Minor Points

The latest from Derrick Goold points out that it's been five days since Randy Flores pitched and nearly ten days since Ricardo Rincon pitched. The team has an obvious need for another outfield bat (read: John Gall) and LaRussa can't get enough work to his bullpen. Rincon's future with the club should be in doubt.

The Swing of the Quad Cities won Thursday in 15 innings last night in spite of seven errors. Last night's starter Mark McCormick is vying for the moniker "Nuke", as he's recorded 19 strikeouts in 19.2 innings. There are days when A-ball isn't much fun to watch, and it sounds like yesterday was one of them.

To walk or not to walk

Using ZiPS, some career stats and some wild guesses, I'll try to determine whether Jim Tracy was right to face Pujols in the ninth inning. It gets messy, and I fully recognize what they same about what happens when I assume. The executive summary is that pitching to Pujols gave the Pirates a ~20% better chance of taking the game to the 10th, roughly 55% versus 35%. Tangotiger found something similar for Bonds in a tie game with runners on first and second and one out.

Again, there are big assumptions here. I need Roberto Hernandez to be an average pitcher, for Juan Encarnacion to be better than he's looked most of the month (and for that matter, not to be a 900-OPS hitter with the bases loaded, as his career splits have been to this point), for Scott Spiezio to be horrid, for guesses about baserunning to be reasonable, no balks, no wild pitches, no passed balls, no stolen bases, yadda yadda yadda. The difference I'm computing is pretty substantial though. Somebody let me know if I got something wrong.

Here's the dirty work:

Starting off, here's ZiPS again:

Name                 AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR   BB    K  AVG   OBP   SLG 
Pujols              603  134  203  42   2  48   98   61 .337  .434  .652
Encarnacion         536   70  152  35   3  16   43   95 .284  .342  .450
Spiezio#            392   44   93  20   3  10   45   56 .237  .318  .380

(By the way, if you use ZiPS, you should probably send a thank you to Dan Szymborski.)

Here's what happens when you walk Pujols:

Tie Game, Bases Loaded, One Out, Bottom of 9th
Encarnacion
- Reaches base = 34.2% (ignores reach on error, worth roughly +10 points of OBP)
- GIDP = 9.2% (96 GDPs in 1045 career at-bats with runners on <2 outs, ignores other DPs)
- Sac fly = 12.7% (32 in 251 AB + BB + SF with R3<2O)
- Strikeout = 17.7%
- GB Productive Out = 7.1% (WAG based on G/F ratio)
- GB Force at Home = 7.1% (WAG based on G/F ratio)
- FB Non-Productive Out = 12.0% (WAG based on G/F ratio)
Meaning:
- 54.0% chance game ends there
- 9.2% chance inning ends there
- 36.8% chance it gets passed down to Spiezio

Spiezio
- Reaches base = 31.8%
- Doesn't reach base = 68.2%

In total: Chances of Cardinals winning in 9th are .540 + (.368*.318) = 65.7%. That a productive out from Encarnacion could end the game is huge if you walk Pujols.

This is what Jim Tracy chose instead:

Pujols
- Singles 18.4%
--- Eckstein scores 40% of time (WAG) = 7.4%
--- Eckstein stops at 3rd 40% of time (WAG) = 7.4%
--- Eckstein thrown out 20% of time, runners move up (WAG) = 3.6%
- Doubles, Triples, Homers = 15.3% (damn)
- GIDP = 10.3%
- Strikeout = 10.1%
- Productive out = 15.0% (WAG)
- Nonproductive other out 30.9%
Meaning:
- 22.7% chance game ends there
- 10.3% chance inning ends there
- 7.4% chance bases loaded (same as walking Pujols)
- 18.6% chance of lead runner on third, two outs
- 41.0% chance of lead runner on second, two outs

Encarnacion
Lead runner on third, two outs
- Hit = 26.3%
- Walk or HBP = 7.9%
- Ordinary Out = 65.8%
Meaning:
- 4.9% overall chance of game ending here
- 1.5% overall chance of bases loaded, two outs for Spiezio
- 12.2% overall chance inning ends here
Lead runner on second, two outs
- Singles 16.9%
--- Eckstein scores 80% of time (WAG) = 13.5%
--- Eckstein stops at 3rd 10% of time (WAG) = 1.7%
--- Eckstein thrown out 10% of time (WAG) = 1.7%
- Doubles, Triples or Homers = 9.4%
- Walk or HBP = 7.9%
- Ordinary Out = 65.8%
Meaning:
- 9.4% overall chance of game ending here
- 3.9% overall chance of bases loaded, two outs for Spiezio
- 27.7% overall chance inning ends here

