Viva El Birdos

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...

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)

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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.

Links ahoy

2009-11-08T11:37:20Z

More photos » by Morry Gash - AP

Brendan Ryan: the 2009 Cardinals honorary hacker of the year.

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I just saw "Men who Stare at Goats" last night. Weirdest movie ever. I laughed my ass off throughout the thing, but damned if I knew what it was actually about. Accordingly, I got home late last night, so I don't have time for a full post, but I have a couple of things that I wanted to link to that I thought you'd all enjoy.

We'll start off with a very cool modification of WAR from Alex Krolewski at Beyond the Boxscore, called PZR Win Values. Before you read that, let me give you a brief history of what WAR actually is. The AR part of WAR stands for Above Replacement, and generally represents some minor league scrub who each team has. Think guys like Brad Thompson or Blake Hawksworth. You would expect such a player to put up an ERA of over 5 if he was in the rotation.

The W part stands for Wins, and it represents how much production over that replacement level player you can expect from a given player. Wins are calculated mathematically (you can read the
gory math details here), and are devoid of context (pitching to the score doesn't get you any cookie points). They can be calculated using a plehtora of run estimators:

ERA... you should probably know this one.

FIP... attempts to take out some of the aspects of ERA that are much less under a pitchers control, such as defense and timing. It relies on home runs, walks and strikeouts to rate pitchers. Despite it's simplicity, or maybe because of it, it is the most used defense independent pitching stat out there. Kincaid, over at 3-D Baseball recently wrote a two part series further explaining how it works, that I encourage you all to read.

tRA... is like FIP on crack, in a good way. It includes the basic elements of FIP, but also adds a pitchers batted ball numbers to give them more credit for inducing weaker contact.

There are others, but those are the main three. You can see problems with each of them however. ERA is too reliant on things that are mainly out of a pitchers control, like defense, and thus doesn't measure pitcher skill very well. FIP and tRA eliminate defense, but also timing, which can be a problem. A pitcher who gives up a walk then a home run, is just as valuable by these estimates as a pitcher who gives up a home run followed by a walk.

Enter PZR. PZR is a modification of of UZR, which is a stat developed by Mitchel Lichtman, a former consultant to the St. Louis Cardinals, to credit fielders with their defensive contributions on balls in play. UZR takes many, many parameters into account including how hard the ball is hit, the batted ball tendencies of the pitcher on the mound, the location of each batted ball and many others. You can read more about it here and here.

Anyway, PZR takes UZR inputs and applies them to pitchers instead. So instead of measuring feilding prowess, it measures how hard to field each pitches balls in play are. Once you get those numbers, you can adjust each pitchers ERA accordingly. That makes an adjustment for defense, while not taking out the timing aspect of pitching. If you use PZR modified ERA to calculate WAR, you get some very interesting results, as Alex demonstrated in the link above.

If anyone has any questions about PZR or WAR, speak up, and I'm sure we'll be able to help.

Next, the Pittsburgh Pirates (I know, don't laugh, they're not that bad) are looking for a programmer/analyst to help their front office with front office stuff. If you have skills in SQL and other computery stuff, you should check out this link and see if you are interested in the job. Also, it's probably good if you live in Pittsburgh.

---------------------------

Next up, at the Hardball Times, Max Marchi looks at the best and worst bad ball hitters and pitchers in baseball. Using Pitch f/x data, he looked at which hitters swung at the highest percentage of pitches seen in the bad ball zone, and then which are most and least successful at hitting those pitches when they swing at them. He repeats the study for pitchers as well.

Suprisingly, no Cardinals show up in any of the leader boards, but using a variation of Max's method, I present to you the most hackiest Cardinals this year. I say variation, because I wasn't able to reproduce the code he wrote that figured out the bad ball zone based off of where pitches are called strikes. Instead, I simply looked at pitches that were at least a half a foot off the strike zone for each batter hand. Anyway, here are the Cardinal leaders this year, with a minimum of 200 pitches seen in the bad ball zone:

Name	Pitches seen in bad ball zone	Bad ball swinging %
Brendan Ryan	230	15.7%
Rick Ankiel	256	14.5%
Colby Rasmus	319	13.2%
Skip Schumaker	359	11.4%
Matt Holliday	648	10.7%

*with Oakland and Stl.

League average is around 11%, so the Cardinals don't seem to be so bad. Unfortunately, Pitch f/x data doesn't include which team each player is on, so there is no way to definitely check out which teams are the best and the worst. Here are the full leaderboards, bearing in mind that my method is extremely crude.

Addendum:

I discovered a small error in my query that screwed everything up for lefties, so you'll see that the leaderboards and the spreadsheet have been updated with the correct numbers. In case you missed it, I had Ankiel only swinging at 2 bad balls all year. Just for fun, here is Ankiel's swing plot this year:

Yeah....

He should really get someone to help him with those low pitches.

November

2009-11-07T08:30:31Z

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

FILE -- This is a 2009 file photo showing St. Louis Cardinals baseball player Yadier Molina. A New York sports marketing firm has sued St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, saying he snubbed their agreement to make appearances and sign autographs. Steiner Sports Marketing's lawsuit, filed Friday, Oct. 13, 2009, in New York, says the sports memorabilia company had a contract with Molina dating to October 2006. Molina explained that he simply got tired after walking 3 blocks from 57th Street and had to stop and have a rest. Al Hrabosky stood across the street and criticized him for lack of hustle. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

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November

It only believes

In a pile of dead leaves

And a moon that's the color of bone

T.S. Eliot thought April was the cruelest month, but that was because he left St. Louis and moved to London where April was one of eleven months when it mostly just rains. Also, whatever time he might have spent watching the Perfectos or the Browns in his youth he had clearly forgotten, because April is the month when baseball starts up again. In England, you just get to wait for cricket season, and do they even have spring training for cricket? I think they have to wait until the weather clears in July to get the one game of cricket in before the pre-autumn drizzle, because that one game takes three weeks to play.

April is a favorite month of mine, when things turn green and baseball reappears.

November is one of my least favorite months, right up there with February; November has slightly better weather and Thanksgiving, but February is pitchers and catchers reporting time. September and October are beautiful months, also some of the best months in the calendar. Falling leaves, cool and temperate weather that is such a relief from the heat and humidity of July and August. But by the time kids finish throwing up the remainder of their Halloween candy, the world turns to crap. Worst of all, no more baseball. Four solid months of no baseball. Mostly.

That's why I've sought assistance from the king of all things cool, Tom Waits, to introduce the month.

November has tied me to an old dead tree

Get word to April to rescue me

November is cold rain running down your back, because there's that little spot of bare skin on your neck between your collar and your hat. November is a puddle of slush lurking at the edge of the curb, waiting to flood the shoe of the pedestrian stepping carelessly from the sidewalk. November is freezing rain. November is driving to work in the dark and driving home in the dark and wondering if the sun actually rose and set in the interim, or if the sun was just too depressed today and stayed in bed like you wish you had. Unless of course you live in one of those unnatural places where "winter" is the season when the temperature doesn't get above 75 degrees at midday. You are spoiling a good gloom with your suntans and your cheery smiles.

So if you want to love me

Darlin don't refrain

Or I'll just end up walkin, in the cold Nov . . .

All right, who let Axl Rose in my post? That is the wrong November song. Axl, don't you have a fifteen-year album project to work on? Better get that started and leave my thread alone.

For baseball fans, November is a particularly painful moment at which the trade and free agent markets are just too open, too uncertain. Too much can happen. Write all the paeans to Carl Crawford you like, you may find out tomorrow that the Rays picked up his option and the Cards never had a chance. December - yeah, December, the market has started to put itself together. GM meetings and the Rule V draft early in the month. A few names start signing. January, the market starts to fall in line and lots of signings take place. In November -- you know nothing. November is the awful uncertainty about everything except FOUR MORE MONTHS without baseball.

No prayers for November to linger longer

You know what you get in November? Jason LaRue. Jason LaRue is going to be offered a contract in November. Or not - which means that in 2010 we get to watch Matt Pagnozzi ground out weakly every 5 to 7 days while not looking like he has come to fix some young woman's 1970's-era cable box. The only thing worse than signing Jason LaRue in November is NOT signing Jason LaRue in November.

The month began with a drama-free World Series, which ended in a Yankees victory.

This off-season doesn't really even look like much fun. In a couple weeks we're going to find out if Matt Holliday truly appreciates fruit-filled pastry or was just stringing us along (signs point to "stringing us along"). If he doesn't sign then we probably look forward to a quiet offseason of signing a fixer-upper of a starting pitcher and either signing Mike Cameron (SIGN MIKE CAMERON), some aging half-bat who can't field, or some cheap non-entity to play LF. We really have nothing in the way of major trade chips right now, so we can't look into any exciting trades.

I am going to more throw out some names and such that may be or may not be worth keeping eyes on.

The Nats (team of 1,000 outfielders) declined the option on Austin Kearns. Kearns had a very rough year turning in a .298 wOBA and a slash line of .195/.336/.305. Actually, two rough years - since he had a weak 2008 too. Weird, weird line both years, though. He managed a fine 15.5% walk rate (and that .336 OBP would look nice on this team if the rest of the line wouldn't). Behind the BB rate are even more impressive discipline levels - he swung at only 18% of pitches out of the zone UP from 15% last season. His BABIP over the last couple years: .258 and .251, yet his LD% was a solid 18.7% and 21.1%. He injured his thumb in the middle of the season on a HBP, which may also explain some of his funk. You can't blame the nats for not wanting to pay $10M for that.

Is it possible to have two solid season of just wicked batted ball luck? I don't see why not - he had about a seasons worth of PA's over the two seasons. He managed a career 9.8 UZR/150 in RF, so he's no slouch in the field. He comes with his own history of character issues, too. I imagine my level of interest would depend on cost. I don't think I'd say I'm stumping for him, but if we could pick him up for a reclamation project piece, he's got good tools to build upon. You wouldn't have to see much of a BABIP rebound to get that OBP into a very nice place. In the race of replacement value OF, I'd say he clearly has a better ceiling than, say, a Rick Ankiel with poor plate discipline but more power. I wouldn't want him as our sole option in LF, but if we had him and Allen Craig and maybe another decent LF option -- something is going to stick to the wall.

