Twisting the Knife

Major League Baseball's public relations machine has come up with a doozy of an advertising campaign, evidently unveiled today sometime. In the television spot, Tommy Lasorda, Mr. Dodger himself, is seen trying to recruit fans of eliminated teams who are hiding in kitchen cabinets to come out and watch the playoffs (which, ironically, his team will likely be playing in). Sure enough, on MLB.com's main page, a sidebar is shown with the slogan "Watch the games - it's what your team will be doing!". I don't know about anyone else, but if I were a die-hard fan of an eliminated team - and the Cards are damn close right now - I think seeing that would cause me to be more offended than motivated to go watch any playoff games. Especially if I got one of these.

How Low Can You Go?

(AP - credit in more ways than one)

The Streak is finally over. Albert made sure of that. However, the Houston Astros seem to have forgotten how to lose - they won their ninth game in a row this afternoon in Pittsburgh - so the division lead remains at two games in the loss column (one overall), and the magic number remains at four.

Can the Cardinals hang on to the division lead? Sure, here's some reasons why. And in case you forgot about them, here's some reasons why they won't.

WHY THE CARDINALS WILL WIN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL

1) Despite all the ugliness, they're still in first place. Yes, it's true. The sky has not fallen completely in. The Cards are in the position of power, and after last night had an 87% chance of winning the division. Because of that, even if the Cards split the series against the Brewers, Houston still has to win two of three in Atlanta to force the Cards to play the Giants in a makeup game - which the Cards would have to lose in order to cause the one-game playoff for the division title.

2) Their last four games are at Busch Stadium. Say what you will about the Padres series, the Cardinals' home record still stands as the second-best in the National League at 47-29 (.618). Conversely, their main remaining opponent, the Brewers, have posted the second-worst road record in the NL at 25-52 (.325) - and are 2-4 in Busch in 2006. Those rather simple numbers add up to a pretty huge advantage going into that series. And, if you're wondering, the Giants are 33-47 (.413) on the road this season.

3) Their best two pitchers of late close out the final series. Despite some ugly performances against the Padres, Jeff Suppan and Chris Carpenter have been far and away the Cards' best starters in the second half. Both have posted ERAs in the 3.00-or-below range since the break, while no other Cards starter has an ERA under 5.00. If they can steal a game from Weaver or Marquis in the first two games, it puts them in position to win the series and force Houston to sweep to even remotely have a chance.

4) Revenge. Believe it or not, after not winning a playoff series in their first 42 seasons, the Houston Astros eliminated the Atlanta Braves in the postseason not once, but twice in the past two years. Despite being eliminated about two weeks prior, the Braves have destroyed the Mets in the first two games at Turner Field this week, and have scored 43 runs in their past four games. With the Braves hosting the final chapter of the Astros' miracle run at the Central Division crown, I'm sure Smoltz & the Joneses would like nothing better than to get a little revenge and knock the Astros out of the playoff race themselves.

WHY THE CARDINALS WILL NOT WIN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL

1) The Houston Astros cannot be stopped. It's hard to imagine the Astros losing right now, especially not tommorow with Roger Clemens going to the mound. At 44, Clemens has been one of the best starting pitchers in the league over the second half of the season. The dominance of Clemens and Roy Oswalt are givens, but they've even managed to win games started by the likes of Matt Albers and Jason Hirsh during their nine-game winning streak. Yikes. Albers starts Saturday against Lance Cormier, in what will almost surely be the biggest game of his career, and Andy Pettitte, solid once again in 2006, starts on Sunday versus John Smoltz.

2) Chris Carpenter is gassed, and Jason Marquis is terrible. Carpenter's last two outings: 122 pitches, 6 ER (4 in last inning); 106 pitches, 6 ER (4 in last inning). He's been a workhorse the past two seasons, both of which have surpassed his pre-Cardinal career high in innings pitched. Supposedly his velocity has been decreasing late in games, he's had issues with cramps... perhaps he's beginning to wear down a little bit. Hopefully his start on Sunday will be different, but he's only had one rather uninspiring outing against the Brewers this season. Marquis, on the other hand, has posted an ERA of 6.08 over the past month, which ironically hasn't raised his season ERA much at all since it was so awful to begin with. Yet, he's starting tonight against the Brewers. That won't kill the momentum of last night's win, will it?

