Center fielders and home runs

Lots of links around here lately, so here's another one:

Royalties & Cardinalate points out Jim Edmonds is close to a milestone::

The official site had a nice bit of trivia today regarding the potential for a current Cardinal to overtake Sugar Ray Lankford (123) as the Busch Stadium all-time home runs leader. Jimmy Edmonds would need to hit 27 home HRs to achieve this, so it is quite a long-shot. Regardless, Edmonds is just four away for 100 at Busch. Pujols is at 71, just 10 behind Ted Simmons.

I don't want Edmonds to have a bad year, but I would really like Lankford to remain the all time home run leader at Busch Stadium. So go nuts on the road Jimmy.

Predictions

All-Baseball.com team predictions for the NL central features this gem from Throws like a girl:

(on the Astros)

What it will take for them to finish higher:

A tragic mid-air collision between the Cubs’ and Cardinals’ team planes, preferably with a lot of flaming wreckage directly over Miller Park.

The random dude who wrote the Cardinals bit puts them at 94 wins and adds the caveat I see everywhere: If they're healthy.

I think Cardinals fans have been hedging around this to avoid jinxing it but I just need to say it: The Cardinals are bar none the best team in baseball. Sure an injury or three could change that, but right now nobody is even close.

Three Nights

If you want to know a little about how Tony LaRussa thinks, then Buzz Bissinger's book "Three Nights in August" will be a must-read. David Pinto pointed out this link at NPR, which has an excerpt on Darryl Kile from the book and three audio snippets on LaRussa's decision-making.

The Kile excerpt goes into more detail than I'm comfortable knowing, but it does elaborate on the role of the clubhouse leader. In the Eldred and roster-construction pieces LaRussa makes it clear that he'd rather have a 700-OPS backup "who's thrilled to be here and contribute" than a 750-OPS jerk. The topic isn't discussed, but one potential reason for LaRussa's reliever fetish is that he can construct clear roles that keep everybody happy, which is harder with seven-man and, to a lesser extent, six-man benches. Last year, for example, LaRussa had a heckuva time finding Marlon Anderson a role. I hope Bill Pulsipher's cool with the idea of being a one-out lefty.

Projected Standings

Nate Silver has crunched all the PECOTA numbers and concludes that the Cards are a 92-70 team and the Cubs are an 89-73 team. Naturally I'm inclined to agree. Of course a year ago PECOTA had the Cubs and Astros about three games ahead of the Cardinals.

Perhaps more amazing is PECOTA's projection for the NL MVP race: (1) Pujols, (2) Edmonds, (3) Rolen, (4) Bonds. Bonds has more impressive rate stats, but playing time looks to be an issue. That would earn a "duh" in light of recent events, but PECOTA apparently wasn't aware of Bonds's rehab problems.

Even more amazing is Diamond Mind's projected record for your 2005 St. Louis Cardinals: 103-59. Holy... Diamond Mind has the Cardinals winning the division 99 times out of 100, finishing 20 games ahead of the Cubs. For what it's worth, DM was one of the few, the proud, who picked the Cards to win the NL Central in 2004. Both PECOTA and DM expect 70-80 wins for the rest of the division. They also both project a tight NL West and Atlanta losing out to Philadelphia. I do wonder if the game-to-game nature of Diamond Mind's projections is picking something up about the Cardinals that Pythagoreans miss.

OK, I'm ready for the real thing. Four more wins!

ESPN.com on Roids

There's a handful of new articles relating to steroids on the ESPN.com Baseball page today.

Alan Schwarz writes about how the records have been affected, and compares them to other records that were perhaps set with a little help from the conditions of their eras as well. Buster Olney tells us what to expect from the 2005 season. Jayson Stark says it will take time for the new age to dawn in Baseball. There's also a SportsNation poll about what we as fans expect to see in Baseball as a result of the latest steroid testing policy. Lastly, I feel sorry for whatever issues are being put on the back burner in North Dakota while one of their Senators is busy arguing that Roger Maris' should get his record back.

Schwarz makes a great point that hadn't occurred to me. I don't have any children of my own, but I have a nephew I can't wait to take to his first full game this year (he only lasted about 3 innings last year), and I suddenly find myself dreading the conversation about all-time homerun leaders. See, despite Bonds' recent complaints to the media, I think he'll still probably pass Hank Aaron's total. I'm not sure how I'll explain to my nephew that one guy is the leader, but he might have cheated.

The Olney prediction I'm looking forward to coming true the most is the first one, which says that all this steroid talk will simmer down once the season starts and we're all too busy watching the games to think about these issues.

Stark's article is long, but interesting. The section that seemed the most interesting to me was at the end of page 3, where Stark says:

In the 10 seasons from 1993 through 2002, hitters reached or passed 50 home runs 18 times. Which equaled the number of 50-homer seasons in the 118 previous major-league seasons put together. In the last two seasons (since the launching of major-league steroid testing): Zero.

I think many people within baseball, and some fans, are starting to realize that this steroid problem took a long time to get out in the open. Seems to me that's an all too common issue with MLB.

