Bing Devine Sighting

Bing Devine showed up for an interview at Viva El Birdos.

Among other things, they discuss Beane Ball a.k.a. Moneyball, which in my humble opinion is nothing more than Branch Rickey Ball. They also discuss Walt Jocketty, and Devine makes it pretty clear there's more to GM-ing than simple talent evaluation.

Back In The Saddle

I've been wandering around the South, watching guys like Felix Pie, Delmon Young, Joel Guzman and Bobby Jenks (who struck out Pie in the 12th with the bases loaded). While I did my best to keep up with the Cards, SportsCenter doesn't cut it like it used to, so I had to check the stats pages when I got back home. Did you know that Edmonds passed Pujols in OPS with his recent Kannon Kile-induced binge? Here's a look through yesterday's game:

I was also a little surprised to see how much Taguchi has tailed off the last few weeks and I'm still wondering what it will take for Cedeño to get released.

(And as soon as I post this, Cedeño turns a flyout into a three-base error.)

The Matheny Line

Yadier Molina started the year 1 for 31. Then on Mother's Day, just when he was poised to break the Mendoza Line, Yadier had to go and sprain his ankle. Well, maybe he just needed 31 at-bats to figure it out because since he got his second hit of the season, young Yady has batted .320. After a 4 for 4 performance Wednesday night against the Pirates, Mr. Molina broke the Matheny Line (currently .251). Add in the fact that Yady has thrown out 69% of the runners trying to steal on him and I think it's safe to say that Yadier Molina is en fuego.

GWRBI

They say that the Game Winning Run Batted In is a pointless stat, but tonight's game proves that there are instances in which it can be very important. Yadier Molina got off to a rough start on the season to say the least, and although he's already shown significant improvement, driving in Sanders from 2nd in the 12th after having been 0-5 on the night is a big deal for him. Seeing that ball squeak into LF and Sanders rounding third promted me to make a victorious fist pump in the air, but seeing the team rush the field and crowd around Molina at 1st put a huge smile on my face.

In general, you could say the Cardinals struggled tonight, getting outhit 11-6 as Marquis struggled to get in 5 innings on 112 pitches, and Wells held the Cards to 4 hits in 7.1 innings, but there were a handful of bright spots as well. For one, Molina had already put on a show defensively prior to his GWRBI by throwing out 3 baserunners, including the final outs in both the 7th and 11th innings. Also, the Cards bullpen combined to pitch 7 innings and only allowed 4 hits and 1 walk while striking out 3. Tavarez and Reyes both brought their ERAs down below the 3.00 mark, and Thompson brought his below 1.00. On top of all that, Izzy didn't even pitch, so he's available tomorrow night while the Cards go for thier 5th sweep of the season and their 13th straight win over the Pirates.

Goin' to Kansas City

Ok, so I already went to Kansas City over the weekend, but the whole way there I could barely get that Fats Domino tune out of my head.

My uncle and I made the road trip from St. Louis on Saturday afternoon. We saw a dozen or so other Cards fans making the trip along the way, so we were pretty sure we'd see a handful of Cards fans in the stadium. Talk about an understatement. There were probably close to 60% Cards fans amongst a near-capacity crowd at Kauffman, which we could tell was not the norm there. The Royals fan that gave us the tickets and went with us to the game was complaining about the traffic and the parking on the way there, which only made me smile because I knew it meant Cards fans were coming out in full force. The home-away-from-home-field advantage paid off on Saturday night as the Cards managed a 6-5 win, in part due to a horrendous play by former Cardinal farmhand Emil Brown in the 5th which essentially allowed Larry Walker to get an inside the park homerun, although of course it was ruled a double. Then of course Larry got a real homer in the 7th, this time with 2 on, to cap the Cards offense for the night. All the while, the Royals showed highlights of the 1985 World Series, as this year marks the 20th anniversary of the only World Championship in Royals history. Note to Brewers fans: This year also marks the 20th anniversay of the last time your team played in October.

Continuing to rub it in to all the visiting Cards fans, Sunday was '85 World Series "Retro" Pennant Day. Apparently Eckstein was particularly distracted by them, as he booted 2 balls in the first, leading to 6 unearned runs, and another in the 2nd inning. The Royals went on to a 9-2 victory, ending a 7 game losing streak agains the Cards.

As for the stadium, I actually liked Kauffman quite a bit. They had a nice statue of George Brett outside that perhaps looks even nicer than the Musial statue we all meet at before games on a regular basis. Maybe it was just that it was actually close enough to the ground that you can see it up close, or even get a picture taken *with* it, instead of under it.

One thing I couldn't help but wonder was, "Where do all the homerun balls go?"

Finally, while perusing a program during the Sunday game, I came across a poll that asked fans what their favorite part of the stadium was, and the most popular response by a landslide was the fountains.

Sure the fountains are nice, but I can see a nice fountain for free at Forest Park. I pay money to go to Busch so I can see a good team play baseball.

Link-O-Rama

I took a couple days (weeks?) off from baseball so I havn't really been paying attention. So when I went through my aggregator today to find out what's been happening I found a few things of interest:

1. Cardnilly has moved here (cardinally.com).
2. Fungoes compares three Cardinal managers, while Tony has a better winning percentage he does trail in the all important "World Series Rings" category.
3. Dave Pinto notes that the Cards are scoring more runs since Rolen went down even though they have been hitting worse. As Dave says: It's an example of a good team getting the lucky breaks.

my sl1d3r pwnz j00

ESPN has a new fantasy baseball MMOG going into beta. Think World of Warcraft only baseball. Each player picks a position and builds their character up in the standard obsessive compulsive way.

3 Nights in the Theater

According to the Post-Dispatch, Kevin Pollack wants to turn Buzz Bissinger's "3 Nights in August" into a movie.

Actor Kevin Pollak came by Busch Stadium on Monday to meet La Russa - through a mutual friend - and discuss a little business. Pollak, through his production company Calm Down Productions, Inc., is interested in turning the book, "3 Nights in August," into a movie.

Brian Gunn, it's time to update "Redbirds: The Movie".

Freaky Moneyball

Steve Levitt of freakanomics fame goes after the A's on his blog. And after the first round he comes back again.

Here's the snapshot:

It seems like just about everyone thinks Billy Beane is a genius, thanks to the Michael Lewis book Moneyball, which details the way in which hisOakland A's use statistics in innovative ways to choose talent and win games.

Levitt goes on to say that the A's didn't win because of their genius at attracting offensive players, but because they had the best pitching.

So what does Billy Beane do in the off season? He deals two of his top starters to other teams. And after four years of averaging 97 games a year, the gambling markets at www.tradesports.com project the A's to win 83 games this year. If there were markets for multiple years in the future, my guess is that Oakland is not expected to be a good team again for the forseeable future. So I guess not everyone is in the cult of Moneyball after all.

The furor over moneyball and becoming more stats oriented (what happened to the Cardinals efforts in this arena? I notice they let their DB genius go and I havn't heard anything from the front office in a while) seems to have peaked. And now with a couple of years time to evaluate Beane, as the players he brought into the organization begin to eclipse those who were there when he started, it's time to start asking: Is Beane a genuis? Or did he just have a good run?