Spiezio
- Reaches base = 31.8%
- Doesn't reach base = 68.2%
Meaning:
- 1.7% overall chance of game ending here
- 3.7% overall chance inning ends here

Whew!
- Total Good Stuff = .227 + .049 + .094 + .017 + .074*.657 = 43.6%
- Total Bad Stuff = .103 + .122 + .277+ .037 + .074*.343 = 56.4%

Pujols, Part 95

Wow. I'll have to Markov chain the bottom of the 9th.

Eyewitness News

Yadier Molina drew a walk! And it was against a pitcher with talent too. Now he need another so his OBP exceeds his batting average.

Of course it was a good night overall offensively. While some of the bloopers fell in, there also were some hard-hit outs and unofficially Monday night's game had more "good rip" foul balls back to the screen than any other game this season. I'm always on the lookout for an explanation of why people who matter swear by Tony LaRussa. I mean, Bernie Miklasz has declared Bill DeWitt's an evil miser, and yet he's willing to pay millions for LaRussa's managerial services. Oliver Perez evidently is healthy, so is part of the explanation for his demise his management? Can the Pirates not field a popup to the mound because of management?

* * * * *

I caught a game at Fort Wayne over the weekend. The park in Fort Wayne is not a favorite of mine, as it has all the charm of a concrete bunker. However the Cardinals A-ball affiliate from Quad Cities was visiting, so I checked out a few of the Cardinals' lower level prospects. The executive summary was there's nothing exciting to report.

First, the pitchers from Sunday's game all had trouble throwing strikes. You may heard that the minor leagues currently have replacement umps working the games, but I don't think that was the problem. The starter, Cory Meacham, fell apart in the fourth, walking three straight and then hitting a batter. It wasn't easy to watch.

Colby Rasmus, the Cardinals' #2 prospect according to Baseball America, looks like a 19-year-old kid, maybe because he is. I took some pictures, but they don't convey how thin he is relative to the other Cardinals that played on Sunday. My first instinct is to compare him to Jason Tyner, which Rasmus made silly by homering on Monday night. He's going to need a few years and his numbers may under-estimate his long-term ability.

AJ Van Slyke went 0-for-5 and, as you'd expect, didn't look good doing it. He looks like he might be a little thick in the midsection actually. Bryan Anderson is a highly regarded catching prospect, and he looked fine behind the plate, in spite of a couple of problems with popups. Randy Roth's defense at 3B looked Mabryesque, but he homered on one of the hardest line drives I've seen in the minors. When I started writing this up, I realized I should've paid more attention to Dan Nelson, the shortstop for Quad Cities. He's not on any prospect lists and he's hitting .200 right now, but he had decent OBPs in 2004 and 2005, he's still young enough (22) to improve and he looked like a legit ballplayer. Maybe I've seen a few too many erratic shortstops in the Midwest League.

The bad guys, the Fort Wayne Wizards, did leave a few impressions. Josh Alley, Sunday's center fielder, had some significant problems judging flyballs. While it was a windy day, the Baby Birds had a couple extra bases hits that I think most center fielders turn into outs, even at A-ball. Kyle Blanks is 6-6 and close to 300 pounds. He could use some time on the stair master (does anybody still use stair masters?), although he's reasonably agile and he's not a pig. It also seemed to me both sides were more keen on working the count than when I first started going to Midwest League games five years ago.

Walks

The theme to Friday's game was obviously "Walks". Consider:

• While the discussion on the Internet and on the airwaves is whether Albert Pujols will get the Bonds Treatment, Pujols had zero walks last night. I can't see Dusty Baker cowering before Pujols, even if he should be.

• The game was headed for a breakout when Jerome Williams walked Aaron Miles to load the bases with nobody out in the second, and then Mark Mulder to force in a run. Miles has exceeded his 2005 walk total already.