In the poll, I take issue with question #3, which asks "Which would you rather see in baseball?" "Lots of home runs, suspicions of steroid use." (or) "Significantly fewer home runs, cleaner reputation." First of all, I don't think anybody wants to see suspicions of steroid use. And I don't think eradicating steroids will give way to a significant decrease in home runs. I think it's been shown that early claims by guys like Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco were greatly exaggerated, and steroid use was never even that rampant in baseball. Plus, many believe that as many pitchers may have been juicing as hitters.

Don't get me wrong about the Maris thing. I feel for Maris' family and his fans. It's hard not to believe he deserves the record. But the fact is that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds have all hit more than 61 homeruns in a season. The only way we'll ever know for sure if any of them used steroids is if they admit to it, which is highly unlikely. On top of that, supposing one of them admits to it, how many homers should be deducted from their totals for that season? Who's to say they wouldn't have still hit 62 or 65 instead of 70 or 73? Maris is down to 7th place on the HR list, and there's no moving up, unless he mounts the single most amazing comeback of all time.

Myers Back to Red Sox

After signing Mike Myers to a one-year $600,000 contract in December, El Birdos traded him back to the team from whence he came, the Boston Red Sox.

Terry Francona likes the acquisition.

"Mike's also a guy that can go two innings,'' Francona said, "so it's not a drain on your staff as much as a normal situational lefty is."

I'm guessing Bill Pulsipher likes this trade a lot, too, as now it's between him and Randy Flores to join the other lefty in the bullpen Ray "Burger" King.

Even though Dave Duncan can't figure out how Pulsipher does it, it might be nice to give him a chance.

In 9 appearances this spring, Myers had a 2.38 ERA in 11-1/3 innings.

Predictions

Baseball Toaster makes NL predictions.

The Cardinals are the universal pick except for the following line:

Jon: Pirates Brewers Cubs Cards Astros Reds

Which is clearly the result of psychoactive chemicals.

Polanco

From the South Florida Sun Sentinel:

Phillies infielder Placido Polanco will make $4.6 million after accepting arbitration, but he is miserable because he projects as a utility man. Polanco was so upset, he fired his agent, Adam Katz, because he said it was Katz who suggested the free agent accept arbitration in the first place. Not so, Katz told a Philadelphia-area reporter. According to Katz, Polanco turned down a three-year, $12 million offer from the Cardinals and a two-year, $8 million offer from the Indians.

3 years and $12 million dollars? I can't imagine Polanco turned that down, he's 29 and this would have made him a starter for 3 years on a good team for good money. It's worse for him because he's making $4.6 million which is about what he would have made with the Cards, but he won't make near that next year if he doesn't start. Between age and lack of playing time his value will drop quite a bit by next year and I doubt he'll be able to get the second 2 years of that deal offered to him.

Templates

I wish I had posted a link to this old Baseball Prospectus column when spring training started, but better late than never. And, well, what got me thinking about it ("Injured Pitcher Throwing Well", "Bad Player Looks Good", "Manager Impressed by Minor Leaguer") are the season previews that are popping up right now.

It seems to me I could write a halfway decent preview for, say, the 2010 Dodgers right now, even though I don't know what their roster will look like. I do know the Dodgers will have the money to buy free agents (more precisely, marginal revenue associated with winning in LA means the Dodgers should spend money to make money) and they do have a decent farm system. So they'll have some good ballplayers, but like every other team, even the Evil Empires, they'll have a prominent hole or two, maybe a weak outfielder or middle infielder. They'll have a bench full of players their fans will lament, like Jose Macias, Dave McCarty and Einar Diaz -- OK, they'll probably have somebody a bit better than Einar Diaz. Most importantly they'll have some talented pitchers, but there will be a number of question marks. Some pitchers will be coming off injuries, or they'll be unproven or aging or coming off up or down years that they're not likely to repeat.

All this is to say that when I look at the 2005 Cardinals I see three things that differentiate them from a generic baseball team: Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds. I'll have a lot of fun seeing whether Larry Walker can stay healthy, whether David Eckstein's a good, a bad, or an ugly shortstop (he is blonde, he had a decent batting eye with the Angels, and he throws like his right arm's chained to a fat Union soldier), whether Jeff Suppan can keep rattling off mediocre seasons, whether Mark Mulder can rebound, etc. However these sidebars seem like the typical issues all teams face. Other teams' questions are in different positions, but from a value standpoint, every decent team, every business even, deals with this kind of stuff.

Or maybe I'm getting too old and all the names and faces are starting to blur.

McGwire No Longer a Hall of Famer

At least that's what the indications are from a recent AP poll of 155 members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Of the writers surveyed, 55.6% said they'd vote for Big Mac's induction. 75% is needed for induction into the Hall.

Quoth Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times:

I will not vote for Mark McGwire. It’s obvious from his own statements he used some form of performance enhancing drugs and it’s obvious from his statistics he did not become a Hall of Fame type player until he did so. I will vote for Barry Bonds. He was a great player before the steroids era. Most of the things that make him a Hall of Fame player, steroids can’t help.