This JJ Hardy story continues to intrigue me in a "what were they thinking?" sense. fourstick said they traded JJ Hardy -- one of the best defensive SS in the business -- for basically Jon Jay. I agree with that comp. Elsewhere I saw commenters wondering why JJ hadn't ended up in Boston, rich in starting pitching and needy in the SS position. MLB Trade Rumors has an answer of sorts - that the Brewers demanded either Clay Buchholz or Daniel Bard and wouldn't budge. The notion that you would stick to a demand for two of the top prospects around and then settle with another team for a replacement value player is completely bizarre. It's like going to Tony's with a $20 bill, demanding the duck, and when they refuse to sell you a $40 duck entree for $20, spending the whole thing on a day old loaf of bread.

Detroit seems to be putting Placido Polanco on the free agent market. I could be more excited if he weren't Type A.

Matt Leach is on the Cameron bandwagon. Elsewhere talk of Dye. Oh please no.

Bah. This is what November gives you. Wisps and teases and ultimately heartbreak.

November seems odd

You're my firing squad

November*

* FYI, I wrote most of this earlier this week. Now I see online it's going to be 72 degrees in St. Louis tomorrow. Don't worry. It's just November playing a trick on you, softening you up. Enjoy it, you bastards.

La Russter's Millions

2009-11-06T11:15:11Z

More photos » by Lynne Sladky - ASSOCIATED PRESS

I'd feel the same way.

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I am seriously and late-breakingly jet-lagged, so I've got to make this quick; I've fallen asleep five or six times in the course of writing this sentence.

Decent AAA LOOGY (Tyler Norrick?) and hazy AA pitching prospect (???) for Jeremy Hermida would have been an interesting play for these Cardinals for the same reason it was for those Red Sox—there has to be some plan to fall back on in the event of a failure to sign one of Jason Bay or Matt Holliday, and this particular ex-top-prospect—who hit a grand slam against the Cardinals in his first MLB at-bat—even coming up on five years since his day in the sun, is a solid low-risk choice. The usual encouraging splits apply: he could be platooned effectively (.792 v. .697) and he'll do better outside of TSFKA Pro Player (.815 v. .721.) Provided there's no pre-existing psychological condition rendering all of this wishcasting moot in five months, this seems like a good move.

The other marginal outfielder trade from yesterday—that one I don't like quite as much. We'll always have Moneyball, but what gives teams the idea that Mark Teahen hits enough to be a starting outfielder? As a rich man's Eric Hinske he might have a lot of value for a team with a fragile third baseman and a flexible outfield, but he only replaces Jermaine Dye inasmuch as he might have one of Jermaine Dye's bad years. Josh Fields is no prize, and I'm not sure what the Royals are going to do with him except play yet another third baseman out of his depth in left field while trying to get Alex Gordon going, but I'm not sure what problem Mark Teahen solves.

I've always had a soft spot for Hermida, and—well, I've always had a soft spot for Moneyball, at least. But yesterday's Bobby Abreu deal seems like a more likely eventual route for the Cardinals; if they don't get Holliday I just can't see the payroll staying as low as it is. So I have a question for you, the viewers: what does the Cardinals' last thirty million look like in the offseason? My guess right now, in the non-Holliday division, is that they spread it out; as much as I like John Lackey, I just can't see this organization giving up a first rounder for a guy who's basically the pitcher they thought Kyle Lohse was.

My guess: they spread it out among the team's current holes, in a way that is both useful and completely, unsatisfyingly boring. Jon Garland/J.J. Putz/Johnny Damon? Come on down.

What the Cardinals can take from the Yankees, besides the luxury tax

2009-11-05T11:06:53Z

First, some briefs on yesterday's roster moves:

It's interesting to see the Brad Thompson perception gap—the RotoWorld box in the sidebar thinks he'll have no problem finding a job, even as a fifth starter; the Baseball Primer thread is remarkably positive, for BTF. But I think the average VEBer wrote off the artist occasionally known as WonderBrad a long time ago.

I'll always think of him as a better pitcher than he probably was and is; I'm as susceptible as anybody else to overvaluing a player when he gets off to a good start, and there were moments there in 2005 (it seems like it's been longer) where his weird sinker seemed like the makings of a uniquely valuable short reliever. But I'm hard-pressed to think of any team that's strapped enough for choice to give him a clear shot as a fifth starter coming off a year with a K/9 of 3.8.

Jarrett Hoffpauir leaves the 40 man roster—and, though this wasn't the Cardinals' intent, the organization—a victim of circumstance; without the Julio Lugo deal he might come into 2010 as the Cardinals' best free choice for Skip Schumaker's equally awkward right-handed caddy, but Lugo has a name and at least theoretically plays short. It's tough luck for the Cardinals; finding purchase on a big league roster is hard for backup infielders who can't play shortstop, but Hoffpauir, with his occasionally impressive bat and his consistently impressive BB:K ratio, has one more definable skill than most of these guys. (Being a Cardinals farmhand is apparently also a path to gainful MLB employment for these guys—Edgar Gonzalez and the poor man's Jarrett Hoffpauir, Mike McCoy, both saw big league time this year.)

In 2010 he would have had Lugo on one side and Daniel Descalso, who somehow failed to receive regular playing time in his 2009 AAA stint, on the other, though, so maybe it's best he's gone to an organization without a veteran playing for free and a prospect at second. (Which makes it even weirder that Joe Thurston didn't get the Brad Thompson treatment—hopefully he'll spend his Memphis summer working on his footwork rounding second base, not standing next to it.)

With that out of the way, the big news: the Yankees have finally beaten the Curse of Clay Bellinger. It was a tough road, but I can only hope that they have enough footage of Jimmy Fallon running out onto the field to properly commemorate those long years in Fever Pitch 2. What did these Yankees do that the Cardinals can emulate, multi-billion dollar payroll aside?

1. Make the Free Agent deals count. The list of Yankees busts in the years between 2000 and 2009 is comical both quantitatively and qualitatitively—these guys signed Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, and Kei Igawa to deals totaling $106 million. The spending binge prior to 2009 will justifiably get a lot of attention as the difference-maker between this club and the ones that preceded it, but this time around Brian Cashman was at least forward-thinking enough to sign players who have established track records of performing in a way that resembles their enormous contracts.

This hasn't been true of the Cardinals' last three pitching free agents—Kyle Lohse was signed at the absolute peak of his value, for a dollar value that seems blissfully disconnected from the rest of his body of work. The Joel Pineiro and Mark Mulder contracts, each two years, $13 million, were both affordable risks, and one of them worked out better than the Cardinals could possibly have imagined, but they were an extremely speculative way to spend $26 million; there wasn't much in their recent history to suggest they were multi-million dollar pitchers, of a separate species from recent gambles like John Smoltz or even the first appearances of Lohse and Pineiro.

Matt Holliday is, for all his Boras-sized ambitions, a guy who will come into the first year of his contract almost certain to play up to it. He's durable, he's still within sight of his peak years, and he's a consistently excellent hitter with a broad base of skills. Which combines with makes Joe Strauss's recent, inexplicably phrased chat insinuations an interesting, if not instructive, topic of discussion:

Chairman Bill DeWitt recently denied that the club has made Holliday an offer; however, there are suggestions that the Cardinals discussed a 6-year, $96 million framework with Holliday's agent, Scott Boras.

I'll be honest: I have no idea what "suggestions" means when it is both unsourced and right after an official club denial but also accompanied by an extremely specific contract "framework." No idea whatsoever. But assuming that Joe Strauss is not the one suggesting this, or Joe Strauss's barber, this seems like a fine deal for a team that, as a recent fanshot noticed, is filled with a ton of decent players. $16 million could be parceled out to three or four basically average guys, hole-fillers, and probably earn more wins above that famous replacement player than Holliday himself. But this team doesn't need Reggie Sanders—it needs MV3.

An argument could be made that these big free agent contracts need to be seen as the reward for, and culmination of, years spent cultivating guys like Skip Schumaker and David Freese to negate the need for the Kyle Lohses. But at $96 million, instead of $180 million, I guess two out of three isn't so bad.

2. Develop an inconceivably long-lasting internal core. How are three of the Yankees' best players still holdovers from 1996? Asking the Cardinals to develop three to five borderline Hall of Famers over the course of the next three years is probably a little too much to ask, but it's nice to see the Cardinals progressing in this direction; Pujols and Wainwright were locked down early, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Colby Rasmus follow along the same path.

Losing Brett Wallace leaves them one future core player short, but I'm glad the Cardinals still have at least one in the system; winning 78 games in 2007 isn't far removed from having top prospects like Jimmy Journell and post-surgery Blake Hawksworth a few years earlier. Get here soon, Shelby Miller.

3. Look at all those young, successful relievers! The Cardinals made—and have continued to make—a good-faith effort at this with guys like Jason Motte and Chris Perez and Kyle McClellan. And since I am lost as you to the reasons for the enormous gap between Motte's PCL and MLB numbers, it's frustrating to see the Yankees' three fine young relievers, even if two of them had less than impressive postseasons.

Interesting, though, to see how the three came to be important parts in the Yankee pen—one should probably still be in the Yankee rotation, another was a minor league free agent and career starter.

My Maudlin' Career

2009-11-04T19:29:27Z

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I didn't really realise it last week, but just the other day it sort of hit me when I looked at the date: I just celebrated two years of writing for this wonderful site. My very first front page post was on Halloween of 2007, and seeing as how we are now in the glorious month of November in Year of Our Lord 2009, that's two damned years I've been cluttering up the interwebs with my peculiar ramblings. And so, seeing as how I am the sort of person who simply cannot resist nostalgia or making lists of things, I thought I would go back through all the things I've written here at VEB and pick out my favourites. It also doesn't hurt, of course, that very little is actually going on in Cardinal land at this particular moment.