• Bob Brenly and Len Kasper theorized that John Rodriguez would get a lot of pitches to hit, since the Great Pujols was standing in the on-deck circle. So of course Rodriguez drew a walk in the seventh. I'm not sure I buy the theory that hitting in front of Pujols means you'll get a steady diet of strikes. For example, last year Pujols got all but a handful of his at-bats in the #3 spot, and the Cardinals drew 58 walks from the #2 spot in 2005. (Holy cow, Nuñez his .352 in the #2 spot a year ago.) That works out to about 1/9th of the Cardinals' total (534), and while the #2 spot gets a few extra PAs versus average, that spot had the disadvantage of possessing only 2 Pujols PAs. Pitchers probably try to trade OBP for SLG in that spot, but it's not a black and white issue.

• Yadier Molina doesn't have a walk yet, presumably not because he's hitting in front of Aaron Miles. It's time to pull out the anti-jinx jinx and proclaim that Yadier won't have a walk before Memorial Day. Jeff Passan has speculated that the WBC has hurt pitchers, but I'm wondering if Molina was hurt by his non-participation participation in the tourney. (Is Al Hrabosky allowed to blame Juan Encarnacion's slow start on the WBC?)

• Last, and most importantly, Mark Mulder only gave up one walk in eight innings. He's only given up two walks this season. Mulder's K-rate isn't the only thing that deteriorated starting in 2004. In 2001 and 2003 Mulder was among the top ten in the AL in BB/9, but in 2004 and 2005 he was thoroughly mediocre in that category. While that wasn't exactly a threatening Cubs lineup last night, I'll take all the good signs I can get.

I'll tack-on one extra, as AJ Burnett will be walking into Dr. James Andrews' office soon. Yes, I'm going to hell for that sentence, which I hope won't prevent some divine entity from explaining to me what the big deal was about Burnett.

More Numbers

We're almost 10% of the way through the season, so let's look at OPS's by position:

The original point here was to quantify the awfulness of the outfield to this point, but the overperformance of the pitchers and second basemen is just as big a story. I suppose it's too early to complain about Brandon Phillips' big game in Milwaukee last night. I can't decide whether it's a good thing that the Cardinals have struggled and yet are 9-6. Some other notes:

• Junior Spivey's hitting 226 / 423 / 283 at Memphis, the kind of line you don't see too often. Spivey's got more walks (16) than hits (12). Larry Bigbie still doesn't have a hit in 9 at-bats. Last night, however, he managed to not strike out. I suppose that's an anecdotal indicator of the talent level at AAA, that a player who projects to be a mediocre major league hitter can't fall out of bed and hit there.

• My official oddball prospect of 2006 is Cory Doyne, a reliever at AA Springfield and the Cardinals' #27 prospect according to Baseball America. He has a 0.00 ERA through the grand sum of 9 innings in 2006. Doyne's a minor league reliever who's been released by the Astros and Padres, evidently due to a "lack of maturity." BA reports that Doyne's also got a 95-mph fastball and a hard slider.

• As you've probably heard, Derrek Lee will miss significant time due to a broken wrist. If you believe WARPs and the like, this will cost the Cubs 2-3 games; it seems like it should be more than though, doesn't it? The Cubs already faced an uphill battle making the playoffs, and Lee's injury on top of Prior's and Wood's absences obviously doesn't make it any easier.

Listening to Classic Rock Radio is Bad For You

I'm getting this on the first take.

That’s it!

After the Laughter

Buried under the latest greatness from Albert Pujols is the ongoing saga of Juan Encarnacion. I'm still turning over that one in my head, dealing with various statistical paradoxes. Anyway, buried under that, Mark Mulder was maxing out around 83-84 mph on Sunday. His curveball was effective the first time through the lineup (4 K against the first 10 batters he faced) however. Todd Coffey was clocking around 96, so maybe those Busch radar readings are accurate. Can Mulder survive on 68 mph pitches?

Derrick Goold goes into greater detail regarding Mr. Luna. It's a little backwards for a player's rate stats to benefit from less playing time. This is the analogue to the old Earl Weaver model for breaking in starting pitchers.

The Giants' scheduled starters in their upcoming series at Arizona are Jeff Fassero, Matt Morris, Matt Cain and Jamey Wright. I guess Travis Smith and Garrett Stephenson weren't available, and the Giants have to make-do with Cain.

The Cardinals are presently 29th in the majors in OPS with RISP. They've got a .204 BA with RISP and 2 outs. It's not your imagination that the Cardinals are struggling to find a clutch hit. Saturday when Yadier was at the plate with the bases loaded, the tension at Busch was palpable.

