago the sabermetrically averse were castigating internet fandom for championing the likes of such slugs as Matt Stairs and Jack Cust; today one columnist is worried that seamheads are paying too much attention to defense. 2019 will probably look a lot different when we're sitting in it.

The Cy Young stats

2009-11-22T11:00:12Z

So the NL Cy Young award recipient was announced the other day, and surprisingly, it didn't go to the guy with the most wins, or the best ERA for that matter. Instead, it went to Tim Lincecum, who lead the league in FanGraphs WAR by a pretty big margin.

Naturally, given the two candidates that he narrowly beat, this sparked a lot of debate about whether or not FanGraphs' WAR was the best way to go. From what I gathered, a lot of people thought that timing should be taken into account, and in the case of Carpenter, "pitching to your defense". There were even some rogue mentions of wins and pitching to the score.

Unfortunately, I don't know the right stat to figure out the Cy Young award winner. That's because each person has a different interpretation of what it means to be the Cy Young. What I can do is lay out all of the major stats so that you can make the most informed decision about how you want the Cy Young to be decided.

FIP

As you may or may not have heard, FIP has had a lot of popularity around the blogs as a way to evaluate pitchers. The reason is likely for it's simplicity, which makes the stat easy to calculate and relatively void of "noise" (I'll expand on that later). FIP breaks down each at bat into 4 possible outcomes: a walk, a strikeout, a home run and a ball in play. FIP assumes that pitchers have 100% control over what happens after the first three (99% of the time, a walk, strikeout or home run results in that), and they they have 0% control about what happens after when a ball is put in play.

The league average hit rate for balls in play is .300, and FIP assumes that will be the case for all pitchers, and that is the controversy with FIP. It's clear that some pitchers have more control over batting average on balls in play (BABIP) than others. Guys who get a bunch of ground balls and pop ups will have a lower BABIP. However, BABIP is inlfuenced by luck and defense much more than actual skill, so a lot of people like to ignore it when evaluating pitchers.

FIP also takes timing out of the equation, because it uses aggregate stats. If one pitcher does much better with runners on base than another, but his overall stats are the same, FIP will rate the two equally. If I could describe FIP in one sentence, it would be... how many runs per 9 innings a pitcher would have given up given neutral timing, and assuming an average distribution of balls in play. That doesn't mean it's better or worse than any other stat. It is what it is. If you think that BABIP and timing are just luck (which they really are for the most part) and shouldn't be credited towards the pitcher, this is the stat for you.

xFIP

This stat is the same thing as FIP, expect it substitutes HR's for .11*FB's. The reason for this? Well, it's been shown that the rate of fly balls that go for home runs (HR/FB ratio), is largely out of a pitchers control. Like BABIP, there is some skill involved in HR/FB ratio; however, it is dwarfed by the amount of luck involved in it. So xFIP strips away all the skill and luck, and simply assumes that the pitcher has 0% control over HR/FB ratio.

tRA

This stat is like FIP on speed. In addition to considering walks, strikeouts and home runs - it also considers the quality of balls put in play, by using the 4 batted ball classifications: line drives, ground balls, outfield fly balls and pop ups. While on the surface, that seems like a good thing because it gives more credit to pitchers for their ability to control BABIP, it also adds a lot more noise due to the subjective nature of batted ball classifations.

Unlike strikeouts, walks and home runs, batted ball stats can vary based on the source of the data. There are 3 main sources of batted ball data: BIS, STATS and Gameday. The first two are available for pay, while Gameday is freely available to everyone. Each of those sources gets batted ball data from stringers, who are typically paid about 10 dollars per game to watch each batted ball and classify it. BIS and STATS used to have their stringers record the data at the ballparks; however, I believe that they all do it from the TV now.

Anyway, you can see how that would be a problem. A soft liner dropping just in front of Colby Rasmus could easily be classified as a fly ball or a line drive depending on the source. Given the huge difference in terms of value between a fly ball and a line drive in tRA, the batted ball classifications can have a big impact.

In fact, given that we have tRA avaiable on two websites, StatCorner and FanGraphs, that each use different batted ball sources, Gameday and BIS respectively, there are large discrepancies in the tRA numbers for the same pitcher. For example, her are the tRA's by Statcorner and FanGraphs for each of the 5 major Cy Young candidates in the NL this year:

	StatCorner tRA	FanGraphs tRA
Tim Lincecum	2.52	2.83
Javier Vazquez	3.19	3.67
Dan Haren	3.25	4.12
Chris Carpenter	2.77	3.02
A.D.A.M.	3.47	3.56

As you can see, the difference in tRA is huge for some pitchers just based on the source of the batted ball data. So while tRA adds a lot more usefull information about a pitcher, it also adds a lot of noise that can obfuscate the pitchers actual performance.

ERA

I think we all know about this one. This assumes that the pitcher has 100% control over everything that happens (except, for errors). While this is the final results of how effective the pitcher has been, it also includes way to much things that are out of a pitchers control, like defense, HR/FB ratio, BABIP and timing. So while FIP, xFIP and tRA perhaps takes out too many factors that the pitcher has some control over, ERA takes out way too few.

WAR

WAR is simply a way to combine production with innings pitched to get an estimate of how many wins a player contributes to an average team over a replacement level player. When I say 'production', mean the estimate of how good the pitcher was when he pitched. This can be estimated using any of the 4 metrics I outlined above: tRA, FIP, xFIP or ERA, which should be adjusted for park, and if you want, quality of batters faced. WAR turns that number into an expected W% using a PythagenPat run estimator, subtracts that by the expected W% of a replacement level pitcher, and multiplies that by innings per 9.

You can see more about how WAR is calculated here:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/how_to_calculate_war/

For those who care, the closed form equation for figuring out WAR is:

WAR =((((B/A)^((A+B)^0.275))/(((B/A)^((A+B)^0.275))+1))-0.39)*C/9

Where:

A = the pitcher's run or earned run average using one of the estimates above

B = the leaugue run or earned run average

C = innings pitched

So when you hear people say WAR, don't assume that they are talking about the FanGraphs version of it. WAR can be calculated many different ways, using different park factors, run estimators, defensive adjustment and quality of opponent adjustments. In my opinion, a well calibrated WAR calculation is the best possible way to combine production and playing time to get an estimate of a players value above his potential replacement. The only thing it doesn't take into account is "pitching to the score". If you believe that certain pitchers have control over when they give up their runs, and pitch given the game context, you might not like WAR so much.

WPA

WPA has a pretty simple defition. It measures total improvement in the odds of winning a game for each player. By that I mean, it measures how each player contributes to an average teams odds of winning the game, and sums up the results for each player. So for example, based off of empirical data, you can see that with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, with a runner on first base and the home team down by a run, an average team will win roughly 8.7% of the time.

Albert Pujols' big badass self walks to the plate and promptly hits a 484 foot home run. Now, in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs and the home team up by a run, the home team surprisingly wins the game 100% of the time. So Pujols' WPA will be .913, or he improved the odds of his team winning the game by 91.3%.

The concept of WPA sounds great, it rewards each event based on the value it has depending on the context of each game. Even if you don't believe that situational hitting is a skill, you have to admit that it has value. However, there are numerous problems with WPA when it comes to evaluating performance:

1) It doesn't include adjustments for park

2) It gives full credit to pitchers for the contributions of their defenders

3) It doesn't give credit to pitchers for innings pitched

That last point is often overlooked when talking about WPA. WPA is the change in win probability for an average team. So if you assume that each player is taking the spot of a replacement level player, you have to include that adjustment in WPA. So a guy who puts up a 5.00 WPA in 50 innings isn't necessarily more valuable than a guy who puts up a 2.00 WPA in 200 innings, because his replacement in those 150 innings will have a negative WPA.

Wins

These are like WPA, except it also gives the pitcher full credit for how many runs his team scores, how long his manager let's him stay in the game and how well the relievers that pitcher after him perform. Really, there is nothing that wins add to the discussion, and they add a whole bunch of factors that obscure the pitchers actual performance.

Summing it up

Hopefully, I've presented the pro's and con's of each of these stats in an easy to understand way. If you've followed along, you'll notice that each of these stats has a certain give and take to them. I can't stress this enough. The simplest stats like FIP and xFIP don't tell as much about a pitchers performance as stats like tRA and WPA, however, they also are a lot cleaner and don't tell you a lot about stuff that is out of the pitchers control. The more information you add, the more noise and superfluous and obfuscating data you add.

It's up to you to choose the best possible combination based on your preferences of how we should value a pitchers performance. What you can't do, is pick who you want to win the award first, and then choose the stat - that's just being a dick.

Poll

Which stat is the best for picking the Cy Young?

the bullpen

2009-11-21T14:00:30Z

November 18, 2009 - St. Louis sportswriter Jeff Gordon reacts to the news that both Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright were passed over for the Cy Young award in favor of 15 game winner Tim Linececum.

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before i get into discussion, i would like to say that I do not believe that the bullpen is the biggest issue for the cards in 2010. last season, there was much kvetching about the failure of the GM to get a closer. the cards could do much better to work on improving their defense, their offense, or replacing joel pineiro's contribution to the rotation. writing in the abstract here, before i really formulate any conclusions, i'd have to say i care less about our bullpen than most areas of the club. still, i think it's worth looking at what we have.

here is a table showing the bill james projections for the cards' bullpen in 2010.

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	FIP
Kyle McClellan	66.0	7.09	3.68	1.93	3.82
Jason Motte	56.0	10.93	3.86	2.83	3.45
Ryan Franklin	61.0	4.87	2.80	1.74	4.75
Dennys Reyes	46.0	7.43	4.30	1.73	3.86
Blake Hawksworth	54.0	6.33	3.33	1.90	4.82
Trever Miller	46.0	8.80	3.52	2.50	3.99
Mitchell Boggs*	75.0	6.00	4.32	1.39	4.78

*mitch boggs was predicted to start 10 games and to make 12 appearances from the bullpen.

I was frankly surprised by these projections - many of them were not nearly as bad as i had thought -- mcclellan, motte -- and some were far worse. miller had an excellent 2009, but james sees him coming back to earth. franklin is projected to fall off a cliff and have the cliff fall down on him after he lands.

more surprising, though, is that this looks to be a tolerable bullpen performance overall. in 2009, the team average FIP was 4.30. here, only franklin, hawksworth, and boggs are projected to turn in a less impressive performance.

something which shouldn't be surprising to anybody is that the whole bullpen has an appalling tendency towards walks; franklin projects the only real impressive bb rate, one totally subsumed by the 4.87 k/9 right next to it. control should be the gospel for mason to preach this spring.

not as bad as i had thought, but not inspiring at all. in case anybody is wondering, bill james didn't even give josh kinney a projection for 2010. which sounds about right after managing a stunning 0.73 k/bb rate in stl in 2009.

for jd - smoltz has a bill james projection making 10 starts, with no relief appearances. sorry.

given that we sold off our right-handed relief staff like hail-damaged ford focuses in the middle of "cash for clunkers II" in 2009, there's not too much to look forward to in 2010. eduardo sanchez is the most intriguing name, posting a 3.44 FIP at springfield in 2009, with a 10 k/9 rate. fernando salas had a year basically lost to injury in 2009; he's only a year removed from a 2008 AA stint with a 12.16 k/9 rate and a 1.95 bb/9 rate. if he returns to his 2008 condition, he could definitely help the club at mid-season. a couple of pitchers in the system with lots of gas but no control - francisco samuel (11.14 k/9; 8.68 bb/9) and adam reifer (9.31 k/9; 4.47 bb/9) - are lurking as well; samuel enjoys not only a distinctive bb/9 rate, but is the only one yet mentioned who is on the 40-man.

adam ottavino deserves a mention as also being on the 40-man; he also has shown terrible control (5.13 bb/9). he's likely to start the season as a starting pitcher in memphis. look for him to be retooled as a reliever if he struggles in a starting role. matt scherer was outrighted from the 40-man to make room for adam after a fine but uninspiring season (6.11 k/9; 2.20 bb/9).

here's a quick look at a group of free agents and their 2010 bill james projections.