Phanatics

Philadelphia sports fans are notorious for booing -- Scott Rolen and former Card J.D. Drew can certainly attest to that. Drew even had a battery launched his way during an ugly evening at the Vet. But Santa Claus? Yes, even Kris Kringle felt the wrath of Philly sports fans during halftime of an Eagles game in 1968. With the Phillies in last place coming into their series with the Cards, I fully expected to hear plenty of that at Citizens Bank Park last week. And, sure enough...

...well, when your team makes five errors, you have an excuse to boo a little bit. Of course, the Phillies did win that game on Tuesday night, thanks to a) a very costly error by David Eckstein, the only Cardinal error of the night, and b) the Cardinal bats not taking advantage of those free baserunners as well as they should have. The Cards played a terrible series overall, actually, losing two games pretty handily and turning the one they did win on Wednesday from an 8-0 rout into a nailbiter with the tying run at the plate in the 9th inning. Thursday afternoon's game... well, here's the K/BB ratios for each team: Cards 3/10, Phillies 12/0. Yeah.

The most amazing part of this series, though, is that the Phillies won it sans Cardinal-killer Jim Thome. Thome's numbers against the Cards are ridiculous: a 1.530 OPS since '02, with 8 HR in 42 at bats -- easily the highest rate of any team he's had that many at bats against. Fortunately for the Cards, he was on the DL with a bad back during the series (and returned with a 1-for-4 night in Baltimore on Saturday). Perhaps with Thome playing, the Cards would've been swept.

I'll admit I was a little disappointed in Citizens Bank Park -- which was probably based entirely on my expectations for it being so high. Yeah, it was nice and new, but it certainly had its flaws. I didn't like the fact that it was built in the middle of apparently what used to be a parking lot for Veterans Stadium, the Spectrum, and newer facilities in the giant sports complex in south Philadelphia. You can see downtown Philly off in the distance from the upper deck, but the fact that all you can see immediately beyond Ashburn Alley in center field is a whole bunch of parking certainly detracts from the aesthetics of the ballpark. I discussed the ballpark's location with an usher on Wednesday night, and wondered aloud why the ballpark wasn't built downtown. His response was that nobody goes there, so why build it? (Umm... ever heard of revitalization efforts for inner-city areas spearheaded by new ballparks, i.e. Baltimore, Seattle, Cleveland?) My guess is that the land was there on the south side of town, and every other pro sports facility in the area was there, so why not build it there? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Ashburn Alley itself is a shopping/fan congregation area beyond the quirky brick facade in center field; I've heard it compared to Eutaw Street in Baltimore. Having seen each of those many times this season, however, I've gotta disagree -- Eutaw, the area directly in front of the big old warehouse at Camden Yards, is actually part of an old city street -- you can see up it north of the ballpark if you're looking. Ashburn Alley is obviously artificial, because of where the ballpark is, so it loses a bit of its luster.

Now to the good part: The Philly Phanatic. The Phanatic, along with the San Diego Chicken and Fredbird, are probably the most recognizeable mascots in all of baseball, if not all of sports. The stuff the Phanatic does is classic -- not just for kids, but for everybody. Take a look:

I've not seen many other baseball mascots who are so visible all throughout the game, especially around the other team. Other Cards outside of the picture to the left were getting a pretty good chuckle out of this, in addition to the fans.

Those fans themselves were also rather unique -- a large section in the right field upper deck did Eagles chants the whole game Tuesday. I figured that was just a group of drunks, but I heard people doing it again on Wednesday and Thursday, and even on Saturday in Baltimore! I'm hoping those people at least realize they were at a baseball game. As for the booing, Mike Lieberthal and David Bell were the two biggest targets, although Bell did have a few fans Thursday afternoon:

Those guys got kicked out in about the sixth inning (a bit unfairly, I might add, since they weren't exactly doing anything wrong by cheering on Bell). I bet they missed the days of the Vet, as did I, even though I never actually saw it -- I think its blue-collar aura represented Philadelphia fans better than this shiny new ballpark in an odd setting.

40 Games In -- Who's Hot and Who's Not?

On Pace For: 101-61
Magic Number: 117

It doesn't feel like it, but we're a quarter of the way through the 2005 season. Memorial Day's around the corner, which means interleague play is beginning. Aside from the ugly memories, that's beneficial for the Cardinals, since our designated rivals have one of the worst teams in baseball, while the Cubs and Brewers aren't so fortunate.

The Cardinals have taken over the league lead for runs scored, so there's plenty of good news to report on that side. The pitching has been blah, or worse, across the board however. Time to get my hands dirty.

WHO'S HOT?

Mark Grudzielanek has been en fuego. You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him. He must be butter, because he's on a roll... No, I don't miss ESPN. I have Grudzielanek at 386/429/629 over the last 20 games, and note that doesn't include the cycle game. He doesn't walk a lot, but he's playing good defense and is 4th in the league in batting average, so I'm not complaining. So far this is the best free agent pickup in baseball, although Tino Martinez (talk about your bad memories) isn't far behind.

John Mabry has hit 371/476/629 over the last 20 games, including the capper against Danny Graves in the Comeback Game, and Abraham Nuñez has hit 317/391/561. It's only a 76 at-bat sample size, but they picked a good time to get hot.

Jason Isringhausen, Julian Tavarez, Ray King, Al Reyes, Randy Flores and Brad Thompson look to be the real bullpen. Over the last 20 games they've pitched 39 innings, given up 13 runs, 12 earned, for an ERA of 2.77 with 35 hits allowed. The 28/14 K/BB is mediocre and King is struggling a bit, apparently due to some sort of injury. OK, that's nothing special, but I wanted to separate them from the Journell-Cali-Jarvis nastiness. Tavarez in particular has been strong after a rough start. While Gabe White has had problems with the home run in recent years, he is a nice gamble for the final spot.

WHO'S NOT

Scott Rolen got hurt running into the Great Wall of Korea. One week down, four to go. Scott Seabol in a limited sample has looked overmatched, his one hit a medium-hard groundball off the pitcher.

David Eckstein has hit 353/398/459 over the last 20 games, but he's in danger of becoming a 5'6" Jack Cust. While his arm has been surprisingly adequate, he's shown minimal range. Watching baseball games on TV, there's an instant between when the ball's struck and the camera angle is switched where you can guess "Hit", "Out" or "50/50". Albert Pujols's homer on Wednesday, for example, was obviously a hit, the only question being whether the ball would go over the wall or through it. Anyway, I've watched about 2/3 of the Cardinals' action in 2005 and I can't remember Eckstein turning any "Hit" or "50/50" ball into an out. Not one. That's thoroughly un-rigorous, I know, so I'm open to alternate views, but what seemed in January like a questionable fit for a groundball staff now looks even worse. I checked what numbers I could, and while Zone Rating leaves something to be desired, it does confirm my suspicions that Eckstein's near the bottom of the league defensively.