Baseball Prospectus has added a wrinkle to its playoff odds page. Now they're using PECOTA as their mean-reversion target. They haven't updated for Sunday's games yet, but either way the Cardinals currently stand around 40%. I'm probably deducting one point for each game where both Taguchi and Schumaker start. With Edmonds ailing that could happen a couple of times in Pittsburgh.

Anthony Reyes had an iffy start yesterday. It's never good to give up 5 runs in 6 innings, but the strikeouts (7) and walks (1) were still decent. Memphis fell to 1-10 in spite of an 5-run 8th to tie the game. Chris Duncan wore the sombrero. I'm starting to wonder if Nick Stavinoha can provide a couple of Jeff Francoeur-type months.

Pujols, Pujols, Pujols

Nice game, Albert. Can we get hurry up and get that extension through 2020 signed?

Nice work from Marquis. And Juan should be worshing Pujols's car for the next month.

Restoring Order

I made it to my first game at Busch on Saturday and I've got a few more pictures from a ten-year old digital camera to prove it. Not much to add on the new ballpark. As MO Boiler commented, the unfinished state of the park is something of a shame. And I can confirm Press Box Phil's account of the second-class status of the second row of the press box. It's a mallpark cookie cutter and yet overall it's nicer than the previous Busch. In short, it's a good place to see a ball game.

As for the important thing, the game, Sidney Ponson looked solid. He looked like the typical Duncan pitcher actually, not blowing anyone away, moving the ball around, trying to get some groundballs and recording an occasional strikeout. Any indication that Anthony Reyes wasn't beaten out by a bum is a good thing. The semi-standing ovation when LaRussa pulled Ponson was a bit much.

Hector Luna has these flashes where he looks like a good ballplayer, and Saturday was one of those days both in the field and at the plate. LaRussa's will be trying to get him more playing time, and right now platooning with Aaron Miles fits him well. That doesn't sound so good for Junior Spivey. Some part of me thinks Luna, if given a progressively larger role, could put the tools together and be an average 2B by year's end. Some other part of me notices that he was warming-up with Juan Encarnacion prior to Saturday's game.

I called Scott Spiezio's home run. Like I said, the camera's old, and it takes some time to get it ready, but the last picture captures Spiezio's mighty blast to right field. Former least favorite Cardinal Tino Martinez did the same thing to me in 2003. I swear they homered out of spite. Ricardo Rincon officially became my least favorite Cardinal by walking a batter in the 9th with a 7-run lead, then plunkng another batter square in the back, and then forcing a pitching change by serving a double to Austin Kearns, all while the rain started to come down.

Albert Pujols is special. This should be repeated periodically like the tests for the Emergency Broadcast System. On top of the superlative hitting, we have our little secret about his stellar defense. Saturday he was like Jim Craig at Lake Placid. Friday night he dove to his right, then threw from his knees to force the runner at second; if Eckstein catches the throw a little more cleanly it's a GIDP. When's the last time you saw a GIDP on a dive from the first baseman? His focus is apparent from Section 353, even in the ninth inning of a six-run game.

On the other side, Adam Dunn must be an intensely frustrating topic for Reds fans. If you're a traditionalist, you hate the strikeouts and the infamous sac fly streak. If you're a statboy like me, you hate hearing about the strikeouts. While his defense looks like a 1B playing LF, Scott Hatteberg (677 OPS in 2005) is keeping him away from the infield. Dunn's about two months older than Pujols, and I have to wonder how things would've gone for the two of them if they had switched organizations.

Bronson Arroyo starts Easter Sunday against the Cardinals. Last year he had a massive L/R split (OPS: 831 v. 654), so Jim Edmonds would be welcome back with open arms. I'm assuming Edmonds has dropped "What Would Wily Mo Do?" as his personal mantra for success.

Not So Good Friday

Forget about Encarnacion and Isringhausen. Heck, forget about Miles and Looper, because Edmonds looks terrible.

The Carlos Lee Game

Suppose you're the marketing boss at Shop-n-Save. The St. Louis Cardinals call you and offer some ad space with the sales pitch "Your sign will be on the news whenever the Great Pujols homers!" Naturally you accept their offer. During the game on holey Thursday, your sign gets plenty of airplay, but... it's for a great catch by the other team. Do you frame the photo and hang it on your wall? Do you frame the photo and hide it in your desk drawer? Or do you wait and hope for a Cardinal highlight in that exact location?