Bob Hertzel of the The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.) has a more reasoned stance:

I would vote for both of them since neither broke any baseball rules, as near as I can tell.

Still, 2 years is a long time. McGwire could hit every elementary and high school in the nation in that time doing his version of MacGruff the Steroid Dog. Or, Barry Bonds could be revealed to be an even bigger jackass than he already has. Would either be enough to make voters on the fence forget? On a side note, congrats to (former Redbird Nation scribe) Brian Gunn's sister-in-law and St. Louisan, Jenna Fischer who stars as Pam in the Americanized version of the classic BBC comedy, The Office.

Good Shake

Some kids in Massachusetts are pushing for the Yankees and Red Sox to shake hands before the game on Opening Day. Steinbrenner and Francona are receptive to the idea, so you have to like the odds of it happening. The Cardinals and Dodgers introduced (or re-introduced) handshakes between opposing baseball teams, and it would be nice to see something permanent coming from Larry Walker's hockey-inspired suggestion.

Actually it's a little weird that baseball doesn't have handshakes at the end of the game or series like virtually every other sport does. Heck, the David Caruso of College Basketball Coaches is embarrassed that his team didn't stay on the court to shake the hands of the Bucknell players.

(This message courtesy of the $#%&-ing 20-minute halftimes CBS "needed" to cover the Gulf War during the NCAA Tournament.)

Simo Update and Spring Training

I periodically check the various roto-sites and what-not for the latest news and rumors and I had noticed that Jason Simontacchi hadn't signed anywhere. The Cardinals did release him (quietly), so he's a free agent, and while Simo might be substantially below average as far as major league pitchers go, I expected he'd at least get a minor league deal with a non-roster invite.

Last night Wayne Hagin cleared up the mystery, noting during the Cardinals-Mets game that Simo's in St. Louis rehabbing from shoulder surgery. Maybe I misunderstood Hagin, and maybe he in fact said Simontacchi's taking human growth hormone to get an extra five miles on his fastball, but it appears Simontacchi will sign with someone in the not-so-distant future.

On a completely different note, Dave Cameron over at USS Mariner has a a slick take on spring training in general and on Albert Pujols in the spring of 2001 in particular. Spring training stats aren't that useful as the quality of players are dubious, some guys are working on skills rather than competing and there are always sample size issues of course. But players can change during a single offseason, for better and for worse:

Thanks to the nature of spring training, we don’t have any real way to quantify the effects of these changes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. These are the kinds of outliers that scouts can see before they’re quantifiable... The key is to remember that these adjustments are rare. There might be one guy per organization that takes that kind of leap forward.

The chatter I've read at the PD and elsewhere suggests that the Cardinals don't have anyone like that this year, except perhaps Anthony Reyes, whom Bobby Cox liked. The Cardinals are in a position though where there's little point to rushing him. Bill Pulsipher's 0.00 ERA and accompanying K/BB ratio are nice, but Duncan told the PD (in an article that's since gone off to the ether) that he didn't understand how Pulsipher was doing it, making Pulsipher an obvious candidate for Memphis.

Spring time

I'm at the tail end of a series of grueling projects, plans, and schemes that have kept baseball burried in the deepest parts of my mind. I havn't looked at a single statistic this spring, watched half of one game, and havn't looked at a box score. I havn't read any baseball books, and my BP subscription lapsed.

But yesterday on the way home throngs of people were discorging from Scottsdale Municipal stadium and, despite their making the traffic really bad, seeing all those pasty old folks in Giants gear sparked my enthusiasm. So it's time to get aquainted with the 2005 Cardinals!

The Cards this year are a pretty set team heading into spring training. There are no position battles, the rotation is set, and the only action is at the margins of the roster. For reference the Cardinals Spring Training Stats are here.

So Taguchi has more at bats than anybody save Roger Cedeno (39) and he's used those at bats to go .333 with 3 doubles and a home run. Everyone says Taguchi is the best defensive outfield option the Cardinals have so I expect he'll stay. Since he's going to make the team it's nice to see him have some success with the bat. Remind me in a few months when he's struggling to out hit Molina how he looked good in spring.

Roger Cedeno is also getting a lot of at bats, but he's only managed .205 and 2 doubles with them. If Cedeno had a good spring he'd make the team and get a lot of playing time. Now he'll just make the team. But with Taguchi around to cover defensivly I'd rather see John Gall make the team. He's been given a chance with 29 at bats so far, but he's only managed .241 with a single double. He probably needs a better showing to convince La Russa to take the plunge.

David Eckstein, whose defense has been much discussed, is hitting .400 with 3 doubles and a home run. Ecksteins value will come from his being on base. Remember last year the Cardinals shortstop got on base at a .327 clip, so Eckstein should improve on that. (The Cardinals shortstop sounds cold and impersonal, but Edgar Renteria was one of my favorite players, and going to ESPN's home page and seeing him in a Boston uniform has left me cold).