So I started rolling back through all my past posts, and something began to become apparent as I did: I'm sort of a depressing dude. Most of my stuff I think is really pretty good tends to be of the wistful, sad, and slightly bitter emotive variety. Don't get me wrong; the idea I am a bit of a bummer is not exactly news to me, as people have been telling me that my whole life. However, it was a bit surprising to see the proof staring me so clearly in the face.

Regardless, I am proud to bring you my personal Best Of collection out of sheer arrogance and hubris. (And also maybe a little because I was interested to see if I've gotten any better at this, but mostly the gigantic ego thing.) In reverse chronological order (I think):

Reflection -- recent post about the end of our season
Talk Talk Talk-- the very first chat I tried
Drafting a Masterpiece-- reviewing the first day of the 2009 draft
Swingin', and Not Just Dick-- there is, in fact, a toaster involved in this post
Life Lenses-- in which I discuss the departure of Adam Kennedy
God Bless Us, Every One -- Christmas 2008
The Team Stripped Bare By Its Suitors, Even-- an interesting hypothetical, and my favourite title
Good Bye, Halcyon Days -- mourning for last summer, and my second favourite title
Not With a Bang, but a Whimper-- Jason Isringhausen
Saturday Morning Coming Down-- a discussion of Mark McGwire and me forgetting how to spell the word rhythm

And, just for funsies, my first main page story, and the very first diary I ever put up here.

Hopefully you don't find this too very self-indulgent, though I'm certain it probably is.

As for the current news of the day:

I am of the belief the Yankees' strategy of using only three pitchers and throwing them on short rest is going to backfire on them. We already saw A.J. Burnett get crushed pitching on three days' rest, and I'm honestly expecting something similar from Pettitte tonight. I still expect the Yankees to win in seven, because I do believe CC Sabathia will roll pretty much no matter what and Cole Hamels seems a bit lost in the wilderness to me, but I also think New York has made the series much tougher than it needed to be. Historically we can see pitchers tend to struggle on short rest, regardless of the era in question (relatively speaking, of course; if a pitcher is usually going on three days' rest, then two days' rest hurts hime), and I think Girardi has weakened his team's position unnecessarily. What do all of you think? I know this concept of only needing three starters in the playoffs has been Fritz' pet peeve for a while now; we now get to see just how viable such a strategy really is.

I don't much care for the Iwamura deal from the Pirates' side of things; it just seems like they're still treading water. Dave Cameron disagrees with me, for whatever it's worth.(I also forgot Jack Wilson got traded to the Mariners; the perils of writing in a hurry, you know.) I do wish like hell whoever it was who started stumping for Ben Zobrist a couple years ago had more pull with the front office; the guy could have been had for a song as recently as last season, now he has to be considered untouchable. Interestingly enough, VEB has been right in wanting to acquire both Jayson Werth and Zobrist at various points in time before they broke out. I know there were some here last year (myself included), who would have liked to see Johnny Mo try to pick up Huston Street on the cheap while he was struggling. I remember the advocacy of several posters (again, myself included), for a deal that would have brought Cliff Lee to the Cards after his disastrous 2007 campaign. (In fact, Lee was one of my personal crusades that offseason.) I believe the idea was to move Scott Rolen for Lee and possibly try to get Jhonny Peralta involved somehow with other inducements going from St. Louis to Cleveland. I was a big fan of Carlos Quentin, and I know jillsinmo (who seems to have largely disappeared, sadly), stumped for him for awhile as well. My point? If you happen to work in the Cardinals' front office and are reading this (and I know you guys are), you may want to take a good hard look at any buy-low guys we come up with this offseason. Our track record is remarkably good.

Of course, if you had listened to us last year, we might very well have signed Ben Sheets for a lost season, so at least make sure you look at the X-rays first.

My predicition, guaranteed to be right, for Game 6 tonight: Phillies 7, Yankees 3. Pedro goes 5 inning, giving up 2 runs on 6 hits and a walk. JA Happ relieves him and holds the Yankees down. Pettitte gets knocked around, failing to get out of the third inning and giving up 5 runs.

Have a lovely day, everyone.

The Baron's Playlist for the 4th of November, 2009

"Lovelier Girl" -- Beach House

"Jesus Walking on the Water" -- Violent Femmes

"Mr. Tough" -- Yo La Tengo

"Pale Blue Eyes" -- The Velvet Underground

"These Days" -- Nico

Keeping the Seat Warm

2009-11-03T16:52:42Z

I have nothing uniquely insightful to post today so this is more of a holdover until/unless someone else chimes in.

This World Series has been interminably boring. I detest 3 hour 30 minute games. I've watched AJ Burnett with envy for the last few years wondering if the Cardinals regret not being able to seal that signing in 2006. Last night was certainly a catastrophe for him but he's been a very good pitcher (when able to take the mound).

There's a small part of me that wonders if the Cardinals wouldn't have been better served with Cliff Lee than Matt Holliday. There's a confirmation bias that is hard to avoid in evaluating that situation and more pitching may not have dispelled the fact that we simply couldn't hit our way out of a paper bag but it seems like a reasonable question especially when looking at 2010.

If the Cardinals can't sign Matt Holliday, would it be prudent to re-sign Joel Pineiro? I have no idea what kind of money he's going to be offered and the Cardinals already have some significant dollars locked up in their starting rotation. Also, I'm not sure I've fully recovered from my revulsion of the first Pineiro contract.

Also, Tuesday threads are .gif free threads. Enjoy!

Travel Day

2009-11-02T12:34:27Z

I'm about to begin the seemingly endless travel process between Tokyo and O'Hare, and I feel totally disconnected from American baseball. But some bullet points while I pack:

Can I say, as an unrepentant baseball-card watcher, that I love C.C. Sabathia? This is one of my least favorite things about the Rick Ankiel saga: we were deprived of the chance to watch him begin a career as a 20-year-old pitcher with double-digit victories and a high strikeout total. Sabathia won 17 games at 20, which is great; he stayed above .500 during the leaner years, always winning at least ten games, which is crucial; and now he's working on a nice-looking peak. Albert aside—just look at it—he's probably got the most aesthetically pleasing baseball card of any active player. Things to work on: don't get traded midseason again, because it always looks messy, and use the MLB-leading win total in 2009 to begin racking up the black ink, because right now it's a little sparse.
Having started there, on more neutral ground, can I also say that I don't mind if the Yankees win this World Series? Call it residual, retroactive angst from a certain World Series in 2004, but I don't think I've ever minded the Yankees all that much; they are, if nothing else, totally forthright in their ability and intentions to use their financial capabilities as often as possible, and columnists don't have to chew up inches whining about failures to open up the Steinbillfold. It's also made my postseason to watch said columnists backtrack on their long-standing hypothesis that Alex Rodriguez's bat contains all the universe's known reserves of anticlutch.
That said, the Phillies do play in the National League, and they also have my favorite non-Cardinal, Chase Utley. While I'm on the subject of baseball card aesthetics, how about Chase Utley's 2009? .280 average, 31 home runs, 150 games, and 23 stolen bases in 23 attempts. Your better sets will also bold his third league-leading HBP total in a row. The only thing that's missing are the seven RBI that kept him from driving in 100 runners for a fifth straight year; for that I will cast a stern glance in the direction of the Jimmy Rollins card.
Finally, I saw Yu Darvish pitch last night in the second game of the Japan Series. Watching an NPB playoff game on Japanese TV is a decidedly different experience from watching it on FOX; for a country whose glossy TV tarento include the likes of Razor Ramon Hard Gay and this fish-hatted man, baseball broadcasting seems rooted, for better and for worse, in the late eighties. So I didn't get a million camera angles, but I came away impressed by what was apparently his first game appearance in a month and a half. Without the upper-nineties velocity he sometimes flashes, he looked something like Adam Wainwright, huge curve and all.

I should have a full-size post for Tuesday, and I'll be back on a regular basis by Thursday. Thanks for waiting things out in this compounded off-season lull, and thanks to the red baron, tom, and vep for doing their usual excellent work.

Colby Rasmus' plate discipline

2009-11-01T12:45:42Z

More photos » by Mark J. Terrill - AP

about 1 month ago: St. Louis Cardinals' Colby Rasmus, left, hits an RBI double as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, right, and home plate umpire Brian O'Nora look on during the seventh inning of Game 2 of the National League division baseball series Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

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For those awaiting the exciting conclusion to "The Untradable", you'll have to wait a little longer. I'm having trouble organizing all of the data into something presentable, and I'd like to take a little longer to get it right. In the meantime, let's take a look at everyone's favorite Rick Ankiel buffer, Colby Rasmus.

His first year in the majors had a lot of positives. He played exceptional defense in center field, hit for power, and had like 20 walkoff home runs. In less than a full seasons worth of play, 520 plate apperances, he was an above average player according to FanGraphs' Win Values. However, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. As a player who showed exceptional plate discipline throughout the minors, walking in 11.6% of his plate appearances, he showed a disappointingly hacktastic approach in the majors last year, walking just 7.1% of the time. Even more disturbing is that this may have been intentional. From D. Gould:

Rasmus said he’s supposed to think swing, not walk. He asked rhetorically, Isn’t that what people talk about? Isn’t the benefit of batting in front of Pujols seeing strikes? "I don’t like walking," Rasmus said. "I’m trying to hit."

It seems as though Rasmus decided that, due to the fact he was hitting in front of Pujols, he wanted to swing more often than not. That line of reasoning makes sense only if two things are happening. 1) Hitting in front of Pujols actually manifests itself in more hittable pitchers and 2) If you can make sure that you only swing at those hittable pitches. Swinging a lot is fine if you are getting pitches to hit; however, if you are reaching, then it is a bad thing.

Let's take a look to see whether or not Rasmus actually did those two things last year. First, via Pitch f/x data here are the locations of each pitch that Rasmus swung at and those that he has taken:

This is from the catchers point of view.