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	FIP
Russ Springer	58.0	8.22	2.79	2.94	3.87
Kiko Calero	64.0	9.42	4.22	2.23	3.47
Rafael Soriano	79.0	10.25	2.85	3.60	3.20
Kevin Gregg	65.0	8.31	3.74	2.22	4.04
Billy Wagner	62.0	10.89	2.47	4.41	2.65
Mike Gonzalez	78.0	10.62	3.92	2.71	3.20

only the really expensive, type A pitchers project to be a huge boost. calero looks like he could be well worth a look, producing only slightly less well than the braves' tandem.

And now, as a parting gift, in case anybody felt any waiver wire remorse . . . .

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	FIP
Brad Thompson	64.0	4.22	2.53	1.67	4.91

We'll miss you, PK.

Joe Jackson talks briefly to a newsboy about yesterday's news

2009-11-20T10:52:16Z

File photo—Kansas City Royals pitcher Brad Thompson, center, sells newspapers outside a nickel theater in St. Louis, July 14, 2009. The Indians won 3-1 in fifteen reels.

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It's the most famous young face in the history of baseball—it's the symbol of purity corrupted, of the sport's loss of innocence in the face of organized crime and a gambling scandal that nearly ended baseball as young boys everywhere knew it.

Outside the courthouse there's a nervous crowd milling around, waiting for news. Suddenly there's a burst of activity and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, surrounded by well-wishers, ex-fans, photographers, reporters, and baseball players, pushes through the double doors and takes the steps with his easy grace. The crowd is shocked into silence—the reporters' questions are so much rhubarb—but one brave, stoic newsboy, carrying his accusing newspapers guiltily, steps into the baseball great's path and begs, his voice quivering with the weight of posterity on its back: "Say it ain't so, Joe! Say it ain't so!"

Having gotten his lede, the lucky reporter stalks back to the newsroom. But after his famous silence the fallen hero gives the newsboy a measured look and says, "Well, it depends on what you mean. Certainly I was mixed up with bad people who were doing bad things. But in the end either the facts or the sheer gravitas of my story will vindicate me, and that's all I can really ask for."

The baby-faced newsboy sniffles a little. No more than ten or eleven, by the looks of it, he's already an old hand at the business. "I—I'm glad to hear that, Joe, I really am, but that's not what I'm askin' about. Didn't you see the paper? Haven't you been paying attention? I got signed by the Royals!"

"Oh, Lord, kid," Joe says. "The Royals? That's a harsh break. But I'm afraid it's so."

"I know! I'm WonderBrad! I pitched 57 scoreless innings in a row in the minor leagues—and forget this rag," he says, "I was in the New York Times!"

"The first break-up is always tough. But I say you oughtta look at it this way: now that you're gone, the Cardinals fans you impressed all through that great season, and in your first few years as a reliever—well, that's how they're going to remember you! Not as the pitcher of last resort, or the guy who could only come in after a certain percentage of the TV audience had gone to bed."

"What's a TV?"

"The timeline is hazy, kid. Don't ask questions. It's like this—a role player's best moment is when he catches fire for those first few months and he can't do anything wrong. But his second-best moment is right now, after he's gone. From now on you're WonderBrad. Ten years from now they won't even remember that your fastball and your changeup eventually met in the middle."

The newsboy's face clears a little—a boyish glow takes hold. "I guess you're right, Joe." The matter settled, the crowd having grown bored and a little confused, the newsboy resumes plying his wares.

"Extra, extra—read all about it! Lincecum Cy Young of the National League!"

"Wait, kid, what'd you say? Lincecum?"

"It's so, Joe. Some people say it's a sea-change in how awards will be won. Other people are just really, really mad about it."

So here's what I still don't get. How can you look at what Wainwright did from a won-loss standpoint and essentially dismiss it in favor of Lincecum? As gifted a pitcher as Lincecum clearly is, he faltered down the stretch when his team was in the playoff hunt. In his last 10 starts, the San Francisco ace was only 3-4 with a 3.15 ERA. I'm sorry, but that has to mean something, doesn't it? If won-loss records are suddenly obsolete, why do we bother to keep the stat?

"Don't read any more unless you're gonna buy that."

"Okay, okay. There's something kind of haunting about that last line, isn't it? Like he's just a little worried somebody's going to say, 'You're right, why do we bother?' 'If switchboards are suddenly obsolete, why do we have all these people sitting in front of them?'"

"Give him his wins, Joe. They're a narrative, for goodness' sake. You should know something about that."

"Oh, wins and losses are great; nobody's ever going to occasion a parade when he breaks the 6 WAR barrier. And Wainwright and Carpenter both had great years. But it's a shame that this is the debate he's having, or trying to have, when there's a neighboring one that's a lot more important, especially considering a lot of these guys probably picked Lincecum because of his innings and his strikeouts, anyway: Does the Cy Young measure value, or does it measure what that value should have been?"

"This is why I never strike anybody out. I cut off philosophizing at the pass."

"Say we could eventually have a stat that measures the expected value of each swing, from a grounder to the second baseman to a ball that should be a home run. Is that a tool for MVP debates?"

"Is this about Keith Law's ballot?"

"Javier Vazquez had better peripheral stats than Wainwright. He should have been better. But all those runs Wainwright stranded were valuable, even if there's no reason to think he'll do that again. Vazquez is a perfect test case for this, too, since his ERA has always lagged his peripherals. But instead we're talking about wins like nobody's ever lost the Cy Young to a player with fewer wins before."

"This is a slippery slope, though. Do you give the MVP to the clutchest player, too?"

"Look, I don't know, Brad. I'm just a baseball player. I can't even read, to be totally honest—I just figured Bryan Burwell would be really mad and I made it up the best I could."

"You did good, Joe. We all have secrets," the newsboy says. "I'm actually 27 years old."

Rule 5: You do talk about the Rule 5 draft

2009-11-19T11:00:18Z

Nothing exemplifies the Hot Stove season quite like worrying about the Rule 5 draft. Most of the players don't stick it out all year; most of the ones that do are eventually traded for Ronnie Belliard or Blaine Boyer; and most of the time it would be completely absurd to spend time thinking about this. Fangraphs won't return my calls, but according to my new WARP/seconds-in-your-limited-lifespan converter most of these guys peak around fifteen, twenty seconds. (Brian Barton, simply because his nickname was briefly "Enunciate It", broke the curve at forty-five.)

But it is November, and I already did a VEB Theater, and though it kills me to say it there is no baseball going on at Busch Stadium. So let us take solace in the dim light of this good news: the Cardinals will probably not lose a useful player to the Rule 5 draft this year. In approximate order of near-term usefulness:

ALLEN CRAIG
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: He doesn't really have a position; he's a minor league slugger who played in the PCL, so his numbers are vaguely suspicious; he strikes out too much and doesn't walk enough.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's looking more likely every day to spend significant time in left field in 2010, and there's a non-zero chance that he has a hot month while David Freese burns and Tony La Russa is suddenly convinced he can play third. He's never crushed a league, but he's also been extremely consistent level to level—in his three full seasons he's always hit .300, always hit 20 home runs, and always managed an OBP over .365. If the Cardinals find a left-handed outfielder they're comfortable with he is the ideal short side of a platoon.

JON JAY
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: He might be the platonic representative of the Cardinals' more conservative draft inclinations—he's almost guaranteed to be a likable fourth outfielder, but he's almost guaranteed not to be a likable third outfielder.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He cowrote the Federalist Papers, and every dollar the Cardinals don't have to spend on a fourth outfielder who can play great defense and get on base a little is a dollar they can spend on the player who is consigning him to the bench. If pressed into service on a full-time basis he probably wouldn't hit much worse than Harold Ramis did last year, although the only thing we have to suggest his defense would be as good—I have the distinct impression that he was drafted as a defensive "tweener"—are a year and a half of minor league numbers.

ADAM OTTAVINO
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: His career minor league ERA is 4.15, and his career minor league BB/9 is even higher. In the high minors he's basically been Todd Wellemeyer.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's a first rounder, so we have to think about him, up to and including the moment in which he crushes our dreams. We were only allowed to stop thinking about Chance Caple last June. In addition to that, Ottavino's always been a Stuff Guy, and not a Results Guy; this is good for him, and bad for us. lboros's expert scouting report set me back about three years, as far as forgetting about him as a front-line guy goes.

In any case, he's too good a Rule 5 pick to not put him here. He's exactly the kind of starter who gets drafted, pitches fifty innings for a non-contender in the Brad Thompson role, and spends a third of the season on a rehab assignment for Rule 5 Syndrome. In fact, if he were playing for another team, we would be including him on a list of players for whom the Cardinals should dump Brad Thompson on the eve of the Rule 5 draft.

TYLER NORRICK
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: The Cardinals have Trever Miller and the Diner signed through 2010, so for once we don't need to worry about LOOGY free talent. He walked nearly seven batters per nine innings last year.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's probably better than Carmen Cali. Against lefties, his strikeouts-to-hits ratio was 2.5, which is awesome. His first name is Floyd, which is awesome, too.

DARYL JONES
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: He followed up 2008's breakout campaign with a breakdown campaign, treading water in AA Springfield. He's not a good 2010 option, even though we were hoping he would be.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's DJ Tools! He runs like a gazelle! He leaps like a gazelle! He no longer hits like a gazelle! He's the top hitting prospect on a team that doesn't have any, and he's got a skill-set that's become more popular in the outfield corners in recent years. He's not nearly as MLB-ready as Brian Barton was, but somebody might grab him anyway.

BRYAN ANDERSON
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: I don't think anybody's thought about him since last March.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: You remember Charles Cutler, who we all watched fly up the prospect lists this year with a great high-average low-power season in the low minors? Bryan Anderson is five months younger than Charles Cutler. Anderson was rushed through the system, but until going down with injuries this year he had displayed his one tool, hitting for average, at every spot. So far he's stuck at catcher.

He probably shouldn't be Molina's back-up this year, if the Cardinals have any long-term plans for him—because he's still only 23—but he's interesting enough at a position where offense is at such a premium that if keeping him on the roster were contingent to, ah, keeping him on the roster, some club would do it.

FRANCISCO SAMUEL
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: Adam Ottavino's career walk rate, which is a concern, is a little more than half of Francisco Samuel's walk rate. I have nothing else to say about that.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: It takes exactly two good weeks for our opinion to change about middle relievers, and the Cardinals traded every single righty relief prospect who was ahead of him on the depth chart before 2009.

MARK HAMILTON
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM:

WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: After threatening to join Mike Ferris in the annals of great college sluggers who didn't do anything in the Cardinals system he was nearly as impressive as Allen Craig in an abbreviated season spent between AA and AAA. It seems like we've been thinking about Hamilton a lot longer, but they're the same age, and Hamilton's hitting prowess is less BA dependent. He might be the most underappreciated player in the Cardinals' system.

If something were to happen to—no. No. For the Cardinals Hamilton will never, ever, ever, ever play regularly, ever, don't even consider the possibility, but for another team in the Rule 5 draft he could be Chris Shelton.

November Rain

2009-11-18T15:42:26Z

Ferris wheels still cheer me up.

