Minor League Road Trip: Homer And The Gang

Don't ask me why I ended up doing something like this last Saturday night - I wasn't in a very good mood that morning, I guess. I felt like I needed to get out of town for a bit. Whatever the reason, I hopped in the car and headed in whatever direction appeared the most appealing at the moment. About eight hours (and a few side trips) later, I ended up driving through downtown Norfolk, Virginia... and it just so happened that the bright lights of Harbor Park intrigued me into stopping to see what was happening there. Sure enough, the AAA Norfolk Tides happened to be playing that night, so I bought a ticket. Then it occured to me: with all the baseball I've seen in my life - hundreds of major league games, plus a few at the college and high school levels - I had never been to a minor league ballgame... thus, I was intrigued as to what I might think of it. Little did I know that I'd end up seeing an exciting game involving a lot of familiar names - and a few names that the Cardinals will likely be getting familiar with soon. And, I thought, this could be the beginning of a fun little feature here on The Birdwatch called Minor League Road Trip; it's an idea I'd toyed with in the past, but never implemented. So I'll probably be reporting on a local minor-league game every few weeks throughout the season. Unfortunately, the Cards don't have many affiliates on the east coast - the Batavia Muckdogs (yes, that's their real name) of the short-season low-A New York-Penn League are probably the closest, and they don't start playing until June. Still, there's tons of minor league teams in a variety of leagues here in the Mid-Atlantic region going on right now, so there's always the option to scout the competition in the form of the other NL Central clubs' prospects - which, as luck would have it, I was able to do last Saturday night in Norfolk.

To read more about last Saturday's game, the highlight of which was the second AAA start by Cincinnati Reds überprospect Homer Bailey, click below.

Bailey was the Reds' first-round draft pick (7th overall) in 2004. After some mediocre seasons in the lowest levels of the minor leagues, he jumped quickly through the Reds' system in 2006 with 138 2/3 IP of 10+ K/9 ball, with a combined ERA of 2.46 in high-A and AA. Coming into the 2007 season, he sported a career strikeout rate of 10.27 K/9; unfortunately, he battled significant enough control problems in '04 to keep his career walk rate slightly above 4.0 BB/9. In his first start with the AAA Louisville Bats, he pitched 5 1/3 good innings against the Toledo Mud Hens after being spotted an early 13-0 lead; the only run was from the only hit, a solo home run by (former Cardinal!) Timo Perez. Still, he walked three batters in that first start and only struck out four, the control problems evident.

Against the Tides on Saturday, Bailey pitched about the same. On a cold, windy night Bailey was lifted after only 5 innings and 90 pitches. The batters were fooled, as he only allowed three hits, none of which were hit terribly hard - but he struggled again with control, posting the same 4/3 K/BB ratio, including putting himself into a sticky situation in the bottom of the fifth inning. With two outs, Bailey walked Tides leadoff hitter Eider Torres, who stole second. Apparently rattled, Bailey also walked Brandon Fahey, bringing up the hot-hitting J.R. House - who frankly, should be playing in Baltimore. House was fooled on a 1-2 curve in the dirt, and tried to check his swing. What followed was one of the stranger plays I've ever seen: Torres broke for third and Fahey broke for second upon seeing the catcher have trouble with the ball, causing distraction enough for a slight hesitation by catcher Dan Conway. After recovering, however, Conway elected to ask for an appeal to first base on the check swing instead of trying to throw . House had anticipated this, however, and was most of the way to first by the time the strikeout was called by the first base ump. Conway attempted to throw out House at first, but was a half-step too late. Still, Bailey got out of the jam by painting the inside corner for a called strike three on the eighth pitch of the at-bat against former Padres minor league masher Jon Knott.

Having never seen him pitch before, what struck me the most about him was the armsy, flailing nature of his delivery. I'm no expert on pitching mechanics so I can't comment on the injury risk, but he appeared to have lots of problems locating pretty much every pitch, as he just looked to be throwing as hard as he could. He hit 94 on the Tides' gun, but consistency of location was a problem. Until he can get the walk rate down a little bit, I don't anticipate him seeing a major-league roster. Still, what he's done is pretty spectacular for a kid who hasn't had his first legal drink (he turns 21 on May 3).