The symbolism of this game hit me in the face, that if the Cardinals make a few mistakes, then the Brewers can beat them. There are mistakes like the fielding errors and wild pitches and a cutter over the fat part of the plate, and then there are the roster mistakes that leave Miles, Marquis, Spiezio and Schumaker batting in the 11th. Fielder and Weeks aren't Choi and Hill, Doug Melvin isn't Jim Hendry, and Ned Yost isn't Dusty Baker. This could get interesting.

Marquis Gets a Win

Forgive for me jumping ahead, but I'm wondering what Jason Marquis will fetch in free agency. He throws hard (I think the new gun at Busch might be a little slow) and his medical history is as clean as a pitcher's can be, so from that angle he looks like a nice investment. Is there some GM out there who thinks his pitching coach can fine-tune Marquis to a point that his gaps in command will be filled (home run to Lee last night, not to mention sinkers at the letters)? While I probably don't want to try and figure out how Brian Sabean thinks, I do know that Marquis isn't a kid any more. This is his 11th season in pro ball and obviously he's been around in the majors for a while as he's almost a free agent. Maybe Mike Maddux could do with Marquis what he's done with today's Brewer starter, Doug Davis, the pitcher who "quietly" posted 200 strikeouts in 2005. It just seems to me it will always be a struggle with Marquis though.

Back on the farm... while doing my taxes, I listened to the Anthony Reyes start on Tuesday night. Nothing to report about the perfomance that the box score doesn't adequately convey (well, the homer Carmen Cali gave up was a bomb). The Memphis announcers did mention something I hadn't heard before, that Reyes and Junior Spivey are the two quietest members of the Memphis squad. You can guess where I'm going with this. While I'm sure it wasn't the deciding factor in either case, the presence of "edgy personality" Scott Spiezio in St. Louis suggests it probably didn't help Reyes's or Spivey's cause.

Memphis by the way is 0-7. The bullpen has picked up the losses in six of those games. The talk of spring training, Chris Duncan has 15 strikeouts in 31 at-bats. He seems to typify the Memphis roster: A lot of guys (Shaun Boyd, Travis Hanson, John Nelson, John Gall, Prentice Redman, Michel Herndandez) in their mid-20s who might put it together and have decent major league careers, but for whatever reason have not yet. We'll learn a little more about the pecking order when Larry Bigbie's in Memphis on rehab or back in St. Louis.

Home Opener Pics & Stadium Notes

If I took a boatload at the exhibition game, then my Home Opener haul was about 2 boatloads. My Flickr account is near it's monthly upload limit already, so I created a photobucket account and put my favorites up there. Some are illustrative of the points I make in the extended entry.

http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i4/jvonbokel/Cards%20Home%20Opener/

My notes on the stadium are after the jump.

1 - Bringing back the Clydesdales again was a nice touch. I wonder if that's the rebirth of the tradition, or just a one-time thing for the christening of the ballpark.

2 - Overall the sabermetrician in me is really happy with the new stats boards and whatnot. The current-batter-stats show OBP and SLG, but leave out the big 3: AVG, HR, RBI. Surely that's an oversight. I love the in-game updated ERA, and the B/S/Total Pitches board (although I couldn't see it from my seat yesterday). That was the big thing I've been looking forward to ever since seeing it on June 12th, 2003 (Oh, what a game! Well worth the trip).

3 - The sound system was not as bad as I expected. It was really loud early on in the exhibition game, but it appears they adjusted that to a reasonable level. I didn't like the borrowed-from-Houston "Day-Oh!", or whatever cheesy song with the word "Walk" in the title whenever a BB was issued to a Cards player, but I suppose that's inevitable.

4 - The High-Def video board is awesome.

5 - US Cellular's text board is kind of a cool idea. I could see myself texting stuff there on special occasions. I hope this doesn't mean the free birthday recognition on the main board is gone though.

6 - Sometimes the "Vision Challenge" is more like the "Vision Joke".

7 - I'm a bit torn on the "Welcome to Baseball Heaven" thing. It's nice, but it's also very pompous. Hopefully that'll only be there for the inaugural season at most.

8 - I know I need new contacts, but the red text on the Loge deck video board was really tough to read.