Jim Journell, Carmen Cali and Kevin Jarvis... let's just pretend that didn't happen. Journell had a Journell-like game on Tuesday for Memphis: He wild-pitched the tying run in the 8th, gave up a couple of singles to start the 9th, then struck out two batters and induced a popout. The Cardinals could use an affiliate in the California Penal League.

DOWN ON THE FARM

Anthony Reyes tossed a one-hitter in Portland last night. Reyes's ERA is down to 2.44 and his K/BB is up to 48/9. Kerry Robinson led off for Portland and Ben Johnson -- that Ben Johnson -- hit third. Rick Ankiel continues to miss time due to injuries. If he's still around a year from now, then I think we can assume he's serious about this outfield thing. And since I brought up Tino, Evan Rust was just demoted to AA after allowing more walks than strikeouts at AAA.

Old News

Another post I meant to make about a week ago is this one, a link to an article in the Belleville News-Democrat. It talks about some of the amazing things we've already seen in first month or so of Busch II's final year.

Waiting in the Wings

I think I originally went to the Memphis Redbirds stat page to see how Scott Seabol was doing when Rolen went down (so for thos of you that know your calendars, that means I've been putting this post off for a while), but what I found was a little unexpected. Check out what Adam Wainwright and Anthony Reyes have been up to at the AAA level:

Name          W L  ERA GS CG   IP  H  R ER HR BB SO
A Wainwright  4 1 1.82  8  0 54.1 49 12 11  2  6 45
A Reyes       4 1 2.91  7  1 46.1 34 16 15  5  9 42

Those numbers look great, especially the K/BB ratios. But the most interesting thing that comes to mind when I look at those stats is that considering Matty Mo is the only starter not signed through '06, I have a feeling he's going to be leaving via free agency this off-season. Or perhaps, one of our current starters could become trade bait to bring in a young OF to replace either Walker or Sanders, both of whom have contracts ending this year.

The Gabe White era begins

Gabe White goes 2 innings and gives up zero runs and 1 hit on no walks and no ks but thats not really the pitching performance that draws your eye in this box score.

Jeff Suppan got the first two batters he faced and then gave up two home runs. Then he gave up a single before David Bell flied out. Then in the second St. Louis native Ryan Howard (.214/.267/.393) hit his first home run of the year to lead off the inning.

Then Mike Lieberthal singled. Then Cory Lidle (the pitcher) singled. And on and on, 7 straight Phillies reached base until 5 runs later Suppan finally got them 1-2-3. Suppan finally got chased in the fourth by a leadoff Endy Chavez single. All in all thats 7 runs in 3 innings. The immediet instinct is to say "Just a rough game, no worries". But I'm already not worrying about Scott Rolens absence so I need some reassurance. The game log has something interesting.

Suppans worst start of the year (before today)? April 9th against the Phillies where he went 4 innings, gave up 2 home runs, and generally sucked (5 earned runs). In fact throw out the two Phillies starts and Suppans got a 3.12 ERA (As opposed to his current 4.76). He's only given up 1 home run to a team that wasn't the Phillies (and 5 to the Phils).

So maybe Soups got some tell the Phillies know about, maybe he's unlucky. But his last 3 starts have ranged from meh (5.2 innings 3 earned runs) to good (7 innings 2 earned runs) and theres nothing there that points to a pending collapse. It's not a scientific study but I'll buy that he just had an off night.

Viva El Birdos

Curveblog has moved and changed its name: It is now Viva El Birdos and as part of the move joined some sort of sinister super blog collective bent on taking over the world. Luckily any plan to take over the world based on sports blogging is doomed to under achievement. So we can enjoy the blogging without feeling unpatriotic.

El Birdos now uses the Scoop engine, orginally written by Rusty for k5. It's a blogging software not really designed for bloggers. It's designed to build a community, so each member of the community can post comments, and post articles to their 'diary' which can then be commented on just like a regular story. In fact if the author is feeling lazy he can promote a diary entry up to the front page where everybody can see it. But the ability for anyone to write diary entries and have them discussed by the community at large makes scoop an ideal platform to create a community around. As much as it pains me to tell you all you should invest some time in another Cardinals blog, you should definitly try it out. But please come back.

Trivia: When we were setting up what is now the birdwatch we came very close to calling it "el birdos" but changed our mind and ended up with the birdwatch instead.

Shea It Ain't So... Bad?

Pond scum. That's what most older Cards fans think of when they think of the Mets. Strawberry, Gooden, Dykstra, Knight, HoJo, etc. Like I said, pond scum. Unfortunately, realignment caused the intense rivalry between teams the that won the NL East for four consecutive years in the late '80s to fade. There was a brief resurgence during the 2000 NLCS, but ever since, Mets fans have begun to develop rivalries with divisional foes Atlanta and Philadelphia and seem to have backed off the Cardinal-hating bandwagon. Had I been wearing Cardinals gear at Shea in, say, September 1987, I might've been fearing for my life. Instead, I wound up meeting a lot of pretty indifferent Mets fans (the few that were there) -- and plenty of other Cardinals fans -- at Shea last weekend. Read on to find out what your intrepid TBW.com East Coast correspondent found out about the first leg of this road trip.

As far as Shea goes, I'm not sure I agree with Brad Thompson's thoughts on the place -- yes, it's old, but it was in a lot better condition than I expected. The restrooms and concourses appeared to have been recently renovated (complete with HDTVs on the loge and field level concourses), and some serious money was recently invested on the JumboTron and other color-screen scoreboards around the perimeter of the ballpark itself. The only negatives I saw were a) the aircraft overhead, which can't exactly be fixed without moving the stadium or closing the airport, and b) the seats, which were old, cramped, uncomfortable, and in some cases, unusable. It also was a bit odd that to get from, say, the upper deck level to the loge level, you had to go all the way down to the bottom level (one below field level) to go back up. I suppose I see the reasoning behind the deisgn, as the stadia authority wanted fans to stay where their tickets were, but it does make for some confusion if you go to the wrong place.

I met a gentleman at the game Friday night who pretty much made the whole weekend for me. This guy was a lifelong New Yorker, and a longtime Mets season ticket holder -- but a Cardinals fan. Go figure. He explained to me that he was a Yankees fan as a kid, but when they lost the '64 Series to the Cardinals (and subsequently fell into the second division of the AL), he decided that he liked the Cards better. So from then on, he followed them from New York religiously -- through box scores, mostly, except the few occasions every season when they came to town. His wife got him World Series tickets in 1987 as a birthday present, so he flew to St. Louis to see them beat the Twins in one of the games. Thanks to the unbalanced divisional schedules, he only gets to see them once a year these days, but still loves every minute.

There were also several Cards fans in for the weekend -- among them, I talked to a few local SLU alumni having some sort of get-together, two college students from St. Louis who flew up for the games, and a native St. Louisan who lived in Montana that happened to be in town on business, and decided to stay for the weekend when he found out the Cards were there. We didn't have much to cheer about on Friday, but those that showed up on Saturday and Sunday were loud -- especially after finding out Sunday that Izzy is healthy enough to pitch back-to-back days after coming off the DL.