As for the rest of the game, I was amazed at how many names I knew on both rosters. The Bats featured Cardinal World Series nemesis Mark Bellhorn, former Yankee Bubba Crosby, Wayne Krivsky favorite Gary Majewski (who threw fifteen pitches in 1 1/3 innings without allowing a ball hit out of the infield; he looked positively nasty, perhaps his health problems are a thing of the past and he can get back to his 2005 form), as well as former cup-of-coffee-holder and sexual predator Brian Shackelford and Reds hitting prospects Norris Hopper and Joey Votto. The Tides were a little less well known, with the highlights being the aforementioned Fahey, who took over for Brian Roberts in Baltimore in 2006 and stuck as an outfielder, former Twin Terry Tiffee, and former United States Olympian and journeyman reliever Todd Williams. The Bats took an first-inning lead as Tides right fielder Luis Montanez misplayed a ball into a double which resulted in a run. Bellhorn doubled and scored in the fourth to give the Bats a 2-0 lead, but the Tides answered in the bottom half, putting runners on second and third with one out and a run in. Bailey recovered, though, by inducing a pop-up and soft fly ball to get out of the inning. The Tides tied the game off the Bats' bullpen in the seventh, getting an infield single to chase Majewski and then loading the bases with one out thanks to a couple of walks by Jason Kershner before a House sacrifice fly. The Bats took over in the top of the ninth, however; Votto broke the tie with a 2-run triple off losing pitcher Cory Doyne, opening the floodgates for a 6-spot, all with two outs. Kershner pitched a scoreless eighth for the win.

Harbor Park in Norfolk was a very nice ballpark, featuring a fan-friendly concoursewhich allowed views of the entire field and the harbor/river beyond, and not a bad seat in the house with the prices $11 and below, but on a cold night with a stiff breeze blowing straight in from center I couldn't help but spend most of the last three innings on my feet walking the park to get different views. The best parts were the hot pretzel vendors, who heated pretzels on hot coals in front of you and had tons of options for toppings, and the trains that blew their whistle as they periodically went by within view of the right field fence. That sound in twilight automatically makes me think of Roy Hobbs and the Whammer dueling as the trains whistled in the background.

And so begins the Minor League Road Trip series... we'll see where it takes us from here, but all else aside, it was a fun start.

Albert!

Mr. Pujols has come out of his slump, at least temporarily, hitting two home runs (one in the first inning off of Ben Sheets) in today's afternoon tilt against the Brewers. Albert raised his OPS - granted, it's early in the season - from .545 to .713 in one day's work. Still, he looked uncomfortable at the plate in the other two plate appearances I saw him take, once popping up weakly to first base and the second being badly fooled by Sheets pitches while striking out.

So which plate appearances do we base judgement on? Well, it's been said he's not taking enough walks, but that appears to be a slight misinformation as his P/PA on the season is as high as it's ever been in his career. Yes, his walk rate is a bit down, but it's a really small sample. I don't want to jinx anything by saying this, but Albert should be fine. In fact, we're probably more likely to see more days like this one where he'll hit a few home runs - after all, he is an awfully talented hitter - while still not entirely seeing the ball well. And when he gets in the groove, look out.

Review: Minute Maid Park

It's hard to believe Minute Maid Park/Enron Field is in its eighth season, but it's true. And despite the fact that in my head, it's a house of horrors for the Cards, they've managed to post a 30-28 regular season record down there in its lifespan. Unfortunately, in the postseason, it hasn't been so rosy; the Astros swept the Cards 3-0 in the 2004 NLCS, and if it wasn't for a certain Brad Lidge-served moon shot by Albert Pujols, they would've been swept 3-0 in the 2005 NLCS as well. Still, that's one win in six postseason games down there, which is awfully ugly. It's enough to forget about the couple of times the Cards swept series down there during the regular season.

Despite all that trauma still somewhat fresh in my mind, your intrepid TBW.com travel correspondent ventured into the lion's den last weekend for the Cards' first road series of 2007. It was a fun weekend, as they took two of three from the hated Astros, despite some unseasonably awful weather (highs were in the low 50s Saturday and Sunday, with rain). Observations, opinions and displays of photographic skill are shown after the jump.

Friday night's game actually took place on a beautiful spring night, and was a special occasion: Jeff Bagwell Appreciation Night. From all of the wrath Bags imposed on the Cardinal franchise throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, I still had a healthy respect for the guy as a player and a person (the same goes for Craig Biggio). So naturally, I was on my feet applauding for the guy when he came out of the Astros' dugout.