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I'm sitting in my living room staring out on a grey and very nasty November morning. Ordinarily, I welcome such inclement weather; I usually love the rain and the clouds and the cold whistling wind. However, I have an awful day ahead of me, including a trip to traffic court in Webster Groves this evening, and I just can't bring myself to work up any sort of real cheer.

This past weekend I went to see a movie at the St. Louis Film Festival with a friend of mine named Alex. (By the way, huge plug for the Festival; if you've never been, go and buy a ticket to something. Doesn't matter what. Just go and see something you wouldn't ordinarily see. I promise it will be a good experience.) Alex is a girl, and a remarkably pretty one at that. She's also most likely reading this, as she thinks the things I write are funny (even when they aren't meant to be), which makes what I'm about to dwell on potentially uncomfortable, but I don't particularly care.

It doesn't matter what the film was for the story; it was depressing and wrenching and about people thousands of miles away. It only matters the theatre was dark and warm and Alex and I were sharing a soda back and forth between us. And by sharing, I mean she was drinking what was supposed to be my soda. She had refused to pay the price for a soda of her own, claiming extortion on the part of the theatre, and refused my offer of a beverage, claiming she wouldn't allow me to try and extract the price of a medium Pepsi from her in sexual favours at a later date. It only matters she said that last to me with a wink and a smile she knows could make me do anything in the world for her, if only she would say the word.

So there I sat, trying desperately to concentrate on genocide in a far-off land instead of the taste of cherry chap stick on the straw, and I found myself thinking about the decisions we make in life, and how sometimes no matter how right you think you are, you're going to lose either way.

I suppose it's fairly obvious by now how I feel about Alex, and to what extent those feelings are returned. She lives with a man, a decent and fine man at that, who gives her anything she could ask. They're planning to get married sometime early next year, perhaps March. I'm sure it will be lovely, and I'm sure I'll be invited. I'm also sure I'm booked solid whatever day it might be.

A couple years back, I had my chance with Alex. We had been friends for quite some time, but it had never gone any farther. I had met her when dating her former roommate, and that set the tone for the relationship. We were always friendly, mildly flirty at the most, and there was always a wall between us at the end of the night. I worked up my courage finally one night in August, and told her I wanted her. She feigned surprise, but she's a lousy actress. Still, I had my answer.

As the summer ended and turned into autumn, something very gradually began to change between us. We were both single at the same time for the first time since we had met, for one thing, but it was more than that. She seemed to have reconsidered, and decided maybe that wall at the end of the night didn't need to be there after all. She kissed me one night in late September, a quick brush on the lips only, and she pulled away when I tried to kiss her back. It was electrifying all the same.

At the same time, a girl named Angie came back into my life. We had dated years before; she loved me as much as a woman can love a man, and I loved her as much as I'm capable of loving anyone, which unfortunately isn't much. She told me she needed someone who actually cared about her, and our time together was over. I moved on, she moved away. Still, we saw each other every time she came to town, and somewhere along the line I just might have fallen in love with her for real.

It was the fall of 2007, and Angie called me up one night and told me we were going to be together. She didn't ask, as she had long ago learned asking me to live simply doesn't work. She had decided we were going to make a proper go of it, and now she was telling me, and that was that.

I called Alex the next day and told her what happened, and asked her how she felt. She said the bravest thing I've ever heard anyone say, I think.

"I'll be here if you call, and we can be together. But I'm not going to wait for you and hope."

I made my choice; I didn't call Alex back for a long time. When I did, I told her I was sorry, and she laughed at me.

"I told you I wouldn't wait around, Aaron. You made your choice." And that was all.

I moved on with my life and lost it all when Angie was killed. Alex moved on and found someone dependable and solid and not at all like me who makes her happy. And so now I sit in a darkened theatre with a girl I desperately wish was not my friend and try to ignore how her fingers touch mine just ever so slightly each time she passes my soda back to me. Her fiance knows how I feel and he doesn't care. He trusts both of us, which makes me so angry I occasionally see black spots in front of my eyes.

Still, I don't regret the choice I made. I did the best I could with what I had at the time. If I had known how short my time with Angie would be, would I have chosen differently? I can't answer that, but I don't think so. It was love, and it was good, no matter how brief. What would I have had with Alex? I don't know, and sadly, I never will. She long ago forgave me for choosing someone else, but to paraphrase Jenny Lewis, she'll never let me in again.

Why am I telling you all this? To be honest, partially because it's simply what I do. I may be almost impossible to get close to in real life, but I have no problem writing painfully intimate details down and sending them out into the void for anonymous consumption. I don't know what it says about me, but I'm sure it isn't good. However, I also had a point to this story.

I had meant to relate a shorter version of this story to you and then use it to discuss the fast approaching free agency of Matt Holliday. The Cards made their choice with a player they coveted already, rather than seeing how things would work with what they had on the way, and now they have to live with that decision. They knew perfectly well there were no guarantees things would work out, but they chose to take that risk anyhow. But after telling the story, I don't want to talk about that now. It's November and it's raining and I am all alone in an empty house staring at a bad day. Writing this post has turned out to be an appallingly bad idea. So let's talk about something else, shall we?

*************

The Manager of the Year awards will be announced today in both the National and American Leagues; only one of them is really an interesting discussion. The National League award is pretty much a foregone conclusion by this point, I believe; Jim Tracy led his Rockies to an astounding turnaround this season after they had struggled badly under Clint Hurdle for the early portion of the season. When Tracy took over, the Rockies were 18-28. They went 74-42 the rest of the way, somehow riding a managerial change to temporary juggernaut status.

Fredi Gonzalez of the Marlins is probably the only other serious candidate for the award, as he managed the Marlins to an 87-75 record with a payroll just a hair above Alex Rodriguez' annual salary. He'll probably get a few votes based on the notion of him doing more with less, but I don't think there's any way Gonzalez beats out Tracy this year. Maybe in another year or two after the Marlins have traded Chris Coghlan and Josh Johnson and Cameron Maybin away and make a run at the wild card with the resulting pieces. Until then, Fredi will just have to bide his time.

I suppose our own Tony La Russa is a candidate, seeing as how all the national media sources are listing him as one, but I'm not really sure why. Years like 2002 I can see, when Tony had to pull a team back from the brink of disaster, or 2004, when he captained a team which just completely steamrolled everyone, but I'm not really sure about this season. The Cards were a very good, very talented team who were bolstered by a midseason acquisition and then fell apart late in the season. Nothing in there says to me, "This guy was the best manager in the NL this year." Maybe Mo could win executive of the year or something for doing so much to improve his team (though he did also potentially cripple it for the next few years, I suppose), but I don't think La Russa has any claim on the managerial award. Not saying he's a bad manager or never deserves to win MOY, but I definitely don't think he's that guy this year.

In the American League, there's a bit more in the way of interesting storylines, with Mike Scioscia seemingly the clubhouse leader. Personally, I would have to agree with that, and I'll even go so far as to postulate an axiom on the subject: When you have a player die during the season and you still make the playoffs, you win Manager of the Year. Automatically.

I don't mean to be flippant, of course; the death of Nick Adenhart early in the season was an horrific blow to the Angles, and Scioscia somehow managed to keep that team together and get them to excel. It's the sort of performance you hope never to have to see, and can only stand in awe when such a performance does, in fact, become necessary. Toss in the fact the Angels were absolutely ravaged by injuries for most of the season, and I don't really see how Scioscia doesn't win.

However, there are some other intriguing candidates, moreso than in the NL, I think. Two Rons, no waiting, for instance. Ron Gardenhire of the Twins and Ron Washington of the Rangers both did outstanding jobs getting their teams to play ball that was probably better than their talent level. Washington should get some sort of award for moving Michael Young to third base alone. Gardenhire managed to push his team into the playoffs after losing one of their two best hitters for the stretch run and having a chronically undermanned starting rotation. Very impressive on quite a few levels.

I would also throw Don Wakumatsu in Seattle into the mix. He probably didn't go as above and beyond as some of the other guys on this list, he did manage to begin the process of getting the Mariners turned around, and that's no mean feat. Give him another year or two and he should win at least one of these awards when Seattle wins the division. I think Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik should get most of the credit this year, though, if only because he realised what a boon Franklin Gutierrez would be.(Also, I should get some credit for spelling his name correctly.) The Bill Bavasi era is quickly being forgotten in Seattle, and that is a beautiful thing.

I will say this, however: if Joe Fucking Girardi wins the AL Manager of the Year award, I will personally lay waste to the offices of Major League Baseball with my telekinetic powers. I keep hearing Girardi's name brought up, and it's really, really beginning to piss me off. Oh, so he had to deal with A-Rod's steroid story early in the season? Well, Jesus ate a can of beans, boys, that's tough! He also was given the largest payroll in the sport and the best roster and a golden toilet. Seriously. I read it on the web somewhere. And as for his brilliant tactical brilliance in the playoffs, I can't imagine it's really all that tough to say, "Here you go, Mariano." It's like one of those Ron Popeil cooking devices where you set it and forget it while the Rotisablaster 9000 does all the work. Managing the Yankee bullpen in October is the definition of autopilot, so don't use that argument. Do you hear me, so-called experts?!

So anyway, it should be Jim Tracy and Mike Scioscia, and I think it probably will be.

Oh, and congratulations to Zack Greinke on his Cy Young award. It's Actually Inspring (as opposed to Lifetime Original Movie Inspiring or ESPN Saturday Morning Fluff Piece Inspiring, neither of which are nearly as good), to see someone with such serious issues able to put them behind him and accomplish something so amazing. I have to admit, I'm a little surprised the voters got this one right; I was expecting CC Sabathia to win it with the logic he was the Best Pitcher on the Best Team or some other such nonsense.

Sorry for the rather uneven tone of today's post, folks. It was not my intention when I set out. I've decided against deleting it, though, just because. It's honest, and that has to be worth something. Plus, it's not every day you get to witness someone go almost completely off the rails, right?

The Baron's Playlist for the 18th of November, 2009

"On the Bus Mall" - The Decemberists

"Dishes" - Pulp

"If Loving You is Wrong" - Luther Ingram (The pride of Alton, Illinois, bitches!)

"Chances Are" - Bob Marley and the Wailers

"Worm Mountain" - The Flaming Lips (After listening to the full Embryonic album, I've changed my opinion. It's a fucking masterpiece, plain and simple.)

Oh, and also: you could construe the title of this post as an addendum to the playlist if you were so inclined. Just saying.

Waino, the Cy Young, and Me — a poem by Chris Carpenter

2009-11-17T17:02:21Z

I got this in the mail last night, and I think it's worth a post. I'll turn this over to VEB-er MikeJGolde, the responsible party:

I took apart Carpenter's (awful) article about Wainwright and reconstructed it into something more appropriate.

His work of art follows the jump:

Look at his body of work.
Just start with that.
What Adam Wainwright did this year, he did all year long.
He was consistent through the whole season.
Look at whatever number you want.
That's most important.
I've been able to do that a few times in my career.
But I've also been a guy who hasn't done it.
That's why I know how hard it is to do.
Maybe, for one year you can do it.
Possibly.
But it's a hard thing to do again and again.
That adds pressure.
That can get to young pitchers.
I could see that early on.

For me, I love the competition.
I want the ball.
I want to do my job.
A lot of times, bottom line, that's all I'm thinking.

He does that well.
He wants to be that guy.
He wants to be that pitcher.

He's already proved that.

MikeJGolde, I can't thank you (or Chris Carpenter) enough.

Rookies of the Following Year

2009-11-17T11:00:30Z

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

Just in case somebody asks you to pick him out of a police lineup, this is Chris Coghlan.