The Cards head to Philadelphia next, starting tomorrow night. Citizens Bank Park appears (from the outside, anyway) to have some serious "bling bling", as the kids call it these days. I'll let you know how it stacks up on Friday.

In Every Game

This team bears a strong resemblance to last year's version in many respects, especially the way they're "in" every single game.

Do you know why the Birds' 8-3 loss to the Padres on May 5 was significant? Because it's their only loss in the past seven weeks by more than two runs, going back to the opening weekend against the Phillies. And the Cardinals haven't lost a road game by more than two runs all year.

The Birds have a decent, but not great record in one- and two-run games (12-9), and the only two teams who've played more such games both do have great records in these contests---White Sox (19-7), and Arizona (15-9). It's the games in which one team takes over where the Birds shine: they are 12-4 in games with a 3-run margin or greater, the best record in baseball in these games (tied with Atlanta's 15-5). Amazingly, three of those four "blowout" losses came in the team's first five games.

If you look at the teams with great records in one-run games, you get a mix of quality: there's the White Sox (14-4) but also Tampa Bay (6-3), the Padres (11-3) but also the Giants (7-4, but under .500 overall).

But every team with a great record in games decided by three or more runs appears to be a strong team in 2005: The Cardinals, Braves, Florida (14-6), the Sox, both White (8-4) and Red (13-8), and Baltimore (19-7).

Mets Series Wrap-Up

On Saturday when Brad Thompson got thrown into the fire, Al Hrabosky pointed out that this was Thompson's first road game in the majors. He added that it's particularly tough to have your first road game in New York, but I suspect Thompson looked around Shea Stadium and thought to himself "Gee, what a dump. This is New York? I pitched in a nicer park in Memphis. Heck, I pitched in a nicer park in Sevierville, Tennessee." And so Thompson overcame what should've been scored as two errors from Albert Pujols and a target-less throw from So Taguchi to keep the Cardinals close. That's my main impression from this series, that it's unbelievable the New York Mets play in a run-down park with all the charm, grace and PA music of a forty year-old sewage treatment facility.

Jason Marquis and Matt Morris pitched well for the Cardinals, but unfortunately for Marquis he was up against a future Hall of Famer who forgot that he's supposed to be washed-up. While Morris had a little stretch in the 6th where he forgot how to throw strikes, overall he had a solid, groundball-happy performance and, unless La Russa and Duncan were asleep Sunday, evidently Morris can go 100 pitches. In my misspent youth Tommy John was the gold standard for groundball pitchers, and his gold standard was 20 groundball outs. With such a groundball-heavy staff that might happen once or twice this season, although hitters aim for the fences and strikeout a lot more than they did thirty years ago.

Mark Mulder struggled on Saturday, and I have to wonder if one of the other things pitch counts hath wrought is managers leaving their starter in the game until he gets 100 or so pitches. When you're getting the Eckstein treatment from career .214 hitter Ramon Castro in the 6th, warning bells should be ringing. They didn't ring loud enough though, or maybe the Shea synthesizers drowned the alarms out, as Kaz Matsui chased Mulder with a bases-clearing triple. Mulder will rebound, Morris will regress, and hopefully we'll end up with a three-way competition among 1A starters for Game 1 honors.

John Mabry had a home run swing (and miss) on the pitch before the home run. Maybe La Russa has another chapter for the sequel to "August Nights", because Mabry isn't swinging the bat like a guy with a career .414 slugging percentage. Don't get me wrong, Mabry (and Abraham Nunez) will not end the season with a 1000 OPS, but I like the confidence. With their hot streaks, La Russa was liable to do weird stuff with Mabry and Nunez, so some of the impact of Scott Rolen's injury would've been felt anyway.

Mark Grudzielanek stole second today when the Mets pitched out on yet another Yadier attempt to bunt. Even if you didn't see it, your first thought is probably "Ugh, Piazza", and you'd be right, as Piazza threw a two-hopper to second on said pitchout. While the Cardinals aren't a base stealing team -- presently only the Brewers, Red Sox and A's have fewer stolen bases -- I think they made a tactical mistake by not stealing on Friday and Sunday. Piazza really is that bad, having thrown out only 4 of 32 this year. I don't know if the Mets can leave him back there if he's going to hover around the Mendoza line as a hitter, but if they do, he's too easy to exploit.

Last but not least, it pains me to look at the lineup and see Pujols and Rolen missing, even though Pujols looked like he could use a day off. To make matters worse, Edmonds left the game early with a foot problem that seemed to go back to his slide into third on Saturday. The Cardinals have their first off-day in three weeks, and it couldn't come sooner.

Jocketty Traded For the Wrong Guy!

So which of the starters traded from last year's A's rotation has the lowest ERA so far? You may have heard Mulder's ERA ballooned to 3.44 after he struggled against the Mets. Hudson's ERA will be 3.40 before his start on Sunday... and after his complete game shutout of the Brewers, Mark Redman's sitting at 2.44. While Redman won't keep that up, the A's could use him as four of their starters now have ERAs over 5.00 and the other starter caught that oblique muscle thing that's been going around. Meanwhile Jason Kendall has a 584 OPS, doing his share to keep the A's dead last in the majors in scoring.

Watch what you're doing when you deal with David Littlefield. He's sneaky smart.

These Little Town Blues

As the Cards finish up in New York, New York this afternoon, I thought you might enjoy some of the Big Apple's finest songwriting, courtesy of the Songs of Baseball. Check out Wake Up Little Redbirds which was penned after the Cards were down 3-0 in the WS to the Red Sox. Unfortunately you'll have to do the singing, as the music is just provided for accompaniment. Or try on your best Homer Simpson voice and let's all sing along to Fernando, "the ballad of a Dominican batter and a Korean pitcher." Oh, and until the Redbirds finally return home after 9 games on the road, we'll have to wait to hear Izzy step on the mound at Busch to Free by Vast. But here's the current list of at-bat/pitcher songs to get you pysched for a week against the Pirates and Nationals. David Eckstein -- "Number One Spot" by Ludacris Larry Walker -- "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Albert Pujols -- "Different Now" by Out of Eden Scott Rolen -- "Rollin'" by Limp Bizkit Jim Edmonds -- "Errtime" by Nelly Reggie Sanders -- "Awesome Wonder" by Kurt Carr Mark Grudzeilanek -- "Lonely" by Rob Thomas Yadier Molina -- "Gasolina" by Daddy Yankee Matt Morris -- "Joker" by Steve Miller Band Jason Isringhausen -- "Free" by Vast

Bitchin' Camaro

According to ESPN Magazine's May 23 issue, Jason Isringhausen's fly ride is a 1968 Camaro packed with a 383 Crate engine with 425 hp and a 200-hp nitrous system. Jeez... talk about fast and furious. Pictured with 2-yr old daughter Madolyn, Izzy is also re-building a 1949 Mercury ala Rebel Without A Cause. I'm wondering what tune-age he cranks up when he's going 120 on a back country two lane blacktop... Probably his closer song Free by Vast, but for some reason anything by George Thorogood sounds good. After tonight, it looks like Izzy's restful time on the DL allowed him to bring it home. Maybe not as fast as his ride, but he brought it home nonetheless.. [Photo courtesy of ESPN Magazine]

Young Catchers

There are many stat-based methods to projecting a baseball team's season. One of the most basic ways is to look at the previous season position-by-position and ask how much gain or loss we can expect in the current season. For example, we might say that with Yadier Molina doing most of the catching in 2005 we will see a small downgrade defensively from Mike Matheny but a similarly sized upgrade offensively. Then we would move to the critical questions like Eckstein 2005 versus Renteria 2004 or Mulder versus Williams.