The Astros' public relations/graphics/whatever departments were pretty clever, too; on Friday for Bagwell Night, each player in the starting lineup got a Bagwellesque goatee photoshopped onto their face on the scoreboard. Some were funnier than others (as many of them almost looked natural), but this one was easily the best:

Also, the Astros' 2007 slogan was Return of the Good Guys, an homage to Westerns, I guess. Pictures everywhere showed the likes of Oswalt, Biggio, Berkman, and Lee in menacing poses with bats on their shoulders, and it was a consistent theme. They went a little overboard with the enormous banners on the exterior walls of the ballpark, I think, but their displays on the scoreboard when the Cards came up were also pretty clever:

From the outside, Minute Maid Park is actually not all that bad looking. The steel beams painted green offer a nice contrast to whatever portion of the facade they are paired with (i.e. glass walls, brick areas, and white roof), and the landscaping around the park is very nice. (I didn't take any good pictures of the exterior, mostly thanks to the weather.) The Astros also included a Houston landmark into the design of the ballpark by using the old Union Station building as the club's offices out beyond the left field facade; however, it's not quite as prominent a feature as the Western Metal Supply building in San Diego.

As for the interior of the ballpark, it's been labeled as ridiculous by some, and I for one have been an outspoken opponent of the Crawford Boxes being so close to home plate (case in point, the Berkman home run in Game 5 of the '05 NLCS). But being at a game there, especially when you're sitting down the first base line on a night with the roof open, it's not quite as obscene:

Still, the Chick Fil-A foul poles, the hill, the flag pole, the Crawford Boxes, the giant gas pump, the locomotive complete with tender full of oranges for God's sakes... it's very gimmicky, but most new ballparks are. But the roof... oh dear, the roof. As an open-air ballpark, Minute Maid actually wasn't that bad. But with the roof closed, it's very odd. Especially when it clears out towards the end of games - you can hear a lot of things that you normally wouldn't hear, even in an empty open-air ballpark. Plus, the lighting is really, really strange during the day.

Pictured above is Kip Wells, who was absolutely dealing in the series finale on Easter Sunday. Wells only allowed three baserunners (one hit, one walk, one hit batsman) in seven shutout innings while striking out eight. Brad Lidge, however, was not dealing; his wildness and resulting blowup on Sunday in mop-up duty caused Phil Garner to remove him from the closer's role despite only getting one save opportunity in the Astros' first five games. It's always nice to see Lidge face Albert Pujols, although on this particular occasion Brad got the better of the matchup, forcing a grounder to short (which Adam Everett made an tough-luck error on). The best part about Lidge's appearance, however, was his battle with Yadier Molina:

Ball, Y Molina doubled to deep center, S Rolen and S Spiezio scored, D Borkowski relieved B Lidge

The "ball" was a fastball up and in that knocked Yady to the ground. Whether it was intentional or not is questionable, as Lidge was all over the place with his fastball, but it's nice to see Yady get back in there turn on the very next pitch for an extra-base hit.

Other notes:
• The lines at the concession stands were as slow as any ballpark I've ever seen. On Friday night, I missed seeing the Wainright-Molina double play while waiting at a stand and on Sunday I spent two full innings out in the concourse in line. Also, I saw the longest non-postseason line at a men's room I've ever noticed at a ballpark, which went about twelve people strong out the door.

• The food, however, was excellent. They have stands called Rose's Taqueria that have fairly inexpensive ($4.25!) chicken and/or steak fajitas. The chili cheese fries from the regular stands, albeit more expensive ($6.25) are very good as well. If only they had T-bone steaks... after all, it is Texas.

• The Crawford Boxes don't feel quite as much on top of left field as I expected. Still, they weren't bad seats, if you can get 'em.

• Astros fans... uh, I think I'll be nice and say they suffer from entertainment-only syndrome. Guys like Brad Ausmus and Chris Burke got, inexplicably, some of the loudest ovations I heard all weekend. Craig Biggio's "hit counter", located on the left field wall next to the giant gas pump (and in front of the windmill), also appeared to be the most popular feature of the ballpark for these fans. Not once did I hear the words "Hunter Pence" uttered.

All in all, it was a good weekend (how could it not be if the Cards take the series?), but I was overall disappointed by Minute Maid. I prefer my ballparks to be a little less gimmicky than your average fan (New Busch as well), so perhaps I'm more sensitive than others, but Minute Maid just appeared to be much more over the top than other new ballparks I've seen. If I had to rank it, I'd put it a notch below the class of PNC, Petco, and Camden Yards, perhaps slotting it beneath Great American and Citizen's Bank but ahead of the likes of New Busch and New Comiskey.

