Break out the "Sosa Cork Company" shirts!

Well, not really. The Cards acquired Jorge Sosa from the Braves this afternoon for Memphis reliever Rich Scalamandre. As VEB reports, Sosa is a) not good and b) doesn't exactly have a roster spot to fill. He's also not particularly young, having turned 29 in April. Scalamandre, however, didn't seem to be going anywhere terribly fast either - despite pretty good strikeout rates all the way up, he took until his age-25 season to get promoted out of A-ball, and hasn't done anything overly spectacular above that level in the past year and change. As far as raw ability is concerned, however, I know very little about him. So we'd like to think that this is a swap of two pretty inconsequential players. At least, we hope it is for the Cardinals' sake.

I'd say the biggest positive to this deal is that it reminds us that we're still well short of the franchise record for the most former Devil Rays on the roster at one time.

Ronnie's Specter

Anything that pushes Aaron Miles closer to Memphis is a step in the right direction, assuming you don't live in western Tennessee. Rather than a strict evaluation of the trade, consider the Luna Narrative for a moment.

Going back to the 2004-2005 winter, the Cardinals seemed reluctant to make much of a push for an everyday 2b. Maybe it was because they were waiting out the market or maybe they had some Robbie Alomar-related internal discord or just maybe they were trying to find a way to get Hector Luna eased into the role. Whatever the case, they signed Grudzielanek to a one year deal, and when it became clear Grudz could handle the job, Luna was sent to AAA where he could play every day. Luna was terrible at Memphis and strangely he was recalled, and even more strangly played well in the majors. The Cardinals made no attempt to re-sign Grudz this past winter, instead taking a gamble on the oft-injured Junior Spivey. They also found Aaron Miles in the bag of balls traded by the Rockies for Ray King. Again, I sense reluctance, Captain, and this certainly doesn't seem like a long-term plan. When Spivey was ineffective in spring training, he quickly was dispatched to AAA. Luna also struggled in March, leaving plenty of outs for Aaron Miles's replacement level bat to devour, apparently because Miles is a better defender than the much more gifted Luna. When he played, Luna did manage a nice OPS, perhaps due to LaRussa's Juan Valdez-like picking of the best at-bats for Luna.

Even if the Cardinals weren't intending to hand the starting job to Luna, they gave him some golden opportunities to seize it from them. Yet for whatever reason it didn't happen. Luna's 26, in his 8th season as a professional, so he's running out of time to develop his skills. PECOTA and ZiPS reflected his pre-2006 work with projected OPSs around 670; mix in this year's actual work and he's not going to be a star. He probably will struggle to be average with the bat going forward, and if I'm an Indians fan, I'm worried that he's headed down the Abraham Nuñez or even Craig Paquette career path.

Even with an optimistic appraisal of Luna, it all boils down to the Cardinals needing stars, or at the very least, good ballplayers, and I don't see how Luna is either. Belliard does look to be a good one, even if it's for only two months, and he brings with him the magical power to force LaRussa's latest scrappy middle infielder to the bench. Luna's biggest selling point was his cost, and frankly saving a couple hundred thousand bucks on a backup (or yielding a few extra points of OPS over John Nelson as a backup) isn't all that important to me. We can do our Billy Beane impression and try to whittle out an extra game or two over the course of the season with the Marco Scutaros, but the guys who win flags are the Pujolses, the Edmondses, the Rolens, the Carpenters and the Mulders. Today's trade doesn't affect this much one way or the other.

That brings me to the bigger news of the day: The Yankees picked up Bobby Abreu and Corey Lidle for the googaws in Dan Szymborski's trunk. I had assumed the Phillies would demand some talent in exchange for Abreu and, unless googaw has an unexpected meaning, that was not the case. Apparently the Phils had to toss in Lidle, who would be the Cardinals second-best starter, to get the Yankees to absorb the Abreu contract. Now Abreu is a star, and he's the kind of player that Uncle Walt's managed to pick up in the past. There are three possibilities here:

(1) The Cardinals think Abreu's loss of power makes him the Mark Mulder of outfielders.
(2) The Cardinals think more highly of Duncan than they should, killing their interest in Abreu.
(3) The Cardinals were too cheap.

The first choice would be OK and the second is defensible. The third though... well, the Cardinals aren't winning any free agent battles for top talent, and they don't have much on the farm that looks headed for stardom or that could serve as trading chips. If the Cardinals are serious about winning and if they think highly of Abreu, then this was a trade they had to find a way to make. Don't ask me what combination of money and second-tier prospects turn the trick. I just think there aren't any other venues for talent-infusion.

On the other end of the scale, it appears Aaron Miles will be the backup shortstop for now. Miles has one more inning (plus one more error) of major league experience at shortstop than Albert Pujols. Scanning through a few old minor stats books, best as I can tell Miles came up as a second baseman and rarely, if ever, played at short. As far as professional experience is concerned, So Taguchi may well be the leader in the pack. Of course that was seven-plus years ago. Jose Oquendo will be a busy man the next few weeks.

Dog Day Afternoon

While I don't like the Molina stuff, one stat from THT to which I cannot object is the projection of 85 wins against a neutral schedule. BPro's analysis of the Cardinals to this point isn't even that kind. The best numbers say the Cardinals are a mediocre club, and the machinery to build a numerical counter-argument isn't stable.