As you can see, he swings a lot of pitches down and out of the strike zone, most of them being offspeed (duh); however, his eye across the plate seems to be good. He also has a big cluster of "takes" down and away, which makes sense, and very few over the heart of the plate, which also makes sense.

Now, let's take a look at how efficient he is at swinging at pitches in the strike zone and avoiding pitches in the strike zone. What follows is a table showing the percentage of pitches seen in the strike zone (Zone), the percentage of pitches in the strike zone that are swung at (Z-Swing) and the percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone that are swung at (O-Swing) compared to the league average marks:

Player	Zone	Z-Swing	O-Swing
Rasmus	50.9%	73.5%	25.9%
League	49.3%	65.9	25.1%

All number from FanGraphs

Indeed, Rasmus did benefit from the Pujols effect (or maybe it's the rookie effect). He's saw more pitches in the strike zone than the average player, and holding true to his statement above, swung a MUCH higher percentage of those than the average player. His eye was pretty decent, as was average in terms of swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone.

So, it appears that Rasmus is doing a pretty good job, at least in terms of taking advantage of hitting in front of Pujols. It would be good to cut down on the O-Swing a little bit, but you could say that about any player, and Rasmus' mark in that category is decent. He has swung at a lot more pitches than the average player, 50.1% to 45.2%; however, he's been swinging at strikes, so it isn't as much of a problem.

What is a problem was that he wasn't getting great wood on those pitches inside of the strike zone. His contact in the strike zone was within .1 percent of the league average mark; however, his slugging on that in zone contact was below average. His BABIP was .283, which is very low for a player with Rasmus' speed and LD hitting ability; however, even assuming a league average BABIP, his bat wouldn't have carried enough umph in it to make this approach work.

Basically, you have to play to your strengths. If Rasmus can continue to develop his power, than swinging at a lot of strikes might work as he would make up for the lower walks with a high slugging. However, if his power remains about average, then he needs to take some more pitches in order to get on base more to compensate. Either way, Tony needs to not bat him in front of Pujols, so he doesn't feel pressured to swing more than he should.

(PS: I had to finish this early in the morning, so sorry for any typos)

Putting UZR to the Test

2009-10-31T11:14:58Z

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Joel Pineiro sits alone in the dugout during the fifth inning and considers whether he would rather move to New York, Cleveland, or Milwaukee, after being pulled out of Game 3 of the National League division baseball series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in St. Louis. "As long the money's good, I can go anywhere. Not Detroit, though," he said later. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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First off, can I start by saying that chase utley is the second-best position player in the NL? This should not be a surprise, but apparently utley's talent came as a great shock to numerous national broadcasters and sportswriters this week. Last week, I'm not sure you could have gotten 30 percent of them to vote for him as the most valuable position player just on the phillies.

My aim this week is to start a series of posts about defensive metrics. I have a few simple thought experiments to look at their effectiveness. UZR (as the primary tool available to us) is probably not as well understood as it might be. I know that many posters are skeptical of UZR, others want to take it with a HUGE grain of salt, still others probably buy into it as a matter of faith rather than rigorous evaluation of the existing work on it. I confess that I often fall into the latter category.

In a humble moment I would like say I often learn just enough to understand the very basics of a theory. From that point. I trust that people (ones I know are much smarter than I am) are unlikely to lead me astray. The scientific method it's not.

since I'm not the kind of expert saberologist that has turned his second computer into a SQL machine dedicated to running sabr analysis, the only thing I have to offer is that maybe I can - by working this stuff through for myself - bring along others who are on the same level as I am. FYI - my sabr MO ends at the point of downloading some stats in excel off of fangraphs. I have no idea if anybody has done this or something like it before, so I apologize in advance if it's redundant.

I want to take a couple team stats and compare them today: team E-F and team UZR. UZR you are probably familiar with, even if you don't understand it well. E-F is ERA minus FIP. ERA you know. FIP you probably know too; basically Fielding Independent Pitching is an index of those pitching outcomes totally in the control of the pitcher: walks, strikeouts, and home runs. The index is scaled to the ERA scale.

If FIP is truly "fielding independent," then earned runs minus what is fielding independent should leave you . . . well, fielding. And some luck.

So, first let's try the old standby. Let's look at the teams with the lowest E-F and their corresponding fielding percentage.

Team	E-F	E-F Rank	Field %	Field % Rank
Mariners	-0.52	1	0.983	21
Reds	-0.45	2	0.985	11
Dodgers	-0.38	3	0.986	6
Giants	-0.3	4	0.985	12
Cubs	-0.27	5	0.983	22
Phillies	-0.2	6	0.987	3
Tigers	-0.18	7	0.985	13
Cardinals	-0.16	8	0.985	14
Rangers	-0.1	9	0.982	25

This looks completely random. There's no correlation in any direction, even just by an eyeball test, between E-F and fielding percentage. Out of the best nine teams by E-F, two are in the top ten teams in fielding percentage, three are in the bottom ten, and four are in the middle ten.

Team	E-F	E-F Rank	Field %	Field % Rank	UZR	UZR Rank
Mariners	-0.52	1	0.983	21	85.4	1
Reds	-0.45	2	0.985	11	52.5	4
Dodgers	-0.38	3	0.986	6	1.1	14
Giants	-0.3	4	0.985	12	52.6	3
Cubs	-0.27	5	0.983	22	-19.2	20
Phillies	-0.2	6	0.987	3	29.6	7
Tigers	-0.18	7	0.985	13	45.1	5
Cardinals	-0.16	8	0.985	14	-17	16
Rangers	-0.1	9	0.982	25	33.2	6

Adding UZR to this table, on the other hand, shows something completely different -- the top nine teams in E-F include 6 of the top 7 teams in team UZR (the Rays, 2nd in the majors in UZR, were 14th in E-F). Three outliers - with less than top tier UZR - in the top nine are the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Cardinals. I'm not the type to give a statistical estimate on the degree of correlation. Still, I'm inclined to eyeball this table and say this is good evidence that UZR means something.

One of the exceptional teams that jumps out though is the home team. The cards have a pretty ordinary team UZR but a good E-F. Could be it's just luck. On the other hand, the cards' staff finished with the best GB percentage in the majors. Consider that UZR is a measure of defensive runs above average. So, if the balls the cards' staff put in play have a higher likelihood of turning into outs even with an average defender in the field, the staff might yet outperform the FIP without having above average defense. It could also just be luck; the Cubs and Dodgers finished with unimpressive groundball rates. I have no explanation other than luck for the Cubs' and Dodgers' staff E-F numbers. Even for the cards, my explanation is just a suggestion, a hypothesis, rather than an assertion that GB% explains the home team's appearance in the table.

E-F and UZR don't tell the whole story: some pitching skills not reflected in FIP like groundball rate may distort the results, so will dumb luck. But it's remarkable in some ways to combine a conventional run-counting stat like ERA with an advanced stat like FIP derived just from strikeouts, walks, and homers, and find a strong correspondence with a fielding stat that's measured by looking at ball trajectories on the field. The source material for all three stats are very different.

A last note, for anybody who wonders -- I used team UZR and team E-F just because they're extremely easy to work with. Team stats are a very blunt instrument; they will not give you much specific information, but they're good for finding broad trends. Trying to break down individual pitchers' E-Fs with particular defensive configurations behind them, etc. would require several guys much smarter than me and the secret 800 terabyte SABR Sam Adams-proof server farm Bill James is building under the bleachers at Fenway (I predict it will all end in tears when Papelbon sneaks into the computer room, accidentally puts a virus onto the servers when trying to download a solitaire app with pictures of naked women on the cards, and the Red Sox servers become the world's most powerful spambot, crashing internet service up and down the Eastern Seaboard). This little thought experiment has nothing to do with whether UZR properly apportions credit for good defense on the small scale, as between the SS and the 3B on the same team. The point is simply that UZR has something at its core, some real defensive truth that fielding percentage doesn't.

Friday Notes

2009-10-30T12:41:48Z

I'm still in Japan, but the internet situation has gone from worse to bad.

Sister blog South Side Sox has its own reasons to wonder about the value of hitting coaches—in this case, of standing pat following Alex Rios's disastrous first year in Chicago. I'm not extremely familiar with the situation, but the case against Greg Walker seems to be the case against Hal McRae and, to be fair, most hitting coaches who find the welcome wagon revoked: in the face of a systemic offensive collapse, he... continued to be Greg Walker. The blog entry's in reaction to another blog entry, this one from the Sun-Times:

Walker, a self-admitted "organizational guy because the White Sox are my family,'' once again came under fire by the fans this season, especially in the second half when Carlos Quentin came back from injury looking lost at the plate, Jermaine Dye went into a second-half rut and the Alex Rios experiment seemed to blow up in the entire club's face.

Forgotten in that mess was A.J. Pierzynski putting together a career year, rookie Gordon Beckham being rescued from an 0-for-13 big-league start, Paul Konerko back to being Paul Konerko, the rebirth of Scott Podsednik, as well as the emergence of Chris Getz.

In these paragraphs, if nothing else, we have a list of things for which we can potentially blame and praise hitting coaches: the veteran collapse (Rick Ankiel? Mark DeRosa?), the botched return from injury (Mark DeRosa?), the second-half rut (Mark DeRosa?), the failed experiment (Mark DeRosa? Khalil Greene?)—and then, on the other side, the late-period career year, an 0-13 stint, a return to form, the emergence of a utility guy.

What this shows, for me, is that if we can't have a truly analytical approach to analyzing hitting coaches, we must at least have a reason for placing the blame. Did A.J. Pierzynski change his approach? (No.) Did Gordon Beckham really totter on the brink of disaster before improving to 1-14?

The best coaches, or at least the best-tenured coaches, aren't "organizational guys." They have a philosophy, or an approach, that—even if it can't be separated from the undulations of talent and luck in a satisfying way—can be observed. That Mark McGwire worked on his own with hitters, and has been credited with both successful and unsuccessful tinkering, is promising to me.