Scott Rolen and Larry Walker are in danger of losing their jobs: .148 and .182 respectivly with 2 home runs and a double between them.

Albert Pujols will probably make the team. .342, 2 doubles, 4 home runs. Pujols is so consistently excellent that it's hard to describe him. He doesn't have a signature skill like mammoth home runs, Vlads freaky hand eye coordination, Ichiro's speed, he just keeps hitting. And hitting and hitting, and damn he's good.

Cody McKay still sucks.

Wilton Guerrero isn't getting much of a look, he's only got 9 at bats so far this spring. Bo Hart has double that number but has only managed a .222 average. Hector Luna is seeing more time than both of them combined with 28 at bats and a .321 average to go with it. On one hand I think Luna is better than both of those guys so in the short term it would be better if he were with the team but on the other, I think theres a real chance he could develop into a major league starter. To do that he needs to get AB's and he won't (and shouldn't) get them at the Major League level this year.

Tomorrow I'll take a look at the pitchers.

Loss of Haren may hurt

In a Baseball Prospectus discussion on Monday, Elizabeth in Seattle asks BP author Jonah Keri what he thinks of some of the A's new pitchers:

Jonah Keri: Love Haren. Big strikeout rates, he'll have a more forgiving park--I'm writing an article in the neart future for our syndication partner, the New York Sun, and I can tell you that Haren will be on my list of 10 breakout players for 2005.

Isn't he a little high on the guy?

I mean, sure, Haren led the PCL in strikeouts (despite spending 2 months on the big-league roster) and had a 150-to-33 K/BB ratio. But you EXPECT that from a 6'5" 23-year-old. Isn't Keri forgetting about that emergency start when Haren was called up from Memphis for one game at Wrigley in June? The kid got lit up for 10 runs in 3-2/3 innings!!!

Although, gee, after coming back up for good in late July, Haren DID look pretty good:

Haren, all games except emergency start at Wrigley in June:

42.1ip... 35h....13 runs .... 32k/14bb .....2.76 era ...3hr.... 1.15 WHIP

And then Haren pitched 5 games in the postseason, allowing 2 runs in 8-1/3 innings.

Still, I'm sure LaRussa had to have questions about the rookie's guts after that debacle in Wrigley. While it might be nice to have a young, strong, cheap, quality arm locked up for the next few years, there's no substitute for a veteran pitcher who knows how to win games, and if trading Haren (and Calero, and Barton) is what it took to get a guy like that in Mark Mulder, then I'm sure Walt couldn't resist.

How Ugly is Our Bench?

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.

Alomar Retires

While I was off spelling "Cards" a couple dozen times in Nashville, Roberto Alomar retired. This should be something of a big deal as legit Hall of Famers don't retire everyday. However I find myself thinking "Whew!" as I had expected the washed-up shell of Alomar to be the Cardinals' starting 2B in 2005. The Cardinals may have a dodged a bullet here.

Then again maybe not. I know PECOTA forecasts 274/320/387 for Grudzielanek, which along with decent defense makes him a nice buy at his asking price, but the mid-30s generally are unkind to second sackers. Some good ballplayers like Biggio, Alomar and Grich declined noticeably at that time, as have some second basemen closer to Grudzielanek's peer group, such as Fernando Viña. So here's a thought that's way out there: Suppose Grudzielanek struggles and furthermore suppose that Eckstein's adequate at the plate but inadequate defensively. Do you move Eckstein to second, Rolen to short and let Seabol start at third?

Lil Mac

Lil Joe McEwing is a free man today.

Imagine this: Bo Hart at second, David Eckstien at short, and Joe McEwing at third. It'd be the Hustliest, Littlest, scrappiest infield ever.

Joe McEwing Career Walk Rate: .043, 32 years old
Bo Hart Career Walk Rate: .041 28 years old (Hart has less experience then McEwing, but has a higher lifetime batting average)
Hector Luna Career Walk Rate: .055 25 years old.

Which of these guys would you rather have?

I'm not advocating Luna be used as a utility infielder because with a full season in AAA theres a chance he could be a decent shortstop for a few years. But remember how distraught everyone was when McEwing was traded? Then remember how much everyone loved Bo Hart? Scrappy middle infielders aren't hard to find. The Cardinals would be better served to pass on McEwing (who will need a major leage contract) and stick with Hart (who they can jerk around to their hearts content).

Lets not overdue the scrappy thing, you don't want it to wear thin.

Sanders Out

Reggie Sanders had an appendectomy Thursday after complaining about severe abdominal pain.

Cardinals head athletic trainer Barry Weinberg said it's too early to know how long Sanders might be out of action, but the recovery time in previous cases has been in the neighborhood of two weeks. Curt Schilling missed almost that long in 2003. Cardinals utilityman Eduardo Perez was able to pinch-hit roughly a week after his appendectomy in 2003, but it was two weeks before he was able to play in the field.