9 - Can't stop after 8 ("Play a Hard Nine", get it?), so I'll include a 9th item even though it actually has nothing to do with my own experience of the game or the stadium. I recently decided that John Kruk is my favorite BBTN guy, because all the former player commentators are basically idiots, but he's the only one who acknowledges it. And in last night's show, he certainly cemented that position by going on and on about how classy the Cardinals organization is, and how Busch II was always his favorite place to play because of the fans.

New Ballpark

Diaspora has one heckuva picture of the new ballpark. The skyline's great, although not quite PNC quality. And I think I count 8 ads.

There's this exchange over at GUB:

Dan: The most egregious happening is the opening of a Build-a-Bear Workshop in the concourses.

26th Man: Just wait until you have kids, dude.

Not only am I trying to blockout the games of the past weekend, I'm trying to blockout the whole new stadium deal. I can't help but feel that the owners are quite willing to manipulate us fans so they can suck away our money with plutonium-powered vacuum cleaners. That's not a pleasant thought, so I'm trying to focus on the fact that everybody's having fun, which is the point of following baseball after all. I really shouldn't complain since Mulder looked good again, in daylight and against a lot of right-handed hitters, no less.

Somewhat related, you may have seen some Houston Astros 2005 DVD ads over at Viva El Birdos and elsewhere, which is fine by me. What does bother me is that shop.MLB.com doesn't have a DVD for the 2004 NLCS champion. The other DVDs there look pretty good, but why can't they manipulate me with highlights from the Beautiful Summer of 2004?

If you want to satisfy a baseball urge during a strange off-day in April, Anthony Reyes goes tonight against the New Orleans Zephyrs at 7pm. The radio feed's live over WHBQ and amazingly MiLB has Gameday coverage. Junior Spivey went 0-for-8 last night in a 16-inning game.

Dirty Half Dozen

That was a Medusa-head series. You don't want to look directly at it for fear that it'll turn you into stone. A few thoughts on the edges though.

First, my gut says Jason Isringhausen shouldn't be asked to pitch more than an inning. Too many pitches for him to make it that long. So I went to ESPN.com, which takes a fair amount of intestinal fortitude these days, and looked at how his 2005 pitches per inning compare to some other closers:

Closer         IP    #P   #P/IP
Cordero       74.3  1209  16.3
Rivera        78.3  1186  15.1
Isringhausen  59.0   922  15.6
Lidge         71.7  1137  15.9
Turnbow       67.3  1049  15.6

Uh, never mind. That Rivera guy is pretty good, especially with the league adjustment.

Second, I really don't like Jim Edmonds being pulled as part of a double-switch. I'm going to assume that Edmonds will come around (and that LaRussa believes Edmonds will come around), because the alternative is also Medusa-head quality. Sitting Edmonds leaves the Cardinals' lineup looking like Pujols, Rolen and the Seven Dwarves in a one-run game. I understand that one of the Rules of Closer Usage is that the closer must be given a reasonably clear path to completing the game, but with one on, nobody out in the bottom of the 8th and one of the best hitters in baseball at the plate, there's a pretty good chance the Cubs will tie the game up. I don't have win expectancy tables, and I'm not sure they'd do much good since Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez are better than average hitters, so I'm left to guestimate there was something like a 40% chance for the Cubs scoring in either the 8th or 9th.

Finally, six games into the '06 season, it seems appropriate to me that the Cardinals' home opener takes place in an unfinished stadium, because the team that's playing in it is clearly a work in progress. I see a lot of misfits that will have to be shaped into Cardinal Baseball Players. It sounds like a recurring theme of American cinema, from The Dirty Dozen to other less memorable stuff. Among the newcomers, you've got the drunk guy, the fat guy, the guy who's too small, the guy who has some tools and no idea how to use them, the demoted guy, and the guy with bad facial hair. I think there's enough talent there to support the Big Three and the starting pitchers. I also keep thinking of how the Cardinals never could figure out what to do with the half-empty, half-full parts of the 2003 roster. Has LaRussa ever dealt well with this kind of motley crew?