MLB Plays the Race Card

Sunday, April 15 marks the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, an event that changed baseball history - and American history as a whole. Jackie was an incredible athlete - one who lettered in four sports at UCLA and was an All-American football player before settling on a career in baseball - and a strong, principled individual. He once was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a segregated military bus, long before Rosa Parks entered America's collective mind. Tributes to Jackie are everywhere; even noted bigot Todd Jones is getting into the act - he penned an article for Yahoo! about how tough it must've been for Jackie to overcome the prejudices of his teammates. (I can't make this stuff up.) So, Major League Baseball is rightfully celebrating the 60th anniversary of Jackie's debut nationwide; between these festivities and the made-for-television Civil Rights Game on March 31 featuring our Cardinals, it certainly appears MLB is pulling out all the stops to pander to the African-American portions of its fan base. And all this fanfare comes at a time which MLB's percentage of black players is at its lowest since the 1950s. According to a recent article in the Post-Dispatch:

While Major League Baseball has made recent strides in elevating the number of minorities in its front offices and the central office, it has fought a losing battle against the well-known attrition of black athletes. Of players on major league rosters last season, only 8.7 percent were African-American.

I'm getting a sinister vibe here; MLB has made a fairly public point that it will do whatever it deems necessary to maximize its profits - take the recent Extra Innings/DirectTV, uh, agreement as an example. So, just as expected in the case of Jackie Robinson Day, the public relations machine is operating at full speed ahead - MLB.com has created an entire page devoted to Jackie and the celebration on Sunday, which likely took thousands of hours from their staff writers and web design group. Large for-profit corporations such as MLB don't just spend those kinds of resources out of goodwill; they spend them, in this case, in order to gain market share. A MLB representative even admitted as much in the aforementioned Post-Dispatch article:

Baseball, Solomon said, has also fought a losing marketing battle against basketball and football.

A losing marketing battle! Other sports aside, note the absence of a similar magnitude of official MLB server space devoted to Minnie Minoso or Roberto Clemente, two pioneering Latin players of the same era. Why? Perhaps it's because baseball has a wide following in Latin America, and the Latin minority is much better represented among its players (29.4% according to the same UCF study quoted in the Post-Dispatch). The Latin market doesn't need the investment to give MLB the return it wants, so MLB has decided to spend its money on African-Americans in the hope that they will return the favor. It's not the only reason for Jackie Robinson Day, but you'll have a hard time convincing this baseball fan that the marketing aspect of the day doesn't play a part in MLB's decision to promote it as much as they have.

2007 Projections: Building Wainwright

Adam Wainwright will long be remembered as the man who threw the final pitch of the 2006 World Series, striking out Brandon Inge for the win in Game 5, a victory for the ages, yadda yadda yadda. That's all well and good, but what's next? Starting games, you say? Does the Cardinal brass really think the kid who turned in arguably the most dominant month of relief pitching in Cardinal history can suddenly become a solid young starter? Well, yeah, they do. More importantly though, are they out of their minds for changing his role after he had such success as a late-inning reliever?

Well, if the former is true, PECOTA agrees with them. And despite the fact that there's not very many similar players who made the jump from a full year of relief to a full year of starting at age 25, there is still some evidence to support this hypothesis. As for whether the latter is true, well... let's take a look. Answers to both questions are provided below.

Disclaimers on methodology are the same as stated here, except replace "OPS+" and "plate appearances" with "ERA+" and "innings pitched". This time, however, it was more than just age-related. Since the majority of Wainwright's comparable pitchers were relievers, it made more sense to choose the ones in his top 20 comparables who made the most starts in their age-25 seasons to get the "top ten"; unfortunately, there weren't enough that started in their age-25 season to fill out the ten. So, the bottom four guys on the list I used were those who made the most starts of the 11-20 range on Wainwright's comps. There are some relievers on the list, yeah, so it's skewed. But I wanted to get a bigger sample than just the four guys who were at least part-time starters; I seperated those guys out later anyway.

Adam Wainwright
age 24 (2006): 61 G (0 GS), 75 IP, 3.12 ERA (141 ERA+), 1.15 WHIP, 6 HR, 22 BB, 72 K
age 25 (2007): ???