In case you don't buy the numbers, Saturday's game at Wrigley is Exhibit 1A for why you should consider renting them at least. I'll moderate my first impressions ("freaking pathetic" and "freaking disgrace"), and say that Saturday's effort was a different kind of game that sometimes happens upon a mediocre club. My view of the 2005 and 2006 squad has evolved this weekend, as it dawned on me that the difference from last year is that this group knows it is mediocre while last year's did not. It's tough to maintain your focus and drive when you think the end of the road is an ignominious defeat at the hands of the Mets or Tigers. It's probably at its toughest in a day game at that charming dump, with a heat index around 100, and you're facing a Hall of Fame pitcher who's getting funky movement (yeah, that's an allegation).

Tony LaRussa had Albert Pujols hit-and-run on Saturday. The results were incredibly ugly -- Pujols popped out to right and So Taguchi forgot to re-touch 2b when returning -- and the idea of telling Albert Pujols when he should swing the bat is dubious. Of course LaRussa isn't just interested in the raw mathematical value of the h-n-r. He's trying to shake things up, establish some aggressiveness or, as they say in basketball, force the tempo. Jocketty finds himself in a similar position, in need of doing something to re-establish a commitment to winning. I'm not the person to make an argument for either act -- I'd bet LaRussa was overreacting to the "Pujols can't hit the Cubs" headlines -- but if the Cardinals don't want to get their 2006 lunch taken from them by a hungrier team, either in the Central or in the playoffs, then they really need to do something in the next couple of days. Failing that, the only other magic feather that could get this team flying in October is Mark Mulder. He's got one last shot at redemption.

Tough Loss

One of these days they'll have fancy new metrics that take the speed and distance of batted balls into account, and when they do, things like the second half of Thursday night's game against the Cubs will confound those metrics. On offense: Rolen lining one back up the middle to Walker, Pierre running down Molina's drive to deep right center, Ramirez diving for a Duncan line drive, Jacque Jones backwards-somersaulting on a Pujols drive to right and Rodriguez grounding one not too soft and not too hard for the game-ending double play. Furthermore in the fourth Albert Pujols, with the bases loaded, took a slider down the middle, swung wildly at a slider well off the plate and then tried to pull a fastball out and up; he had decided he was going to hit a home run and not even Pujols can do that. On defense you had the sickening three-run sixth: Nevin and Murton grounding out just softly enough to prevent the DP, Neifi lofting a single just in front of Encarnacion, Juan Pierre slapping a single just in front of Duncan and Rolen botching a groundball.

To be fair, Weaver lived on the edge for six innings, giving up two homers (why do people try to steal against Yadier Molina?), two doubles and six singles. Maybe it all evened out. It's still hard to believe the Cardinals lost that game.

In other news, the Hardball Times went after Molina not once, but twice today. Thus spoke Bryan Tsao:

Okay, I get it, he's a great defensive catcher. But let's face it, no one's this good.

I sent Bryan an email saying basically "Yeah, actually he is." I've established I'm not a Yadier fan, but anyone who watches the Cardinals everyday can see his value. The weird thing is you can build a statistical defense for Molina. At this writing, BPro has Yadier at 14 runs below average the catcher as a batter and 11 runs above average on defense. Assuming we can trust their defensive numbers for catchers (and since they're using SB, CS and pick offs, I think we can), there's a stronger argument that a future Hall of Famer is a hole than there is for Yadier Molina.

So This is the New Coors

The Cardinals managed six hits in two games at Coors and they're 1 and 1. Part of that is Carpenter and the Rockies pitching of course and maybe there's some bad hitting there too. However there were a couple of at-bats on Tuesday where the ball just didn't seem to carry the way it used to. Actually the ball didn't seem to carry the way it does at Busch III. While it's well-documented that the humidor is having this kind of effect, it's a little different seeing it with your own eyes when your own team is playing.

My hours were a little messed-up from the Dodgers series, so I didn't see the Monday game against the Rockies on TV. It was just as well, I suppose. The best positive spin on Reyes's progress is that he's being remade into a major league pitcher, that he's a work in progress. Unfortunately in my own personal hell, I'm imagining LaRussa trying to teach Reyes how to sing "The rains in Spain fall mainly in the plains." If this keeps up, then I may need to skip another Reyes start and watch the original Rex Harrison/Audrey Hepburn version instead.

Tuesday's game had all kinds of plotlines. Carpenter's a great pitcher and Pujols did what needed to be done again. Isringhausen finished it his way and Rolen had another defensive gem, a ridiculous throw from the muck. The Rockies broadcast crew brought up Rolen's Hall of Fame case, and I'd like to check that out. But what got my attention was Clint Barmes extending his hitting streak to 13 games. As you may recall, a couple of weeks ago Barmes was the only major league regular with a worse OPS than Yadier Molina. ESPN.com's sortable stats do in fact show that Molina's 581 OPS is dead last among qualified batters, trailing Ronny Cedeno of the Cubs by about 15 points at this writing.