While this isn't George Brett with hemorrhoids, an appendectomy is no walk in the park - just ask former Cardinal farmhand Daric Barton, who had to have his appendix removed just two weeks ago and is out for the rest of Spring Training.

Why bother with those boring Congressional Steroid Hearings....

here's a transcript of a Senate hearing about baseball that's much, much more entertaining than the steroid brouhaha will ever be: Testimony of Casey Stengel, July 8, 1958 (the day before my first birthday, if anyone cares).

An excerpt:

Senator Kefauver: I was asking you, sir, why it is that baseball wants this bill passed.

Mr. Stengel: I would say I would not know, but would say the reason why they would want it passed is to keep baseball going as the highest paid ball sport that has gone into baseball and from the baseball angle, I am not going to speak of any other sport. I am not here to argue about other sports, I am in the baseball business. It has been run cleaner than any business that was ever put out in the one-hundred years at the present time. I am not speaking about television or I am not speaking about income that comes into the ball parks: You have to take that off. I don't know too much about it. I say the ballplayers have a better advancement at the present time.

Senator Kefauver: One further question, and then I will pass the other Senators. How many players do the Yankees control, Mr. Stengel?

Mr. Stengel: Well, I will tell you: I hire the players and if they make good with me I keep them without criticism from my ownership. I do not know how many players they own as I am not a scout and I cannot run a ball club during the daytime and be busy at night and up the next day and find out how many players that the Yankees own. If you get any official with the Yankees that is here, why he could give you the names.

...

Senator Langer: That brings us to another question.

Mr. Stengel: Yes, sir.

Senator Langer: That is, what do you think of pay-as-you-go television?

Mr. Stengel: Well, to tell you the truth, if were starting in it myself I would like to be in that line of business as I did not think they would ever have television and so forth here but they have got it here now. (Laughter). Forty years ago you would not have had it around here yourself and you would not have cameras flying around here every five minutes but we have got them here and more of them around here than around a ball field, I will give you that little tip.

Senator Langer: You believe the time is ever going to come when you will have pay-as-you-go in the world series, which would be kept from the public unless they had pay-as-you-go television in their homes?

Mr. Stengel: I think you have got a good argument there and it is worthy of you to say that. I am not thinking myself of anybody that is hospitalized and anybody who cannot go to a ball park, I should think if they could pass that they should try to pass it, but I don't think they will be able to do it because they have gone in television so far that they reach so many outside people, you have to have a sponsor for everything else you do, go pay television and that is going to run all the big theaters out of business where you have to use pay television. All the big theaters and all the big movie companies went broke. We know that. You see that now or you would not have a place to hold a television for pay. I don't know how they would run that of courese. I am not on that side of the fence. I am paid a salary.

...

Senator Langer: I want to know whether you intend to keep on monopolizing the world's championship in New York City.

Mr. Stengel: Well, I will tell you, I got a little concerned yesterday in the first three innings when I say the three players I had gotten rid of and I said when I lost nine what am I going to do and when I had a couple of my players. I thought so great of that did not do so good up to the sixth inning I was more confused but I finally had to go and call on a young man in Baltimore that we don't own and the Yankees don't own him, and he is going pretty good, and I would actually have to tell you that I think we are more the Greta Garbo type now from success.

We are being hated I mean, from the the ownership and all, we are being hated. Every sport that gets too great or one individual, but if we made 27 and it pays to have a winner at home why would you not have a good winner in your own park if you were an owner. That is the result of baseball. An owner gets most of the money at home and it is up to him and his staff to do better or they ought to be discharged.

...

Senator O'Mahoney: How many minor leagues were there in baseball when you began?

Mr. Stengel: Well, there were not so many at that time because of this fact: Anybody to go into baseball at that time with the educational schools that we had were small, while you were probably thoroughly educated at school, you had to be. We had only small cities that you could put a team in and they would go defunct. Why I remember the first year I was at Kankakee, Ill., and a bank offered me $550 if I would let them have a little notice. I left there and took a uniform because they owed me two weeks' pay. But I either had to quit but I did not have enough money to go to dental college so I had to go with the manager down to Kentucky.

What happened there was if you got by July, that was the big date. You did not play night ball and you did not play Sundays in half of the cities on account of a Sunday observance, so in those days when things were tough, and all of it was, I mean to say, why they just closed up July 4 and there you were sitting there in the depot. You could go to work some place else but that was it. So I got out of Kankakee, Ill., and I just go there for the visit now. (Laughter).

I think now, do you know how many clubs they have? Anybody will start a minor league club but it is just like your small cities, the industries have left them and they have gone west to California, and I am a Missourian--Kansas City, Missouri--but I can see all those towns and everybody moving west and I know if you fly in the air you can see anything from the desert, you can see a big country over there that has got many names. Well, now why wouldn't baseball prosper out there, with that many million people?

Senator O'Mahoney: Are the minor leagues suffering now?

Mr. Stengel: I should say they are.

Senator O'Mahoney: Why?