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Well, I can't really blame the BBWAA for picking Chris Coghlan, the lone standout hitter in a year filled with pitchers who were excellent for half of a season. Among players whose names we at VEB habitually remember he might have been the most underrated of the SBN picks. McCutchen probably had the better year, but much of our evidence to that effect is locked up in Coghlan's awful UZR (and, to be fair, +/-.)

He'd never played left before 2009—he was blocked at second by Dan Uggla, which says something about either Coghlan's infield defense or Florida's decision-making process—so it's plausible that he was really ten runs worse than the average left fielder, but it's hard for me to imagine a young corner outfielder who doesn't hate baseball doing that much damage. Uggla's probably done in Florida, so we might never know just how terrible Chris Coghlan was. But in the infield that .390 OBP will make up for a lot of it.

But he and the AL choice, Andrew Bailey, illustrate this year's BBWAA thought process pretty well. Both leagues were stocked with good candidates who were, superficially, pretty similar, and difficult to distinguish, let alone rank. In the National League there was a run on pitchers who threw about half a season's worth of games with lovely ERAs; in the AL stood Elvis Andrus and Rick Porcello, wunderkinds who put together competent but rarely spectacular seasons at young ages. To deal with the matter of separating these tightly matched competitors, the AL went with something completely different. Neither pick is bad, but they're both... a little weird.

Who is the Cardinals' rookie of 2010? When in doubt, I usually cop out and say "a relief pitcher"; nobody takes a job as a regular without game-changing injuries or a four-year Rasmus-Watch ordeal, and the surprise starting pitchers usually take a while to worm themselves into things, J.A. Happ style, but Mike Crudale, Kyle McClellan and company can strike without warning and earn a high-leverage job by June. A position player coming off a terrible year in the minors probably needs to right himself for a full season before he sees significant playing time, but Francisco Samuel is always ten good innings away from having Turned a Corner.

If it weren't for David Freese, 2010 would be a great year for the Some Reliever Gambit; not only is the Cardinals' relief corps worrying at best, there's no one candidate ready to step into a major role. Last year we had Motte, and the year before Perez; this year there's Eduardo Sanchez? Fernando Salas? Casey Mulligan?

So my question, with Freese the current favorite for 2010, is this: Who'll be the Cardinals Rookie of the Year in 2011? Sanchez is probably a good pick, but with the Cardinals seemingly prepared to go short-term for the rotation in 2010, my choice—boring, in fitting with this player's skill-set—is Lance Lynn.

Wainwright for Carpenter, Carpenter for Wainwright, Somebody for DeJesus

2009-11-16T11:00:33Z

At the P-D they're taking good advantage of the Cardinals' dual Cy Young candidates, as they've gotten both Wainwright and Carpenter on record as being Spartacus. (I would have liked one more, maybe PINEIRO: Why Joel Pineiro should win the Cy Young.)

For my money Wainwright's take on Carpenter is more interesting:

But we should talk about this year. This year he just out-executed everybody. If he wouldn't have lost that time because of injury, would we even be talking about this? [...] When you're facing Chris Carpenter, the opposing pitcher had to throw a shutout, or he didn't have a chance. The opposing team, I have to believe, probably went into the game against Chris Carpenter preparing to be shut out.[...]

No one has taught me more than Chris Carpenter. You know the story. After a start this year, Chris pulls me in to look at some video - old film, new film, all of it. He said my arm slot was 3 or 4 inches different, and the next day we're playing catch and with each throw he's telling me if it's right. Nope. Yep. Nope. Nope. Yep. Not just anybody can do that, can see from 60 feet a difference of less than 5 inches in every throw. After that, my fastball had movement. I got my slider back. I had confidence in my pitches.

If you want to make an argument for team chemistry being important, for good clubhouse guys making a difference, I think this is the one to make, not the Affable Kevin Millar Defense. Your dopey designated hitter giving somebody the hot-foot to Loosen Things Up probably won't make a significant difference in the standings or the clubhouse. (As is the case with matters of attendance, it's always seemed to me that the difference between a good clubhouse and a tense clubhouse, at least as far as the fans and reporters are able to tell, is how often the team's winning.)

But I can see the value in superstars who happen to be interested in and preternaturally gifted at things often left to the coaches. It's one thing if Dave Duncan tells you your arm slot is different; it's another if Chris Carpenter, who is touching 96 miles per hour right now, at this very moment, says so while you're both loosening up.

There was a brief discussion in Saturday's post about David DeJesus as a possible trade target, should the Cardinals not go the SIGN MATT HOLLIDAY‽ route. It's tough to suggest parting with some faberge eggs with all that money just lying around, but DeJesus is an interesting player, and worth the bullet point treatment.

It's interesting that Daryl Jones came up as a possible trade chit, because DeJesus seems like a reasonable facsimile of the player we hope DJ Tools might become. At his best he hits .290 to .300, with just enough power to avoid the empty-average tag and just enough walks to be a guy with good plate discipline. He can play center field, but he's not great at it, which makes him a defensive asset in a corner. If you have a full outfield, this kind of guy is a tweener; if you don't, he's a cheap and effective fix at either position. The major difference between DeJesus and DaJones?
David DeJesus should never try to steal a base again. This is a list, grabbed from the awesome new Baseball Reference PI, of the worst base part-time base stealers (i.e. less than 100 total) since 2000.

Rk	Player	CS	SB
1	Melvin Mora	52	89
2	Cesar Izturis	47	98
3	Craig Counsell	46	95
4	Mark Kotsay	46	74
5	Carlos Guillen	44	70
6	Brad Wilkerson	43	53
7	Juan Encarnacion	42	84
8	Derrek Lee	41	94
9	Jacque Jones	41	79
10	David DeJesus	40	44

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Only long-time sabermetric hero Brad Wilkerson can compete with DeJesus on this list; everyone else has stolen at least 70 bases. In his career, according to Bill James Online, David DeJesus has cost the Royals 36 bases with his nose for the CS. So here are two ways the Cardinals could maximize their hypothetical DeJesus investment:

Never let him steal a base, ever. If he tries to steal a base, or even start jogging to second before the Umpire explicitly gives the base on balls sign to Albert Pujols, fire him. Immediately.
Take the Carpenter-Wainwright lesson at face value and have Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols (a combined 25-7 in 2009) show him that there's something wrong with his—his leg slot?

Impressively enough, in spite of all that base-stealing incompetence, he's been a net-positive baserunner over the course of his career. Why? According to BJO, it's because from 2005 to 2007 he was among the best baserunners in the American League, worth +55 bases. Since then he's been -11, which could have any number of explanations: he might be unmotivated in Kansas City, where they once tried to give his job to Joey Gathright; he might just have peaked early, having come, now, toward his age 30 season; and the wear and tear of his numerous small injuries might be getting to him. But the fact remains that at one point in the near past DeJesus was providing the Royals with runs in every possible overlooked area: he got on base relatively often, he played above-average defense, and he ran like the wind. That's a useful, undervalued player, which explains why the Royals have had half a mind to trade him from the moment he was called up.

The good and the bad of Ryan Franklin

2009-11-15T08:15:03Z

More photos » by Mark J. Terrill - AP

Mark Loretta? REALLY?!?!?!?!!!!!

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This year Ryan Franklin was an enigma. Thanks to a nifty .269 BABIP (compared to a league average of .300) and an 85.7 strand rate (compared to a league average of 70%), his production was far better than you would expect based off of his peripheral statistics. His ERA was excellent at 1.92; however, his FIP was a good, not great, 3.31. And due to a super low HR/FB ratio, his xFIP was even higher, at 4.23. Simply put, his career year wasn't so great when you adjust for luck.

What makes that worse is that he seemingly fell apart down the stretch. His low BB rate rose, his low K rate plummeted and his low BABIP got a little bit less low. During that time, he had regressed the pitcher he once was. His command was worse, his stuff was not biting as much as it usually did and his goatee had finally completely taken over his face. Obviously, that's what happened... or was it?

I have a theory that Franklin actually didn't pitch much differently than he usually did, it's just his luck and timing were different. I'll be honest, this is part of a larger study I'm working on, so I'm using you guys as guinea pigs, but I'll think you'll enjoy it nonetheless

What I did was take all of Franklin's appearances this year (65 including post season and all star game), and sort by wOBA allowed. I took the 15 worst outings and the 15 best outings from him all year, at least as measured by wOBA, and pulled the aggregate PItch f/x data for each group. I then took the two groups and looked at several attributes of the pitches, to see if I could spot any differences. For fun, when I show you the graphs and data, I won't label them, so you could try to figure out which is which.

First, let's look at pitch movement, organized by vertical vs. horizontal spin deflection:

For those who don't know, each dot here is being compared to a theoretical pitch without spin. It's from the catchers point of view, so from a RHP, fastballs will have negative break (towards the third base side), while breaker balls have positive break (towards the first base side).

Based on his stuff (or at least his movement) can you tell which one was the bad Franklin and which one was the good? Well, you're guess is as good as mine (actually I know the answer because I'm just awesome like that). As far as stuff and pitch selection goes, there is not much separation between the two groups. The only noticeable differences is that he threw more changeups in group 2 and his cutters had a bit more drop in group 1.

Now, let's take a look at how he located the ball. First, we'll check out his pitch location to lefties, grouped by pitch type:

The images are a little bit small, but you can click them for a larger image. Against left handers in group 1 he threw a lot of pitchers on the out half of the plate, as well as lot's of offspeed pitches just below the plate. He also rarely went inside on the batter. Group 2 on the other hand, looks a little more spattered, although he was able to locate the cutter on the inner half of the strike zone more consistently than in Group 1.

Now let's check his location to righties:

This time group 2 looks a little bit better, at least in my opinion. There are more cutters on the inner half, and more offspeed pitches down. Although, the distributions are very similar indeed.

So what do you guys think? If you would like more non-performance information, just ask me in the comments section and I'll be happy to provide it for you. I've set up a poll. The guys who guess right will be given 5 internet dollars, while the guys who guess wrong will be killed... sorry, that's just how it works around these parts.

At any rate, my conjecture seems to have been validated. Based on those two pieces of non-performance information, stuff and location, it's very hard to tell which is the good and the bad Franklin. This makes me very skeptical of managers or coaches who profess to be able to "identify" the problem with a certain player when he is in a slump. Obviously, in some cases when an injury or something else is present, you can tell based off of how he looked (I did exactly that with Lohse a while back). However, in most slumps, random variation and luck are the most likely causes.

Poll

Which one was the bad Franklin?

holliday overload

2009-11-14T13:00:36Z

St. Louis Cardinals Reliever Ryan Franklin enjoys an off-season snowstorm while vacationing at the War Drobe Mountain Lodge in Spare Oom, Colorado on November 8, 2009.