So here's the question I had for the Lahman database: How have young players with a 400 AB season with a sub-600 OPS fared historically? By young, I mean under the age of 24 and I'm only looking at player since WWII. I've compiled a list of such players, and it's an eye-opening stroll down memory lane:

Player	Age	Season OPS	Career OPS	Development
Gair Allie	22	562	562	0
Rick Auerbach	22	546	572	26
John Bateman	22	583	621	38
Ed Brinkman	23	508	580	72
Jack Brohamer	22	565	633	68
Mike Caruso	22	577	641	64
Mike Champion	22	557	564	7
Julio Cruz	23	588	620	32
Mariano Duncan	23	589	688	99
Kevin Elster	23	594	677	83
Tim Foli	23	591	593	2
Wayne Garrett	21	558	691	133
Ozzie Guillen	22	576	626	50
Cristian Guzman	21	543	671	128
Jack Heidemann	20	557	532	-25
Enzo Hernandez	22	545	550	5
Glenn Hoffman	23	573	623	50
Paul Householder	23	592	667	75
Cesar Izturis	23	597	633	36
Sonny Jackson	22	568	611	43
Tim Johnson	23	502	539	37
Hal Lanier	23	546	529	-17
Roy McMillan	23	591	635	44
Roger Metzger	23	593	584	-9
Ken Reitz	22	589	649	60
Billy Ripken	23	518	612	94
Dave Roberts	21	595	644	49
Brooks Robinson	21	597	723	126
Aurelio Rodriguez	21	579	626	47
Ramon Santiago	23	576	600	24
Dick Schofield	21	527	624	97
Derrel Thomas	22	559	649	90
Hector Torres	22	510	542	32
Mike Tyson	23	577	612	35
Del Unser	23	560	677	117
Curtis Wilkerson	23	561	591	30
Robin Yount	20	593	772	179
AVERAGE	22	566	621	55

I didn't realize Brooks Robinson was that un-accomplished as a hitter, even adjusting for era. I also didn't realize Reitz was that bad. Back to Molina, it's not that promising, but what really got my attention is that there's only one catcher on that list, John Bateman. Bateman played for the 1963 Houston Colt .45s, a bad club only in its second year. Now I assume Yadier will improve as a hitter, maybe soon enough to make this list moot, but he still is an odd duck. What the Cardinals have done and are doing with him is unique and it's remarkable that they're doing it while competing for pennants.

Some Duncan Thoughts

Let's start from the beginning. Chris Duncan was the 46th player taken in the 1999 amateur draft. The Cardinals, as they are prone to doing, opened themselves to charges of nepotism. This is the team that drafted Tom Pagnozzi's nephew, Andy Van Slyke's son and Albert Pujols's cousin, and then there was that Cody McKay experiment. Before we indict the Cardinals for Duncan favoritism though, consider the five draftees in front of Duncan and the five behind:

41. Casey Burns - Pitcher who never made it above A-ball, according to the Baseball Cube.

42. Mike Rosamond - Hasn't played at the majors and currently playing for the AA Mississippi Braves. It's probably not a coincidence that he's from Mississippi.

43. Jimmy Gobble - Lefty swingman with a career 5.19 ERA at the majors. He's actually striking guys out this year (50 in 59 IP), but the polite term is mediocre.

44. Scott Rice - First stop at AAA this year, where he's been mediocre. I think he was re-signed as a minor league free agent, although I'm having trouble verifying that.

45. Rob Purvis - Another pitcher who hasn't made it to the majors and was last seen in the independent Northern League.

47. David Mead - Pitcher that topped out at A-ball.

48. Casey Fossum - OK, he made it to the majors and has had some success. Sorta. The 3.46 ERA for the 2002 Red Sox doesn't look quite so pretty when you make some attempt to factor in the 15 unearned runs. Fossum hurt his arm and then was part of the Schilling trade. He's got a career 5.11 ERA.

49. Mike Bynum - Career 7.73 ERA at the majors, all of that with the Padres. Minor league free agent this year, although he hasn't pitched in the affiliated minors.

50. Brian Roberts - The one clearly better ballplayer of the bunch. Even if he doesn't repeat his 2005 All-Star-caliber performance, he's darn solid.

51. Nick Trzesniak - Catcher who's made it to AAA, but not the majors. Six-year minor league free agent signed by the Rangers for 2006.

Those ten plus Duncan were the last eleven picks of the first round in 1999. For the sake of completeness, Carl Crawford was the first player taken in the second round (Crawford went to Jefferson Davis High School in Houston, which is sorta interesting). On the other hand, the Cardinals drafted Nick Stocks and Chance Caple ahead of Duncan, neither of whom came close to the majors. The point I'm taking from this is that "first round pick" isn't nearly as promising as it sounds. It's anecdotal, but I can see why Brian Sabean throws away later first round picks and Billy Beane went after fat catchers who drew walks.

OK, so Duncan was drafted, and while I'm sure his father's position had some role in the decision, Duncan's looking like a defensible pick these days. The stats say it wasn't looking so good for Duncan at A-ball however. It took him four and half seasons to graduate to AA, compiling an aggregate line of 261 / 328 / 395 in over 1800 at-bats. If you're a slick-fielding shortstop or a catcher with a cannon, then that's not bad. If you're a plodding first baseman, then you're lucky to still have a job.

Then the light came on in 2004. Duncan hit 289 / 393 / 473, a respectable showing for a 23-yo 1B making his first pass through AA. My dad lived about an hour's drive from the Tennessee Smokies' home park, so we witnessed Duncan's play a few of times. I saw him slap a changeup over the left field wall, something you don't see much in AA. I also saw some clumsy defense at first base, and according to the more devoted fans we talked to, that was pretty common.