3) The Astros would host the one-game playoff. Houston has a 44-37 (.543) record at home, and the Cardinals have a 34-47 (.420) record on the road, including 3-7 in Minute Maid Park. The pitching matchup for this game? Likely Roy Oswalt for the 'Stros against... well, Jason Marquis would be next in line if this game were to happen, but I can't imagine La Russa would start Marquis in a game like this. Possibly Carpenter could be pushed back two days if the situation called for it. Either way, this game doesn't look like a good situation for the Cards, and it would be much in their best interest to avoid it.

So, at this point, it could go either way - although as I write this, the Cardinals are off to a poor start in the first game against the Brewers, trailing 4-0 in the second inning. A one-half game lead with three games to play would be excruciatingly close for a team that had the division all but wrapped up nine days ago. Provided it doesn't appear to be a waste of my time, I'll be back this weekend with an update and a perhaps-a-bit-optimistic look at what might happen if the Cardinals do make the playoffs.

Coming Attractions

Well, shoot.

Rob's words yesterday came as a bit of a shock, since of late he'd taken up the position of de facto owner of this site. While I share his sentiment regarding the nearly historic collapse in which our Cardinals have been mired, I'm not quite ready to hang up the keyboard. At best, I've been a once-a-month-or-so contributor since about the middle of 2005, but I'm happy to pick up a bit of the slack now that Rob has left us - and I'm sure others will as well.

Unfortunately, I've been a bit removed from the team this year. I'm not prepared at this point to look into the future, so I'll be covering the end of this season for now before thinking about the massive overhaul that's going to happen this offseason. Thus, I'm going to post a pro- and con- look at the last few days of the season and potentially the playoffs, coming tomorrow night. Stay tuned.

Moving On

During this season I've run into two problems. I've been circling the first problem all season, and after some time in the desert to think about it, I've become convinced that there are too many baseball numbers on the Internet. Of course that makes me part of the problem. I've decided the world would be a better place if we would just go with ZiPS or PECOTA, and work in current season results, with no other numbers beyond that. That's something of an oversimplification, but that gets to the heart of matter.

The second problem is more immediate. As you may have noticed, the 2006 Cardinals aren't an appealing bunch. I watched "Titanic" on the flight back from Phoenix, and right now I care more about the sorry state of the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic than the sorry state of the of the wreck at Busch III. I'm tempted to call myself a fairweather fan, but I cared much more about the 2003 bunch than this group. I think this is a symptom of two bigger issues. First, this mockery of a pennant race drives home an ugly point, that MLB has set-up a system that doesn't adequately distinguish the great teams from the mediocre (or worse) teams. Bud Selig has earned a swift kick in the backside for making the hunt for a playoff spot unwatchable. Second, I don't see how Walt Jocketty or anyone else can restore this team to glory without a fair heaping of luck. The Cardinals don't have much of a farm system, they don't win bidding wars and the Twins aren't handing over Joe Mauer for Carmen Cali and the Yankees aren't handing over A-Rod for Juan Encarnacion. The Cardinals can buy their luck in a weak division, but there's not much art in that.

When I put the two together, I come to a natural conclusion: I'm getting off my soapbox and shutting my laptop down. Thanks to Josh for the opportunity here. I've really appreciated it. Thanks to anyone else that's shown up, even the folks who called me an idiot. Take care all.

On The Road

As far as my teams go, I picked a great weekend to wander around the country, missing the action. Michigan crushed, killed and destroyed Notre Dame in South Bend, MattyMo returned to St. Louis and the NL Central pretty much wrapped itself up. Well, at least I got to see a 19-pitcher baseball game and something called Centex gave me an Eric Byrnes t-shirt. I expanded my foreign language skills -- Claudio Vargas is Spanish for Jason Marquis -- and it's not hard to see why Mark Mulder lives in Scottsdale.

About That Spreadsheet...

Dan "ZiPS" Szymborski has posted preliminary MLEs over at Primer. These are translations, not projections, so with the Cardinals' best prospects at A-ball, there's not much to get excited about. It's cute that Bryan Anderson had a "better" season at the plate (645 mOPS) at Quad Cities than Yadier Molina and Chris Duncan's translated AAA line of 254 / 330 / 402 is a note of caution, but you got take that all with a grain of salt.