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just like i can't get used to christmas carols at the grocery store before thanksgiving, the MAJOR LEAGUE DRAMA of WHERE WILL HE SIGN? is starting to get goddamn old. and there's still a week left before he goes on the market. front page articles everyday on what admittedly is probably about the only interesting baseball topic in st. louis right now have begun to wear me down. right now, i no longer really care. i just want the damn thing over. i know i should care. i know we're talking about what could be one of the top twenty-five players in baseball (13th among position players by WAR in 2009), and we're probably talking about a 9-figure contract that could hamstring the club for the next 5, 6, or more years if done wrong. i know all this. i just can't read another article whose basic theme is the same thing we've been batting around since we stopped yammering about "HFS (tm) BRETT WALLACE AND MORTENSON?"

he's going to cost a lot of money.

like a lot of money. a metric shit-ton. like maybe the household income of 2,500 ordinary american families. since each family has an average of 2.6 members, that's a decent size town - like a population the size of Brentwood, MO. do the cards have that much money? probably. is that the best way to spend it? uhh . . . the cheap answer is it depends on the years and the actual dollar amounts. the real answer is i have no clue whatsoever. there's no question he's better than everybody else on the market -- claims from the Bay camp notwithstanding: the Bay camp, incidentally, IS the Holliday camp. i'm a big fan of some of our rising OF prospects, an issue i rarely see discussed on the boards in relation to the holliday signing, and, while none of them look like a 6 WAR player like holliday, i could easily stomach a year of mike cameron with allen craig cameos, followed by a year of DJTools, henley, and craig running wild in the OF at league min, allowing us to spend some money on retaining albert and getting some needed high-ticket players.

the holliday contract will just be a huge leap; a decision that could make or break a franchise for years. and i am so sick of talking about it.

so, interestingly enough, is mo. the discussion has gone from dewitt saying that they wouldn't have traded for him without intending to resign him to mo saying that he'll basically make a take-it-or-leave-it offer to holliday - which he has not yet made - and that he feels sure he can find other options in the free agent market.

probably the varying themes expounded by the club reflect efforts to curry favor with particular audiences; in the case of dewitt's july optimism, whipping up enthusiasm in the ticket-buying public; in the case of mo's recent comments, an effort to tamp down the flame of boras's wild teixeira comps. it's hard not to believe there's a kernel of real holliday fatigue behind mo's comments, if for no other reason than i'm feeling that fatigue myself. but surely it's tedious to go through the weeks of window dressing just to get to the point where you know the game will come down to money and years.

a brief request: we are hitting hot stove season. everybody has a thousand and one ideas (in a typical off-season, it would be a million and one, but the free agent market sucks and we have nothing much to trade) about what direction the club should go this off-season and which players to sign and which players to trade.

please Play Nice.

you'll probably start to see designated hot stove threads cropping up on the sidebar. when they appear, please put all trade and free agent talk in there. if everybody puts in their personal fanpost about why we should give up yadier molina in a four-way trade with the mariners, the astros, and the l.a. clippers that will result in miguel tejada moving to point guard by mid-december, the fanposts will be dropping off the main page after a day and a half.

if you are new, welcome. we love new members. and no, you don't have to have a phd from the academy of the hardball times to express your opinion on these pages. all we ask is that if there's a catch-all hot-stove thread, please use it. it helps if you show that you have thought the trade or signing through carefully, and asked yourself whether the other team would accept the trade or the player would accept the offer. if somebody disagrees, that's healthy - not a personal attack (hopefully). if a poster says "he's too old/too bad at defense/too injury prone/doesn't play professional baseball but is in fact a character actor from 1970's sitcoms," then think about their point. agree or disagree, but support what you're saying in your reply. or acknowledge that your point is unsupported and is just your opinion.

if you are not new, please remember that you were once new, too. if somebody floats an idea that seems dumb to you, offer constructive criticism - while that term may be overused, think "will this point educate the poster and make him want to come back to this site to learn more, or would a reasonable poster think you're making fun of him?" please also keep an eye on the groupthink/ganging up. if somebody has already pointed out that jermaine dye plays defense like a rutting yet visually-impaired musk ox, don't pile on. if somebody's made the point, move along and make a new one.

/lecture

weekly tidbit roundup -

fangraphs had a neat analysis of david dejesus as a legit trade target. someone for the cards to keep their eyes on. a good defender with a decent if somewhat inconsistent bat. capable in left; sub-worthy in center. hits from the wrong side to sub for colson rimbaud, but could platoon with craig. not sure what they'd be looking for in trade. if mike aviles doesn't look like he'll be ready for the season, tyler greene (or possibly the starting SS at the high school nearest the stadium in kansas city) could be a decent SS option for them over yuniesky betancourt. it probably takes more than tyler to get this done -- the salary dumped is not enough to make KC desperate. not sure where else we go to sweeten that pot without giving away some essential players.

early in the week, dave cameron had a hard-to-argue-with explication of why mike cameron (sign MIKE CAMERON) is significantly better (and cheaper in terms of money and picks) than jason bay (BOOOOO!!).

i thought this was a nice rundown of the limitations of WAR. i've been guilty of at least some of these WAR crimes on more than one occasion. read the comments, too, nerdbra.

if you're not sick to death of the titular individual, this might be interesting.

do you stay up late nights wondering what exactly is the average and replacement value wOBA for each position? put that ambien down. no, seriously, put the ambien down.

Poll

What is the maximum you would pay to land Matt Holliday?

The Flea Market

2009-11-13T07:02:18Z

More photos » by M. Spencer Green - AP

The part of John Mozeliak will be played by John Turturro.

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THE FLEA MARKET

A VIVA EL BIRDOS PLAY IN ONE ACT

CHARACTERS

JOHN MOZELIAK, a nervous shopper at the St. Louis Ballplayers Goodwill

WALT JOCKETTY, his worldly liaison

TONY LA RUSSA, a disembodied voice

THE GHOST OF CHRISTY MATHEWSON, a cautionary figure

SCENE

The Recession has made strange shopping partners of baseball's vast middle class. WALT JOCKETTY, experienced bargain shopper, steward of a Cincinnati team in the middle of a long and cheap rebuilding process, has seen JOHN MOZELIAK window-shopping wistfully at ballplayer Target long enough to agree to take him under his wing.

So off to ballplayer Goodwill they go. It's not in the newest strip mall, and there are certain types of player—the empty-.275 first baseman, the no-hit, no-field catcher, the righty relief pitcher who specializes in off-speed junk—who will hang on the dusty racks until someone is putting together a particularly weird Halloween costume. But WALT is a veteran of the strange aisles, and he is ready to convince JOHN that there's life after SCOTT BORAS.

WALT: Now this guy, for instance—his agent's name is Scott Boriss. I know the guy, and if you get him on the horn right after his double shift at the mattress warehouse he'll agree to the league minimum just to get you off the phone. I usually start negotiating right when the payphone asks for more quarters.

JOHN: I—I feel awkward being here, Walt.

WALT [looking through a bin of left-handers]: Nonsense. Happens to the best of us. This one has—well, it's most of a slider.

JOHN: I know it does. But this is my big year! Payroll's down, we just made a huge deadline deal, and we've got a big, Matt Holliday-shaped hole to fill in left field. Pretty soon my only duty as General Manager will be christening the ballpark Pujols Stadiang, but this—this is the Offseason of Mozeliak.

WALT: Right, right. So what do you think is better, a LOOGY with no fastball, or a LOOGY with no right arm? I might just take the whole bin. I really—

A MIDI version of WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE rings out of JOHN's pocket. Bargain shoppers glare from behind warped-looking shelving until he flips the phone open and ducks hastily into the UTILITY INFIELDER WHO CAN'T PLAY SHORT aisle. On the phone JOHN can hear a cassette version of WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, and on top of it, sounding impatient, TONY LA RUSSA.

TONY: Moz Def. Glad I caught you. How's Goodwill? Hey, is Jocko there?

JOHN looks down his glasses at WALT. WALT briefly but firmly shakes his head.

JOHN: You know, ah, he just left. Anyway—what can I help you with?

TONY: I don't know, just calling to chat. You know. I was wondering if you had a left fielder yet.

JOHN [staring at the far wall, where a few unmatched left fielders stand unpromisingly.]: I'll tell you, I'm still looking. But I've got some leads, and I'll—well, I'm sure I'll see you at work. So I can just tell you then.

TONY: About that, Mozambique. I was wondering if you could get one now?

JOHN: Now? Isn't it a little soon?

TONY: Well I don't mean now, of course!

TONY: But if you could get it done in an hour, that'd be great. Anyway, I've got to have two hands to air-play this solo, and Mac's busy air-drumming. Tell Walt Jocketty World I said hey, okay? If you see him again.

JOHN steps out of the aisle to find WALT haggling over a LOOGY.

WALT: Look, I'd give you $400,000, but it says here he's had Dan Johnson Surgery, and to be honest I'm not even sure what that is. I'll fax you an offer sheet. Just be near the front desk when it comes in this time, all right? If they ask what room you're staying in just make something up. [He hangs up.] John, I think I'm going to head out. You see anything you like?

JOHN: I just got off the phone with Tony. I think I'll just grab Xavier Nady on the way out.

WALT: Oh—well, okay. I'll be at the register.

Defeated, JOHN walks to the back of the store, where XAVIER NADY sits in a prime spot on the quiet left fielders' wall. He's been nearly average before, and he can be nearly average again! He is the perfect patch for a team that has not been able to develop its own XAVIER NADYS. But as JOHN takes one last glance at the price tag an eerie but remarkably distinguished chill falls over the aisle. JOHN turns around to find erstwhile Cardinal employee THE GHOST OF CHRISTY MATHEWSON floating carefully over the DISCOUNT SPIRITS aisle and into view. MATHEWSON adjusts his pince-nez and moves one rakish, waxy lock back into place over his forehead.

MATHEWSON: Good afternoon, John—it is I, The Ghost of Christy Mathewson!

JOHN: I know, thanks. What are you doing here? I made the same mistake you did, but that Joel Pineiro in the right-handers aisle, his name sounds exactly like it's spelled. Your guy's at Target this year.

MATHEWSON: I thank you, John, but I'm not here to resume my corporeal meanderings—I'm here to-day with a warning. I owe you as much, after you sorted things out with the players' union. I've been speaking with my—ha, ha—my partners in the, ah ha, para-normal, and I can assure you that none of the ghosts I'm in regular contact with have any desire to possess the Castilian gentle-man on which you've set your left field sights.

JOHN: He's—no offense, Mr. Mathewson, but he's alright on his own, isn't he?

MATHEWSON: All right, perhaps. Adequate, why, almost certainly. But brilliant? Stupendous? When Pete Alexander and I went "Over there" to "deal" with the "Kaiser" did we settle for adequate? Leave adequate to the Old World, friend Mozeliak. If one must arrange for one's left-fielding in this dingy place, it stands to reason that he should aim not for the assuredly unimpressive but for a player who might, should things proceed in his favor, contribute what we called a significant number of Victories As Against the Homunculus.

JOHN: So an Austin Kearns or a Randy Winn, instead of a Xavier Nady?

MATHEWSON: I am merely saying that if one is forced, through circumstance, to look here when they were so recently looking at Matthew Holliday, it might be best to become completely penurious. A Winn on the low end, a Michael Cameron on the high end. And that money might be spent elsewhere, on a replacement for our mutual acquaintance Pineiro or a fleet of Relieving Pitchers to account for these starters' weakened arm-constitutions. The middle path, as my father used to say, only leads to the holes in the fork!

JOHN: Well, Mr. Mathewson—I suppose 'll take that into consideration. Thank you.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE begins to play on JOHN's phone.

MATHEWSON: I—I say. I hate to tergiversate but it is in our spectral nature, after all, to make a sudden de-parture! Godspeed, Mr. Mozeliak.

MATHEWSON vanishes; WALT appears, keys in hand.

WALT: Alright, I started the car, so maybe put him on layaway if you're not sure about it. And I'm still not here.