Most Comparable Players In Age-25 Season
1. Ryan Madson (1st overall)
age 24 (2005): 78 G (0 GS), 87 IP, 4.14 ERA (109 ERA+), 1.25 WHIP, 11 HR, 25 BB, 79 K
age 25 (2006): 50 G (17 GS), 134 1/3 IP, 5.69 ERA (81 ERA+), 1.68 WHIP, 20 HR, 50 BB, 99 K
2. Randy Moffitt (2nd overall)
age 24 (1973): 60 G (0 GS), 100 1/3 IP, 2.42 ERA (158 ERA+), 1.17 WHIP, 9 HR, 31 BB, 65 K
age 25 (1974): 61 G (1 GS), 102 IP, 4.50 ERA (85 ERA+), 1.25 WHIP, 9 HR, 29 BB, 49 K
3. Adrian Devine (3rd overall)
age 24 (1976): 48 G (1 GS), 73 IP, 3.21 ERA (118 ERA+), 1.34 WHIP, 3 HR, 26 BB, 48 K
age 25 (1977): 56 G (2 GS), 105 2/3 IP, 3.58 ERA (115 ERA+), 1.26 WHIP, 8 HR, 31 BB, 67 K
4. Mike Garman (4th overall)
age 24 (1974): 64 G (0 GS), 81 2/3 IP, 2.64 ERA (136 ERA+), 1.14 WHIP, 4 HR, 27 BB, 45 K
age 25 (1975): 66 G (0 GS), 79 IP, 2.39 ERA (158 ERA+), 1.53 WHIP, 3 HR, 48 BB, 48 K
5. Ron Davis (5th overall)
age 24 (1980): 53 G (0 GS), 131 IP, 2.95 ERA (133 ERA+), 1.17 WHIP, 9 HR, 32 BB, 65 K
age 25 (1981): 43 G (0 GS), 73 IP, 2.71 ERA (132 ERA+), 0.99 WHIP, 6 HR, 25 BB, 83 K
6. Rawly Eastwick (7th overall)
age 24 (1975): 58 G (0 GS), 90 IP, 2.60 ERA (138 ERA+), 1.13 WHIP, 6 HR, 25 BB, 61 K
age 25 (1976): 71 G (0 GS), 107 2/3 IP, 2.09 ERA (168 ERA+), 1.11 WHIP, 3 HR, 27 BB, 70 K
7. Mike Harkey (9th overall)
age 24 (1991): 4 G (4 GS), 18 2/3 IP, 5.30 ERA (73 ERA+), 1.45 WHIP, 3 HR, 6 BB, 15 K
age 25 (1992): 7 G (7 GS), 38 IP, 1.89 ERA (191 ERA+), 1.11 WHIP, 4 HR, 15 BB, 21 K
8. Curt Schilling (11th overall)
age 24 (1991): 56 G (0 GS), 75 2/3 IP, 3.81 ERA (92 ERA+), 1.56 WHIP, 2 HR, 39 BB, 71 K
age 25 (1992): 42 G (26 GS), 226 1/3 IP, 2.35 ERA (150 ERA+), 0.99 WHIP, 11 HR, 59 BB, 147 K
9. Gary Glover (17th overall)
age 24 (2001): 46 G (11 GS), 100 1/3 IP, 4.93 ERA (94 ERA+), 1.30 WHIP, 16 HR, 32 BB, 63 K
age 25 (2002): 41 G (22 GS), 138 1/3 IP, 5.20 ERA (88 ERA+), 1.36 WHIP, 21 HR, 52 BB, 70 K
10. Pete Redfern (20th overall)
age 24 (1979): 40 G (6 GS), 108 1/3 IP, 3.49 ERA (126 ERA+), 1.30 WHIP, 8 HR, 35 BB, 85 K
age 25 (1980): 23 G (16 GS), 104 2/3 IP, 4.56 ERA (96 ERA+), 1.27 WHIP, 11 HR, 33 BB, 73 K

In case you're curious, those omitted were:
6th overall: Doug Bird, 1975-76 (age 25-26, reliever)
8th overall: Turk Farrell, 1959-60 (age 25-26, reliever)
10th overall: Bill Simas, 1996-97 (reliever)
12th overall: Rusty Meacham, 1992-93 (reliever)
13th overall: Rollie Fingers, 1971-72 (reliever)
14th overall: Joey McLaughlin, 1981-82 (reliever)
15th overall: Matt Anderson, 2001-02 (reliever)
16th overall: Cecilio Guante, 1984-85 (reliever)
18th overall: Steve Foucault, 1974-75 (reliever)
19th overall: Robb Nen, 1994-95 (reliever)