Over at the Post-Dispatch blog they're doing the post-mortem on Rick Ankiel. Bernie Miklasz:

Easily one of the most overhyped Cardinals in franchise history. Just think of all of the money, time and patience invested in a guy who pitched 242 innings and had 1,044 at-bats at the big-league level since joining the Cardinals in 1999.

I don't know how, exactly, one can "overhype" what transpired between Rick Ankiel joining the Cardinals in 1999 and (almost certainly) leaving them in 2009. Overrated? As an outfielder, maybe. Over-discussed? The out-of-town announcers have to talk about something, I guess. But as a pitcher Rick Ankiel had the best season by a pitcher who couldn't drink since Doc Gooden, then he had a collapse that was so swift, immediate, and final as to make Doc Gooden blush.

In 2004 he made a positive, hope-inspiring comeback, and in 2005 he realized he couldn't do it—then after a serious knee injury he not only made the majors as an outfielder but did it as a center fielder, one who could hit for power and throw out Wily Taveras flat-footed from the back of Coors Field. He had a brilliant start and a great first year and a miserable 2009, but I don't know that any moment of Rick Ankiel's career could be described as overhyped—it was, and is, simply filled with hype. He has, apparently unintentionally, and often to his detriment, followed the most hype-filled, movie-like career path of any baseball player ever. That he pitched so-many innings and had so-many at-bats seems irrelevant to me when discussing the story of Rick Ankiel, which went on most of the time when he was not on the field.

It looks like Matt Holliday substitute #1 might be staying in Boston; Jason Bay's reportedly been offered four years, $60 million to stay in town. I don't think any player has been hurt more by the recent proliferation of PBP defensive metrics than Jason Bay, who's apparently been a -15 run disaster in left field for the last several years. I'm hard-pressed to believe that anybody is 15 runs worse than an average left fielder, even the proverbial rock-in-the-outfield, but pegging the length of the deal at four years seems like the best anybody's going to do on Jason Bay.

$15 million a year is market value for what he's done three years out of four, especially if you think that the plus-minus number of -17 runs in the last three years—as opposed to UZR's -44—is closer to his actual ability. Is that good enough for the Red Sox? Would that be good enough for the Cardinals?

For what it's worth, the World Series is broadcast without commercial breaks in Japan; after each inning the Japanese announcers kick back in and analyze, very thoroughly, whatever Hideki Matsui has done most recently. Also, everybody to whom I mention this blog asks what So Taguchi has been up to lately.

Community Projections: Future Young Pitchers of St. Louis

2009-10-29T10:00:21Z

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

5 months ago: Blake Hawksworth pitches in the ninth inning against the Colorado Rockies in a baseball game, Saturday, June 6, 2009, in St. Louis. Hawksworth was making his major league debut. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

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I know we don't normally get this desperate until December, but where I am right now the only thing on my mind is whether or not the Cardinals should lure Tuffy Rhodes back to the National League for another shot if Matt Holliday doesn't work out. So let's begin: what will the following Cardinals swingmen do next year? And where will they do it?

Mitchell Boggs: He's the reason I decided to start on this weird collection of fifth starters and ostensible set-up men. Mitchell Boggs always throws really hard; he usually has bad command. The Cardinals will probably sign one more pitcher, thereby squeezing him out of the rotation, but said pitcher, if the current free agent class is any indication, will probably be made of glass.

In the bullpen—well, nothing's quite set in the bullpen. He could end up pitching Brad Thompson innings, sure, but with two good weeks he could find himself, like Hawksworth and McClellan before him, lifted from lowly swingman to vitally important set-up man before that's probably a good idea. His fastball/slider combo doesn't just play better in the bullpen, it seems to change entirely. The Cardinals need to make some decisions, and I think this should be the first one: put him in the bullpen until proven otherwise. But you can, and should, project him either way.

Blake Hawksworth: The longtime danup suspect of record (Gary Daley, come on down!) put himself on the radar of non-stalkers with an excellent turn in the McClellan role after a shaky start in middle relief. His fastball hit the mid-nineties, heretofore the province of pre-injury Hawk, top prospect in a system with one prospect, and his changeup looked as good as advertised now that it was combined with a fastball it could, you know, change up. His curveball—well, he had one of those.

He seems like a sure bet to start the season in the bullpen, but as good and self-assured as he looked, he didn't strike anybody out. That's unfair. He struck out a few more batters than Joel Pineiro did. With a 95 mph fastball. As with McClellan himself, the numbers simply didn't match the number, his 2.02 ERA. In general it's a bad idea to take a reliever with a low strikeout rate and make him a starter, but maybe his stuff simply doesn't benefit from the bullpen like it seemed to? Or maybe the strikeout rate is a fluke. This'll be a tough one to project—observation vs. the record at its most infuriating.

Jaime Garcia: It was great watching him climb back through the system last year. I have nothing else to say: I just want the Cardinals to put him in the rotation. If you project him as making fewer than ten big league starts this year—well, I hope you've also projected Smoltz and, I don't know, Lance Lynn combining for sixty impressive starts, too.

Is it a more ominous sign of a bad bullpen or a shaky back of the rotation that two players are competing for stabilizing positions in both roles at the same time?

This'll stay open for a while, because I might not be online to tabulate the results for a few days. So take your time. As always, comma-delimited; let's project...

G,GS,IP,W,L,HR,BB,K,ERA,WHIP

The Trade Bait Blues

2009-10-28T15:40:27Z

More photos » AP

about 1 month ago: FILE -- These are 2009 file photos showing St. Louis Cardinals' Chris Carpenter, left, and Toronto Blue Jays Aaron Hill, right. Chris Carpenter has been voted NL comeback player of the year and Aaron Hill has won the AL award. (AP Photo/File)

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages...

I can't think of anything to write about this morning.

Seriously. I know it sounds a little odd, considering how I usually seem to just effortlessly spew out 10,000 word novellas at the drop of a hat, but I really can't think of much. I thought about doing a World Series preview, but then I thought, fuck that. I hate the Phillies and I hate the Yankees; previewing a series between them would essentially be like choosing which foot I would rather get kicked in the balls with, left or right. Either way, it's going to suck, so let's just leave it alone, kay?

It's still too early for any movement on the free agent market, so there's no news there. I don't have time to do a chat, and I can't imagine anyone really wants to talk about Twilight again for six hundred comments.

Also, I don't feel at all well today; I believe my brother gave me the stomach flu he's been complaining of the past several days. (It's really strange; I think I've been sick more in the past year than in the previous 8-10 years combined. It's beginning to really piss me off.)

There is one piece of real news, of course: Chris Carpenter was named yesterday as Major League Baseball's Comeback Player of the Year. Unfortunately, I already wrote a piece on that for my RFT gig, so not really a whole lot else to say there.

So what am I going to write about this morning? Well, I thought maybe we should do a quick rundown of what the Cardinals still have in the warchest if they need to try and make any trades this offseason. Looking around the free agent market, there are a few players the Cards may look to in order to try and bolster their chances, but not a whole lot, really. Sure, we would all like to see Mo go after John Lackey, but with the amount of payroll already tied up in the rotation, it probably isn't going to happen. The third base crop is uninspiring, to say the least, and in left field I have to think the Cardinals will either succeed in resigning Matt Holliday or take their chances with an internal option. In my ever so humble opinion, any substantial upgrades the Cards may make this offseason will likely have to come through making a trade. So just how bare is the cupboard?

Well, to be honest, pretty bare. Last year's deals did a fair job wiping out much of the depth the Cards had cultivated at the top of the system, particularly amongst the ranks of right-handed relief pitchers. Nonetheless, there are still a few names at both the major and minor league levels who just might be of interest to any potential trade partners.

Let's start with the major leaguers, shall we?

Skip Schumaker- Yes, that's right, I went right to that. Of all the players on the Cards' major league roster, Skip probably presents the best option for a player to be traded. Skip is perhaps the most average major league player you're ever going to see (his OPS+ in 2009 was 101; career it's 99), and as long as he's cheap, there's some definite value in that. On the other hand, given that he is so remarkably mediocre, Skip's spot on the roster is also one of those places you could gain some of that marginal advantage great teams so rely on. His offense is almost perfectly average, his defense is below-average at second; add in the positional adjustment and you have a player who is as average as average can be.

Now, how much value does Skip really have? Well, that's tough to say, honestly, but when you look at how affordable he is, it's certainly worth shopping him around, I would think. Schumaker is arbitration-eligible this season after making a little over 400K in 2009.

Ryan Ludwick- And even more controversial, I should think! Ha ha!

Actually, here's the thing about Ryan Ludwick: last season, he looked too valuable to trade. He was cheap, he was awesome, he seemed to have finally gotten past all the injuries which had kept him down for so long, what's not to like? Now, though, the picture is much cloudier. Luddy had a down season in which he looked a whole lot more like Skip Schumaker's big brother than a darkhorse MVP candidate. He's also on the verge of becoming much more expensive; Ludwick made $3.7 million in 2009 and will likely receive another decent boost this year.

The real problem with dealing Ludwick now is you would likely be selling a bit low; personally, I think he's a good candidate for a nice little bounceback year in 2010. On the other hand, Ryan is also not exactly a young ballplayer at this point, and expecting him to duplicate his 2008 performance is an extremely bad bet. If there's a good return to be had out there, I think you might very well have to consider moving him.

Mitchell Boggs- Yeah, I know. When Boggs is third on the list, that's probably not a good sign. Nonetheless, with the way Boggs pitched out of the bullpen late in the season, it isn't unfathomable some team might want him as a seventh or eighth inning arm. (Of course, the Cardinals would probably be well served to simply keep him and use him in that role, but that's not really the point of this exercise, now is it?)

Boggs is cheap, and will remain so for a couple more years. He has less than one year of major league service time, so he won't come up for arbitration for probably two more seasons. He's always had an exciting arm, and his stuff seemed to play up even further in relief. He isn't a principle trade piece, by any means, but could certainly bring some value as a secondary inclusion.