SBN, BBWAA, CY, MVP

2009-11-12T11:00:17Z

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tim Lincecum	San Francisco Giants	18	13	-	129
2	Chris Carpenter	St. Louis Cardinals	9	4	7	64
3	Adam Wainwright	St. Louis Cardinals	4	4	10	42
4	Javier Vazquez	Atlanta Braves	-	5	7	22
5		Arizona Diamondbacks	-	3	4	13
6	Ubaldo Jimenez	Colorado Rockies	-	1	1	4
7	Cliff Lee	Philadephia Phillies	-	-	1	1
8	Jair Jurrjens	Atlanta Braves	-	-	1	1

More gestures in the direction of the Manny Ramirez Postulate? Cliff Lee had 12 starts in which, by FIP, he was not as good as Lincecum and Carpenter and slightly better than Adam Wainwright; he also had 23 starts in which he did not appear. Even the class of this genre, say C.C. Sabathia 2008 and Randy Johnson 1998 (four shutouts in 11 starts), would have a hard time making up value on this group of starters; Cliff Lee?

Lee aside, I think this is a pretty fair list, although I'm not sure I can see a case for Ubaldo Jimenez as the second best pitcher in the National League (or on the Cardinals, for that matter.)

And now, the one that hasn't been sitting in my inbox a day too long—the one, the only SBN National League MVP is going to be revealed... after these messages.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	Pts
1	Albert Pujols	St. Louis Cardinals	31	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	434
2	Hanley Ramirez	Florida Marlins	-	6	8	11	2	1	2	-	-	-	220
3	Chase Utley	Philadelphia Phillies	-	7	11	2	3	1	-	1	-	1	192
4	Prince Fielder	Milwaukee Brewers	-	5	4	4	7	7	1	-	-	-	186
5	Troy Tulowitzki	Colorado Rockies	-	4	1	5	2	3	3	4	1	2	134
6	Tim Lincecum	San Francisco Giants	-	4	1	-	1	2	2	3	1	-	79
7	Ryan Howard	Philadelphia Phillies	-	4	-	1	4	1	-	-	3	1	79
8	Ryan Zimmerman	Washington Nationals	-	-	1	3	3	3	3	1	-	2	79
9	Adrian Gonzalez	San Diego Padres	-	-	1	-	3	3	2	4	3	4	71
10	Pablo Sandoval	San Francisco Giants	-	-	-	1	2	2	2	3	4	3	57
11	Matt Kemp	Los Angeles Dodgers	-	-	1	1	1	1	5	3	-	1	56
12	Ryan Braun	Milwaukee Brewers	-	-	2	-	-	2	2	1	1	-	39
13	Chris Carpenter	St. Louis Cardinals	-	-	-	-	2	1	1	-	1	2	25
14	Derrek Lee	Chicago Cubs	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	1	3	2	25
15	Andre Ethier	Los Angeles Dodgers	-	-	-	-	1	2	2	-	-	-	24
16	Adam Wainwright	St. Louis Cardinals	-	-	-	1	-	-	1	1	4	1	23
17	Javier Vazquez	Atlanta Braves	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	2	1	16
18	Matt Holliday	St. Louis Cardinals	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	12
19	Joey Votto	Cincinnati Reds	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	11
20	Mark Reynolds	Arizona Diamondbacks	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	2	10
21	Todd Helton	Colorado Rockies	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	7
22	Jayson Werth	Philadelphia Phillies	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	6
23	Adam Dunn	Washington Nationals	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	3	5
24	Juan Pierre	Los Angeles Dodgers	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	4
25	Justin Upton	Arizona Diamondbacks	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	4
26	Raul Ibanez	Philadelphia Phillies	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	4
27	Ubaldo Jimenez	Colorado Rockies	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	4
28	Brian McCann	Atlanta Braves	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	4
29		Arizona Diamondbacks	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	4
30	Michael Bourn	Houston Astros	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	3
31	Yadier Molina	St. Louis Cardinals	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	3
32	Nyjer Morgan	Washington Nationals	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
33	Yunel Escobar	Atlanta Braves	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1

That—that feels pretty good. (Full disclosure: the Yadier pick wasn't me.) But it's worth noting that if you give anybody, and not just the BBWAA, ten picks for MVP, some weird downballot stuff is bound to happen. (Like, uh, Chase Utley.)
So that's it: another successful internet award season. This sort of thing has been going on for a long time now, in numerous forms, and while it's great to have an award to call one's own, the pertinent question is still, and will still be for some time, how is this going to compare to next week's BBWAA awards?
Manager of the Year I think we successfully tracked; Torre might trade La Russa for second place, because his still-novel move to Los Angeles and the Manny Ramirez shenanigans leave him wide open for a double-shot of attribution bias, but Jim Tracy has this award won. Rookie of the Year, and this is just my hunch, will probably go to J.A. Happ, who was lucky enough to be really impressive a little earlier, when the paint on this year's narratives was still drying.
Cy Young is going to be interesting. Things between Carpenter and Lincecum will certainly be closer; Lincecum's late swoon knocked him just slightly out of the range of Really Impressive ERAs, and while a lot has changed in the last twenty years, ten years, five years, 15 wins might be problematic for a reigning Cy Young candidate in a league with a 19 game winner.
The MVP—well, a unanimous finish wouldn't shock me. Barring any unexpected, awesome leap in production, I think we've hit the peak of Albert Pujols's mainstream notoriety. The year's biggest midseason trade happened specifically because he needed to be "protected" in the order; Hanley Ramirez plays in Florida, and Chase Utley is overshadowed by Ryan Howard. We're five years past the Barry Bonds Era.
But the thing I'm going to do when the MVP votes come back, unless I'm writing about an unexpected, not-awesome surprise result, is count the pitchers. You'll notice six on the SBN ballot, and—this might be what makes me proudest—five of the six appear in order of their Cy Young finish. Last year's BBWAA voting is basically a parody of their voting habits re: pitchers and the MVP. Placing first, and sixth among all players, was C.C. Sabathia; next was a relief pitcher, Brad Lidge; and coming in 23rd, placing one spot ahead of Jose Valverde, was Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.
Compared to that, Yadier Molina and Michael Bourne seem pretty tame.

The Bull Market

2009-11-11T16:59:47Z

More photos » AP

Whitey Herzog will be on the ballot for the Hall of Fame this winter. I ignored this bit of news in favour of complete rambling nonsense.

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So just say for a second you were the General Manager of a major league baseball team, and you've got a rather substantial amount of money to spend. Say also, while we're hypotheticizing here, that you are facing a truly awful free agent class. Okay. Got it? Now, say your name is, um, Ron Fobaylock. So here you are, Mr. Fobaylock, with more money to spend than you've ever had up to this point in your tenure as a GM, and just look at the detritus you have to choose from! So, what would you do?

Such is the conundrum faced by Johnny Mo this offseason. Sure, he's got the money, but what's he going to spend it on? We've all seen the lists of free agents by now, and let's face it: what the Cardinals need, there just ain't a whole lot of out there. The Cards need a left fielder, and there are three really attractive options: Matt Holliday, Jason Bay, and Mike Cameron. Unfortunately, all three have issues. It's looking less and less likely Holliday has any interest in playing for anything less than a stupid contract. Bay will almost assuredly sign before Holliday, as Scott Boras will want Bay to help set a market for his client. Cameron would seem to be a great fit, but it's also possible he may prefer to go somewhere as a full-time center fielder. It certainly isn't a stretch to believe the Cards might come away without any of the three. And then what? Sorry, but Xavier Nady and his bionic elbow doesn't interest me, and Johnny Damon just isn't worth the draft pick.

The story is much the same at third base, the other main position of need for El Birdos. Mark DeRosa is a known quantity, but on the other hand, Mark DeRosa is a known quantity. Adrian Beltre has a nice glove, but his bat is questionable and his price tag much the same. Troy Glaus brings power and should come cheap, but with a body composed mostly of old newspapers and sadness it's tough to say how durable he'll be.

So what's a GM, whether hypothetical or real, to do? How does one improve a team when the options seem so very limited? Well, one looks elsewhere, of course. And when one looks elsewhere to improve the 2010 Cardinals over the 2009 version, another area of concern begins to whisper its weakness. I speak, of course, of the bullpen.

Unlike the other areas of need the Cardinals have, there are plenty of options to improve the relief corps. Look at the list of available free agent relievers, and you have to be impressed with the firepower. Guys like Billy Wagner and Octavio Dotel and Mike Gonzalez could all potentially make a big impact on a bullpen. So let's take a look at the most attractive options, shall we? I know we all love Ryan Franklin and believe he'll come back in 2010 snorting fire and striking hitters out left and right, but let's just say, for fun, he doesn't. Perhaps a closer might help.

The Type A's

Billy Wagner, LHP - Sure, he's old. And sure, he's had surgery in the recent past. You know what? I don't care. Billy Wagner is still a bad, bad man, even after Tommy John. In limited action following his return from TJ in 2009, Wagner did exactly what he always does: he dominated. He threw 15.2 innings between the Metropolitans and the Red Sox, and posted a 2.33 FIP. He strikeout rate was 14.94 per 9 innings. His control wasn't quite as sharp as usual, but that's certainly to be expected on the comeback trail from elbow surgery. The bottom line is Billy Wagner still kicks ass approaching 40 and with a surgically repaired arm.

The problem with signing relievers, of course, is the wildly inconsistent nature of their performance from year to year. This year's Brad Lidge can quickly become next year's Brad Lidge, and with little or no warning. Not Billy Wagner, though. Wagner has posted an ERA above 3.00 exactly once in his big league career, in 2000. His next highest ERA is 2.85. What I'm trying to say is this: if you're looking for a sure thing to improve your bullpen, Billy Wagner is probably it.

So what's the catch? Well, the catch is Wagner falls into that dastardly trap known as Type A. Yes, that's right. If the Boston Red Sox offer Wagner arbitration (and they would be fools not to), he would cost the Cardinals their first-round pick in 2010. Of course, if the Cards were to pick up some other team's first rounder, say, in return for a certain left fielder who shall remain nameless, it would certainly help take some of the sting out.

Mike Gonzalez, LHP - The upside of Gonzalez is this: he's the second-best left-handed reliever on the market, right behind the aforementioned Billy Wagner. He consistently strikes out better than a batter an inning, and has posted an ERA above 4.00 only twice in his career. The downside? He walks too many batters, though he has improved his control since his early days in Pittsburgh, he blew seven saves in only seventeen opportunities last year, he'll cost you a draft pick, and that Rain Man impression he does on the mound is wicked annoying.

Here's my thought on signing Gonzalez: he's a very good pitcher, capable of shutting the door on an opponent at the end of the game. At the same time, though, he isn't as good as Wagner, would likely demand a longer contract, and will still cost you the same in draft pick compensation. For the money and the lost pick, I would take Wagner in a heartbeat over Gonzalez.

Rafael Soriano, RHP - So you want a guy just like the first two pitchers on this list, but you're afraid of lefties, you say? Well, look no further than Rafael Soriano. He's got the same electric stuff as Mike Gonzalez, but lacking the sinister overtones. Soriano struck out better than 12/9 IP in 2009, while keeping his walk rate down at a very manageable 3.21. He throws hard, has an outstanding breaking ball, and generally does a fine job of keeping the ball in the park. What more could you ask for?

Well, one could ask for a better track record of health, I suppose. Soriano has a history of arm troubles, though they're usually more of the nagging variety than the cutting variety. What is really interesting about Soriano and Gonzalez is that both play for the Braves. Now, while that may not seem all that interesting at first blush, there is the possibility Atlanta may not be willing to offer arbitration to both players. One would have to assume they will offer arb. to one or the other, but if they are at all concerned the market this winter could be as slow as last offseason, they may hesitate to possibly put themselves on the hook for two short relievers due for large pay increases. If Atlanta fails to offer either Soriano or Gonzalez arbitration, that player immediately gets a big, big bump in value. Definitely a situation worth watching.