Farm Reports

Junior Spivey has hit well during his brief stint at AAA, and one of those hits was a leg double where he embarrassed a sleepy left fielder. On the other hand, Spivey also committed his second error of the season last night. I find it interesting that he hit in the 6th spot his first game, but has hit leadoff the past two nights, almost as if somebody in St. Louis called Memphis manager Danny Sheaffer after the first game and said, "Uh, Danny, can you get Spivey some at-bats, OK?" Dennis Tankersley goes this afternoon, and with today's Cardinals game being a night game (who ceded that kind of decision to ESPN?), you can listen to the Tank's Redbird debut over the Internet. (Late add-on: Spivey was hit by a pitch Sunday, then went first-to-third on a groundout to the third baseman. The baserunning is there.)

The Palm Beach Cardinals are looking for host families. I didn't know affiliated minors teams did that sort of thing. The PB Cardinals might want to update their site, since Tennessee and Peoria haven't been Cardinals affiliates for over a year.

Finally and most importantly, I bought my Baseball America Prospect Handbook the other day. They have this to say about Sean Marshall, the Cubs' #6 prospect according to BA and tonight's starter:

Marshall picks up plenty of groundballs and strikeouts thanks to an 88-92 mph sinker that can reach 95. He keeps batters off balance with his curveball, a sharp downer he can change speeds with. He commands both pitches well... He'll have to improve his changeup to remain a starter and he's working on a slider. The Cubs believe Marshall is on the verge of a breakthrough season in 2006.

Marshall has had a couple of injuries that BA describes as flukey, so health may not be the issue that his lack of playing time suggests. We could be seeing this guy a bunch, which is kinda funny considering how little press he got behind Angel Guzman and the rest.

Adventures of Baron von Isringhausen

It does seem like Jason Isringhausen keeps the game interesting on purpose, doesn't he? Like maybe when he's warming up, he's thinking to himself "Get three batters out of five, maybe three out of six, and we'll get the win." He gets the job done, so I'm not trying to run him out of town, but it's hard to be comfortable with Izzy. In part it's because he doesn't look like a Dominant Closer. Last night, for example, he just couldn't put a lackluster hitter like David Bell away and his 3-0 pitch to Ryan Howard was Stechschulte-esque for an unintentional intentional walk. Isringhausen just doesn't make it look easy.

The much-maligned 6 through 8 hitters got the job done for the second time. Yadier Molina had the game winner, Skip Schumaker had a key walk just before that and his first career homer, and Aaron Miles had a walk and an RBI single. The Cardinals needed it as Juan Encarnacion almost single-handedly killed the Cardinals scoring chances, leaving a whopping nine runners on. It's early and Encarnacion had a couple of well-struck balls, but he's taking my Tino comparison a little too close too heart.

There were a few interesting little pitching moves from LaRussa. First, he pinch hit for Mark Mulder in a tie game in the top of the 8th. Mulder's pitch count was only 84 and he'd pitched a good game. For whatever reason -- it's early, the 2-run homer in the bottom of the 7th, or a realization that the Cardinals don't have the offense to fool around -- LaRussa didn't leave Mulder in there to get a shot at the "W" though. The second noteworthy pitching move was his decision in the top of the 9th, when the game was still tied, to start Isringhausen in the bottom half. It's nice to see the recognition that with the heart of the Phillies lineup coming up in the 9th, the game situation called for the best reliever available. On the other hand, Ryan Howard has a career 406 OPS against LHP (sample size caveats apply, but that's a four-oh-six), and I doubt it crossed LaRussa's mind to bring in Randy Flores. Such are the unwritten rules.

Today the Jason Marquis saga restarts. Real minor league games start too, assuming "real minor league games" isn't an oxymoron. It's time to play John Fogerty's "Centerfield".

One Down, 94 + 11 To Go

A dozen silly thoughts organized in Harper's List fashion:

275 / 316 / 377 - Updated 2006 ZiPS for Miles, naively replacing average 5 of 507 at-bats with Monday's results
9 - Number of consecutive outs Aaron Miles would have to make for his OBP to fall under .300
22 - Number of scoreless outs Chris Carpenter needs to get his ERA below 3.00
86 - Carpenter's unofficial pitch count after 5 innings, not that letting him start the 6th was a war crime or anything
327 - Days between Scott Rolen home runs
1,029 - Days between Scott Rolen grand slams
1 - Games between the opener and Albert Pujols's last homer
2 - Multi-homer games for Albert Pujols in 2005
17 - Multi-walk games for Albert Pujols in 2005
1 - Number of Cardinals with at-bats who didn't get a hit on Monday (Scott Spiezio)
11.8 - Average number of combined runs scored on Cardinals opening days during the LaRussa Era
3 - Base occupied by a jackass umpire (as I understand it, that means Cuzzi won't call balls and strikes this series)

The 2006 Bullpen and Bench

Before I get going on the post-modernity of baseball backups, Spivey's out. Dan over at Get Up, Baby is stealing my rants, so a cease and desist order will be in the mail shortly. It does sound like Spivey's hurt again, and why the Cardinals waited until late yesterday to make a final decision on him isn't a pretty question. They could've landed Tony Graffanino and they could've saved some salary if they had cut Spivey just a couple of days earlier.