But if you've ever made the mistake of listening to talk radio or reading Buster Olney, then you've been informed there's more to it than VORP or ZiPS or whatever. In this case there was some concern that starting a young catcher like Yadier Molina -- he only turned 22 last July -- will blow-up in the Cardinals' faces in some way that PECOTA can't pick up. I'm not a former major league pitcher or catcher, so obviously I can't address that issue directly, but I can look at what's happened to other teams when they've gone with a young catcher. Now that Molina's crossed the Mendoza line, let's look at the "intangible" issue.

I started running queries on the Lahman database. In particular I looked at catcher-seasons that met the following criteria:

(1) The catcher's baseball age was under 25 for the season (1900 or later).
(2) The catcher caught at least 100 games for one team that season.
(3) The catcher hadn't played 100 major league games prior to that season.
(4) The year before his arrival the catcher's team had a winning record.

I bent condition #2 for one player (AFLAC Trivia Question: Who is that player?). Condition #3 filters out a number of good, young catchers, such as Yogi Berra in 1949 (the Yankees broke him in with a lot of games in the outfield). The point of the Condition #4 is to capture the successful Team Chemistry that's at risk when a new catcher comes in.

There are 28 catchers who've met this criteria. Here were their teams' respective records and ERAs:

Catcher     Team         Before       After   
Dickey      1929-NYA  101-53 3.74   88-66 4.19
Schang      1914-PHA   96-57 3.19   99-53 2.78
Edwards     1947-BRO   96-60 3.05   94-60 3.82
Allenson    1979-BOS   99-64 3.54   91-69 4.03
Edwards     1962-CIN   93-61 3.78   98-64 3.75
Hogan       1928-NY1   92-62 3.97   93-61 3.67
Gooch       1922-PIT   90-63 3.17   85-69 3.98
Etchebarren 1966-BAL   94-68 2.98   97-63 3.32
Lamanno     1942-CIN   88-66 3.17   76-76 2.82
Torre       1961-ML1   88-66 3.76   83-71 3.89
May         1967-PIT   92-70 3.52   81-81 3.74
White       1952-BOS   87-67 4.14   76-78 3.80
Nahorodny   1978-CHA   90-72 4.25   71-90 4.21
Rader       1972-SFN   90-72 3.32   69-86 3.69
Scioscia    1981-LAN   90-73 3.25   63-47 3.01
Bench       1968-CIN   87-75 3.05   83-79 3.56
Hernandez   2000-OAK   87-75 4.69   91-70 4.58
Nokes       1987-DET   87-75 4.02   98-64 4.02
Parrish     1979-DET   86-76 3.64   85-76 4.27
Zeile       1990-SLN   86-76 3.36   70-92 3.87
Owen        1938-SLN   81-73 3.98   71-80 3.84
Bailey      1984-HOU   85-77 3.45   80-82 3.32
Fisk        1972-BOS   85-77 3.80   85-70 3.47
Rodriguez   1992-TEX   85-77 4.47   77-85 4.09
Ferrell     1930-SLA   79-73 4.08   64-90 5.07
McCarver    1963-SLN   84-78 3.55   93-69 3.32
Biggio      1989-HOU   82-80 3.41   86-76 3.64
Schalk      1913-CHA   78-76 3.06   78-74 2.33
Sample Average         89-70 3.62   83-73 3.71
All Winning Teams      88-67 3.55   84-71 3.64

The answer to the AFLAC Trivia Question is Mike Scioscia, as he only played 93 games during the strike-shortened 1981 season. So the average team in my sample loses 4 or 5 games versus the prior year and sees its team ERA go up about a tenth of a run. Then again, as the bottom line indicates, the typical winning team on average drops about 4 games the next season and has its team ERA go up about a tenth of a run -- regression to mean in action. In aggregate nothing extraordinary happens to winning teams who take on inexperienced catchers. With that out of the way we can look at some individual cases.

Hall of Famer Bill Dickey is the obvious starting point as the '29 Yankees were the only team on the list coming off a 100-win season. The story for the '28 Yankees may sound familiar: Offensive juggernaut with three future Hall of Fame position players wins lots of games with decent, but unspectacular, pitching. The '28 Yankees got a big season from pitcher Herb Pennock and 570 innings from George Pipgras and Waite Hoyt but overall their staff was very mediocre (no offense to Pennock and Hoyt, but it's hard to see them making the Hall of Fame if Ruth and Gehrig hadn't been their teammates). The staff went MattyMo-2004 in 1929; just looking at their numbers, I'd guess Hoyt and Pennock were pitching with bum wings by the time Dickey arrived. The Base Ball Guide for 1930 seems to concur. That looks more like a medical problem than a chemistry issue, and as the Guide suggests, the Yankees declined in spite of Dickey, not because of him. The Guide also reminds us that the '29 Yankees had one other problem: The '29 Philadelphia Athletics with Al Simmons, Jimmy Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove.

Mike Scioscia and Andy Etchebarren are the "only" two catchers whose teams won the World Series. Scioscia's World Series is tainted a bit since the Dodgers might not have been there if Commissioner Bowie Kuhn hadn't been O'Malleys' lapdog -- I hope Cincinnati doesn't fly that banner any more -- plus Steve Yeager, the man Scioscia replaced at catcher, was still with the team. In fact Yeager was a co-MVP of the 1981 World Series. Etchebarren apparently wasn't supposed to be the starting catcher, but Dick Brown underwent brain surgery during spring training and never played again. One of the Orioles' other candidates for the catching job, Charlie Lau, evidently had elbow trouble. Of course the big move for the 1966 Orioles was acquiring Frank Robinson from the Reds, as the Reds GM Bill DeWitt -- the father of the current Cardinals owner -- proclaimed infamously that Robinson was "an old 30." I recall that Robinson had a great clubhouse rep, so a young catcher might not have the same leadership demands. Anyway the Official Baseball Guide states Etchebarren handled the catching duties "nobly" in 1966.

The worst decline happened with the 1971-72 Giants, who went south by about 17 games (1972 had its own labor problems) when Dave Rader took over for Dick Dietz. Interestingly the 1972 team was 10 games under its Pythagorean, so maybe you can blame the lack of Veteran Leadership, but what happened with the three Hall of Famers on the '71 Giants is much more striking. Gaylord Perry was traded to Cleveland for Sam McDowell. Perry threw almost 350 innings of sub-2.00 ERA ball, winning the AL Cy Young in 1972, while Sam McDowell was a merely nice pitcher. Juan Marichal had a nice season in 1971, but he was running out of gas and the engine stalled a bit in 1972. Finally Willie McCovey hit .213 during an in injury-plagued 1972 season.