What got my attention is the "m Calculator" tab. Basically it's a quick dirty measure of the toughness of the hitting and pitching environments. Here's how the farm clubs stand up:

For pitchers, "m' is more or less what you multiply actual ERA (or some variant of a DIPS ERA) to get a major league equivalent. For hitters "m" is more or less a runs created multiplier; you can probably take the square root of "m" for a quick and dirty OPS multiplier. Szymborski's saying that for pitchers there isn't much of a difference between Springfield and Memphis, and for hitters there isn't much of a difference between Palm Beach and Springfield. So much for the big jump from A to AA. Grains of salt and all that, but it's something to think about when you're looking over those prospect lists.

Peeking from my spreadsheets, this past Houston series puts the LaRussa Code in high relief. LaRussa evidently has let Isringhausen, Mulder and, to a certain extent, Edmonds make the decision about when to pull the plug. Phil Garner on the other hand is the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. Lidge was the closer, then he sorta wasn't the closer, then he really wasn't the closer, and now he's the closer again, but after Tuesday, he won't pitch to Pujols. Adam Everett, whose glove is the defensive equivalent to Manny Ramirez's bat, commits two errors and sits the next two games against a team the Astros must catch. Craig Biggio's home/road and pre/post-ASB splits are bad, so he sits too. Jason Lane and Preston Wilson struggle, so they get demoted and DFA'd. A good player like Morgan Ensberg struggles inexplicably after a hot start and he gets benched. I can see why Tony LaRussa will end up second all-time in managerial wins, while Phil Garner will be canned in the next twelve months.

There is one thing though. Apparently the Cardinals told Anthony Reyes he had a tired arm rather than the other way around. I'm past the point of second-guessing on Reyes and now I'm content to try to understand what they're doing. I suppose they're just trying to baby an injury-prone starter through his rookie season, which is both reasonable and honorable. But they have treated Reyes like he's such a burden, that it's time to ask whether they're managing less on a logical developmental plan and more to avoid reliving their Alan Benes and Rick Ankiel nightmares.

Poor Brad Lidge

This season has been so ugly at times, that continued emotional investment in this team must be difficult for even the most diehard of fans. Tonight the Cardinals, a mediocre team, faced another mediocre team in the Astros, and on the line is the right to be slaughtered by the Chinese dodgeball team. It's certainly not easy to watch Jeff Weaver or Ronnie Belliard or even Scott Rolen right now (last homer was August 23rd), enough so that I'm wanting to stick my nose in spreadsheets for the express purpose of not watching a game. So I've been wondering if I still care about the season, and then something like tonight happens. The adrenaline rush as Spiezio rounded third (Lane's still chasing the ball) tells me that heck, yeah, I care. Keep hope alive, boys.

In case you didn't see it on the FSMW broadcast, Albert Pujols is now 2-11 lifetime during the regular season against Brad Lidge. It's conventional wisdom that Albert broke Lidge last October, and I've got my suspicions like everybody else. But this psycho-analysis based on performance is iffy territory, and the implication that it was over when Pujols walked into the batter's box bothers me a bit. Pujols is facing his own pressures, and it's not like Lidge was throwing 82 mph fastballs.

Oswalt versus Marquis in the afternoon, which isn't a favorable matchup straightup. Throw in the fact that Marquis is going on short rest, and, well, I'll probably miss Chris Narveson again. The Cardinals and Astros have been in this position before, and I don't mean last year's NLCS. Four years ago to the day, Oswalt faced off against Jason Simontacchi. By my count, the Simo-man allowed 14 baserunners in 6.2 innings, but thanks to some dominant fielding from JD Drew and a little help from Jeff Fassero before his name was a word of curse, the Astros were held to two runs. In the 10th Jimy Williams had Tino Martinez intentionally walked to get to Edgar Renteria, who smacked one through the hole to drive in the winning run. In a must-win game with their ace on the hill, the Astros were beaten by the tow truck driver, a guy the Cubs dumped when he had a 6+ ERA and a waiver claim (Rick White). Their season basically ended that day.

A Week in the Life

Coming back from St. Louis last Sunday, somehow the car radio ended up on KTRS. Rooney and Shannon were on, discussing with the hosts the Cardinals' then-recent play. As you may recall, the Cardinals had finished a 7-2 homestand, and the consensus on the radio was the record accurately reflected their performance. The pitching had improved, the fielding was sharp and the key hits were coming. Prosperity wasn't around the corner, because it was already here.