In 2005 Duncan regressed a bit at AAA, hitting 265 / 358 / 469. The lower batting average is a function of all the strikeouts. The home run against Brad Penny explains what he's trying to do, sometimes taking a swing so big that he almost falls down. Getting back to AAA, in 2005 Duncan worked in the OF some, although oddly he was mainly a 1B. Yeah, I know, Duncan's defense in LF sucks -- on Sunday Edmonds caught a clear F7 that Duncan lost in broad daylight -- but so does his defense at 1B and he moves well enough compared to your average left fielder that there's some hope for mediocrity in the outfield. There's also this guy at 1B who's not going anywhere. Either the Cardinals think Duncan's outfield defense is that bad or he was being prepped for a trade or maybe they didn't want to distract him from his offense... or the Cardinals simply screwed-up.

After a slow April, in 2006 Duncan's basically matched his 2005 line with a 271 / 359 / 448. Duncan's translated minor league numbers aren't all that promising, maybe a 250 / 325 / 400. Give him a little more power, because don't forget, he's 6-foot-5. Just as I can't get too down over Jeff Suppan's and Jason Marquis's 2006 ERAs, I can't get too excited about Chris Duncan's 2006 OPS. It was fun hearing the impression Duncan left on Vin Scully over the weekend, but it's way, way too early to see Duncan as THE solution to the left field problem.

* * * * *

I read the minor league box scores every day, and Larry Bigbie, the alleged other leading candidate for LF, apparently has hurt himself again while on rehab assignment. Either that or he's gone AWOL. Maybe it's just as well, because who gets sent down when Bigbie returns? Duncan has to ride out his hot streak, so he's not going anywhere. J-Rod has his issues, but Bigbie will be hard-pressed to match Rodriguez's 818 OPS (same as last year's), and honestly I wouldn't want to be the guy who gets to tell Rodriguez he's returning to the minors. Could they demote Aaron Miles? Would Tony LaRussa survive without a real backup middle infielder? I thought not, and then Scott Spiezio started at 2B on Saturday. While I won't make too much of it, the Spiezio start was an interesting little decision. Of course it suggests LaRussa thinks (or wanted to see whether) Spiezio can handle the position and it also signals that LaRussa doesn't think he can work Spiezio into the outfield mix.

* * * * *

Where do transaction rumors start? Peter Gammons's job is to send messages to the French Resistance, so that's a different matter. I mean the non-gossip columnist stuff. If you're the Cardinals, do you float rumors to see how the fanbase will react? Or do you float rumors to send messages to your players? Or to be more cynical, are you trying to generate fake excitement to cover for an expected lack of movement? Or maybe you're trying to get some columnist off your back who wants anything to feed the masses? Or maybe it's not by design, and one of your underlings is trying to impress a girl? Or maybe that underling has had a few too many drinks? I don't know obviously. I do know that the Cardinals aren't particularly interested in keeping the public informed beyond what they think will generate ticket sales. I'm deeply suspicious of the motives behind stories like the Dontrelle Willis rumor.

Digg Sports

Digg just launched a sports section and you can find all sorts of interesting stuff:

McGuire and Bonds Baseball Cards through the years. Watch them both get bigger and bigger.

A giant list of potentially tradable players

Cardinals Discussing Dontrell, (and Viva El Birdos talks about it here with a spot on recomendation).

LaRussa's Pitchers

Get it out of the way: Chris Carpenter is a stopper and somebody woke up Jim Edmonds.

I did go to an Indianapolis Indians game Tuesday night and Jose Lima was there. Instead of being in the dugout, he was on the main concourse charting pitches in the wheelchair row behind the home plate section. He was having a great ole time, high-fiving Met fans, shaking hands and chatting with anyone and everyone. If he wasn't enjoying himself, then he is the best actor I've ever seen.

I got back home and found that Jason Marquis had surrendered 12 runs. Perhaps his true physical talent in some Platonic sense hasn't been altered, but Tuesday's game raised an obvious question: What if there's something about LaRussa and his pitcher usage that causes problems down the road? I don't know what it would be, maybe he wears them down (although his "pitcher abuse points" suggest otherwise) or maybe Duncan's smoke and mirrors set only lasts a year or two. That is something we can make some attempt at testing.

Let's look at LaRussa's pitchers since 1987 (his first full season with the A's) and let's break their work under LaRussa into seasons under LaRussa. That's 401 pitcher-seasons, a decent-sized body of work. So, for Rick Ankiel for example, 1999 would be his first season, 2000 his second season, 2001 his third season and 2004 his fourth season. Breaking it up that way for everybody, I get this:

TLR-YR	#PS	IP	ERA	K/9	BB/9
1	192	9,990.0	4.11	6.1	3.5
2	100	7,690.0	4.08	6.3	3.6
3	48	3,736.3	3.89	6.0	3.6
4	29	2,822.3	3.99	5.9	3.4
5	12	1,043.7	4.48	6.0	3.8
6	7	723.7	4.08	5.8	2.8
7	5	460.3	5.20	6.5	3.3
8	3	281.7	3.87	5.9	1.9
9	2	97.7	3.87	6.5	1.7
10	2	62.0	3.63	7.4	1.0
11	1	53.0	3.91	7.6	1.4
TOT	401	26,960.7	4.09	6.1	3.5

Well, not much deterioration there until year 5. The space gets small enough by then that those probably aren't particularly meaningful. Ron Darling's 1995 season (his last) and Dave Stewart's 1991 season weigh heavily in that year. In case you're wondering, Dennis Eckersley pitched 11 seasons for LaRussa and Rick Honeycutt made it through parts of 10.