Another big decline happened with the 1929-1930 St. Louis Browns, who went from Wally Schang (also on the list) to future Hall of Famer Rick Ferrell. The Browns gave up 173 more runs in 1930 than in 1929, although it's a pain to figure out how much of that can be attributed to bad pitching and how much of it was the league-wide offensive explosion in 1930 (and, gee, those old-time teams gave up a lot of unearned runs). Sorting through the stats isn't nearly as much fun as looking at the names on those rosters: Goose Goslin, Lu Blue, Ski Melillo, Red Kress, Red Badgro, Heinie Manush, Lefty Stewart, Rip Collins and Dolly Gray (whose ERA went from 3.72 in 1929 to 6.28 in 1930, and since he lost about half his innings pitched, I'm guessing he was hurt too).

Two last names of interest on the young catcher list are Tim McCarver and Todd Zeile. McCarver and Zeile form a useful juxtaposition, one a foundation block of the El Birdos teams and the other the good ballplayer/over-hyped savior at the tail-end of Whiteyball. On one hand you have Halberstam's melting pot, and on the other Herzog's meltdown. Maybe Tony Pena could've prevented some of the alleged clubhouse problems in 1990, but the bigger point to be taken is that intangibles are more a function of the team around the player than of the player's age.

Catching Up With The Transactions

Josh specifically discussed Rolen's trip to the DL, but there's been enough roster shuffling to merit a general post I think. So here we go:

Move #1 of course is Scott Rolen, who finished 4th in MVP voting in 2004, to the 15-day DL. The comments to Josh's post pointed out an AP article in which La Russa indicated an initial desire to play a man short for a week or so. I don't understand that thinking, as the Cardinals have made it perfectly clear since the Mulder trade and with the continued light handling of Sanders and Walker that they're strategizing with October in mind. Let Rolen go to the DL and give him more than adequate time to heal. It's problematic on a more immediate basis, since you can end up with Jason Marquis pinch hitting in a close game (and it would've been close if Hee Seo Choi hadn't had lead feet while fielding his position). OK, that's academic now, and it may have been worth it to see an obviously pumped Marquis pinch hit.

Move #1A is Scott Seabol was recalled from Memphis to replace Rolen. Recalled? Well, that's the term for it, although Seabol turns 30 next week and his major league career consists of one at-bat in 2001. This year Seabol was mashing the ball at Memphis to the tune of 325/374/658 and after Wednesday's game Seabol had an 18-game hitting streak. Last year he hit 304/356/539 at Memphis, so his 2005 isn't out of nowhere. It's hard to complain about a 3B following a 900-OPS season with a 1000-OPS month, but that low walk rate suggests major league pitchers could throw Seabol junk and get him out with it. Most likely he's Craig Paquette with a tad more pop, which isn't great, but mix-and-match with Mabry and you have a decent insurance policy.

At the risk of sounding like Jon Miller, apparently Seabol's name is pronounced Sea-bull.

Move #2 was Yadier Molina NOT getting sent to the DL with an ankle problem and Mike Mahoney getting called up to back up Einar Diaz. Bill Pulsipher was outrighted to Memphis, where he probably should've started the season, to make room for Mahoney. See short-roster comments in the Rolen paragraph, although Yadier's injury wasn't as severe. Evidently the Cardinals are satisfied with Yadier's progress since...

Move #3 was Jason Isringhausen returning from the DL after today's game with Mahoney getting optioned back to Memphis. Mahoney caught the 9th today so his Baseball-Reference page will look a little sharper. If the Cardinals win the World Series this year, maybe the search engines will bump him up to a $10 page. Isringhausen was interviewed during one of the games in Cincinnati and stated he wouldn't go on a rehab assignment unless the Cardinals pressed the matter. Could someone pass along this boxscore to Izzy?

Move #4 hasn't happened yet, but the Cardinals are expected to replace Kevin Jarvis with Gabe White. Gabe White evokes memories of Billy Wagner for me; unfortunately it's the Billy Wagner that got the tar beaten out of him when he pitched hurt in 2000. Mike Lincoln's still a way's off and both Cali and Journell are still struggling with command at Memphis, so the revolving door could continue for the back end of the bullpen.

Present starters: Mulder, Carp, Marquis, Morris, Suppan
Present bullpen: Isringhausen, Tavarez, King, Reyes, Flores, Thompson, White

There's been much commotion about the Cardinals bullpen struggling since Isringhausen's been out, but a look at the stats tells me that a lot of that inflated aggregate bullpen ERA that Charley Steiner kept quoting is the work of four pitchers who aren't with the club. The front four are good and Flores looks mediocre, maybe slightly worse. Although Brad Thompson hung a breaking pitch to Repko, which Repko was nice enough to maul well foul, Thompson looked solid again today, working fast and throwing strikes consistently. When your #5 starter can do what Suppan just did to the Dodgers -- who went into Wednesday's game leading the league in runs scored -- then you probably don't need six good relievers, but that's possibly what the Cardinals have.

Move #5 is that Roger Cedeno has NOT been released. I could come up with my list doo-dad, but somebody with the Cards needs to get the story to the Post-Dispatch or Peter Gammons or whomever on why Cedeno's still around. While I'm sure there's a reason, it's a question on the minds of too many fans to go unanswered.

This leaves the following active starters: Molina, Pujols, Grudzielanek, Mabry/Seabol, OBP-Machine, Sanders, Edmonds, Walker
And active benchers: Diaz, Seabol/Mabry, Nunez, Taguchi, Cedeno

Rolen

I figured if I ignored it long enough someone else would do the grisley duty of commenting on the loss of Scott Rolen for 15 days. But since no one else is going to mention it I'll give it the most passing treament I can muster.

Scott Rolen ran into Hee-Seo Choi. Note to Scott:

We love the hard nosed, head down style of play. But maybe you could keep your head up while running the bases and stop running into people?

Thanks,

Cardinals Fans

The Cardinals have a 4 game lead on Milwaukee, and the with the rest of the central threatening like a Home Alone villian this isn't really that big of a deal. It does however remind us of the Cardinals frailty and that makes it an unpleasant enough event that I really don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about it.

Happy Birthday!

My fellow St. Louis native Lawrence Peter Berra turns 80 today.

Name doesn't ring a bell? You know him better as "Yogi".

