From the Top
« Evidence that Walt's worth what we pay him, and then some.... | Main | Jocketty is Backetty »I promise you no research went into this post. There are a few of things I wanted to comment on around Cardinaldom but just never got toegether so I'm going to dump them all here:
Sammy to the Orioles
Wow. The biggest piece of this deal that I think will go unreported is how it puts the lie to Dusty Bakers reputation as a great players manager. Dusty's job is to get the best players he has on the field and playing. Part of that is keeping them happy and Dusty should have addressed the Sosa personality clash within the team and kept it from getting out of hand. Instead he dumped a Cubs great and a great player because they didn't get along. If I owned the Cubs I'd have fired Baker this offseason. It's his job to keep things running smoothly, not to villify his best players.
I've criticized La Russa enough in the past, but the star players under La Russa never complain about anything. The players La Russa has problems with are generally past their prime players whose roles are being adjusted, and they have a hard time with that (That's a failure on La Russas part, he needs to address those concerns, but in the pantheon of managerial shortcomings it's an extremely minor one). My opinion of La Russa has been rising in the last few years, not because of things hes done but because of stupid things other managers have done.
NL Central
Can I be forgiven for thinking the Cards just about have the NL Central wrapped up? The Cubs offense is gutted, the Astros are another year older and deeper in debt, they lost their best player down the stretch. The Cardinals are the only Central team that has gotten better this offseason (maybe the Reds/Pirates/Brewers have, but I can't take them seriously yet). Anything can happen sure, but I feel a lot better about the Cardinals going into spring training than I did last year at this time.
Eckstien
Over at the Curve Blog L Boros has a post about Eckstiens range that is down right scary. Based on David Pintos Probabilistic Model of Range Eckstien could cost the Cards up to 2 wins with the glove next year. I admit I've slept through most of the Probabilistic Model of Range stuff Davids been doing so I can't make an informed comment, but based on the comments about it there's nothing blindly obviously wrong with it.
That's a scary number.
Posted by Josh at February 2, 2005 01:22 PMStrange that PMR is so bearish. MGL's UZR (acronym soup!), which is supposed to be similar, is very kind to Eckstein.
Posted by: Dan at February 2, 2005 04:36 PMRegarding the Cardinals having gotten better: I'm not so sure I agree. An awful lot went right for the Birds, especially with pitching:
Carpenter and Marquis had career years, our 5 starters made 154 starts, no pitcher was injured for more than a couple of weeks, and every position player was healthy.
They had an amazing season in relief last year with a bullpen that probably accounted for 6+ wins more than an average pen, they lost two stellar bullpen components in Steve Kline and Kiko Calero, and I'm not sure that Mike Myers and Al Reyes/Randy Flores will make up for them. Julian Tavarez and Cal Eldred are much more likely to be worse than better in 2005 following as-good-as-could-be-expected performances in 2004.
The wild card (no pun intended) could be Rick Ankiel, as his as-yet-unknown role for '05 will affect the bullpen in one way or another.
Woody Williams is going to win at least 17 games in San Diego, and I'm not so sure I can say the same for Mark Mulder in St. Louis. If his "mechanical problems" have been corrected and he returns to his pre-meltdown pre-July form of 2004, or his pre-hip-injury form of 2003, then we may have something.
The team has downgraded at shortstop and possibly at second, where Grudz, like Womack, only has offensive value if he hits over .300 because he doesn't take walks and he doesn't hit for power.
A full season, if he's healthy, of Larry Walker should be an upgrade over Lankford et al, and if Sanders, at 37, can defy Father Time and keep his even-odd production streak going for an amazing 12th year, then that'd be an upgrade as well, but those are two big ifs that should probably cancel each other out in making any predictions...
Overall, the Birds have to be favorites with the Three Studs and decent production from LF and RF. Catcher may upgrade a tick, but will be, along with 2B and SS, below average offensively.
The solid-but-unspectacular rotation could repeat last year's numbers, but Carpenter's nerve could fray and Suppan and Marquis have to be considered mediocrities at best who may just as easily stink up the joint as post sub-4.25 ERAs. And if Mulder's problems from last year continue, we may see a lot of 9-7, 11-8 games...
Posted by: salvo at February 2, 2005 05:18 PMWhile i tend to agree with salvo that I don't see this Cardinals' team as being improved from last year, even with a supposedly healthy Mulder and a full year of Larry walker, I'm would like to ask salvo one thing.
How do you figure Woody will win 17 games? I know Petco is a pitcher's park (or at least not a bandbox like say Camden Yards), and yeah Woody seemed to get screwed in the run support/bullpen area last year, but the Padres offense is pretty weak too. I'd say 12-14 wins would be a good year for woody.
Posted by: CalvinPitt at February 2, 2005 07:42 PMTonight ESPN 1000 in Chicago said that the Cubs were the favorite in the NL Central (okay, yes, they are homers) because the Cards had the biggest offseason losses and their bullpen was a mess. This has to be the eternal Chicago spring optimism (although when the Brookfield Zoo groundhogs wouldn't come out today, they resorted to a skunk http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/0.asp?pageID=490&nSection=10&nLinkID=283&bolTitle=0), but do they have any sort of point?