Mr. Stengel: Do you know why? I will tell you why. I don't think anybody can support minor league ball when they see a great official, it would be just like a great actress or actor had come to town. If Bob Hope had come here or Greta Garbo over there half of them would go see Greta Garbo and half Bob Hope but if you have a very poor baseball team they are not going to watch you until you become great and the minor leagues now with radio and television will not pay very much attention to minor league ballplayers. Softball is interesting, the parent is interested; he goes around with him. He watches his son and he is more enthusiastic about the boy than some stranger that comes to town and wants to play in a little wooden park and with no facilities to make you interested. You might rather stay home and see a program.

Senator Kefauver: Mr. Mantle, do you have any observations with reference to the applicability of the antitrust laws to baseball?

Mr. Mantle: My views are about the same as Casey's (laughter).

Offseason Review Review

By the Iron_Throne

Ben Jacobs, of the Hardball Times, has finished his three part series ranking all thirty major league teams for their ofseason moves.  He starts off by skewering the Tigers, Nationals, and Diamondbacks for foolish spending, and progesses through the vast middle class of teams who didn’t really do much of anything this offseason.  As one of the few teams that made headline moves, the Cardinals check in at number four, a rating that seems a little high given what he has to say about their moves this offseason.

First of all, he’s one of the few commentators outside of the traditional media that sees Mike Matheny’s departure as anything but a positive.  Of Molina’s big promotion, he says:

Matheny can't hit, but he's regarded as an excellent defensive catcher. Molina has only received 135 at-bats in the majors, and he hasn't shown much offense in the minors. It's hard to imagine somebody being a worse hitter than Matheny, but if Molina isn't a better hitter and is a worse defender, this loss could hurt St. Louis the most.

His opinion of the Mark Mulder trade is rather wishy-washy, as he sidesteps judging the trade’s long term value and merely comments that:

I think Mulder will be good enough to help the Cardinals this year, which means they'll be willing to deal with giving up three nice young players even if they do develop. With Mulder coming and Woody Williams going, St. Louis should have a better rotation.

He admits to being a Red Sox fan, but despite this he is rather even-handed when writing of Renteria siging with his team.  He points out that Edgar didn’t have too much of an offensive contribution to the Cardinals last season, and makes a vain swipe at justifying the contract with Boston says that they “are not the A's, who have to find bargains in order to be able to compete.”  Of Eckstein however, he magnanimously concedes that he “won't be nearly as valuable as Renteria, but he may provide more value considering his cost.”  And he is surprisingly positive about the acquision of Grudzielanek believing he is going to be “cheaper, and likely to be better” than Womack would have been. 

Overall, the sense you get from these articles is that most teams did very little this offseason to help themselves for 2005, which allows the Cards’s mixed bag of the winter that was to be rated so highly. 

Deja Vu

In a rematch as anti-climactic as the original, the Cardinals got shelled by the Boston Red Sox today. Starter Jason Marquis gave up four homers in four innings, as his spring struggles continued. These are spring results, so they shouldn't be taken that seriously, but I am expecting/hoping that Marquis's groundball tendencies (ESPN.com has him 6th in GB/FB in 2004) would short-circuit his mediocre-to-worse home runs problem. At least that's what's supposed to happen, but today's game curbs my enthusiasm.

Wow

Dave Pinto continues to crank out interesting stuff. This time it's daily batting logs for players. Choose a player, choose a date range, see that players batting lines and summary stats for that time period.

Stream of Consciousness

By the Iron_Throne

Thanks to my best friend TiVo, I got to see the Cards/Braves game from this morning when I got home from the lab.  I thought I’d do a stream of consciousness post on the game.  I know I’m not as funny as I think, so save the flames for your friendly neighborhood Sox bandwagon jumper.

The announcers can’t stop talking about the World Series.  “Their pitching was exposed…”  “Suppan got one of the losses in the World Series.”  Man, it’s not like they won.

The Braves are bringing out the (almost) opening day lineup, with the exception of Langerhans instead of the brittle Jordan.  The Cards on the other hand are bringing their AAA lineup with the All-Star Outfield (This Time it Doesn’t Count!) of Cedeno, Taguchi, and Schumaker.  Also with Eckstein and Grudz as the DP combination, Einar Diaz behind the plate, and the ever versatile John Mabry at third. Of course two of these things are not like the others.

Echoing the current thoughts on Eck, the announcers are discussing the defense up the middle and Harold Reynolds points out that Eck can handle anything he can get to, but he just doesn’t get to much.  And his rainbow to first ending the top of the first inning seems to be a lot of effort for him.

Diaz short arms a throw to second on a Furcal attempt--anybody else wonder if he can’t hit and he can’t throw, what exactly does Einar Diaz bring to the team besides experience?  “Son, you better listen up, I’ve grounded out in more stadiums than you’ve ever even seen.  I was striking out against major league pitchers when you were striking out in the back of your high school sweetheart’s Camry.”

The Marlins share facilities with the Cardinals down in Jupiter.  It’s got to bother you when the Marlins’ side of the complex has the ’97 and 2003 World Championship banners.