Cardinals fans like to give well deserved crap to Cubs fans for the famous trade that sent Ernie Broglio, Bobby Shantz, and Doug Clemens to the Cubs in return for one Lou Brock (actually, the Cards also got Jack Spring and Paul Toth in that trade as well, but whenever you say "Jack Spring" or "Paul Toth" to any but the most obsessed of baseball fans, the most likely response is "who?"). However back in 1943 the Cardinals made offers to two amateur catchers, both of whom were native St. Louisans from the Italian enclave known and loved in St. Louis as "The Hill". The Cards offered one a signing bonus, while they offered the other one a straight contract with no signing bonus. The one who got the bonus was Joe Garagiola. Yogi, who was the one who didn't get a signing bonus, was so miffed by the Cardinals' snub that he signed with the New York Yankees. Now, one of those catchers is in the Hall of Fame, and the other one isn't. Hint: the Hall of Famer isn't Joe.

It's not one of the high points in the history of Cardinals player development.

Yogi is, of course, also known for his wonderful facility with the English language, which has resulted in some of the most memorable quotes known to baseball, or to collectors of quotations. The only trouble for the collector of "Yogiisms", as they are known, is that, as observed by The Master Himself:

I never said most of the things I said.

Basically, Yogi's way of expressing himself, while characteristic and amusing, was also very easily imitated, and it's an open secret that many sportswriters weren't beyond making up a few Yogiisms when they wanted to spice up their stories. So you have to take any listing of Yogi Berra quotes with a pretty large grain of salt; it's never clear which ones are legitimate Yogiisms and which are fabricated.

A few of my favorite Yogiisms (and I'm not necessarily vouching for their authenticity, but all of these have been credited to Yogi at some time):

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.

I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.

He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious.

I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary. [At "Yogi Berra Appreciation Day" at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, 1947]

I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.

If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's gonna stop 'em. [In a somewhat similar vein, Yogi once gave a capsule review of a New York restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."]

We have deep depth.

You wouldn't have won if we'd beaten you.

And, of course, I can't forget the one that I'm sure was manufactured specifically for the ad that runs when AFLAC sponsors a MLB game:

And they pay you cash, which is just as good as money.

I think it says something about the regard that baseball fans have for Yogi, that this commercial is still running in its the third straight baseball season.

The Curse of The Birdwatch

Just after Tax Day, Rob mentioned in his Ten Games In -- Who's Hot & Who's Not that Jason Isringhausen had: seven appearances in ten games and that can't continue. Ask and ye shall receive. 10 days later Izzy's on the DL. Then I posted a baseball card of Mama Molina on Mother's Day. Apparently akin to featuring anyone on the cover of Sports Illustrated, posting a photo of a player's mother on TBW is his ticket to a sprained ankle.

And now Ryan had to go start worrying out loud about Rolen's health in the comments to Rob's Screwy Lefties post on Monday: I just wonder if Rolen's slightly injured still, not enough to sit, but just enough to affect his performance in the field and at the plate. He's only hitting .253(ish), and while 2004 was a career year, he's still more like a .290s hitter. As you know by now, Scotty the Body plowed into Hee Sop Choi (Korean for "Squishy Immovable Mountain") last night and sprained his left shoulder. Quoth Scotty: I heard it pop when I hit (Dodgers first baseman Hee-Seop Choi). I guess it's - for lack of a better term - a sprain. (Weinberg) said 24, 48 hours (and we'll) kind of see how it reacts and go from there. For godsakes, before anyone else gets hurt, please confine your posts/comments to the benign and the mundane. Either that, or let's begin discussing players on another team. For example: That Derek Lee sure is on fire, I hope he doesn't step into an open manhole or something... or, That Mark Prior sure is a handsome guy. It would be a shame if he got his kisser stuck in a waffle iron... or even, Lyle Overbay seems to have finally put it all together. Good for him. See? Isn't that better? What? He pulled his hamstring? What a shame.... Addendum: Never, EVER, mention Derek Lee again.

Dodgers 9, Cardinals 8

As I've gotten older, I find myself questioning authority figures less. For example I read something from the New York Times a couple of years ago that argued Ken Lay didn't realize just how bad Enron was in the summer of 2001 and for whatever reasons I found it credible. Tonight was one of those nights though where Tony La Russa tests the faith of saints. In the top of the 6th with Kevin Jarvis struggling, La Russa elected to let Jarvis pitch to Hee Seop Choi, and Choi hit a weak slider 400+ feet for a three-run homer.

I'm not so much interested in ripping in La Russa as I am in figuring out what he was thinking. This is Kevin Jarvis, with a career ERA around 6.00 and a career ERA+ in the low 70's. He's demonstrated that he's a bad pitcher. Randy Flores had been warming up and was ready, and both Choi and JD Drew, the guy on deck, are dangerous lefties. The Cardinals recognized the risk, as Dave Duncan went to the mound to talk to Jarvis right before the Choi homer (I'd swear opposing batters hit like Albert Pujols following mound visits). So what was he thinking? I've come up with a list of possibilities that aren't mutually exclusive:

(1) Kevin Jarvis needs some confidence. La Russa stated back in 2003 that he believed players play their best when they think management trusts them. La Russa's got over 2000 wins and a degree in industrial management, so he should know what he's talking about, but votes of confidence didn't solve Esteban Yan's problems. Similarly...

(2) It's a long season, and La Russa's willing to risk a game to find out what he's got in Jarvis. Or to give Jarvis a fair chance or some other variation. That's where stats are useful though. I know Jarvis had a good month at AAA, but even Jeff Fassero had a good month and a half in 2002. You should have a pretty good idea what you're getting in advance. The alternate to this is...

(3) La Russa wants the front office to know what they've got in the bullpen so they'll go out and fix the problem. I doubt La Russa would do that, but 2003 made me wonder at times.

(4) The pitcher's spot was due up first in the next half inning. Note that Wilson Alvarez picked up the win by getting one batter out in the 5th before getting pulled for a pinch hitter. La Russa may have felt he didn't have the same luxury of a one-out lefty that early (by the way the Dodgers have a nice-looking pen even without Gagne; also Morris's relapse tonight put the team in this position in the first place). On the other hand letting Flores hit for himself with a two-run lead is better than letting Roger Cedeño hit with a one-run deficit.

(5) Right-handed batting Olmedo Saenz was available. This is the most likely explanation, and it's what Joe Buck suggested. Maybe I hang with the wrong people, but I don't mind getting Choi out of the game in the 6th for Saenz. But that leads to...

(6) La Russa and Duncan buy into the "Choi's soft" stuff. Or he's got holes in his swing or whatever. La Russa wouldn't be the only one to feel this way. Even if you're not a big fan of minor league numbers or Baseball America's prospect rankings, they're sound reasons to respect Choi. Maybe you let your good pitchers experiment with him, but not your #7 reliever with two runners on and a two-run lead.

Obviously I'm not satisfied with my potential answers. So I'll keep looking. One unrelated note: Albert Pujols is 0 for 18 with four walks in "Close and Late" situations this year. Sample size yadda yadda yadda, but he might be pressing. In the 8th after Larry Walker worked an 0-2 count into a walk, Pujols tried to pull the first pitch he saw, a pitch that looked to be on the outer half of the plate. The result was a predictable 6-4-3.

More on Eckstein

I had to put this up front so people would see it, because it's too interesting to keep burried in a comment. L Boros over at Curveblog noticed something interesting about David Eckstein:

david eckstein hits from behind in the count too much

Read the whole thing for context and conclusions.