Octavio Dotel, RHP - After a couple years of wandering in the wilderness, Dotel has resurrected his career the past two seasons with the Chicago White Sox. He's been healthy, throwing 134 total innings, and has shown flashes of the same brilliance he displayed early in his career with the Houston Astros. (And by the way, look at some of the numbers Dotel put up in Houston. It's easy to forget just how good he was for about three years, and just how hard he was ridden.) The old fire may not quite be there, as he no longer gooses his fastball up to 97 or 98, but the slider is still good and the K numbers show it. On the other hand, betting on Dotel at this point is a definite risk, as his injury history is long and detailed. Just looking at the jump his walk rate took from 2008 to 2009 is enough to give me pause.

Jose Valverde, RHP - I'll be honest with you: I can't stand Jose Valverde. I hate his delivery, I hate the little dance he does, I hate his half-assed perm, and I hate, well, pretty much everything else about the dude. He just bugs me, you know? However, personal feelings aside, Valverde is still a pretty fine pitcher. He strikes out better than a batter an inning, his walk rate is just fine, and he's only given up more than a hit per inning once in his career. (He gave up 50 hits in 49.1 innings in 2006.)

On the other hand, Valverde also happens to have name recognition that a couple of the other guys on this list don't have. He's certainly better known than either of the Atlanta pitchers, and is consistently seen on SportsCenter pumping his fist and just being all Proven Closer. Thus, his price tag will likely exceed those of the other guys listed here, I would think.

There are a couple other Type A relievers, but I don't see any of them as real options. Kevin Gregg is a Type A, but I have to think the Cards saw enough of him in a Cubs' uni to stay away. John Grabow is good, but more of a specialist type, and LaTroy Hawkins, well, um, I'm not really sure how to finish that sentence.

The Type B's

Kiko Calero, RHP - Okay, I'm going to level with you: Calero is probably the only Type B I'm really that interested in. Well, maybe not the only one, but he's certainly at the top of the list. Hell, if nothing else, signing Calero would allow us all the look at the Cardinal roster and forget, if only for a second, that the Mark Mulder deal ever happened.

The problem with Calero is that his numbers look, well, they look like a reliever's. Whereas the guys up in the A bracket have established a track record of fairly consistent performance year after year, Calero's numbers look more like a tech stock's six-month record. He was excellent for the Cards in 2003 and '04, then went to Oakland along with Daric Barton and no one else, and had two very nice seasons for them. Then came 2007, and Kiko just self-destructed. His walk rate exploded, his strike outs plummeted, and his home run rate stayed low largely because of Oakland's cavernous home stadium. 2008 brought more frustration, and Kiko landed in Florida for the 2009 season. He proceeded to put up brilliant numbers once again, with an ERA under 2.00. So which Kiko would you be buying for 2010? Therein lies the conundrum of trying to sign relievers to improve your bullpen.

The best thing Kiko Calero has going for him is the fact he won't cost you a draft pick. He won't give you the same kind of performance the guys on the A list probably would, but he also won't screw you in June when you don't have a pick until #97 overall. Calero keeps the ball on the ground and in the park, so he would certainly fit in with the rest of the staff, but his ERA is almost certain to rise in 2010 nonetheless. He stranded better than 82% of baserunners in '09, a number that likely isn't sustainable.

Brandon Lyon, RHP - Okay, take a look at Lyon's numbers. Now, do you see why the Cardinals should stay well clear of this guy? If not, don't feel bad. There's going to be at least one General Manager this winter who doesn't see it either, and he's probably going to hand Brandon Lyon a 2.86 ERA contract.

The problem, of course, is Brandon Lyon isn't a 2.86 ERA pitcher. He did, however, look like one in 2009. Unfortunately, that doesn't cover the fact it was pretty much all smoke, all mirrors, all the time. His K/BB rate was well under two. He stranded over 80% of baserunners. His BABIP was an unsustainably low .229. In short, Brandon Lyon in 2009 is the guy the concept of regression to the mean was invented for.

Now, that's not to say Brandon Lyon is a bad pitcher, per se, but only to show what kind of an investment the Cardinals should probably avoid making. Sure, a guy like Lyon isn't going to cripple you by himself, but as Cardinal fans, we've seen all too well how a bunch of small, sorta bad contracts can turn into a big, really bad contract when you take them all together. No, for what he'll cost, Brandon Lyon is just the sort of pitcher who isn't worth it.

Rich Harden, RHP - And now we come to one of my favourite hypotheticals. There's going to be plenty of discussion this offseason about Rich Harden maybe being the sort of guy you might want to offer an incentive-heavy contract to for one year just to see. Sure, he's never ever ever, ever ever, ever ever been healthy for an extended period of time, but sweet Jesus, look at what he can do when he does get on the field.

You won't find a pitcher more talented, or an arm more intriguing, than Mr. Harden. Unfortunately, we all know the other side of the story: Harden has made 30 starts exactly once in his career, in 2005. When he's healthy, he's a joy to watch. But most of the time, you're just going to be frustrated by the pitcher who isn't there.

Whether or not Harden would be worth offering a one-year deal to as a starter, though, isn't really what I'm concerned with at the moment. What I want to know is if he could possibly be enticed into trying his hand at a relief role. Maybe he just isn't built to handle the rigors of 200 innings a season. Maybe he could come in and air it out for ten or twelve pitches at a time and keep himself on the field.

Something interesting about Harden is this: he's actually been fairly healthy the last two years. In 2008 and '09, he made 25 and 26 starts, respectively. Not quite a full healthy season, but close. What's even move interesting is for the first time in his career, Harden failed to really have much success in 2009. That coincided with his complete abandonment of both his slider and split-finger pitches, both of which had been huge weapons for him in the past. Harden essentially became a strict two-pitch pitcher in 2009, yet was still able to have a reasonable level of success over better than 140 innings.

So what we have here is a pitcher who has been relatively healthy two years running, but still seems unable to stay off the training table for a full season's worth of innings. He now throws basically just two pitches, still has the velocity on his fastball, and can still strike hitters out like nobody's business. The real Achilles' Heel for Harden in '09 was his home run rate, which was close to twice his career mark. Some of that was undoubtedly due to pitching in Wrigley Field for a full season, but I think a lot of it was the fact he simply refused to go to a third pitch to keep hitters off balance.

I have no idea if Harden would be amenable to the idea of pitching in relief or not. But I look at his numbers, and I look at his track record, and it cries out to me there's a dominant reliever just waiting to be born. So what if he can't throw 180 innings? Give me 60 or 70 innings of vintage Rich Harden, and I'll show you a winner.

In the end, I think the Cardinals could probably do pretty well for themselves if they chose to invest a bit of coin in the bullpen this offseason. Ordinarily, I'm not at all of the mind that throwing money at relievers is a good way to improve your team, but this year might just be the exception. I think the Cards will miss out on both of the top left fielders, Holliday due to the enormous salary he'll get and Bay due to timing, and I honestly don't see a third baseman on the market I think would be worth the money for the improvement over David Freese. Maybe Chone Figgins, but I get the feeling the Angels are going to resign him. I could be wrong, of course.

So maybe in order to improve the team, Johnny Mo and Co. improve a semi-sore spot instead of the glaring holes. Maybe they take all that money they were going to hand to Holliday and they go give some of it to Billy Wagner. Maybe then they call up Rich Harden and say, "Hey, Rich. We couldn't help but notice you're awesome and all, but you sure do seem to get hurt a lot. Our manager and pitching coach built a pretty sizable portion of their legacy on turning a starter into a reliever about twenty years ago; how would you like to be the next Eckersley?"

There are, of course, others who might be interesting, guys who don't show up on the arbitration lists, but few of them warrant a whole lot of consideration over what the Cards already have, in my ever so humble opinion. Guillermo Mota is out there, and might be okay, but he's also getting up in years and I don't really like him. Duaner Sanchez might be worth a spring training invite to see if he looks healthy or not. Justin Speier, subject of a fair amount of speculation here back about mid-season, is capable of getting right-handed hitters out quite effectively. Fernando Rodney would certainly be worth kicking the tires on if the Tigers don't bring him back. There will be plenty of non-tenders as well, possibly a record amount, and a large percentage of those players will likely be relievers. Still, lest this become even more unwieldy than it already is, I'm not going to speculate further on who might be cut loose. For now, these are the guys I think bear watching.

Now, what would you do with guys like Kyle McClellan, you ask? Well, to be honest, I don't really have an answer, because I don't care. I want a bullpen that can overwhelm the other team, and K-Mac, despite his awesome nickname, just isn't terrifying anyone with his 1.50 K/BB ratio in 2009. Give me Motte and give me Boggs, maybe make a spot for Eddie Sanchez midseason. But don't give me Brad Thompson and McClellan and the like.

Of course, the question must be asked: is someone like Billy Wagner and what he would bring to the team worth giving up a first-round draft pick for? And the answer is an unequivocal maybe. See, ordinarily, I'm of the mind you don't give up those draft picks for pretty much anything. Period. But the fact is, I think the Cardinals are going to have a pretty fair haul of extra picks early in the draft this year, and that changes the equation a bit. If Holliday and DeRosa both leave, the Cards have two extra supplemental picks and a possible first-rounder coming. (It could also be a second rounder, which is just fucking idiotic. The draft compensation rules have got to be fixed in the next CBA. It's just ridiculous the way this whole thing works.) Jo-El is on his way out as well, I'm sure, so that's a third supplemental pick. I sort of doubt the Cards offer Troy Glaus arbitration, but if they do and he leaves, that's four. Most likely, the Cardinals will have three supplemental picks, all in the 30-50 range, and an extra second-round pick. (I think Holliday ends up with the Mets. It would be nice if the Giants or Angels signed him, though.)

With so many extra picks in the first two rounds, I honestly would be okay with the Cards forfeiting their first-round choice to sign a Billy Wagner. I can't imagine he would want more than about a one- or two-year deal at his age, so you aren't locking yourself into anything that could cripple you long-term. You give up your first rounder, yes, but you still have something like five picks in the first 80 or so. I can live with that.

So what do you guys think? I say when (okay, if), Holliday walks, and Bay has already re-upped with Boston, and Cameron signs with Kansas City because they'll let him be the center fielder, we focus on the 'pen. Give me Wagner to destroy all in his path, Harden as a grand experiment, and keep the rest of the powder dry.

Maybe we lose 90 games 2-1. Or maybe not. Hey, it's November. What else have we got to talk about?

The Baron's Playlist for the 11th of November, 2009

"Oviedo" - Blind Pilot

"Gotta Get Up" - Harry Nilsson

"The Old Revolution" - Leonard Cohen

"The Handshake" - MGMT

"Let's Build a Fire" - +/-

Type-B personalities

2009-11-10T17:00:24Z

Your Type A and B free agents for the 2009-2010 Hot Stove season:

TYPE A

Matt Holliday: This seems pretty obvious. Bad news: the Mets, Holliday's current Media Suitor of choice, have a protected first rounder in 2010, leaving the Cardinals stuck with a second rounder should he end up bolting for Queens. I hate to root for the Red Sox, ever, for anything, but they do have the 29th pick...

TYPE B

Mark DeRosa: This also seems pretty obvious. I don't want the Cardinals to resign DeRosa, because his versatility is of questionable value for this team at this point in time, but I don't doubt that somebody will.

Joel Pineiro: Do it. Are the Brewers looking for another starter?

Troy Glaus: This is maybe the oddest case. Troy Glaus made $11.25 million last year, which works out to something like the league minimum per plate appearance, and while last season's salary is not inextricably linked to next year's, as it is for arbitration cases who aren't yet free agents, it's tough to imagine the Cardinals winning the case by offering less than, say, $7 million. That's still a lot of money per plate appearance.