It looks like ESPN has caved to Arte Moreno and are listing Anaheim as LAA.  It took me a second to figure out who that was.

Suppan is working on keeping the ball down, and most of his pitches are coming low in the zone, but the Braves are all going down to try and pull the ball up.  If Soup can keep the ball on the ground, he should have another solid year.  However, not having great stuff and a fastball that tops out at 89 mph, if he leaves the ball up hitters will kill him.

Kruk actually brings up a good point, if a non-citizen like Sosa goes before Congress and admits to breaking the law (taking steroids), can his visa be revoked?  I’m not sure if Congress can officially offer immunity to deportation.

…And of course when Suppan gets the ball up, even little bitty guys like Rafael Furcal can take him deep.

Hey, when did the Braves get Esix Snead?  Wasn’t he in our system a while ago?  Remember the old joke, “He’s the leadoff hitter of the future, and always will be.”

Seriously, Soup has got to keep the ball down.  A much rounder than I remember Andrew Jones jumped all over that meatball.  That’s three homeruns in 2.1 innings.  All of them on fatties above the belt.  

You know, Ankiel at the plate looks like an actual major league hitter, though I didn’t even recognize him at first because he doesn’t have his pants pulled up to show his striped socks.  I don’t think the bluff of Scott Boras telling all the other teams that Rick won’t ever pitch if he’s picked up off waivers is going to work.  Somebody’s going to take a chance on him, and even if Rick sticks to his guns, it will be for another team. The play-by-play man Thorne brings up the interesting idea of signing him to a huge back loaded contract with a gentlemen’s agreement to tear it up as soon as he passes through waivers. 

Man, Adam Wainwright is HUGE!

“You can’t outscore people in this league and win.”

--Tony LaRussa on building a winner

I guess I can’t blame him.  I’ve said worse things under the gun:

--“Officer, there’s no way I was going over 90.” 

--“You know, Boss, I was reading some of your old papers and I think you guys made some mistakes.”

--“Matt Morris.”  …when asked what I was thinking about when a girlfriend wanted to know what I was thinking about when we were cuddling.  Gotta think before you speak, guys.

Thomson for the Braves seems to be making the pitches that Suppan should.  He’s keeping the ball down, and the Cards just can’t seem to go down and get them.  If the Braves want to get their outfielders some defensive work they’re going to need a B game.

The Braves are looking like clown college dropouts on the field; they’ve made three errors already in 4.2 innings, and they had some troubles getting to a lot of the eight billion groundballs that Thomson has given them.  Well I guess since ‘hustle’ has replaced winning as our team focus, all these grounders really give the Cards a chance to shine.

“Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug.”  And sometimes Abraham Nunez swings the bat, and sometimes the bat swings him.  Maybe we shouldn’t stop all major leaguers from using steroids, some guys just need more inertial mass to survive. 

Anybody else just like Evan Rust’s motion when he throws?  I can’t tell if it’s three-quarters or what, but it looks like he’s just pushing the ball over the plate. 

In those flashbacks to Mulder’s pitching last season he really looked uncomfortable on the mound.  He looked a little lost; a little hopeless.  I hope he’s healthy and has his head on straight.  We’re 0-fer-1 in fixing our head cases this year already.

From the “if he quacks like a duck…” section, Roger Cedeno looks like an All-Star, he swings like an All-Star, he’s paid like an All-Star, but he sure hits like a duck.

…but Esix Snead hits like a duck and fields like Andruw Jones is supposed to.

So apparently Bill Pulsipher is in the lead for one of the last bullpen spots according to Ray King because he has the trait that made Steve Kline good:  he’s kind of nutty.  He’s second on the team to only Julian Tavarez in NORP (Nuttiness Over Replacement).  If he’s left-handed like Kline, and he acts like Kline….

The MLB 2K5 Official St. Louis Cardinals Projected Opening Day Lineup has Grudz batting second, Larry Walker in the seven hole, and Mark Mulder pitching on Opening Day.  Do these guys even do any research on what they sponsor?  I know it’s not a big deal, but there is some ad exec somewhere who passed this assignment to Skippy the Summer Intern and made his company look kind of stupid.  Because, see, it’s a game about baseball, right….

Bo Hart is batting with the bases loaded and nobody out in the ninth, down by four.  A hit here could make a good impression…

…and he strikes out swinging for the fences.  I wasn’t aware they’d moved the fences in to 300 feet. 

So the Cardinals go down 5-1 in the first game I’ve seen since Game 4, and Jeff Suppan makes me nervous…John Mabry makes me happy…David Eckstein makes me jealous…Rick Ankiel makes me sad…Albert Pujols makes me giddy…John Kruk makes me wish I was deaf…ellipses make me a good writer….

As The World Turns

Either I missed this little segment from yesterday's Post-Dispatch or Joe Strauss is editing his reports:

La Russa conceded there will be few, if any, at-bats for Ankiel during the team's exhibition schedule.

"I can't give them to him because he's not going to make our team," La Russa said.