OK, so maybe there's a problem with who I'm counting in season 1's. Rick Ankiel's 1999 season, for example, isn't really what we think of as his first season. And we probably would do well to get rid of the Bobby Bonilla season (Bonilla was brought in to be a Wally Pipp to Albert Pujols and to mess up my Lahman database pitching queries). So let's not start the clock until a pitcher either has 10 starts or 25 appearances under LaRussa. Under this alternative, 2000 is Ankiel's first season, 2001 his second and 2004 his third. We'll consign 1999 to the dustbin.

TLR-YR	#PS	IP	ERA	K/9	BB/9
XXX	137	1,909.0	5.25	5.4	4.5
1	102	10,062.7	3.98	6.3	3.5
2	73	6,721.0	4.01	6.2	3.6
3	39	3,196.0	3.79	6.0	3.3
4	20	2,406.0	3.88	5.8	3.2
5	11	1,026.7	4.42	6.0	3.6
6	7	726.3	4.03	5.6	2.9
7	5	463.3	5.15	6.5	3.1
8	3	284.3	3.92	6.1	1.8
9	2	52.3	5.16	7.2	2.1
10	1	60.0	3.30	7.4	0.9
11	1	53.0	3.91	7.6	1.4
TOT	401	26,960.7	4.09	6.1	3.5

That doesn't change the picture all that much, does it? I think the simplest explanation for the matter at hand is that Jason Marquis just isn't that good.

* * * * *

At the risk of sounding snarkier than I'd like, the John Gall Era is ending. Gall was something of a symbol of the Cardinals' struggles with their farm system. Gall wasn't an embarrassing prospect and he did work all the way up the ladder, but his eminence among Cardinal farmhands was an indication that something needed to be changed. It seems to me that something is changing.

My other stray thought comes from Wednesday's night game. I only saw the last couple of innings, which in the NBA jargon were garbage time. One thing that bothered me was Andruw Jones's bases empty walk against Braden Looper in the 9th. Looper got up 0-2 against Jones, and Yadier Molina proceeded to do what he frequently does in that situation, crouching behind the opposing batter's box for a pitch that might've been two feet outside. This isn't specific to Molina, as I remember the Cardinal-trained Mike Difelice doing the exact same thing in 2002. For all the talk about the efficiency benefits of pitching to contact, the Cardinals treat 0-2 and 1-2 counts like a burden that must be lightened before the at-bat ends.

How Bout That Edmonds Homer!

Watching that game I'm reminded of why they have scouts. Weaver's arm slot is lower than I remembered, and not surprisingly lefties have teed off on him. Uh, my bad. He looked more like Braden Looper (minus a few mph) than Matt Morris. After that trade that shan't be named, I've been wondering if the Cardinals evaluation of major league talent is along the lines of "Weaver? Decent name. Yeah, he's worth a lower tier prospect." I'm not making any sweeping statements based on one game -- Weaver's first start in three weeks -- but I hope that brain trust conference at the time of the trade didn't end with "Sure, Dunc can fix him."

Tomorrow I think I'll go watch Lastings Milledge rather than ride the Jason Marquis roller coaster. At the very least I can learn if the recently demoted Jose Lima performs his dugout schtick at AAA.

Waves

I spend too much time thinking about baseball. How bad is it? A few months back I had a dream I was chatting with Dodgers reliever Giovanni Carrarra and his wife while in line for a roller coaster. Maybe there's some Freudian interpretation that I'm missing, but I don't think I'm really supposed to be playing "what-if" scenarios involving random-chance meetings with AAAA relievers and a wife that may or may not exist.

It gets worse. When visiting Acadia National Park a few weeks ago, I saw this picture:

And the first thing I thought of was baseball statistics. You see the ripples in the foreground and the midground? They seem to disappear and converge somewhere in the background. That area in the background, where everything seems so nice and flat and stable, is where baseball statistics work. In the foreground, where the water looks rougher, what we notice first are the waves, and it's bloody hard to explain those fluctuations. The season-to-date has featured a franchise record for wins in April, the Cardinals holding down the fort for .500 ball during Pujols's half-month absence, a pitching collapse in June and now a seven-game winning streak. You even have a wavelet where they struggle to score runs against the crappy Mark Hendickson and the next day bombard All-Star starter Brad Penny. It defies substantive analysis. It's like the butterfly effect. The whole thing is too unstable and our measurements too clumsy to make any kind of sense of the results on a day-to-day, week-to-week or even month-to-month basis.

Maybe year-to-year as well. Watching the games over the weekend (and listening to the game that Fox and MLB wouldn't let me watch), I'm ready to conclude that the 2006 team isn't all that different overall from the 2005 team. Breaking it down, C, 1B, 2B and SS are basically a combined wash versus last year, maybe a slight improvement. There's a merry-go-round for RF, 3B and CF: Encarnacion replaces 2005 Nuñez/injured Rolen, Rolen replaces 2005 Edmonds, Edmonds replaces 2005 Sanders/Walker. While he managed a respectable OBP, Honest Abe has a 355 OPS -- OPS, not OBP -- in 2006 to remind us that the stable talent just wasn't that good. The non-Sanders/Walker corner outfielder -- the two geezers combined for 610 at-bats -- is more or less the same in 2006. The bench looks similar to a year ago.