Oh, well.

* * * * *

I grew up with The Sporting News columns from Joe Falls and his romanticizing of spring training. You know the ilk: the green grass, the blue sky, the crack of the bats and catcher mitts, the hope and faith of spring. It all seemed so idyllic, the basis for the George Carlin bit comparing baseball to football. Now I think Falls and I must have had very different work histories. While from April to October Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter are the main stories, in February and March the Brian Falkenborgs, Scott Spiezios, John Galls and Jeff Nelsons take center stage. It's "Survivor in Palm Beach", which makes for compelling television only because it's such a grind for the fringe players.

Tony LaRussa does nothing to ease the atmosphere. In fact it appears one of his objectives is to put everybody on edge. For example, the Cardinals have dumped at least one player with a guaranteed contract in each of the last four spring trainings (Al Levine, Chris Widger, Mike Myers, Deivi Cruz). While none of these guys were stars, each was a competent ballplayer who apparently offended LaRussa's sensibilities in some way. Or maybe they just got in the way of a crony or maybe LaRussa's just engaging in passive-aggressive behavior with the front office, I don't know. Whatever the reason though, the effect is tension straight from Catbert's handbook.

For the bench and non-closer bullpen players -- especially the bench this year -- security isn't ensured by making the club either. I expect Scott Spiezio will be DFA'd when he's hitting .150 in late May. Aaron Miles is the nominal starter at 2B, but if a deal's made to replace Spivey or if Spivey returns to form, there isn't much use for a backup 2B who's likely to have a 650 OPS outside Coors. Skip Schumaker has never hit much, and the Cardinals already have a veteran outfielder who does "the little things"; he'll likely return to Memphis once the other left-handed outfielders are deemed fit. Gary Bennett will likely stay, but he's a no-hit backup catcher drone, so who cares about him when he's not starting fights with Albert Pujols? I'm not sure Bennett would start over Michel Hernandez should Yadier Molina go to the DL.

Hector Luna is the one bench player worth discussing, or at least the one bench player worth discussing without a profanity-laced tirade. The word on Luna before the Cardinals obtained him was that he's erratic, that he could make the flashy play and screw-up the routine play. We've seen that the last two years. Heck, we've seen that in one inning of one playoff game last year in Houston. Now look at his numbers from 2005:

MLB: 137 AB, 285 / 344 / 409
PCL: 223 AB, 224 / 294 / 332

No, that's not backwards. Luna stunk at the PCL and was downright promising as a hitter in the majors. Getting back to my kick on "focus", I'm wondering if Hector Luna could benefit from the same medical advice that evidently turned around Scott Eyre's career. Recognizing that psychoanalyzing a baseball player based on his stats is a reach, it's something I hope the Cardinals pursue.

The bullpen isn't quite so bleak, but Tony LaRussa's reliever usage is so rigid and unimaginative that it's hard to humanize the relievers. Randy Flores is Reliever 8L-Class, to complement Braden Looper, Reliever 8R-Class. Looper was demoted from Reliever 9-Class, the job title Jason Isringhausen holds. Ricardo Rincon was a Reliever 8L-Class, but for now he'll probably be the Reliever 7L-Class to complement Brad Thompson, Reliever 7R-Class. If Looper struggles, Thompson could be promoted to 8R. Josh Hancock will be Reliever Utility and Adam Wainwright will wear the Apprentice hat, meaning both will get some significant exposure to mops.

Overall the bullpen looks to be a strength again, even though Looper's spring suggests he's still rusty from the shoulder surgery. How the Cardinals will get enough work to seven relievers who should only pitch a little over 400 innings is anybody's guess. That last roster spot could end up serving LaRussa's mix-and-match outfield, as the bench can use all the help it can get.