Okay, I'm going to level with you. That's pretty much it at the major league level. Trading Colby just doesn't make any sense at all, I can't imagine the Cards like Tyler Greene so much they would consider moving Brendan Ryan, and all the other positions are either filled with core players (Albert, Yadi), or guys who don't really have enough track record to be valuable yet. (see also David Freese and the like)

You know what? My laptop battery is almost dead, and I'm running out of time, folks. I'll just have to worry about the minor league trade bait some other time. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

2009-10-27T15:43:23Z

More photos » by MARY BUTKUS - AP

14 days ago: FILE -- This is a Sept. 28, 1997, file photo showing St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, left, giving first baseman, Mark McGwire a hug after the Cardinals defeated the Chicago Cubs 2-1 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The Cardinals have scheduled a news conference Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, amid reports that La Russa will return for a 15th season as manager, and possibly bring Mark McGwire as hitting coach. (AP Photo/Mary Butkus, File)

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Hey, guys. I'm not sure if anybody is going to put up a main thread today; Dan is (I assume), still off in the Far East somewhere attempting to bring us back some pitching talent, so just in case, I'll toss up this thread for everybody to use. Discuss whatever you like.

News of the moment:

I think the McGwire talk has mostly been pretty well covered, but what about the rest of the coaching staff? Dave Duncan is back after his hissy fit, Jose Oquendo still doesn't seem to be getting much love for other team's managerial jobs. Am I the only one a little nonplussed by the lack of new coaching blood?

Aroldis Chapman looks to be too expensive for the Cards. Not surprised, but it is concerning.

Mike Scioscia is pissed about the postseason schedule. I have to say, I agree. No way in hell this shit should take a month.

I'll see you all tomorrow with a full post.

Oh, and just for JD, a shout-out for his green comment yesterday.

Let's talk about the past just this once

2009-10-26T10:00:24Z

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

18 days ago: FILE -- This is an Aug. 7, 2009, file photo showing St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa during a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, in Pittsburgh. Nearly two weeks after his team was swept in the first round of the playoffs, Tony La Russa is still trying to decide whether he wants to return for a 15th season as St. Louis Cardinals manager. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

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I'm writing this post at 6:30 PM Sunday, CDT. Right now, it looks like Mark McGwire will be the next hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. As someone who first heard the opening strains of "Welcome to the Jungle" as an eleven year old in Busch Stadium while everyone emptied out their disposable cameras, I'm excited.

As someone who watched multiple Cardinals flail around last year without even the unsubstantiated insistence of some new approaches in the air, I'm even more excited. Mark McGwire is—or is typically seen as—a less-than-engaging communicator, so we know, at least, that the various Cardinals and future Cardinals who have shown up at his door to retool and refine their swings in the last several years have not done it because he's hilarious, or the nicest guy you'll ever meet.

These are the straws we grasp at, when talking about hitting coaches: he hit a lot of home runs and he did not subscribe to Vladimir Guerrero's newsletter. (As funny as it can be to think of Mark McGwire, one of the unique hitting talents of all time, suggesting an approach for Matt Pagnozzi ["don't swing"], his approach, provided he does not tell Joe Thurston to take that outside pitch and just pull it 500 feet, can be basically replicated by mortals.)

We don't yet know what McGwire will say, if he accepts the job, and how sportswriters will respond to whatever it is. Which makes this the eye of the news-cycle hurricane. But while I'm out I'd like to suggest, if nothing else, a little measured calmness; if this really is the beginning of a three day festival of pomposity, just look congress in the eye and say: "I'm not on the internet to talk about your idea of the past."

What, bad advice?

That's the exciting part of the day's almost-news, but of course there's more, and maybe more important: Tony La Russa may be returning, possibly on a multi-year deal. So the real news is this: The Cardinals braintrust is ready to keep refining the Cardinals of the aughts into a second decade. Given those teams' success, this is probably a good idea, and a confirmation that Mozeliak and company aren't the overreacting types.

With organizational restructuring unlikely, then, and new blood coming in the form of a good-faith attempt to get the team's hitters to at least face in the right direction when they swing at pitches out of the zone, the off-season narrative comes down to this: how crazy will Bill DeWitt get?

Possibility #1: Really crazy. I think all of these possibilities come with the understanding that, within a year of his shopping spree, the erstwhile DeWallet will realize that lots of season tickets depend on him getting Really Crazy and trying to pretend that there isn't a blank giant novelty check with Albert Pujols's name on it behind one of his filing cabinets. With that in the back of his mind, I think getting Really Crazy in 2009 is a remote possibility. But it's not my money.

With that in mind, the Cardinals are currently in the running on Aroldis Chapman, who wants Daisuke money despite having spent his career, to this point, not in Japan's major leagues but in Cuba, which is usually assigned a position somewhere in the A-ball spectrum. They're also at least theoretically interested in retaining Matt Holliday. If they do both of those things the payroll is immediately somewhere in the vicinity of $95-100 million, and all of the payroll relief they got when Pineiro, Glaus, and Greene became free agents is gone. That's a workable team this year, if the Cardinals see Chapman as an immediate contributor in the rotation, but when Pujols comes due and Adam Wainwright's contract becomes less unbelievable these moves are going to require a long-term move from around $100 million to, say, $120 million. Again: it's not my money. And I get the idea that DeWitt was impressed by the bump in fan interest that followed the team's dramatic trading deadline activity. But we'll see.

Possibility #2: A little crazy. La Russa's return means that 2010 will not be a rebuilding year, and for me that signifies a probable move in this direction. The bare-bones team we saw in the roster matrix would be great for a rookie manager, who can be content with Surprising People—in the real way, not its current status as a La Russa mind-games chit in good standing—but with Pujols, Carpenter, and La Russa all under contract a surprise-year would seem like a waste of resources in the short term.

Retaining Matt Holliday without, well, wasting resources gets tough past a certain point. And Aroldis Chapman's contract demands might put him in a position where his only career option is to become an inevitable Yankees Disappointment by only winning 16 or 17 games in his first year. (The Cardinals could do worse than to hire Hideki Irabu and Jose Contreras to talk to future pitching phenoms as their official emissaries.) But those are the two spaces in which the Cardinals could most easily improve the skeleton team they have now; signing one, or going after John Lackey, makes this a better team in 2010, and as of today that seems like an important objective.

Possibility #3: Not very crazy. The Cardinals have two holes, in left and at the back of the rotation, and there are cheap ways to fill them, too. But there were cheaper ways to fill out the coaching staff, too; unless La Russa is signing up with the idea that he's going to steward this current team toward further surprises over the next two or three years, this seems like an increasingly odd combination.

[Programming note: First: great job by tom and vep, right? I was glad they were both willing to help out around here. Second: I've noticed some minor blow-ups of late, and I realize that Mark McGwire is a potentially explosive topic. I'm not going to be around as much as usual to moderate, so I'd like to urge, well, moderation; if a discussion gets both heated and all the way to the right side of the page, take a step back. Jay Mariotti is one thing, but assume, at least, that your fellow Birdos are reasonable human beings.]

Mark McGwire! rumored to be the Cardinals' next hitting coach

2009-10-25T23:19:55Z

Well, this is weird and awesome; it's all over the internet, most recently on Derrick Goold's twitter, but still no confirmation at press time. I hope he's not sent to negotiate Albert Pujols's next contract, but Enigmatically Sized Mac—prepare for a ridiculous muscles-watch campaign for the next several months, unless he's extremely forthcoming about The Past in the interim (Khalil Greene is already putting together a long-sleeved undershirts care package)—seems to have a serious interest in the mechanics and technique of hitting, and while a player's skill-set is no guarantee of future baseball enlightenment (Joe Morgan and John Kruk both had 110+ walk years), the McGwire method, which in Matt Holliday's unsuccessful case required quieting that big leg kick, seems like a disciplined change of pace from Hal McRae, whose philosophy seemed to involve the words "grip" and "rip" and a small thesaurus.

As for the circus—well, let's let it play out before we work up our best indignant faces. Some sportswriters might see this as a chance to focus a little more on their pet baseball black eye, but some won't, too; if that's not your prerogative the best thing to do is just to look at it in your own way, and not focus on dive-bombing the people who would see a Travesty of Baseball Ethics in Albert Pujols taking an aspirin. Perpetuating the narrative, whether to trumpet it or bury it, just keeps it going; if he says he did it, that's news, but until then each talking head from now until April is just another variation on the same set of notes.

Right now—knowing little about his techniques, and nothing about how this would or will play out—I'm excited. He's Mark McGwire! As much as the congressional hearings made me cringe, as much as the Cardinals' subsequent excellence has overshadowed the years in which he was the only going concern at Busch Stadium, I would be really excited to see him back on the bench, taking up his role as Slugger Emeritus. It's been a long time coming.

The untradeable: Part 1

2009-10-25T10:00:26Z

Yes, I'm talking about Kyle Lohse.

Hi, I'm vivaelpujols. You may remember me from such classic FanPosts as "Pitch f/x Thread", "A Look Back at the 2004 Cardinals", and "Can we please stop trashing Khalil?". Due to the fact the chuckb actually has a life, there was an opening for the VEB Sunday spot, and I emailed Dan asking if I could fill that hole. He consented, with the consideration that I did lots of Pitch f/x stuff.

So back to Lohse. After the 2008 season, in which he reached career highs in ERA, FIP and tRA, he signed a monster 4 year 41 million dollar deal. Surprisingly, VEB was somewhat sanguine about the deal, mainly due to the rather slim pickings for free agent starters, and the fact that Lohse really did have a very good 2008.

However, Lohse got injured and struggled this year... a lot. It prompted some discussion in which chuckb, among others, argued that Lohse had regressed to his career numbers, and I, among others, who argued that his injury had to be taken into account when discussing his future performance. In than FanPost, I took a breif look at his Pitch f/x data from before and after the injury this year, but I didn't get into much detail. Some other guys in the comments section requested more info, but I hadn't had time to do so.

Now, I do, so I though I would take a much more in depth look at Kyle Lohse, so we can see what to expect from him going forward.