But if the Cardinals aren't interested in going into the season with David Freese as the sole option there's no reason not to offer Glaus arbitration. Healthy, Glaus is as good a player as Adrian Beltre or [type A free agent] Chone Figgins, and he's the only one who would, if he accepted arbitration, be a one year commitment. If he's unhealthy, the Cardinals already have David Freese.

That seems like a low-risk shot at a draft pick, but last year the Cardinals didn't offer Braden Looper, another fair bet, arbitration, so it remains to be seen whether the Mozeliak Cardinals are avoiding the procedure as a general rule. After the jump: yet another outfield option emerges.

Not enough tires yet kicked? Ready to seek out the poor man's Mike Cameron? Randy Winn, the only sitting all-star to ever be traded for a manager, is officially out of a job in San Francisco. I'll be honest: I don't think I could get on board for this. But I can see a case made. Here's what it requires:

Complete faith in UZR. Do you believe it's possible for a 35 year-old career CF/RF tweener to be a defensive juggernaut in the corners? After a long career as a basically average tweener, Winn's spent the last two years almost entirely in left and right and put up 30 (Fielding Bible) or 34 (UZR) runs above the average corner outfielder, who admittedly is often a first baseman, a baseball hater, a crawling man with a glove painted on his back, or all three at once. If he'd been doing this his whole life, or if he had once been Colby Rasmus or Mike Cameron in center, I might accept this at face value, but as best we can tell Winn was once a marginally above-average center fielder, and that was several years ago.
More optimism than even the (still misleadingly named) Bill James projections, which have, in the past, seemed to regress all hitters in the general direction of year-2000 Coors Field. Freely available, now, at Fangraphs, these projections expect Winn to get an entire win back from his miserable 2009 season, which at .276/.337/.389 would still make him three runs worse than an average hitter. At his best—2008's .306/.363/.426 will do—he's Skip Schumaker with some extra power, which makes him an average corner outfielder before his apparently otherworldly defense is accounted for.
Most importantly, the intestinal fortitude to accept another minor disaster in left field. Winn is a good bounceback candidate, but so is Rick Ankiel, so was Chris Duncan; are the Cardinals, with Carpenter, Wainwright, and Pujols currently in their primes, ready to take another high-downside risk at perhaps their easiest-to-upgrade spot on the roster. Winn'll be cheaper than most outfielders who put up a four win season last year, but he's also got a better chance to be a one win player than most of them.

I'm not sure if I'm ready for all that yet, but I've always liked Winn as a player, and if the Cardinals have pinpointed other areas on which to spend their payroll windfall (I would be willing to sign for the minimum, so long as it's a short term deal) he's an interesting low-cost move.

2009 SBN Rookie of the Year

2009-11-10T11:00:42Z

I'm going to be honest—the ballots went out a while ago, and until I got the results back I was relatively sure I voted for Cullerton Rasputin, at least in third place. His name must have slipped my mind.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tommy Hanson	Atlanta Braves	9	9	6	78
2	J.A. Happ	Philadelphia Phillies	6	9	7	64
3	Andrew McCutchen	Pittsburgh Pirates	8	3	5	54
4	Chris Coghlan	Florida Marlins	7	5	4	54
5	Dexter Fowler	Colorado Rockies	-	3	1	10
6	Randy Wells	Chicago Cubs	-	-	6	6
7	Garrett Jones	Pittsburgh Pirates	1	-	-	5
8	Casey McGehee	Milwaukee Brewers	-	1	2	5
9	Seth Smith	Colorado Rockies	-	1	-	3

That said, I'm not sure I can argue with the results; Hanson was brilliant, J.A. Happ might end up the next Pat Listach but nevertheless qualified for the ERA title with a top ten finish, and Andrew McCutchen had twenty more runs created than Rasmus in thirty fewer plate appearances.

As for that lone Garrett Jones vote, he was awesome, but I think this is the first time I've ever seen the Manny Ramirez Postulate used to justify a rookie of the year vote.

At 11: more arbitration discussion!

Signing Most-Valuable Players

2009-11-09T18:00:36Z

You shoulda come to the first party—we didn't get home 'til around four in the morning. I was blind for three days...

View full size photo »

There's no new news, which means it's time we go over some old news: the decision to sign Ryan Franklin to a multi-year extension stipulating that he was not allowed to record another out in 2009. That particular clause was the main problem with the Franklin deal in particular, but since we didn't know about that at the time I think it's the principle of the thing that's wedged so tightly inside the Cardinals fanbase's collective craw. This team's management does so many things correctly; it's identified free talent like Ryan Ludwick, it's signed Adam Wainwright to a long-term deal at actual wainwright rates, and its drafts have improved tremendously since the seeds of what's become the new regime were first planted.

But Ryan Franklin was the second time in as many years that the Cardinals broke, to their own detriment, what was originally a Branch Rickey tenet and has since become a Sabermetrics 101 truism: Don't sign a player at the top of his value! This shouldn't be a difficult thing to grasp because it's so categorically true as to be basically meaningless; if you sign a guy at the very peak of his value, things can only go downhill from there.

I've thought about these contracts assuming, above all else, that John Mozeliak is a rational, above-average general manager; most of them are at this point, so it might be worthwhile to consider who else has made these two moves in recent years, and where it's left them.

THE LOHSE DEAL: Three long-term contracts obviously weirder than Kyle Lohse's

3. Juan Pierre. Five years, $44 million, 11/2006. What a terrible year for contracts this was—at the same time all of this was happening the Cardinals were getting ready to tear up Chris Carpenter's last two years, worth $15 million, so that they could hand him three more at an annual value of $15 million. Pierre is probably the nearest analogue to Kyle Lohse of the three I've got here; he's an intermittently useful regular who is being passed off, as salaries go, as the second banana on a pretty good team, not the guy who goes to the bench when somebody better shows up.

But more importantly, when the Dodgers pounced on Juan Pierre here—before the winter meetings, even—they seemed to be bidding against themselves. Pierre had just been traded from the Marlins for what at the time was a platter of second tier pitching prospects, and his year in Chicago hadn't exactly brought him back to the front of the national conscience. Who else was ready to offer Juan Pierre $44 million? Or Kyle Lohse $41?

2. Gary Matthews, Jr. Five years, $50 million, 11/2006. Stop me if you've heard this one before, maybe three times before: a player who has been useful in his own way for some time has a brilliant season that gets a lot of attention, not all of it for his tangible value. In the offseason he's signed to a contract that seems out of touch both with his apparent market value and the likely bounds of his performance, but the team in question is convinced that, despite being in his thirties, this player has found a new level of performance. He has not.

What makes the Sarge Jr. contract crazier than the Kyle Lohse deal, besides the additional year, is that the real Gary Matthews Jr. was a fourth outfielder with an inconsistent bat and a flashy glove. Since the Angels signed him, that's exactly what he's been. When it comes to inexplicable career year contracts, we're all Gary Matthews, Jr., Jr. Except for this man:

1. Vernon Wells. 114 years, $573 billion, 12/2006. Recently we were talking about how great it is to be able to lock up your own homegrown talent—how that's one of the keys to the Yankees' success, and, in the Blue Jays' case, one of the keys to competing with the Yankees. After looking at the Vernon Wells contract to this point, one might be tempted to never, ever sign another homegrown player again.

Vernon Wells was a trap; that's all there is to it. He looks like a homegrown franchise player; he plays center field, and in his second full season in the league he had an enormous season, hitting .317/.359/.550 and doing everything well. In his ill-fated contract year, he nearly reprised that season, hitting .303/.357/.542. But between those lines, and even between the lines' lines, there are more warning signals than you'll find on a pack of Canadian cigarettes. Between 2003 and 2006 are two extremely average lines; even in 2003 and 2006 there's a walk rate that keeps him from being an elite hitter. The Blue Jays were signing a player that they'd gotten for two non-contiguous years out of four to a deal that might even have been rich for that hypothetical guy.

They couldn't have known that his offense and defense would both take a complete nosedive by 2009, making him one of the worst players in baseball just in time for his contract to get to these numbers:

2010—$12.5 million
2011—$23 million

If I stopped here it would be a bad deal. But I've got more, one entirely separate bad deal—

2012—$21 million
2013—$21 million

That's like signing Vernon Wells to a bad contract—five years, $63 million—and then signing him again, at the conclusion of the contract, to Manny Ramirez's deal. (You know? It really is...)

THE FRANKLIN DEAL: Three mid-contract renegotiations less necessary than Ryan Franklin's

3. Vernon Wells. Why on earth did they renegotiate after his career year when they had one more on which to base things? Were they concerned that the Vernon Wells would take it as a serious personal affront?

2. Travis Hafner. You've got a slugger who has just turned 30 and who, while brilliant, has serious old player skills. He's gotten off to a slow start this season, but it's alright—you've got him signed through the end of the next year on a deal that's beneficial for all parties concerned. Do you A) wait out his slump, or B) sign him to a four year, $57 million contract that wipes out your attractive year and a half as a show of good will?

1. Chris Carpenter. It hurts, it really does. But at least we don't have to blame this one on John Mozeliak. I'm aware that this is easier for us to do, as armchair GMs, than it is for the actual executives, who are dealing with actual human beings they will have to see on a semi-regular basis. And it's not just the player—fans can be pretty quick to accuse teams of not opening up DeWallet, and the Vernon Wells deal was apparently engineered, to some degree, by the Blue Jays' owner.

But in general, contracts like Lohse's and Franklin's—on a smaller scale, luckily—illustrate how risky a business it is to use contracts to send messages to players, fans, or owners. A pat on the back might have done more good for Ryan Franklin than an extra $4 million on his head.

SBN Manager of the Year

2009-11-09T11:00:34Z

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

Tony La Russa, right, is about to give a very awkward acceptance speech. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Browse more photos »

The cloud of white smoke your computer emitted last night might have tipped you off, but this year's SBN blogger awards are going to be revealed this week. They're just like the BBWAA awards, except that tomorrow's post isn't set aside for ragging on the choices. Yet. Stop the drumroll:

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Jim Tracy	Colorado Rockies	24	1	2	125
2	Tony La Russa	St. Louis Cardinals	3	7	10	46
3	Fredi Gonzalez	Florida Marlins	2	6	5	33
4	Joe Torre	Los Angeles Dodgers	-	9	2	29
5	Charlie Manuel	Philadelphia Phillies	-	3	5	14
6	Bruce Bochy	San Francisco Giants	1	1	1	9
7	Bobby Cox	Atlanta Braves	-	1	4	7
8	Bud Black	San Diego Padres	-	1	1	4
9	John Russell	Pittsburgh Pirates	-	1	-	3

I think manager of the year is the one award for which the Manny Ramirez Postulate—"He came in halfway through the season, so obviously he was more valuable than the guy who was there the whole time"—might not be totally preposterous. Coming in at midseason is its own managerial tactic, as time-honored as the sacrifice bunt and getting yourself ejected from a listless blowout. The replacement, even if he's as establishment as Jim Tracy, must be the thrower-over of the money changers, out to—depending on his predecessor's style—either loosen or fire things up in the clubhouse.

As for our own Tony La Russa, it's his customary good showing, and it surprises me; I thought he'd had a fine season, but storyline-wise—and that's most of what we have to judge managers by, to be honest—he was less interesting than Tracy, the midseason replacement, Gonzalez, the exciting young manager, or Torre, who went to all the trouble of going from one gigantic media market to another.

In other news, you heard it here first: the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates is named John Russell.

During SBN Award week we are offering two threads for the price of one; expect the second piece around noon.