It wouldn't be that simple, as the Cardinals are returning home from a 2-5 road trip featuring a dizzying array of means of losing. First, there was Ramon Ortiz of all people carrying a no-hitter into the ninth. Two days later, the Cardinals overcame a rare off-game from their ace Chris Carpenter, fighting back to take a ninth inning lead, only to see Jason Isringhausen blow it with his all-to-common wildness. Isringhausen was nice enough to admit after the fact that he probably shouldn't be out there. Two days after that, Anthony Reyes got smoked and the Cardinals could manage only one run off Livan Hernandez. Reyes then stated he's got a tired arm, meaning Jason Marquis will pitch on short rest (the difference between 2006 and 2005 is...). Next, Brandon Webb manhandled the Cardinals for the second near no-hitter in six days. Finally, Sunday we witnessed what Joe Garagiola -- the Joe Garagiola -- described as Ringling Brothers defense, followed by a non-closer bullpen meltdown.

In other words, I can't blame that on Marquis, Mulder, Weaver or Ponson.

It's old ground, but after last weekend's optimism, it bears repeating: This team is mediocre. When the Cardinals are down by two in the ninth, and Skip Schumaker is leading off and Aaron Miles is pinch hitting for So Taguchi (couldn't Chris Duncan watch those Sosa homers just as well?), then now we know many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. They don't pitch well, they don't hit well and they don't field well, and that's not going to change over the next month.

With that in mind, I suppose it's not surprising that Joe Strauss is looking towards the offseason. LaRussa and Jocketty provide all manner of good sound bytes in this article. Take this for example:

"At some point in the near future, the fans and the media are going to want to see someone new and fresh," La Russa said. "The fact that we've been successful has prolonged our tenure with the Cardinals. And it's true the things I'm closer to would be my relationship with the players and the trust of ownership and the front office. But there's another side."

Added La Russa: "Whether it's this year, next year or the year after that -- at some point, enough's enough."

What the hell does that mean? Or this:

"We try to find top-of-the-rotation starters every year," Jocketty said. "But they are hard to find. That's why this season we addressed the offense..."

OK, I'm trying to move past cynicism. It's still discouraging to read that the theme of the upcoming offseason is flexibility, since that's just another way of saying they're desperate for top-flight talent. I suppose it's a good thing that the recognition is there, but it's not clear what the Cardinals can do to find that talent, and if DeWitt is serious about the need to retain prospects, then it's not clear that this is the group to do it.

* * * * *

It is September 11th. I don't have any deep thoughts to add, but I will suggest reading Gary Smith's lengthy article on Pat Tillman, and if you're ever east of Pittsburgh, then you want to visit the Flight 93 Memorial.

Isringhausen

On second thought, maybe Isringhausen isn't holding it together. Two walks and a hit batsman? I'm convinced LaRussa will have to make a change at some point, this year or next. I wonder what it will take.

A Pujols Game

I made it to Busch III for the second time yesterday. The first time I made it, I marveled over Albert's, uh, defense. It turned out I was a day early for the more famous of Albert's skills. I was more fortunate this time around. We're running out of superlatives for Albert Pujols, but it suffices to say that he's the reason people make 8-hour round trips to spend hundreds of dollars at the new stadium. Other notes from the game:

• Albert probably shouldn't have admired the second homer quite like he did. I don't care about the "showing-up the pitcher" stuff. Rather that second shot was a bullet that barely cleared the wall. It would've been embarrassing to end up with nothing more than a single on a ball hit that hard.

• Anthony Reyes threw nothing slower than 88 in the first inning, and he K'd the side. That's an indication of the movement and location of his fastball. Obviously he looked solid overall, although it was the Pirates and Phil Cuzzi can cut both ways. I didn't have the greatest vantage point, but it looked like Cuzzi gradually evolved from a generous strike zone at the beginning to a miserly strike zone in the 7th.

• One thing that was clear from my seat was that Ronnie Belliard came unglued against Ian Snell. In the unlikely event he returns next year, LaRussa might want to sit Belliard against Snell. Actually if Snell had lasted longer, I would've pinch hit Jose Vizcaino for Belliard the third time through. Belliard looked that bad.

• Jason Bay looked like he was trying to run with cement shoes on Yadier Molina's double down the left field line. When Yadier looks faster than you do, then it might be time to run a level-two diagnostic. After the series Bay had, I'd be wondering if he caught that concussion disease from Jim Edmonds.