Yes, the Cards lost Renteria (the "biggest loss"), Matheny, Womack and Williams, but the Cubs lost Alou AND Sosa and still don't have a closer (or much of bullpen for that matter).
And, as for biggest loss, I'll go out on a limb and say it was Beltran.
Posted by: Sean at February 2, 2005 09:05 PMThe Score is a horrible radio station. I remember then making fun of Scott Rolen about this time last year for signing with the Cardinals, when he could have signed with the Cubs - who were obviously about to start their string of World Series wins, giving him no chance in St. Louis.
I don't think the Cardinals are improved over last year, either. However - I'll take Molina over Matheny, Grudzielanek over Womack, and Mulder over Woody. Eckstein is a downgrade, but I don't think it's by much. (Certainly not by 5 times, which is what the salary difference is this year.)
The bullpen is a bit weaker, but should still be solid. (I have faith in Reyes, and expect Lincoln to be a factor this season.) Carpenter and Marquis did have career years, but Morris certainly didn't.
And, as mentioned, the Cardinals didn't have Ankiel as an X-factor last year - let alone Adam Wainwright and Anthony Reyes in a pinch.
I don't think the Cardinals are improved on paper over last year. But I think they're "less unimproved" than the Astros or the Cubs - teams that finished 13 and 16 games behind last year. And while I doubt the Cardinals run away and hide this year, I'll be surprised if they're not playing ball come October.
Posted by: Robb at February 2, 2005 10:11 PMThe Eckstein numbers are fascinating. The other defensive metrics that are trustworthy (UZR, ZR, Diamond Mind) have all said Eckstein's at least average at shortstop, maybe even very good. Eckstein certainly doesn't *look* like an average shortstop though, and I'm concerned Pinto's the first one to differentiate the "difficult" chances from the "easy" chances.
Posted by: Rob at February 2, 2005 10:40 PMThese are all tricky arguments, and I'm not sure 100% where I stand, but that's why sports analysis is fun, eh?
I'll make the squinted case that Josh is right arm, and we're better on paper heading into this season than we were last season.
Here's why (feel free to point out my new clothes):
Lineup wise, we've traded in our leadoff hitter Tony Womack, who posted a great .349 OBP in 2004 in spite of a career .319 OBP, for Eckstein, whose *career* OBP is .347 and who strikes out less than Tom Cruise on karaoke night at the navy base. Even if Womack repeats last year (which no one except the Yankees believes) it's basically a wash. And I'm saying simply now, Tony Womack won't repeat last year, not even from within the comfortable womb of the Yankee lineup.
We traded in Renteria to get Larry Walker. Um, I love Edgar Renteria, and TBW is all about spreading the love, but his career OPS is .746 (you do the math where you take out his *career* year), whereas LW's career OPS is .969. Yes, we'll be lucky to get 130 games out of Larry, but Rent's .346 OBP and only moderate pop makes me think we just folded the smartest hand in MLB poker.
No one is worse than Mike Matheny in the batter's box, whatever may or may not have been given up in "leadership".
We traded in Woody Williams for Mark Mulder. I'm not going to put any numbers behind that statement.
You can add up all the defensive slices and the slightly weaker bullpen angles, but I'll ball them up in a wad of Big League Chew, pinch in some Kodiak and spit something out not even Lenny Dykstra could recognize.
Folks, we got even more meat at the plate and more meat toeing the rubber than we did last year, on opening day at least.
Anecdotally, how many experts, even bleeding heart insiders, predicted the Cards would win the Central last year? What are people saying will happen this year? I know, no one is saying we'll win quite as many games, and the Cubs and the Astros have gotten worse, but don't let all those things drag you down.
The Cards are looking both stronger and more balanced on paper on opening day than they have since TLR first graced the birds on bat uniform with his bourgeois mullet and his wine-and-queso mouth.
Posted by: Ryan at February 3, 2005 01:25 AM"Anecdotally, how many experts, even bleeding heart insiders, predicted the Cards would win the Central last year?"
Offhand, I'd say only Ray Mileur at the Cardinals Birdhouse, and King Kaufman at Salon.com (as Kaufman kept reminding us during last postseason...
Posted by: Len Cleavelin at February 3, 2005 07:10 AMTom Tippett and the folks at Diamond-mind baseball also predicted the Cardinals would win the NL Central last year. Or rather, they simulated the season 100 or so times with their commercially available software with the Cardinals winning the Central the majority of the time.
Posted by: Robb at February 3, 2005 07:13 AMYeah, and I'd take Tippett's simulations before anybody else's stuff. The warmed-over Cartesian rationalism that Neyer and other would-be experts presented was pretty disappointing.
From playing with ZiPS in DM, my guess is that Tippett's 2005 projection for the Cardinals will look similar to the 2004 projection.
Posted by: Rob at February 3, 2005 11:13 AMmore elaboration on the eckstein numbers at my site for any who care --- www.curveblog.blogspot.com. for what it's worth, i think the cards are headed for about 93 wins, which might or might not be enough to win the division ---- but, if not, would prob'ly still be good for the wild card . . . .
Posted by: l boros at February 7, 2005 12:50 AM