It looks like Miklasz missed it too. I like to rant as much as the next guy, but gee whiz couldn't Bernie have called LaRussa first?

The park at Quad Cities is awfully inviting for left-handed power hitters. It won't be quite the same as following around Daric Barton, but it would be nice to see Ankiel splash a few in the Mississippi.

Warning--Graphic Eckstein Images

Dave Pinto over at Baseball Musings has published a series of graphs that illustrate David Eckstein's range on particular types of balls (grounders, pop ups, liners) at specific locations (to his left, to his right, etc.).

The graphs show, in explicit detail, what we've all heard: Eckstein is good at making the play when the ball is hit right to him, but he drops off considerably in all other areas.

Many comments follow the posted charts, and for me, the most ominous one is:

Had I been writing a scouting assessment of Eckstein at the end of last season it would have said "Has lost the half step he couldn't afford to lose. Range now worse than poor. Never was tall enough, no good on pop fouls, not tall enough or quick enough toward second on liners. Must have .380 OBP to be any use at all, and nowhere close to that any more... "

I've got 99 problems but 1st ain't one

Dan at Get Up Baby breaks down the Cardinals problems:

The problems now can be divided neatly into three categories. Let's name them, say, Ankiel, Walker, and Miscellaneous.

Going back to something I said earlier, the press enviornment won't let Ankiel pitch:

Dan:

a recent poll from the Dispatch's website says it all "Rick Ankiel blew up again on the mound Monday. What do you think the future holds for Ankiel?"

What? There's absolutely nothing to link this recent spat with his well-publicized 2000 meltdown. First of all, he seemed confident enough against the major league hitters he faced last year, brushing them back with reckless abandon to set up his curveball; the "mental issues" that had people muttering Steve Blass's name in hushed tones certainly picked a weird place to show up, against the Stubby Clapps and Wilton Guerreros that populate early-March rosters.

Continuing to make a particular issue out of Ankiel, who would have been back to the business of winning games for the Cardinals years ago had injuries not intervened, and his intermittent struggles to find the strike zone only makes the problem seem bigger. It should be treated for what it is--a pitcher whose mechanics are out of whack--instead of as some inevitable bad omen.

Ankiel's Nightmare Is Over

...although this isn't the way he wanted it to end. Unless this is an early April Fool's joke, Ankiel's switching to the outfield. I certainly won't question the decision, but I wish it wasn't happening. Ankiel's out of options, so they can't send him to Memphis or even Quad Cities to work on his hitting.

Darn. Darn. Darn.

Projecting Chris Carpenter

By the Iron_Throne

Going into this season, several Cardinal players have a swirl of different projections around them.  The injury histories of Matt Morris and Larry Walker leave us with little idea of how they will perform, and the strange story of Rick Ankiel defies prediction;  Yaider Molina is young and Reggie Sanders is old, Mark Grudzielanek is a former bench player, Julian Tavarez is just crazy.  But what about another Cardinal, forgotten about in the postseason, fallen prey to a rare injury, but heavily counted on for this season? 

Chris Carpenter started his pro career well, the Jay’s number one pick in 1993, fresh out of high school and lighting up the radar gun.  He struggled early on his call ups to the majors, but showed flashed of brilliance over short stretches sandwiched between bouts of inconsistency.  He finally seemed to put it all together in 2001 when he struck out 157 in 215.2 innings, with an ERA of 4.09 and a WHIP of 1.41, playing half of his games in the Skydome, which played as an extreme hitters park in 2001.  He still walked too many (75) and gave up too many homeruns (29), but the future was bright for the 26 year old.  However, elbow surgery derailed his pitching and bought him a ticket out of Canada.  Picked up two years ago as a project for Dave Duncan to spend his time on, he never managed to pitch for the team in 2003.  However, he looked great in spring training last year and made the team as a top starter.  He didn’t disappoint, either, striking out 152 in 182 innings with a 3.46 and an ace-like 1.14 WHIP before his late season injury.

However, going into this season, most projections for him call for steps back that would make him a good pitcher, but not great.  I’ve assembled some of the predictions I’ve found for him (plus his performance in 2001 and 2004):

The Sporting News is the most optimistic, predicting an increase in his strikeout rate, and keeping his low walk rate.  Only CBS Sportsline projects a full season of pitching, giving him 33 starts, and 200 innings pitched.  The injury last season that cost him the last month and the entire playoffs is very rare, with only the similar injury to Brad Penny the week before as a precedent.  Reports out of spring training so far are positive, and the low workload last season may have reduced the stress on his rehabbed arm. 

Baseball Prospectus fantasy predictions and PECOTA are the most negative, looking for Carp to give back not only all of the improvement that he made last season over 2001, but to actually be worse than in his final full season with the Blue Jays.  Since a 2001 AL team scored 0.24 runs per game more than the average 2004 NL team, both predictions would be an ERA of about 4.15-4.19 if he was still with the Jays without park adjustment, or benefit of pitching in front of a better defense.  It’s not clear if the BP fantasy projections are based on PECOTA, but it