Today, let's take a look at the PItch f/x data from 2008, so we can see a little bit more granually how he was able to do so well. First, let's check out his stuff, organized by vertical v. horizontal movement:

For those unfamiliar with this presentation of Pitch f/x data, each dot is being compared to a pitch without spin. That's why some pitches have positive vertical movement. They don't actually rise, they just have less drop than a pitch without spin. This is from the catchers point of view, so fastballs will tail to the third base side of the plate from a RHP, and breaking balls will break to the first base side.

In case it isn't clear, FA refers to fastballs, FC refers to cutters, CH refers to changeups, CU refers to curveballs and SL refers to sliders. As you can see, there is some blending; however, the clusters for each pitch are generally pretty clear.

In 08, Lohse threw roughly 58% fastballs, 4% cutters, 11% changeups, 7% curveballs and 20% sliders. His fastball averaged 91.2 MPH with a standard deviation (the average distance of each datapoint from the average) of 1.3, his cutter averaged 88.6 with a SD of 2.2, his changeup averaged 82.6 with a SD of 1.5, his curveball averaged 75.2 with a SD of 1.1 and his slider averaged 83.8 with a SD of 1.4.

Now let's take a look at how he located each pitch. For this, I split the strikezone up into 9 different zones, and measured the percentage of all pitches that were thrown in those zones. Here is the data for each pitch in 08 (given the small sample size of cutters, I simply combined them with sliders for this excersize):

Pitch Type	Zone	In down	In middle	In up	Center down	Center middle	Center up	Away down	Away middle	Away up
FA	60%	5%	7%	5%	6%	9%	5%	7%	10%	6%
CH	54%	10%	9%	3%	9%	9%	3%	7%	3%	<1%
CU	63%	5%	9%	6%	11%	7%	4%	11%	8%	3%
SL/FC	44%	<1%	1%	<1%	4%	7%	3%	13%	10%	5%

This is how it would be to a RHH, so "In" is to the third base side. For reference, the league average 'Zone', or pitches thrown inside the strike zone, is about 53%. As you can see, threw his fastball in the zone a lot, and dispersed it pretty much eventy throughout the strike zone, favoring the 1st base side of the plate a little bit. He threw changeup in the strike zone a little bit less than the fastball, and mainly threw it in the center and inner thirds of the plate, and in the middle and down parts of those. He used his curveball to pound the strike zone, and rarely elevated it. His slider/cutter, on the other hand, was most often thrown to the first base side, and he rarely threw it in the strike zone.

Now, let's take a look at what batters did with his pitches, definitions of fields to follow:

Pitch type	Z-Swing	O-Swing	Whiff%	GB%	SlugCon
Lg Avg	62%	25%	19%	45%	.509
FA	54%	18%	7%	42%	.568
CH	74%	40%	24%	64%	.387
CU	50%	17%	17%	53%	.327
SL	64%	26%	25%	55%	.372

Z-Swing: percentage of pitches inside the strike zone swung at

O-Swing: percentage of pitches outside the strike zone swung at

Whiff%: percentage of pitches swung at that were swinging strikes

GB%: percentage of balls in play hit on the ground

SlugCon: slugging percentage on balls in play (including home runs)

There are a couple of things to notice from this. His changuep was amazing. He got a ton of swings on it, both in zone and out of zone, with a ton of ground balls and swinging strikes. In fact, all of his offspeed pitches were very good, all generating above average GB rates and slugging on contact, while generating respectable whiff and O-Swing rates. His fastball, on the other hand, was below average in all categories.

Today, was just to take a preliminary look at what we can expect from "good Lohse". Next week, we'll compare that his pre and post injury 2009, to see if we can make any conclusions about what to expect from him going forward.

Big Shoes

2009-10-24T12:15:10Z

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan watches a caterpillar during the fourth inning in Game 3 of the National League division baseball series Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

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As you may have guessed from the position in which this post appears, I will be filling in on Saturdays to take part of the role that chuckb played. I was very honored to be considered for the role, and even more surprised. I'm not the sabermagician that chuckb is, and i probably don't have the baseball smarts that many posters do. I certainly have never played the game (beyond a grade school level) and, if that disturbs you, I guess you should probably just skip down to the comments area.

I want to start out by recognizing the contributions of chuckb (nee houstoncardinal). Chuck has a long history of putting together very strong articles, showing a thorough understanding of the game and a dedication to backing up his opinions with statistical analysis. If I can be a quarter as infomative as chuck, I will be very happy.

I also officially assume the role of grumpy old mod for the board since (I think?) I am the only one on the wrong side of thirty. Or at least the side closer to Social Security. So, get off my lawn!

* * *

In the doldrums of May and June, the popular epithet for the Cardinals was "Albert and the seven dwarves." The name fit because Albert was in the throes of one of the best half-seasons (I am tempted to write "the best half-season, but then I recall the consistency of Albert's ridiculousness and must write "one of the best") and the remainder of the team ranged anywhere from at or slightly above league average on offense (rasmus, skippy, yadi) to well below (ryan, the two-headed third baseman of mediocrity, slumpwick, the two-headed leftfielder of mediocrity, kaheel, and Tyler Robinstav - a melange of replacement value rookies).

The team improved offensively down the stretch - mostly through addition (holliday, lugo), subtraction (duncan), and regression to a norm (ludwick). Of course, the titular tongue-in-cheek epithet was knowingly one-dimensional; it omitted the substantial defensive contributions in key roles: shortstop, catcher, centerfield.

But, not being prone to lament a rough end to the season, let the 2009 funeral meats coldly furnish forth the marriage table for 2010. There's a lot to like about this team for next season and beyond.

The $100M+ elephant in the room rhymes with "fat collie play." Whether he signs or not probably depends a great deal on two things: how much he wants to stay in St. Louis and whether dewitt wants to increase the budget to do so. Even a discounted holliday would really limit a low-$90M cardinal team. A full-price holliday could be tolerable on a budget that goes well beyond $100M. The fans did their part this year, cresting the 3M attendance mark, even in a very tough economic year. As the economy heals, the prognosis for 2010 attendance shouldn't be worse than 2009, and probably better.

Planning for a vacancy to arise in the LF market in St. Louis is not a pessimistic step. If we are not going to build a team around two players probably worth 12-14 WAR between them for next year, let's think about a different tack: build a team of albert pujols and a field of league average (or better) players, with the depth and flexibility to make sure we don't end up with replacement-level voids on the field. The perennial cry is for a "big bat," a masher, an all-star. and, don't get me wrong, i like all-stars. but holliday is really the only legit all-star option we're looking at. rather than blow our wad on one all-star (especially if he's not so all-starry), think about depth and flexibility.

Our net team position player WAR this year was 18.9 -- basically middle of the road (only the yankees and the rays broke 30 WAR). Seven position players each worth 2 WAR and a 7-8 WAR first baseman would get us past this year's mark. Of course, achieving that number also means avoiding negative WAR; the vacuums of value (primary suspects - K. Greene, N. Stavinoha, chris duncan).

Last year, we had a few great peformers and some uninspiring showings. Only five players produced 2 WAR or better for the cardinals. Guess who ranks 8th for the team in WAR?

First base
Albert Pujols (8.4 WAR in 09)
The cornerstone. The Mang has been stellar since he sprang, fully formed, out of Mark McGwire's skull in 2001. No reason not to expect a 7+ WAR performance here . . . Except . . .

Depth
Should the unspeakable happen, the cards could look at mark "I make nick johnson look durable" hamilton. Also, the intertubes are abuzz with talk of some Free Allen Craig character. There's nobody who will play like the Mang, obvs.

Catcher
Yadier Molina (3.4 WAR)
Molina was the second most valuable position player last year, even though WAR does not account for catcher defense, which I hear he's pretty good at. I have no reason not to think he's less than a 2.5-3 WAR player next year.

Depth
Again, an ugly proposition. Larue is not a long-term backup, even if re-signed. He does quite well as a "spell yadi once every five-to-seven days" guy. Odds are pags jr. or bryan anderson gets a long look should yadi hit the dl. Expecting more than replacement value there is wishful thinking, though the club has sent anderson to the AFL for winter work. See your local futureredbirds.net for AFL updates. [In an unrelated AFL story, the danup-mancrush curse strikes again. Derrek Goold tweets that Gary Daley gave up seven runs in one-third an inning for Surprise.]

Shortstop
Brendan Ryan (3.2 WAR)
Our months-long national nightmare was over when ryan took on the ss role this spring. His defense will not likely slump next year, but his bat could. I think he'll be a 2+ WAR player with his D, but doesn't walk enough to maintain value that doesn't rise and fall with his BABIP. Watch for falling wOBA next eleven months.

Depth
They call him Hoolio. Truth is his play was never that bad, theo epstein just couldn't take the way Lugo looked at him. Lugo's defense has become apallingly bad, eating up his decent offensive value. I have to think that julio: brendan:: larue: molina. Not too awful to make a spot start, but should brendan hit the DL, we should see tyler greene brought up. Tyler was a bit of an enigma this year. He hit very well at memphis, poorly at the ML level. UZR hated his defense, which was puzzling. I'm willing to chalk it up to SSS, but will eye it nervously next year.

Left field
Matt "Beltre'd" Holliday (2.8 WAR)
It's somewhat depressing that the fourth-most valuable cardinal only spent two months with the team. He's likely to be a 5-6 WAR player next year. He's already been discussed ad nauseam by mid-October, so that's all I've got to say about him. I do want to say something about a frequently discussed alternative. Please just say no to jason bay. While he might well be better than average, he is a prime candidate to be overpaid this offseason. He amassed over three WAR last year, his offensive value sapped by horrendous defense. His high-value MVP days are gone. Let another team tie themselves down to him and give up a first round pick.

Depth
One reason why I am so appalled by the Bay talk is that we have a couple of internal candidates who could be at least average - allen craig or (if healthy) joe mather. Anecdotal evidence says craig is decent in left, and mather was once a very decent defender (caution -- mather had a -9 TZR rating in his short time in RF in 2009). Jon Jay may get a look as LH depth/defensive substitute. Tyler Henley and DJ Tools are not far off - another reason not to tie the team down to a long contract for a just okay LF.