Averages:
age 24: 51 G (2 GS), 86 2/3 IP, 3.39 ERA (123 ERA+), 1.26 WHIP, 6.20 K/9, 0.74 HR/9, 2.89 BB/9, 2.15 K/BB
age 25: 46 G (9 GS), 111 IP, 3.62 ERA (122 ERA+), 1.27 WHIP, 5.90 K/9, 0.78 HR/9, 2.99 BB/9, 1.97 K/BB
Wainwright in 2006 (rate stats included): 61 G (0 GS), 75 IP, 3.12 ERA (141 ERA+), 1.15 WHIP, 8.64 K/9, 0.72 HR/9, 2.64 BB/9, 3.27 K/BB
PECOTA weighted mean forecast for Wainwright in 2007: 25 G (25 GS), 151 2/3 IP, 3.88 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 7.18 K/9, 1.01 HR/9, 2.85 BB/9, 2.52 K/BB

Of note:
• The thing that sticks out the most from this comparison is that on average, these guys got worse in every peripheral statistic from age 24 to age 25. Perhaps it's a condition of the sample I used; a good percentage of these guys made quite a few more starts at age 25, but still it's a bit of a shock that EVERY peripheral was worse. PECOTA forecasts the same for Wainwright as probably a casualty of the conversion to starting. Still, the forecast doesn't seem to greatly affect his ERA, as the weighted mean calls for a likely above-league-average 3.88, which would be very nice.

• Only four of the top 20 comparables made more than 7 starts in their age-25 season, which is what we all hope Wainwright will do. These four were Madson, Schilling, Glover, and Redfern. Those guys declined a lot less overall in HR/9 (0.90 to 0.94) and even improved their BB/9 (3.18 to 2.89), but their K/9 went down significantly (7.22 to 5.80) - probably from the transition to starting, as already stated. It's nice to see that the most similar guys in terms of role at age 25 handled themselves well - their ERA+ increased from 106 to 111.

• It's sort of interesting to see guys like Fingers and Nen, both of whom were regarded as a top-tier closer in their respective eras, on this list, although it maybe makes you wonder "what if".

• Curt Schilling's 1992 season was a big time breakout, easily the best campaign on the list. After arriving from the Astros in exchange for (yikes!) Jason Grimsley right before Opening Day, Schilling opened the season in the bullpen. After a sterling first month which earned him two saves and a 2.86 ERA (29 K/11 BB in 28 1/3 IP), he was moved into the Phillies' rotation to stay, and did not disappoint. Schilling pitched a whopping 198 innings of 2.27 ERA in only 26 starts (118 K/48 BB), holding hitters to a measely .539 OPS as a starter. He also completed 10 games and threw 4 shutouts. The best part? He only gave up 11 home runs in 226 1/3 innings. Wow. Wainwright almost surely won't become that kind of a stud right away (at least, not one with that kind of workload), but it's nice to see a season like that on this list nonetheless.

• Ryan Madson. Yeesh. Madson started his roller-coaster 2006 season in the Phillies' rotation, lost his job when the Phils called up phenom Cole Hamels in May, blew the win for Hamels in his major league debut, rejoined the rotation when the Phillies lost Jon Lieber to a groin injury two weeks later (and stuck for longer than anticipated thanks to Brett Myers', uh, issues in June), tied the major-league regular season record with four wild pitches in an inning in a start on July 25, then went back to the bullpen after Randy Wolf was deemed recovered from Tommy John surgery about a week later. When all was said and done, his 5.69 ERA was thanks to a fairly drastic starter/reliever split (6.28 in 90 1/3 IP as a starter, 4.50 in 44 IP as a reliever). And he just got his second loss in two games to start 2007. Yikes. We can only hope it doesn't turn out so bad.

Conclusion:
PECOTA is more optimistic about Wainwright than I am. It's gotta be hard as hell to transition from relief to starting - especially for a guy like Adam, who essentially has two pitches, fastball and curve. If Dave Duncan can teach him an effective third pitch, it's possible he could fool hitters enough to keep his HR rate down and his K rate up; however, with just two pitches in his arsenal, major league hitters ought to be good enough to figure him out eventually. That kind of stuff tends to fare better in relief. I have enough confidence in Dunc and Wainwright's makeup as a pitcher to create an effective starter; I'm just not convinced that it will happen in 2007. If Adam hits his PECOTA, I'll be pretty happy. And heck, if this starter thing doesn't work out, he could always go back to closing out playoff series, right?