On the pitching side, in spite of the waves, Carpenter, Marquis and Suppan aren't that different talent-wise from last year. Carpenter elevated his game to Gibson standards in June and July 2005, but he also had a dull April and poor September. I don't want to say he was lucky, but he just couldn't maintain that summer pace. Nobody can. While Mulder has declined from a year ago, he was getting by on Swamp Gas in 2005 more than stuff or command. Talent-wise that's at worst a wash with Reyes. Morris-Weaver is also tricky; both once had "electric stuff" and were/are learning how to deal with the deterioration of said stuff. With a significant caveat that comes with shoulder surgery, I suppose there's an edge to Morris talent-wise. Mulder could come back (the Mulder mending article from Goold is weird) to displace the worst of the bunch, so there isn't much in the way of talent loss here, assuming Carpenter stays healthy.

In the bullpen, I don't know how Isringhausen-2005 managed a 200 ERA+, as he just isn't that good. Give another slight edge to the 2005 squad talent-wise there on the theory than maybe he's lost something, even though I haven't detected it. Looper is Tavarez, Wainwright is Al Reyes (Gio Carrara's inspiration), Hancock is Thompson, the lefties are blah and whoever is Eldred.

OK, so maybe the team is a couple of games worse in terms of mythical stable talent. That isn't to say I'm that high on the 2006 team. Rather, the more I think about the 2005 team, the more I wonder how the heck they did it. The key word is almost certainly overachievement. We statboys are supposed to call that career years or something. After a lackluster offseason Brian Gunn commented that we were seeing the end of an era. Upon further review, I think he got it wrong, that 2004 was the exception and the era of beautiful baseball only lasted one year.

* * * * *

For reasons that should be clear to all concerned, I believe the Kearns trade was awful for the Reds. Kearns may well have been the Reds' best player, offense and defense considered. The thing I've been wondering about is whether it makes him more available to the Cardinals. It seemed to me the Reds didn't value him that highly while also not wanting to trade him inside the division. OK, worrying about a non-valued player's destination doesn't make much sense, but this was an odd trade. Anyway, as far as Kearns-as-LF is concerned, on the one hand that division restriction is removed obviously and on the other you have Jim Bowden, the GM that drafted and helped develop Kearns. That doesn't sound too promising, does it? I suppose I should hope that Chris Duncan makes that moot.

Wish List For Second Half

Fifty things I want to see during the remainder of the 2006 championship season...

1. Albert Pujols hitting. Duh.
2. Albert Pujols fielding.
3. Chris Carpenter pitching.
4. Tony LaRussa pinch hitting for Carpenter when he's tiring.
5. An extension for Dusty Baker in Chicago.
6. Jim Edmonds lining shots into the right field corner instead of topping little rollers to the 1b.
7. Scott Rolen healthy for an entire season.
8. Larry Bigbie healthy for three months.
9. Anthony Reyes healthy for an entire season.
10. A dead microphone the next time Al or Dan starts to say "pitching to contact."
11. Jason Marquis winning 20 games, regardless of his crappy ERA or peripherals.
12. Reports that Chris Carpenter responds "But I've got more Win Shares."
13. Jason Marquis throwing strikes.
14. Jason Isringhausen throwing strikes.
15. Jason Isringhausen throwing something, anything besides his "cutter".
16. Adam Wainwright throwing a few chaser pitches.
17. Yadier Molina waiting for strikes.
18. More opposing major leaguers who apparently haven't read the scouting report about the kind of lead they should take at 1b against the Cardinals.
19. More of Hector Luna at 2b.
20. Failing that, more seven-pitch at-bats from Aaron Miles like this one:

21. Some confidence from So Taguchi when fielding, especially on flyballs to the warning track.
22. Not that his defense has been bad, but the appearance of effort from Juan Encarnacion in the field.
23. Juan Encarnacion doing something different from what he's done at the plate so far in 2006.
24. Jeff Suppan doing something different from what he's done on the mound in 2006.
25. Chris Duncan doing something different with a 3-2 pitch that's out of the strike zone.
26. David Eckstein doing the same stuff he did in the first half.
27. OK, David Eckstein swinging with his feet on the ground.
28. No Mark Mulder posts.
29. The realization from the Cardinals that pretending, in the media or on the field, an injured player is healthy just makes everyone look bad.
30. No stories about bad sushi, cold showers or distant hotels.
31. More from Quincy and indy league alum Josh Kinney.
32. An explanation of how Jack Klugman was cast as the coroner Quincy.
33. Chris Lambert having two good starts at Springfield per every bad start, instead of his usual 50/50 mix.
34. Colby Rasmus blasting Florida State League pitching.
35. A shot for Dennis Tankersley, perhaps when rosters expand in September.
36. Quick progress from 2006 draft pick and potential closer Chris Perez.
37. Braden Looper's continued mauling of right-handed batters (544 OPS-against).
38. Braden Looper pitching around decent left-handed batters (1032 OPS-against).
39. Braden Looper getting pulled against lefties for an effective lefty reliever.
40. An effective lefty reliever.
41. Or at the very least, an effective lefty reliever who doesn't face right-handed batters.
42. Scott Spiezio's cleanly shaven chin.
43. A series win at Shea.
44. Make that two series wins at Shea.
45. Lots of offspeed junk to JD Drew, assuming he actually plays this week.
46. A start at Busch from Matt Morris in September.
47. No Aubrey Huff-like duct tape deals.
48. The good Jeff Weaver.
49. Sidney Ponson pitching some crucial games for the $200 million Yankees.
50. A post-season ticket process without hours in a virtual waiting room.

Lidge

So who wasn't prepared for a Pujols homer in the 12th? I envisioned a city-wide serenade of Lidge with "Who's Your Daddy? Albert Pujols!" the next time the Astros came to St. Louis. Instead it's... well, read the previous post. Aaron Miles?