Screwy Lefties

I had a post prepared on Mulder's disturbingly low K-rate and whether he could maintain an ERA around 3.00 with a K-rate in the 4's (short answer: yes, although it hasn't happened since the early 1990s). So naturally Mulder went out and had a career-best 12 strikeouts. I couldn't tell that he was doing anything that different. In fact it seemed more that the Dodgers decided they were going to work the count, perhaps to get to a shaky bullpen. I'd love to know how hard the Cardinals telecast had Mulder throwing, because the Dodgers feed on MLB.TV said he was reaching the mid-90s. Whatever he's throwing, Mulder's doing an uncanny impression of a healthy pitcher. Haren and Mulder are starting the same days, and while it's not a Level II quote, the latest returns (and here and here) favor Walt Jocketty.

Remember this post during the offseason? This time around it was all Albert Pujols, who by my count has hit 667/733/1833 against Odalis Perez. With Scott Rolen not having the year he had in 2004, the Dodgers announcers suggested Pujols could see a little of the Bonds treatment this season, and that's especially the case against lefties. Rolen by the way hasn't looked as good on defense either. It's not just the errors, as we haven't seen the usual spectacular range.

Finally the Dodger announcers let us know that JD Drew was out with "flu-like symptoms", sitting in a dark room by himself. When Steve Lyons and Charley Steiner (Vin Scully only does home games, so he didn't get to call Mulder's game) discussed Drew's absence there was a brief awkwardness that Drew has a tendency to cause. Presumably this was part of the reason the Dodgers bench was so short that lefty Hee Seop Choi was brought into the game in the 9th for the express purpose of striking out against Ray King.

Cards 4, Dodgers 2

Mark Mulder K'd 12 Dodgers tonight and the bullpen didn't give up an earned run.

Feels good doesn't it? Since theres nothing pitching wise to fret over it's time for our weeklyish comparison of Renteria and Ecksein.

Player     Avg    OBP   SLG   OPS
Eckstein  .282   .357  .345  .703
Renteria  .237   .298  .342  .640

On first glance Eckstein looks good, last time I did this I said:

... the Cardinals have the better shortstop so far this year

At that point it was clear Eckstein was outplaying Renteria, but now it's not so clear. Some more stats:

Player   ISO  WalkRate SB   K's  AB
Eckstein .063  .075    2-4  6    110
Renteria .105  .061    2-2  16   114

Before Eckstein had a walk rate of .168 but he's regressed back to his career norm. Renteria was hitting for a great deal of power but he's also regressed back to his career norm. Eckstein is still getting on base more than Renteria but thats largely due to Renterias pathetic .237 batting average. Throw in the fact Eckstein has been caught stealing and he's better than Renteria but it's not as clear cut.

Of course last time I prefaced my conclusion with Money aside, but now it's time to take the money into account. And on that score it's not even close. The Cardinals are getting a slightly better performance out of just a third the salary the Red Sox are paying. One hundred at bats into the season and the Red Sox have to start wondering if they made a huge mistake.

I couldn't tell you. Renterias struck out 16 times this year which isn't outlandish but for a guy with a history of back injuries to see his average drop like this is disturbing. If some hits start dropping he could come back, but I'm glad it's not my $10 million a year making that bet. I hope he comes back, Renteria has always been a favorite player of mine and despite his defection I hate to see him collapse.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! On Mother's Day 2002, J.D. Drew capped a Cardinals comeback from an 8-0 deficit with a 2-run homer in the top of the 8th inning. The Birds went on to beat the Reds 10-8. If you're not in the Lou and can't take your Mom to the game this afternoon, there's still time to shop for a gift using the magic of this thing they call the "Internet". The Bird Watch suggests Rob Rains' new book, Cardinals Where Have You Gone?. Rains, the co-author of Ozzie Smith's biographies as well as That's A Winner!, visits with some former Cardinal greats and not-so-greats and finds out what they've been doing all of these years.

Interviews include: Jack Clark, Rex Hudler, Dal Maxvill, John Morris, Ken Reitz, Danny Cox, Greg Mathews, Tom Nieto, Ray Washburn, Bob Tewksbury, Mike Jorgenson, Andy Van Slyke, Ernie Broglio, Rick Horton, Pat Perry, Ray Cunningham, John Tudor, Tom Pagnozzi, Ken Dayley, Tom Lawless, Kent Bottenfield, Rick Wise, Steve Braun, Vince Coleman, Bud Smith, Jeff Lahti, Ted Simmons, Ron Taylor, Scott Terry, John Stuper, Phil Gagliano, Bob Sykes, Tito Landrum, Charlie James, Garry Templeton, Dave LaPoint, Dick Groat and Todd Worrell.

Big Fish in Small, Fetid Pond?

So far the Cardinals have dominated the N.L. Central, going 16-4 against their less-talented divisionmates. Then again, everyone else has feasted on the N.L. Central: every other team in the East and West---even sad-sack 6-20 Colorado---has a winning record against the Central. Which helps to explain how eight of 10 non-Central teams are .500 or better.

With last night’s loss to the Padres, the Birds are now 2-6 in their eight contests outside the baby pool.

Still, at this rate, the Cardinals will go something like 90-72 if they continue to win 80% of their Central games but just 25% of the rest of their games, and will at least get a post-season berth.

Bullpen Chatter

There's been a lot of talk lately about our bullpen, and I thought we could use a reminder of how bad it could be. John Brattain has a good article over at THT about Don Fehr and how he's misrepresented the general population of the players, opting instead to work for the top 10% of his constituents. At the end of the article, he mentions the Reds bullpen meltdown that worked in our favor last week, and summarizes a handful of the worst bullpen meltdowns in history.

Don't Panic

"Don't Panic." These are the words inscribed on the outside of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but they might as well be inscribed on Dave Duncan's Guide to the Cardinals Bullpen. I think it's safe to say that the Cards' starters have been carrying the bulk of the load for the first 27 games; what with Mulder's 10-inning complete game shutout versus the Rocket and the 'Stros, Carp's CG shutout of the Cubs, and even the bearded one is looking pretty sharp; but after a couple of recent bullpen meltdowns, I was starting to flashback to 2003. But, no need to panic.....Yet.

Take a look at this... This is the Cards' starting rotation through 27 games in 2005: G GS W L CG SHO IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP K/9 27 27 16 6 2 2 178.34 163 71 61 12 45 120 3.08 1.17 6.06 And, the woeful bullpen through 27 games in 2005: W L SV IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP K/9 2 2 12 62.66 67 35 33 6 35 60 4.74 1.63 8.62 How does this compare to last year's 105 game winning squad at the same point? 2004 Cards' starting rotation through 27 games: G GS W L CG SHO IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP K/9 27 27 8 10 1 0 169.34 156 88 82 30 59 97 4.36 1.27 5.16 2004 bullpen through 27 games: W L SV IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP K/9 6 3 4 80.00 83 50 44 8 41 58 4.95 1.55 6.52