Program Note: I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for Houston. I'll be back Monday and hopefully soon thereafter, I'll have my review of Minute Maid Park. 0-3, outscored 20-2. Carp's elbow problems. Geesh. At least we've hit rock bottom early, there's nowhere to go but up!

Championship Crop Circles

Go to Google Maps.

Type this in:
65 Eagle Fork Lane, 63362

Click Satellite.

Sweet. (thanks Mike)

Opening Night 2007

Propitious omen or mere coincidence?

To celebrate Opening Day I bought a pack of Topps 2007 baseball cards today, and look who was in there.

Apparently there's a lot of dreck in the Topps 2007 set, like 100 cards that feature the date of Mickey Mantle (WTF??!!) home runs, and 40 different cards that celebrate each of David Wright's 40 doubles in 2006... I guess more = better.

Unlike the Topps cards, however, 2007's version of Opening Day/Night retains all its magical allure: the end of months of non-baseball; the end of the ever-more-excruciating preseason---each day of which is further removed from the words "pitchers and catcher report," just the compilation of more ultimately meaningless evidence that it's not the real thing yet; all the potential: all the what-ifs?, all the can theys? are still hanging in the air but each begins to be answered starting with the first pitch by Carp at 7:05 tonight....

My hopes and dreams after the break:

I'm keeping it simple:

Just make the postseason, and take it from there. That certainly seemed to work in 2006.

The World Series championship seemed vaguely unreal to me: I was so underwhelmed by the team that slouched their way into the postseason, and I never expected them to do much damage, unlike my hopes for the 2004 and 2005 teams.

The emotional high point for me, even more so than the eventual WS win, was winning Game 7 against the Mets in the NLCS: I jumped and whooped after the Wainwright kneebuckler and screamed to my wife "We're going to the World Series" and I felt an excitment and exhilaration that wasn't matched after the subsequent series win. That was probably due to the ridiculous Game 7 to cap off a very tense down-to-the-wire series, as compared to a sloppy, rain-delayed almost anticlimactic 5 Game WS dubbed by more than one cybercommentator "Worst Series Ever."

But it sure is sweet being World Champs (and let's face it: as lifelong fans of the Cardinals, we're World Champs, too) as we head into Opening Night.

I know the pundits are picking the Birds to win anywhere from 72 to 86 games, and I have to admit that it may be tough to see how we'd do much better---or even as well as---that upper figure.

But I see this 2007 team as a potential "breakout" team----as much as a defending World Series champion can be.

Various preseason forecasts have the Birds as a strong pitching-and-defense squad---many have them as 1st or 2nd in the league in run prevention---but almost all have the Cardinals in the bottom third of the league in scoring runs.

I read about how the Cardinals are Albert Pujols then a couple of injury-scarred vets past their primes surrounded by a bunch of black holes.

I just don't see it that way.

Here are the Birds avg/obp/slg by position in 2006:

C: .221/.277/.328 (.605 ops)
1b: .325/.416/.641 (1.057 ops)
2b: .263/.326/.375 (.701 ops)
3b: .305/.379/.554 (.933 ops)
ss: .290/.350/.361 (.711 ops)
lf: .273/.344/.434 (.778 ops)
cf: .252/.336/.404 (.739 ops)
rf: .272/.323/.469 (.793 ops)

The only OPSs up there that don't figure to rise are at 3b, where Spiezio kicked butt when filling in for Rolen, helping tp propel that number beyond Rolen's .887, and in RF, where Juancion's .760 was added to by baby Dunc.

But I foresee increases at C, where I continue to insist, as I have for two years, that there is a .275 avg./700 ops hitter inside Yadier Molina; at 2b, where Adam Kennedy has been well above---well, above, anyway---for the last 5 years the .701 contributed by our trio of second sackers in 2006; at LF, where I hope and pray the baby Dunc isn't a fluke and at CF, where I believe a scraped and sanded Jim Edmonds will put up at least an .850.

If all that happens, and Scott Rolen hits .280/.360/.500, we'll be fine no matter what happens in RF and we'll score 850 runs because of Albert and we'll win the Central, again.

After that, anything is possible.