There was plenty to criticize in the late innings: LaRussa letting Carpenter hit for himself in the 9th against Russ "good pitcher except the home runs" Springer (then yanking Carpenter after one batter), Encarnacion pulling a groundball just like Qualls wanted, Rodriguez's fielding gaffe and Looper's HBP on an 0-2 count. These are symptoms of a deeply flawed team. Nonetheless the Cardinals go to the break with a four game lead and I'm going to do my best to enjoy it even if it hurts.

The Fringe

Albert Pujols hits a game-winning homer, and all I can think about is that ninth inning against Brad Lidge.

- S. Spiezio homered to deep right
- C. Duncan singled to center
- D. Eckstein walked, C. Duncan to second
- A. Miles singled to right, C. Duncan scored, D. Eckstein to third

At this point in their careers, the most talented player on that list is David Eckstein, AKA the little train that could. You can read Lidge's mind just by looking at the picture:

"Aaron Freaking Miles?"

If this is or was a post-season-class slump, then I suppose it's fitting that we got to follow in the footsteps of the 2005 NLCS. Lidge blows it and Garner answers with Oswalt. This time the Cardinals got to that other Wizard of Oz.

On the other side of the tracks, last year's favorite fringe player Scott Seabol was sold from the Albuquerque Isotopes to a Korean team. The current state of affairs in Korea isn't exactly an invitation to a worry-free lifestyle. That's par for the course though for those guys not quite good enough to stick on a major league roster. I don't envy them.

Edmonds Catch

The picture of Rodriguez after he homered wasn't quite as spectacular, but it captured the moment, the relief everybody probably felt on Friday night.

So Long, Sid Ponson

Large pitchers may come and large pitchers may go, and never change your team's ERA.

Sidney Ponson has been DFA'd according to Matthew Leach. Ponson was reasonably effective last night, and while the walks, the hit batsman and the runners Josh Kinney stranded tend to make me think it was flukey, the big guy left on a positive note. There's something tragic or epic -- or maybe noble's the right word for Sir Sid -- about a man getting the job done in front of 40,000 people when he knows he's about to be canned.

I suppose he's a bit of a victim of circumstance, that if the rest of the pitching staff had done what it was supposed to do, or at least been within shouting distance of where it was supposed to be, Sid would've been given a longer leash. Or for that matter, if the Cardinals were in last place, then maybe the pressure isn't there. Still this was a long shot, and I hope everybody saw it coming in, so it's a little easier as it all goes out.

The Cavalry

As you've probably heard, the Cardinals have made a move to bolster a struggling pitching staff, trading outfield prospect Terry Evans to the Angels for Jeff Weaver. I'm old enough to remember another Weaver riding to town to save the day. Let's hope this one isn't quite as preposterous. Here's a breakdown:

WHAT THEY GAVE UP: Terry Evans coming into the 2006 season had a 697 career OPS in four seasons on the farm. He was 24 in A-ball, drafted in the 47th round and absent from Baseball America's Prospect Handbook. This year he's gone bonkers, posting a 950 OPS across two levels. He's also set a career best for stolen bases, nabbing 26 in 28 tries in 2006. The light came on, to put it mildly.

WHAT THEY GOT: The Yahoo news link starts thusly:

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim actually found a taker for Jeff Weaver.

ZiPS projected a 4.18 ERA for Weaver, and instead it sits at a lofty 6.29. In theory the league and park switch would cut the projected ERA down by a quarter of a run, which is to say Weaver was supposed to be almost exactly a 4.00 ERA kind of guy. You can't sugarcoat a 6.29 ERA, but the better projection stats at the Hardball Times are much more optimistic, with an xFIP of 4.62. In other words, it's possible Weaver's biggest problem in 2006 has been simple bad luck with homers and balls in play.

WHAT TO HOPE THE CARDINALS ARE THINKING: Both sides of the trade are a simple bet on regression to the mean. I don't know of any health issues with Weaver and I'm a numbers guy, so I like this bet. Sidney Ponson has managed to get by (relatively speaking) to this point with a 4.82 ERA as a starter, but you didn't have to be a superscout or Voros McCracken to hear the robot yelling "Danger Will Robinson Danger." Ponson is the obvious man to kick out of the rotation, based on innings pitched if nothing else. I'm ambivalent to the idea of moving him to the pen.

WHAT TO FEAR THE CARDINALS ARE THINKING: Rookies don't belong in a contending rotation!

OTHER: Jeff Weaver is the Juan Encarnacion of pitchers. He is guaranteed to drive Cardinals fans nuts even if he's reasonably effective. In a completely different vein, who knows what will happen when (if?) Mulder returns.

It's been four years since Weaver looked like a star, so I don't see much upside here. In fact this feels like a Sterling Hitchcock redux. Still, with the rotation struggling like it is -- that air raid siren in Atlanta is damn annoying -- and assuming the Cardinals don't do something silly with the pitching staff, this is a can't-lose trade. A nice mediocre pitcher for a second tier prospect is almost too good to be true.

2005 Balls and Strikes

OK, I like the Edmonds adjustment and I assume I'm not the only one who thinks of John Stuper during a lengthy rain delay for a night game.

Changing gears here, Retrosheet's 2005 event files are available, and during that lengthy rain delay I did a little parsing. Below is a table breaking down each Cardinal batter's balls in play (X), called strikes (C), swinging strikes (S), foul tips (T), bunt strikes (BS), pitchouts (PO), unintentional balls (B), intentional balls (IB) and hit batsmen (HB).