• Jason Isringhausen in 2006 reminds me of Mark Mulder in 2005. He's managing to hold it together to be an average reliever, but it wouldn't surprise me if he goes Danny Graves on us in 2007. The stadium had cleared out by the 9th LA-style, so the people giving him the sarcastic cheers probably weren't the Cellphone Sonnys.

• There were only four ticket sales/will call windows open on the Sunday before Labor Day. The Triple-A ballparks I've visited have that many queues and their crowds are one-fifth the size of yesterday's at Busch. The lines predictably were long for us poor regular folk, but there were plenty of windows for VIPs and ticket adjustments. Put that on the fix-it list.

And Phil Cuzzi's Behind the Plate Today...

Some numbers to divert my and your attention away from an unpleasant loss:

1.1 Aaron Miles's WARP1 prior to Saturday's action. You'll have to trust me on this, but it was down to 0.1 until his recent hot spell. Remember Opening Day? Jocketty walked into a casino, found a poker chip on the floor, won big on the very first spin of the roulette wheel and then slowly but surely watched that pile of chips slip away. Now he's hit 21 a couple of times at the blackjack table.

2 - Juan Encarnacion's rank, according to Zone Rating among "qualified" right fielders. He takes some odd routes and he can get too casual, but Encarnacion can cover some ground.

-2.7 - Reggie Sanders's VORP. I think we've got our answer about Encarnacion (11.6) versus Sanders. That's not the best question though, as the mistake with right field was made at some unknown time before October 2005.

.264. - Yadier Molina's on-base percentage. Let's see, Ozzie Smith had a .260 OBP in his age-24 season, and things turned out OK for him, although Ozzie is the exception more than the norm. Hagan and Horton seemed to think he's playing hurt, which raises some ugly questions. Is an ailing Molina the best option? If he is, then what does that say of the Cardinals' alternatives?

Something less than $10 millon - What Jim Edmonds will make in 2007. When Jose Vizcaino is pinch-hitting with Edmonds available, then the prognosis isn't good. The only nice thing about the Mulder Debacle is that it kept me from thinking about something that would really hurt. It was a great run.

Something more than 10 million - The number of times I've heard that one song from Tom Petty on MLB.tv. MLB.com would be politely described as disjointed. It used to be they played the straight feed, ads and all, usually from the home team. For most of this season, they cut-out commercial breaks and just put up bland ads like "Get a blog at MLBlog" or "Buy merchandise at MLB.com" on a blue background with no sound. Now for some reason they keep showing that same Petty song, the same word scramble (I think they misspell Esteban Loaiza's first name) and the same suggestion to print tickets at home.

2 - The answer to L Boros's question about how many times three pitchers have reached the 100-win milestone in the same year for the same team. The 1920 Yankees had Carl Mays, Jack Quinn and Bob Shawkey at the right time. The 1956 White Sox had Billy Pierce and two relievers, Gerry Staley and Ellis Kinder, pick up their 100th career W's.

423 - Adam Wainwright's OPS lefty-righty split. For the sake of convenience, here's the how the August 31st relievers stack-up in 2006:

Anthony Reyes by the way has a 689/918 L/R reverse split. Yes, that changeup does the job. I can understand why the Cardinals want a light load for Reyes in 2006, but it'll be interesting to see if they're willing to put him or Sosa on the postseason roster. Hancock could be a pretty important guy in the postseason, assuming that happens.

100.00000 - Percentage of the time the Mets make the post-season, according to the PECOTA version of BPro's postseason odds. The division races look pretty darn dull.

182-98 and 180-160 - The Cardinals' record from 2003 to 2006 when John Mabry has been on the 25-man roster and when Mabry hasn't been on the roster. Now you know why Billy Beane traded for him.

September Suggestion

I saw this in today's Memphis Commercial-Appeal:

Alan Benes got an emergency start for the Memphis Redbirds Friday night in what was likely his last appearance before retiring from the game.

He's a mop-up guy these days and the only way he'll help the club is by saving Brad Thompson and Josh Kinney from pitching too much in blowouts, which is pretty far down the ladder of concerns. And there's always the worry that Tony LaRussa will do something silly like let Benes pitch the ninth of a tie game. But if the Cardinals can throw away two games to preserve the honor of a two-year Cardinal and free agent-to-be, then they can give a roster spot to Alan Benes.