How Ugly is Our Bench?
« Alomar Retires | Main | Loss of Haren may hurt »Frightening little graf in today's daily Cards blurb in the on-line Post-Dispatch:
Nonroster infielder Abraham O. Nunez appears to have solidified his standing as the team's primary backup infielder with So Taguchi, John Mabry and Roger Cedeno serving as outfield depth and Einar Diaz as backup catcher.
Okay, Mabry had an excellent year in 2004, setting career highs in slugging and OBP at age 33. That screams out "decline" for 2005, but hey, maybe he's following the Tony Phillips career path.
As for the other four, surprisingly, So Taguchi is the masher of the group, with a career OPS of .779 and never a year (in, admittedly, some small samples) slugging below .400.
And then it gets ugly: Roger Cedeno, OPS the last three years of just .682, and now he's on the wrong side of 30. Abraham Nunez?!!?? This is like the old "two Brian Hunters" days all over again, when there was a good one and a bad one, and the Cardinals had one of them but it didn't really make much difference which one because even the good one was pretty bad. And Einar Diaz makes Mike Matheny look like Mike Piazza.
This is a good bench---but only if they stay on it.
Posted by salvo at March 23, 2005 08:57 AMAnd that's not even the worst part. In the last paragraph of the story:
Whether La Russa feels a need exists for pitching protection will determine if he carries a 14th position player - likely to be Hector Luna, who otherwise would be optioned to serve as Memphis' everyday shortstop.
In other words, so much for adding someone like Gall or Seabol who might actually do damage as a pinch-hitter.
Posted by: Greg at March 23, 2005 10:52 AMouch... Luna needs to stay at AAA to have any chance of becoming something interesting.
Posted by: josh at March 23, 2005 11:16 AMGood thing we still have Ray Lankf--wait...
Posted by: Dan at March 23, 2005 11:54 AMI need to cut Einar Diaz some slack---he doesn't REALLY make Mike Matheny look like Mike Piazza.
For their careers, Diaz has superior numbers;
Diaz, career.... .256/.305/.351
Math, career.... .239/.293/.336
But Diaz has been really, really bad the last few years, while Matheny has actually been better than his career line the last 3 years:
Diaz, 2002-04... .231/.279/.311
Math, 2002-04... .248/.309/.342
So yes, the Cardinals managed to shed the weak bat of Mike Matheny, but then, almost unbelievably, replaced his roster spot with an even weaker bat.
Diaz does have one offensive skill: over his career he has consistently averaged 1 HBP per 40 plate appearances---which is good for 25 points of OBP.
But in all seriousness, your typical back-up catcher makes 30+ starts a year, plus other fill-in duty, and wouldn't it be nice, for a change, for the Cardinals to have a guy like a Doug Mirabelli or a Todd Pratt on their roster? I can't figure out why the Cardinals organization has seemingly given up on getting any kind of contribution from those 150+ plate appearances...
Posted by: salvo at March 23, 2005 12:46 PMMaybe they're trying to make Cody McKay look good?It's hard to believe that the Rangers traded Hafner for Einar Diaz.
I'm still trying to understand what Roger Cedeno adds. He's the Cardinals' fifth-best LH-hitting outfielder, he's awful defensively and he hasn't been a good baserunner in ages. Does his wife bake really good cookies?
Posted by: Rob at March 23, 2005 04:17 PMRoger Cedeño adds what every team needs, a light-hitting, defensive-lapsing, caught-stealing sparkplug off of the bench. It's a tough job, and one I just don't think Dee Haynes is ready for, yet.
Posted by: Dan at March 25, 2005 01:28 AMHey, Abraham Nunez is hitting .425 in my MVP Baseball 2005 season. There's hope.
Posted by: MO Boiler at March 26, 2005 12:45 PMOh yeah, all singles too.
Posted by: MO Boiler at March 26, 2005 12:47 PM