	X	C	S	T	F	BS	PO	B	IB	HB	TOT
carpc002	65	73	31	1	48	18	1	103	0	0	340
ceder001	52	35	19	4	34	0	0	78	0	1	223
diaze002	120	87	27	0	69	4	0	138	0	2	447
duncc002	5	8	10	0	8	0	0	17	0	0	48
ecksd001	598	705	55	3	475	20	3	987	0	13	2859
edmoj001	333	386	238	12	373	5	0	984	33	4	2368
eldrc001	0	1	0	1	2	2	0	3	0	0	9
florr001	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
gallj001	30	16	18	2	25	0	0	44	0	0	135
grudm001	449	337	165	4	363	3	2	639	9	7	1978
lunah001	115	94	42	0	82	4	2	163	0	4	506
mabrj001	191	86	131	5	194	1	0	345	2	0	955
mahom001	60	41	21	2	60	2	1	88	4	1	280
marqj001	78	43	33	2	62	5	1	91	0	0	315
moliy001	366	203	82	1	244	8	2	446	12	2	1366
morrm001	42	43	32	0	46	7	0	71	0	0	241
muldm001	39	70	31	2	30	3	0	89	0	0	264
nunea001	367	260	129	7	276	17	4	580	16	0	1656
pujoa001	529	460	146	13	399	1	0	1062	99	9	2718
reyea001	1	3	2	0	0	2	0	8	0	0	16
reyea002	3	2	1	1	1	0	0	2	0	0	10
rodrj002	109	101	109	2	105	0	0	231	14	3	674
roles001	169	120	62	0	166	0	1	317	1	1	837
sandr002	222	134	181	10	203	1	0	465	4	4	1224
schus001	22	12	7	0	16	0	0	35	0	0	92
seabs001	83	65	42	2	81	0	0	136	0	0	409
suppj001	55	41	7	0	38	8	1	62	0	0	212
tagus001	340	223	103	7	334	9	6	475	8	2	1507
tavaj001	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
thomb002	5	2	4	0	4	2	0	9	0	0	26
walkl001	253	192	134	7	173	4	0	526	9	9	1307
	4703	3843	1862	88	3911	126	24	8194	211	62	23024

I'll let you figure out the order of the Reyeses. A couple of non-surprises, like Edmonds takes a ton of pitches and swings at and misses a ton of pitches, Eckstein doesn't swing and miss, and Pujols gets pitched carefully. Then you have weird stuff like Taguchi led the team in foul ball percentage (fouls/swings) at 42.6%, but there's really not much spread among the position players, as Walker was the lowest at 30.5%. Sanders had about 30% more swinging strikes than called strikes while Pujols was three times more likely to take a strike than swing and miss. Rodriguez had a little over 400 strikes and he took a quarter of them, fouled off a quarter of them, swung and missed a quarter of them and put a quarter of them in play. Don't ask me what that means.

Halftime

I will amend a previous comment and say that the Cardinals are a mediocre team playing awful baseball. Actually a word that rhymes with "pretty" would be more accurate than awful. I've got a question about whether slumps just end on their own or do teams make some sort of adjustment/shakeup. I hope it's the former, because the adjustments I'm seeing don't seem to be helping.

We can start with Anthony Reyes. Part of me wants to scream "LaRussa's an idiot! Duncan's ruining him!" Starting with Ankiel (and with Neyer's accusation that TLR and DD were war criminals), the brass have come off as overprotective parents with their young pitchers. The best recent example of this overprotectiveness is last night's unintentional intentional walk to Andruw Jones in the first inning to load the bases with a .350 hitter on-deck. However, before I fire LaRussa in my imaginary world, I will note that his spring training squeamishness with a flyball pitcher earned about 1100 feet of credibility in only five innings of work. Watching Reyes against the Braves Monday was like seeing a "Road Construction Next 15 Miles" sign on the interstate.

Even with the pitching staff struggling for over a month now, I'm going to question the conventional comparison with the 2003 staff. I think this group has much deeper talent than that one had. You may not want to go back and look at that 2003 staff, seeing as its #3 starter was supposed to be Brett Tomko, and its second-best reliever (behind the DL-induced amalgamation Jako Isrinero) was Cal Eldred. There are plenty of reasons to be uncomfortable with Jeff Suppan, Jason Marquis, Braden Looper and Randy Flores, but they're not just not in the same class as Garrett Stephenson, Tomko, Esteban Yan and Jeff Fassero. At least not yet. Give that 2003 team a couple of guys like Josh Hancock and Adam Wainwright, and Bartman never happens.

I'm certainly not here to praise the pitching staff. The bigger reason that I'm willing to dump the 2003 theory is that this group as a whole reminds me more of other recent Cardinals efforts, namely the LaRussa NLCS squads. What happened on offense Friday and Saturday against the Royals and in the 5th inning Monday against the Braves was ugly in its own right. I know, I know, those things happen over the course of a 162-game season. It's that those things are happening now that bothers me. In addition, the defense has been spotty (as an aside, Chris Duncan looks as awkward as an inexperienced European actor portraying a left fielder for a baseball movie) and there have been a couple of odd tactical maneuvers. This team is pressing. That leaves me with another question: Supposing they make the post-season, is this team brittle or will it be a case of Nietzsche's "That which does not kill makes me stronger"?