Center Field
Colby Rasmus AKA cody ramos AKA corky ramirez AKA boromir velazquez (2.3 WAR)
Razzle dazzle made the bigs and got a fair amount of playing time. His defense was all that was promised and his hitting . . . showed promise. Seriously, work out a little, bulk up, and try to find a good diet in the offseason, cody. i easily expect improvement next year. With a full season in center, we'd be looking at a 3 WAR player even with no offensive improvement.

Depth
Ugh. Um, jon jay, shane robinson. . . . Ludwick could cover CF in a pinch. Mather if healthy wouldn't be a disaster. Skippy is not a CF. Our depth here leaves something to be desired. A RH option who could face LHP in lieu of corey rundell would be a nice bonus.

Right Field
Ryan Ludwick (1.7 WAR)
Luddy had maybe the most perplexing season (unpleasant surprise division) of anyone. His season makes me feel like there's a certain element of futility to these crystal ball sessions. Hard to project and injury prone, I would expect him to rebound, but i say it with trepidation.

Depth
In the AAA championship game, brian barden played RF. Does that tell you what our RF depth is? Or what kind of confidence we have in craig's arm or jay's arm? Henley is our only real RF prospect - a decent one, but he's yet to even play a game for memphis. Another area of serious depth concern.

Second Base
Skip Schumaker (1.2 WAR)
Skippy adapted as well as could be expected, and better than I expected. The good news is that his defensive statistics match up with popular perception - appalling early in the season and close to average later on. The outlook for skippy is good - if he defends like he did at the end of the season he'd gain a full win in value over the course of 2010, which would make him average. Luckily, his offense has been consistent, so we can readily look for improvement. Skippy's dedication and hard work are admirable. I am accepting gloating letters, skip.

Depth
Hoolio is skippy's primary backup/platoon partner. To all accounts lugo's 2b defense is awful. His offense was quite good, but I doubt he turns in more than a one win performance in a platoon/utility role. Jarrett Hoffpauir seems to be english for julio lugo; terrible glove and good bat that only marginally offsets the other. Plus lugo brings the crazy eyes. daniel descalso is a good prospect but could not make his springfield success translate to memphis in a short aaa stint. He's also left-handed and won't be a platoon partner to skippy. We'll likely see him in 2011 barring more disappointment.

Third base
If you guessed that brian barden was the eighth most valuable player for the cards (a statisically insignificant fraction of a run better than derosa), you win. Third base in 2009 was a vast cauldron of suck where joe thurston reigned supreme at replacement value until the arrival of mark derosa and his amazing wrist that goes pop. That was the only thing going pop at third base after may day. Third base is clearly a spot for great improvement. Derosa as the 3b candidate awakens a great sense of "meh" in me. His two main virtues are a) playing subprime defense at several positions and b) hitting for some power. The former is likely to get more subprime from age. The latter could be hampered by his wrist injury.

The club shows no sign of interest in troy glaus. Assuming figgins goes back to the angels, beltre could be a prime FA target. david freese recently received Mo's benediction as the prime candidate (which probably means that spending cash will be directed at LF and the rotation). The good news is he'd probably defend like brian barden (+14.9 UZR; before citing sss to me, check barden's minor league defensive stats). The bad news is he may hit like barden too. odds are freese hits a little better and is about a 2 win player. For my money, if derosa is at best a win better than freese, I'd rather spend the 5-7M elsewhere and get the comp pick when he signs with the cubs for three years and $30m. That said, if we're not coughing up the money for Holliday, a hard charge after a FA 3B could be a good way to upgrade.

Depth
Freese is second string depth if he's not the starter. At some point, the club may have to swallow its misgivings and give craig a shot. Descalso could conceivably act as a third-string option, as could a healthy joe mather or a resigned brian barden. Otherwise . . . I give you joe thurston, ladies and gents.

>Exit, pursued by a bear.<

>Enters again, winded.<

I think the 2010 picture is not a bleak one, especially in the context of our division. I am most concerned about the depth, more than the starter any particular position. I don't see any starter who looks like a less-than-league-average type (count me a little skeptical about freese). While we're never going to have a replacement albert pujols on the shelf - nor should we aspire to that - more depth and particularly more flexibility could make this team much more competitive. 2009 should also be remembered as the year of the Dry Powder; our ability to forecast gaps on the squad from our vantage point in the off-season is limited. We should retain the organizational flexibility to make moves to address sudden needs that arise mid-season.

We have very poor outfield depth right now - I would guess craig and a healthy mather could approach league average. Jay is probably a less than average prospect with most of his value being defensive. Henley is hard to project with no time yet at AAA. That is why a player like Mike Cameron holds so much interest for me. A perennial 4 win player, he can play a corner respectably and could sub for an injured colby in center. We have poor RF depth, having few strong-armed outfielders. We can't go into 2010 without legit replacements at two OF positions while playiong two starters with injury histories.

The infield poses a similar, though not as dire, problem. Quite frankly, I just don't think lugo is good enough to be the infield backup. His defense is bad and his offense is likely to regress. Maybe his knee mends this off-season and his defense improves. But a good RH infielder to split time with skippy at second, hopefully one who could also backup the other infield spots, could save us a lot of heartache. tyler greene could be that guy if he learns some plate discipline. It kind of breaks my heart that derosa had his wrist injury because he could be a really good answer in that role. I just hate to throw money at an older player with a serious injury. Felipe Lopez could be another option, but he'll be very expensive coming off a career season. Unfortunately, the free agent market is parched in many of our areas of need, and our capacity to trade has taken a hit.

The need for depth and flexibility manifests itself in this fact: we lost a total of 2.7 WAR from sub-replacement value position players in 2009. More than half of that lost value came from Khalil Greene and Nick Stavinoha. By lacking appropriate replacement value players, the Cards lost the equivalent value of a better than replacement value player. Now, obviously almost any team is susceptible to having a sudden injury that leaves a less than desirable player in a key spot. Even the yankees caught a below-average performance from cody ransom (not related to our cody ransom) after a-rod got injured. but a deep team, managed well, would likely lose about a win to below replacement players. our lack of depth - and to a certain extent, mismanagement - cost us almost 3 wins. the good news is i don't see many khalil greenes or stavinohas getting a lot of playing time in 2010: lugo, tyler greene, and pagnozzi could be reasonable candidates to play at or below replacement value.

Thank you for reading this far. My apologies for any lack of flash. As I get accustomed to your fancy "tables" and your "icons" and your "twitters," I may get more adventurous in my layout. And I think I have preprogrammed this to appear early saturday. if this appears mid-friday afternoon or sunday evening or in the Sheboygan Daily Press, i'm probably doing it wrong. My apologies, good people of Sheboygan.

Bill James and Pitchers

2009-10-23T10:00:31Z

I think we, as a community of worriers, are relatively pat about the offense—if anything bad were to happen, be it Pujols missing a chunk of time; Rasmus continuing to be Ramos; or the Cardinals seriously going into the 2010 season with Skip Schumaker and Allen Craig dueling for the chance to be the team's fourth best hitter, it would come as a terrible shock.

But the pitchers... well, they were too good last year. I am expecting any and all things to happen this year to make up Joel Pineiro's completely unexpected and not-quite-long-enough trip into the dead ball era, and that's without even considering Chris Carpenter's career high ERA+ as a 34 year-old double-amputee outpatient. No amount of Todd Wellemeyer returning everything that made me briefly think he wasn't Todd Wellemeyer can make up for all that, and as a result I have my GOB expectations set to maximum vengeance.

That said, here's what the Bill James people think.

NAME	G	IP	H	HR	BB	K	W	L	ERA
Chris Carpenter	28	195	169	13	42	154	16	6	2.95
Adam Wainwright	34	225	222	18	66	178	15	10	3.64
Kyle Lohse	24	118	128	14	36	72	6	7	4.35
John Smoltz	10	50	48	5	11	45	3	2	3.42
Joel Pineiro	33	205	224	22	53	118	12	11	4.17
Mitchell Boggs	22	75	85	7	36	50	3	5	5.40
Ryan Franklin	62	61	62	8	19	33	4	3	4.13
Jason Motte	65	56	49	6	24	68	4	3	3.54
Trever Miller	74	46	40	5	18	45	3	2	3.72
Dennys Reyes	74	46	44	3	22	38	3	2	3.91
Rich Harden	24	135	107	14	59	147	10	5	3.33
Erik Bedard	15	88	78	8	35	87	5	5	3.58
Justin Duchscherer	23	151	131	13	38	113	10	6	3.16
Brett Myers	27	171	172	27	59	147	9	10	4.37
Randy Johnson	18	54	50	7	13	51	3	3	3.63
Blake Hawksworth	43	54	59	7	20	38	3	3	5.00
Tim Hudson	24	146	147	11	41	89	10	6	3.64
Clay Mortensen	12	57	65	8	25	39	2	5	5.84
Chris Perez	61	63	46	7	37	76	4	3	3.57

1. I'll take that Chris Carpenter projection. Just make that happen.

2. He and Jason Motte are the only Cardinals this projection system likes at all. It doesn't buy Adam Wainwright's strikeout rate, The Piñata's secret identity, or Ryan Franklin's magic goatee, let alone Blake Hawksworth's trip to relief—the projection is so bad that I, uh, forgot to include it until halfway through the free agents.

3. Lots of interesting, dinged up fourth starter options for the Cardinals to paw through. Unfortunately nothing projected for "Sign" Ben Sheets.

4. I'm trying to ascribe some of it to shock value and be moderate, but Mitchell-Boggs-the-reliever was a startling transformation; as a starter he looks like Jason Marquis, but as a reliever he flashed a preternatural grasp of the Chris Perez skill-set: diving slider, remarkable fastball (seriously, where did this come from?), unexplainable command. It's stupid to use the results-not-typical success stories as a comp, but I'll do it anyway: the Joe Nathans of the world have to come from somewhere.

5. If Mortensen were ready yet—that would be the moment I knew I was a sinner in the hands of some angry GOB.